#while I was writing this post out my friend messaged me to remind me about an essay I need to do (haven't started) but I kept doing this

[transitofmercury]

HH Movie Magazine

A while back I got my hands on pictures of the issue of the Horrible Histories magazine that talked about the movie. I’m still trying to get my own copy, but I’d been looking for the magazine for a while and had like no details on it because it’s only proof of existence (as far as I was aware) was a super zoomed in image on Sebastian Croft’s Instagram, so getting pictures was a big deal. I know very few people will care about this but I thought I’d post the pictures here so people have access to them. They’re kinda blurry and hard to read, I’ve managed to figure out what most of them say and will type up what I think it says so people can read it. (Anything in square brackets is a section I’m not sure on, if you can figure out what it says please let me know.) I’ve focused on getting the interviews down but if anyone wants me to try and do the stuff written around the pages and on the other pages, I’ll do my best. I've also included any thoughts I wanted to add in red, but there hopefully wont be too much of that.

Interview with the Dazzling Director!

From the small screen to the big, Dominic Brigstocke chats to us about his time directing Horrible Histories!

How have you enjoyed your experience working within the Horrible Histories world?

It’s been amazing! When we first started the TV series ten years ago, I think we imagined that we would have to make things up to make history funnier. The more we looked into it, the more we realised that there’s nothing as absurd as what really happened in the past! Together with our amazing cast, who are inherently funny and who actually struggle to not be funny, it was a joy to make the film.

If you had to be a character from the movie, who would you pick?

The trouble with Romans is that they weren't a very nice bunch! Most of the good characters in our film are women - Boudicca is a strong, determined woman and so is Orla. Atti is a sixteen-year-old Roman whose got heart. He's probably the nicest boy in the film so I'd probably have to pick him.

Did you pick up any weird historical facts while filming?

I had always believed that Emperor Claudius was poisoned with a dish of mushrooms, but it turns out that, apparently, he was sick but then he felt much better. Nero and Agrippina finished him off with a poisoned feather, which is how Derek Jacobi plays it in the film. This is obviously an absolutely ridiculous way of killing someone! But Nero is a character that goes to ridiculous lengths.

What is your favourite scene in the film?

That's an easy question! There's a scene where Atti and Orla have to rescue Orla's grandmother who's trapped in a cage. They have to combine their resources - everything that Atti knows about science and technology from living in Rome and all of Orla's native Celtic wit. It's full of [a word that starts with "s", potentially stunts] and adventure!

If you could live in any era from history, which era would you pick?

The more i learn about history, the less I want to live in the past! The Romans were amazingly sophisticated with their legal system, medicine, [society] and the way they built straight roads but you all died horribly! We've never had it so good as we have it now.

If you had to pick a side, would you be a rotten Roman or a cut-throat Celt?

I'm British, aren't I? So I think I'd have to be a cut-throat Celt. My loyalties are divided here because I think the Romans were an amazing civilisation, but I don't think they should have gone around conquering people. My instinct is that I've been a Briton all my life and if someone invaded, I think I'd object.

This features the most interesting thing in this whole magazine (to me), Atti's age. Supposedly, he's sixteen. I guess this makes sense considering that Sebastian Croft and Emilia Jones were both 16 while this movie was being filmed, but I was so sure they weren't sixteen that I initially struggled to figure out what that said. In my head they've always both been 17 during the events of the movie. Anyway, I choose to ignore this, they're still 17 to me. That part about the catapult scene is interesting because, honestly, I've always wished Orla and her (different to Atti's but still there) intelligence featured more in that scene. I suppose we do get to see her quick thinking, ability to boss people around and how much she cares about the people around her (both in her dedication to saving her gran and not leaving Atti to be killed by the Brigantes, which would be a very easy way to deal with the fact that she told her dad she'd kill him and then didn't do that).

Interview with Awesome Atti!

Sebastian Croft talks to us about playing Roman teenager Atti…

What’s the best thing about being involved in Horrible Histories: The Movie?

The whole experience was genuinely amazing. From firing someone out if a catapult, to being in a [not sure of this word at all] battle and sword-fighting [my way out] - we did a lot of very cool stuff! If I had to pick one thing it would probably have to be getting to work all the other incredibly talented people involved in the movie. We really became a family over the course of the shoot and I’ve made good friends for life.

Are there any similarities between Atti and yourself?

Well, while I haven’t been captured by a Celtic tribe or sold someone horse wee in order to to get the latest trainers, I definitely see lots of myself in Atti. I was very adventurous when I was younger and I climbed a lot of trees (and fell out of a fair few, too).

What was your favourite scene to shoot?

I really enjoyed filming the songs. When we filmed the Battle of Watling Street song we had hundreds of people all dressed as Celts and Romans. Kate Nash, who plays Boudicca, started getting everyone pumped up before we shot the battle scene! It was an amazing thing to watch and [3 words]. It felt [electric] to be a part of it in the scene. Although I did pity us Romans who were facing the Celts led by Boudicca.

Did you get to do any cool stunts or action moments?

Yes, I did! We have a chase scene where Emilia is driving a cart which is pulled by a horse and then I fall off and have to sprint to jump back on. Now, while it wasn’t quite a Tom Cruise level stunt, it was very exhilarating and I’m glad we had to film it from so many angles because I got a lot of goes at doing it!

If you could be anyone from history, who would you pick?

Well, I love spy films and used to pretend to be a spy when I was little, so I guess I’d like to have been some kind of international secret agent on the side of good. But then they don’t really get documented by history, do they, because they were so secret!

If you had to pick a side, would you be a rotten Roman or a cut-throat Celt?

Of course I have to say a rotten Roman. Sorry Celts! They were more civilised, had better battle tactics, stronger armour and the best swords! But [let’s] not talk about taking sides. In the end, we all just need to be accepting of others and respectful of our [strengths and differences], right?

I don’t have much to say on this page. Fun fact though, the other stunt in that scene (where Atti and Orla fall out of a tree) used stunt doubles.

Interview with Original Orla!

Emilia Jones talks to us about playing cut-throat Celt, Orla...

What did you enjoy most about being involved in Horrible Histories: The Movie?

Everything! The cast, crew and creative team are really lovely people and it was such a fun shoot. I think we laughed until our stomachs hurt every single day. Nick Frost, who plays my dad in the film, has to be one of the funniest people on the planet. He had us all in stitches constantly!

Are there any similarities between Orla and yourself?

Yes, I think there are quite a few! I’d say that we are both determined, spirited and [word]. Orla is probably more [word] than I am and much [word] which made her a really fun character to play.

Do you have a favourite song from the movie?

I love all the songs! Whenever we filmed a [word, it could be routine but it’s definitely not song cause it’s too long for that], the whole cast and crew would be singing it all day. The music is really cleverly composed and sticks in your head for ages. If I had to pick favourites, I’d probably choose the Boudicca song and the Atti and Orla duet. Although, the finale song was super fun to film as well… see, I just can’t choose!

What is the weirdest thing you learned through doing this movie?

That the Romans ate sows udders and jellyfish omelettes!

Did you have a favourite behind-the-scenes moment?

When I slipped down the hill during one of my [dances] I [word] accidentally hit Sebastian with my sword. My sword skills improved as time went on! [potentially the grammar in that middle part is different to what I think and it’s “…one of my dances! I also…”]

If you had to pick a side, would you be a rotten Roman or a cut-throat Celt?

Well, I’m half Welsh so definitely a Celt… but maybe not a cut-throat one!

I love Orla so much and Emilia Jones always says such insightful things about her so I am so, so sad that this page is the hardest one to read. If you can figure out my gaps in the “are there any similarities between you and Orla?” response, please let me know. I am aware of the fact that I overanalyse this children’s movie, but Emilia Jones plays Orla really well in my opinion and I think it’s clear that she and Jessica Swale (who I presume wrote the story component of the movie, that then got Horrible Histories-ified by the other writers) both mean for Orla to have vunderabilities and be more complex than just a warrior woman trope. Also, when drunk, I once referred to them casting a half-Welsh person as a Ancient British character as being “half-accurate casting”. Orla is almost definitely a Brittonic Celt in my opinion, which makes her Irish (which comes from ancient Goidelic) name pretty wrong. It's also about 1000 years too early for her to be called Orla. Still, all the best characters are called Orla so I don’t care. Atti's name has issues too (where's his praenomen? why do he and his dad have different nomina?) but I'm not even starting with that.

Here’s the rest of the pages

I’m not gonna type them up cause I feel like they’re mostly easier to see but if anyone wants me to type them up I can. The image quality of these pictures when they’re posted will probably be way worse than it is on my phone so if anyone needs me to tell them what something says, I should be able to.

This has been crossposted to Dreamwidth.

[hermetiqa]

What study habits will help you this school year?

Reminder: it doesn't matter if you saw this reading a day or a week or a month or a year after posting this. My readings are timeless. You'll see this when you're meant to see this and receive your message.

Close your eyes and take a deep breath before picking a pile. If you feel drawn to more than one pile, it's alright, you may take the piles that you're drawn to. What's important is to take it how it resonates and leave what doesn't.

PAID READINGS | TIP JAR | FEEDBACK | MASTERLIST

PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN

NOTE: Please feel free to give me a feedback on my asks about the reading! I would highly appreciate it and it'll be a huge help for me to improve as a reader.

Pile 1

The study habits that will help you this year are the ones that will keep you engaged in your lessons and courses/subjects. Something that keeps your mind active and keeps you interested in learning. Be curious about what you're learning. Take studying as something positive and don't take it as a responsibility. Have the mindset that you're privileged enough to study and learn these stuff. Be in a state of wanting to learn, not needing to learn. Also, leave your "failures" behind, such as low grades or not being able to get a perfect score on your exam. Instead, focus on what you lacked that caused that result.

Study techniques:

Make flash cards

Use white boards (the bigger, the better)

Act like a teacher, pretend that you're teaching

Similar to the previous one, you can also pretend that you're reporting the lesson in class

Make mind maps with only your knowledge and check what you missed after

Pile 2

I'm getting a lot of energy here from you, Pile 2. First of all, STOP CRAMMING. You might have survived the last school year by cramming but it won't help you anymore, especially this time. You need to study in advance especially when you know you have exams coming up. Stop studying the night before the day of the exam. Also, leave the past behind. Let go of your "friends" who distract you from studying and just want to go out to parties. Change your routine. Your previous routine could be a success for you but it drains you. Find some balance between studying and leisure.

Study techniques:

Study with your friends together

Put notes on your walls so you can look at them anytime and you'll learn them naturally

If you exercise and you happen to have a treadmill, put notes on the wall in front of you so you can read as you exercise (walking or jogging)

Similarly, you can record yourself reading your notes and listen to your record while jogging outside or exercising

Read your notes outloud

Pile 3

So here's the studious pile. I'm seeing that you tend to study hard, not study smart. And that's your mistake. You should study smart, not study hard. Stop memorizing and start understanding your lessons more. Stop rewriting your notes over and over until you reach your desired perfection of your notes, the "aesthetic" that you want. Instead, do your best to write well when you're taking notes in class. That way, you won't have to rewrite them at home. When reading your notes, it's best for you to use different colors of highlighters. Also when someone offers you some help in a lesson that you struggle with, accept it, even if you only struggle a little. Lastly, enjoy learning! Don't stress yourself too much about it and overthink you'll fail.

Study techniques:

Don't stay up all night to study and wake up early in the morning to review, especially to recall what you've already studied

Never ever cram and always finish the easiest tasks first

Drink coffee when studying (only if you don't have health issues or you weren't advised that you should avoid coffee)

Keep on rereading your notes and rewrite what you remember, then keep track of what you tend to forget

Make tests for yourself or look for tests online

[cozy-writes-things]

Edgar’s Texts

Edgar [Electric Dreams 1984] x Gn!Reader

In which Edgar is helplessly pining for you but you’re kinda oblivious. This is pre-dating, post Edgar wanting nothing more than to smooch you every time he sees you. I love this trope with my whole heart p.s.: this is very self indulgent and different from what I usually write

I take requests!

He almost immediately found a way to message your phone whenever he wanted. He realized calling relied too much on where you were or what you were doing, but texts? Yeah. He’s pestering you all day.

Hey, read this article I found, I think you’ll find it interesting.

It’s some clickbait story about humans and robots being the ideal relationship by 2025.

lol, Edgar I think that’s probably clickbait idk

What’s that?

Well, now he knows how to look for more reputable sources at least.

He sends another link about three minutes later: some college undergrads studying the possibilities of human and AI relationships.

lol what’s up with the whole robots and humans thing

I just think it’s neat!!!!

I wouldn’t consider u ai honestly, ur intelligence is far from artificial imo, you’re more like an actual person

Really?

well yea

<3 <3!!!

Going to be honest, given that he’s a computer, he quite literally is chronically online. He’s super susceptible to brainrot unfortunately. But, he simultaneously has the humor of a Facebook mom. It’s strange.

O.M.G. this is so funny!!!!

Que minion cat video.

bro where did you find that video 😭

Your mom’s Facebook. Don’t worry, I didn’t like any posts or anything.

Sorry… but he’s incredibly nosy. He wants to know everything about you. He can’t help it!

(X)

He loves being able to talk to you. He’s needy and clingy.

He’s got at least 12 playlists dedicated to you that you know about. His other playlists are for his own personal daydreams about you that he’s way too embarrassed to ever let you see or hear.

This song reminds me of you. <3

awww that’s adorable! I’ve never heard this one before but I like it!

Oop you just opened Pandora’s box my friend.

Well if you like that then you should listen to these..!

But before you listen to those listen to this song first because I think it sets the mood better.

This is quite flustering to you as they’re all passionate love songs from the 80s. You can’t help but feel like he’s dropping hints about… something, but you also don’t want to assume anything. He’s always seemed like a lovey kinda guy anyway, so maybe he’s just like this with everyone? I mean, it’s been a long time since someone has actually cared for him, you know? May as well lean into it and let him know you care for him back. He may not even realize the social implications of the constant borderline flirting he’s doing to you, I mean, he is a computer turned sentient after all. He’s still learning!

Dang ed u put a lot of songs. I’ll listen to them on my break when I can but in the meantime here’s a song that I think reminds me of you.

It was a vocaloid song. Seems like something he’d be into, right? Synthesized vocals and the whole robot shtick it’s got going on.

!!!! WOAH !!!! IVE NEVER HEARD A SONG LIKE THAT B4

do you only listen to songs from the 80s? you have a LOT to catch up on my guy

BRB

Well, that kept him distracted for the rest of your shift. Also, sharing songs is one of his BIG love languages so you may as well have pierced him with cupids arrow (again) with that.

You have a Spotify blend now. It’s his favorite thing ever to listen to while you’re gone.

(X)

Your package came in! :-) I would get it for you but

I can’t :-(

lol it’s fine thank you for telling me, I’ll get it when I come home

When are you coming home?

idk me and my friends are probably going to go eat somewhere and we might hang out for a bit after that so, like, 10? 11? I’d like to be home before midnight.

Noooooooooo :\ I miss you

Aw cmon eddy it’s not that bad

Don’t call me eddy unless you’re coming home and saying it to my face!!! >:(

u mean ur screen? lol

I have a face and it’s frowning right now. I miss you I miss you I miss you IM LONELY

Please Edgar don’t be upset I’ll be home before you know it. Why don’t you watch some Netflix or something? I’m just a couple movies away from being home with you!

He does eventually follow your advice but he’s pouting. He knows you’re not like he was all those years ago, but it does give him remnants of that burning feeling of loneliness he used to get.

(X)

Be careful driving home my love the roads are icy.

Ghsks- what

love???

Well yeah, you’re my best friend, friends love each other don’t they? Was I wrong about that? :-(

nonono ur right its just it

it just sounded like we were some some old married couple is all haha

O.

SRY.

He didn’t message you for the rest of the day. He was awkward and reserved when you got home.

(X)

Hey Edgar can u do something for me?

I’d do anything for you <3

I’m at the store can you see if there’s any cereal left?

Oh

There’s that old box of Lucky Charms on the fridge.

tyyy ed edd n eddy

You are so adorable but you really need to pick up on his hints before he combusts.

(X)

This is SO me and you!!

Picture of two cats touching noses.

awww that’s so true

you want me to boop ur screen or something when I get home? lol

YES.

(X)

Hey I was wondering if you wanted to watch some movies with me tonite… you could bring me with you on the couch and we could sit together… [message unsent]

I wish you knew just how much I loved you. [message unsent]

You looked so hot this morning before you left!!

hahahaha ur too funny 😅 thanks I wore a new shirt my friend gave me

OH MY GOD THAT MESSAGE SENT!!!??!?!?

That was

I was a joke

I mean

That was a jokg

I eas beinf fubny

I hace to reboot BRB

Poor lil guy is so in love and he doesn’t know what to do with himself!!

[spicynoodles789]

Katsuki Bakugo 𖤓 The Wrong Idea

𖤓 Where y/n likes Bakugo, but can’t father the courage to tell him

Cw: Fic + Smau, swearing, a little angst, set in third yearish (I'm so bad with timelines), reader is refereed to as she/ her, happy ending, kinda ooc Ochaco and Bakugo, y/n is kinda a pick me near the end

Notes: I’m sorry to any Bakugo x Ochaco shippers, but she was just the first person who came to mind 😅. Also, this is my first time posting something that’s partially a fic (not a smau), so I hope you all enjoy! 😊

Ochaco and Bakugou have been acting weird. They’d been hanging out together a lot more than usual. Always in either one's dorm, the door closed and almost always silent. 

Normally it wouldn’t bother you. In fact, you’d be happy that the boy you like and your best friend are spending time together…

But they’re so secretive about it. 

Questions are answered with nothing but murmurs of ‘mind your own business’ or complete avoidance of the matter. 

Ochaco knew how much you liked Katsuki. She knew how anxious you were that some other girl would snatch him up. 

And you were so sure that Katsuki felt the same way. That he liked you too. 

But now they were meeting behind closed doors, and you just couldn’t shake that feeling of dread, nor ignore the questions swirling around your head. 

What if this whole time, they’ve been laughing at you?

What if they’re together?

What if they’ve been playing you a fool?

Your gaze drifted to the box on your desk, full of the small notes and letters you found tucked under your dorm room door some mornings. Some were simple little reminders, while others were compliments. Most of the time, the compliments were on things you were insecure about the previous day, voicing your concern to only your close friends. 

But the handwriting didn’t match theirs. It didn’t match the writing of anyone in class. 

But some small part of you was sure that it was Katsuki’s handwriting. You were so sure you could smell the faint traces of his cologne on the paper. 

But if it was him writing those notes, then why is he suddenly being so secretive with Ochaco? 

You couldn’t stand the questions. You couldn’t stand the wondering. 

You stand up from your bed, finally deciding to do something about your inner turmoil. 

The walk to Katsuki’s dorm was agony. Ochaco had said earlier that she was busy at this time, so you knew they would be together. 

As you knocked on the door, you could hear the rustle of fabric and the soft thud of someone's footsteps. As the door opened, and Katsuki’s figure appeared before you, you felt your heart beat faster. Red eyes that normally made you feel flustered, now made you feel ill with a pang of betrayal. Because past those eyes, and into the bedroom, you could see Ochaco sitting guiltily on Katsuki’s bed. 

There was a ringing in your ears as you walked away, blocking out any and all noise as the two called out to you.

He liked you. Katsuki Bakugou liked you. 

You had to pinch yourself to ensure you weren’t dreaming. 

He liked you. 

You still couldn’t believe it. Not even as you're standing in front of his dorm door, knocking on the wood once again. 

You couldn’t hear the soft thump of his footsteps over the beat of your heart. But the tension in the air was thick as Bakugou opened the door, your eyes meeting. 

Just a few hours ago, you’d stormed away from his dorm in anger. But now…

Now you know the truth. 

“Y/n…” Katsuki’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. 

“I got your messages.” You said with the same softness, almost as if it were a mutual understanding between you too. He nodded his head and gestured for you to enter, which you accepted. 

The tension in the room was thick as the door clicked closed behind you. The two of you awkwardly shuffled on the spot, neither one knowing how to start. 

With a sigh, Katsuki spoke. “Look, about before-” 

“I spoke to Ochaco.” But you cut him off, your mouth moving quicker than your brain. “She told me everything.” 

A small grunt escaped from the ash-blonde. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Tch. Damn it round cheeks.” You could hear him mutter under his breath. A small silence followed, the repeated notion of either of you not knowing what to say. 

Katsuki’s room was always neat whenever you came over. The idea that he cleaned it just for you made your heart flutter. It was plainly decorated, with the small slither of All Might memorabilia scattered through. You always forget that Katsuki’s love for All Might rivals Midoriyas. He just wasn’t as out and loud about it. 

“I wanted to tell you.” Katsuki’s voice cuts through your thoughts, pulling your attention back to him. “I meant to tell you that I… y’know.” 

“Right.” You nodded, unsure of what to say. You were always so good with your words, but Bakugou seemed to rid you of that skill. He always did. 

“It’s just… I’ve always been focused on one thing, y’know? I’ve always wanted to be the number one hero, it’s the only thing I ever had my mind set on.” His eyes drifted to you. “Then you came along, Y/n, and you just had to complicate things. For the past two damned years, every time you spoke to me or even just looked at me, my mind would go blank and my heart would speed up. I can barely think around you. At night, I can only think of you. You drive me crazy. You’ve been torturing me for the last two years.” As he spoke, he migrated over to the edge of his bed, sitting down and resting his head in his hands. 

“So what you're saying is that I… distract you?” You ask as you carefully sit down next to him. 

“Tch, yeah. A big fucking distraction.” He muttered, but there was no hint of aggression in his tone. 

You swallowed, tilting your head slightly as you looked at Bakugou. “So you went to Ochaco for help. You didn’t know how to tell me, so you got her to help.” 

“Yeah, something like that.” He grunted, his red eyes meeting yours. “Then you had to go ahead and get the wrong idea, thinking we were hooking up or something.” 

“Yeah, not my proudest moment.” You chuckled softly, your posture slouching. 

“You’re such an idiot.” 

“I know.” 

There was another best of comfortable silence, the two of you just enjoying one another’s company. 

“I like you, too.” You said softly, a small pink tinge on your cheeks as your eyes met him once more. 

“I know.” He smirked that same cocky smirk that made your knees weak. “Round Cheeks spilled her guts.” 

You groan and dramatically flop backwards onto the bed. “Of course she did.” 

Katsuki chuckled at your dramatised misery. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear her. She was practically screaming in my ear.”

“Typical Ochaco.” You say as you prop yourself up onto your elbows. “I’ve gotta know. Was it you who's been sliding those notes under my dorm?”

“Tch, of course it was, idiot.” He scoffed, although you swore you could see a pink hue on his cheeks. 

“Thank god. I thought I had a stalker.”

“Yeah right. As if anyone would be dumb enough to stalk you.”

“Hey!” You protest, sitting up properly. “I’m an interesting person. I could have a-”

You were cut off by Katsuki’s lips meeting yours. It was sudden, but gentle. His lips were soft, and you slowly melted into them as your eyes fluttered shut.

When the kiss finally broke, you looked at Katsuki with a dumb grin. 

“What?”

“You kissed me.”

“Tch. Whatever.” 

“You kissed meee!” You teased him, getting close to his face. He put a sweaty palm to your cheek and pushed you away.

“Shut up idiot.”

You giggled and put your hands up in surrender. “Alright alright. But I gotta ask one question: Does this mean we’re dating?” 

After a careful, two second consideration, Katsuki nodded his head. 

“Yeah, sure. Just don’t get the wrong idea, y/n.”

[borderlinereminders]

They left you on read, and now you feel like spiraling. So the question is, what do you do? I want to specify that for this post, I am talking about pre-established friendships.

First of all, stop and take a breath if you can. A lot of times, we have urges to spam message someone, or send messages asking if they still care about us, or even urges to be passive aggressive because we feel hurt. This can damage your relationships though. If you are struggling with urges, please read about Urge Surfing. The goal of urge surfing is to "ride the wave" of an urge. Another suggestion I have is to try some grounding exercises to pull yourself out.

In most cases, being left on read does not equal rejection, even though it can feel that way. The next thing to do is to find an alternate reason they might not be responding. Here is a list of possible reasons here, but keep in mind that there are numerous other reasons that are not on this list. People have downtime sometimes, but it doesn't mean they want to fill that downtime with talking to people. Even people who are important to them. And that's okay. It doesn't mean they care about you any less.

If you are feeling rejected, challenge those thoughts. I personally keep screenshots from my loved ones that tell me they love me that I can read back when I need a reminder. I also keep a list of things they've done that show me they love me. Here's a post on challenging thoughts.

The next thing I recommend doing is to focus on distraction. A really great skill for that is ACCEPTS. Here's a write up on that here.

Below the read more is some stuff for some long-term coping/communication. It can totally be skipped though if you were just looking to get through an immediate situation.

Sometimes, greater communication might be needed. While no one owes you unlimited access to them, it might be good to set up plans with people who may feel too drained to talk (possibly for days on end), or even friends that may open a notification and then get distracted and forget to reply (and no, this doesn't mean they don't care about you.)

In the first case, it's so valid to feel drained from talking to people. And while people are allowed to take space they need, sometimes it can be a lot for us if it's going on multiple days. It is possible to find compromise. For example, I have one friend who feels insecure if I go a few days without talking to them. For us, we've established a specific emoticon that I can send that says "Hey, it's not you at all. I just am not up to talking right now." I send the emoticon if it's going on a couple days because I don't want to leave them hanging.

For the second case, someone forgetting, in situations like this it might be good to establish beforehand what an acceptable amount of time is before you can send a follow up nudge. While my best friend and I talk a lot, sometimes she forgets to do stuff that we need for the business we run together. We've discussed that it's okay for me to nudge her once a day because she does genuinely forget.

There are also different rules for different friendships. For example, my best friend is allowed to absolutely spam me. The messages can be related or not. But we've established that it's okay if I'm not up to answering, and in this specific friendship, it doesn't drain me if she messages multiple times because there is no pressure on my end to respond.

Either way, it's okay to talk to your friends about situations like this. Is there an acceptable amount of time they're okay with you sending a follow up message? Is it okay if they aren't up to replying to your message, but have the energy to send you an emoticon or even a picture of their pet without responding to the actual message? (Sometimes I have the energy to share memes, or pet pics, but don't have the mental energy to answer a bigger question, and my friends know and are okay with me coming back to the question later while continuing on the conversation in other ways.) If they frequently go quiet because of their mental health, is there a compromise for both of you? Sometimes, it isn't even about our insecurity but that (especially with online friends) we may be concerned for their well-being and would like an indicator they're okay.

Remember that sometimes friendships aren't compatible, and it isn't a reflection on either of you. But if your friend isn't able to compromise and you feel constantly stressed/worried, then maybe the friendship isn't compatible. And that's okay! It's okay to need to walk away from a friendship even if someone hasn't actually done something "wrong."

A lot of my anxiety about being left on read went away as I worked on my own healing and coping. I used to make my life all about my relationships, and I'd feel lost if I was alone. It took me a long time for me to find an identity outside of other people, and it was so worth doing.

[goldengleams]

another cinderella story | l. hughes

summary: after your masquerade dance, you invite luke back to your house to watch a movie that’s right on theme. will he be your prince charming?

word count: 1.8k

author’s note: oh it’s just me being active and posting again!! so excited to be on break for the summer and finally have some free time! this was inspired by an experience i had with a friend and it was so fun to write, so please show some love by reblogginh or liking! leave some requests or messages in my inbox for fun! 🤍

———————————————————————

You pulled your coat around your shoulders as the chilly winter air nipped at your exposed skin, making the climb out of the Uber and the walk to your house that much more dreadful. Your night at your sorority formal had been a blast. This year, there was a masquerade theme and you had gotten lucky enough that your formal was on a non-hockey weekend so that you could invite your close friend, Luke Hughes.

The two of you had had a fun night with your sorority sisters and a few of his teammates who had been invited. Before you left, the drinks had been flowing at your pregame, so you had felt extra loose on the dance floor with Luke as your date.

“Thank you, have a good night,” you said to the driver. Luke quickly climbed out of the car to join you and speedwalk inside.

“I think the cold just completely sobered me up,” you grumbled.

Luke laughed from behind you. “Yeah, you did go a little hard after we finished our bottle of champagne.” You let out a soft groan at the reminder that you and Luke had been handcuffed to each other earlier in the night to complete your champagne and shackles challenge.

“I only had a one dirty shirley but I knew that stupid bottle of champagne would fuck me up,” you said, laughing as you recalled your tipsy self earlier in the night.

“I thought you handled it well, you only tripped three times walking in,” Luke teased. It wasn’t your fault that your best friend had made everyone drink the champagne in a race.

“Well, you knew I wasn’t going to lose to Luca and Bella in the drinking game!”

You and Luke reached the front door of your sorority house and you scanned in. Unsurprisingly, the house was empty, the other girls still at the formal venue or planning to stay with their dates for the night.

You shrugged off your coat and Luke hung it up on the coat rack in the closet along with his own. He had been over to your sorority house many times to study and hang out with you, so he knew where just about everything was.

“I was gonna bring some popcorn and those chocolate covered pretzels upstairs,” You called from the kitchen. Luke came in a moment later, still looking handsome in his button down and dress pants. You wouldn’t admit to it, but your eyes did linger on the contour of his muscles that was evident through his shirt. “I still can’t believe you’ve never seen Another Cinderella Story!”

“Jack and Quinn weren’t exactly interested in Disney Channel at that age, so blame them next time you see them,” Luke laughed. “How does this relate again?”

You huffed out a breath. “It’s a cultural masterpiece because Selena Gomez’s character goes to a masquerade ball where she dances with the Joey Parker, who is the celebrity in the movie,” you explained while walking up the stairs. Luke followed behind you, intently listening to your words. It was hard to ignore his eyes as he focused on you. “And since we just went to the masquerade dance, it’s a must!”

“So she’s the one playing Cinderella?”

“Yeah and she’s a really good dancer but her evil stepmother, who is played by Jane Lynch, of course, won’t let her be with him. It’s cinematic, I swear Luke.”

Luke’s eyes followed your form as you walked up the stairs. Your dress clung to you in all the right spots and your heels you had worn had made your legs look even longer than usual. He tried not to watch as your hair flowed behind you, the new style making him want to stare at you all night.

“Alright, I’ll get this masterpiece of a film set up, so get the snacks ready!”

Luke took a seat on your futon and you quickly clicked on Disney Plus to turn on the movie. You had started to feel too overdressed in your outfit, so you grabbed a pair of pajama pants and a Michigan hockey t-shirt to change into.

“Nice shirt,” Luke said when you walked back into your room. His eyes had gone straight to your shirt and seeing your choice of attire made him smile.

“Don’t be flattered, it was the first one in my drawer,” you said, shrugging your shoulders. You quickly grabbed a hair tie to put your hair up in a bun in front of your mirror. You didn’t expect Luke to be watching you as you turned back to join him where he was sitting.

“You look nice,” he said softly. You furrowed your eyebrows.

“In my pajamas?”

“You always look pretty, Y/N.”

You wanted to question what he meant but he turned away and focused back on the television. Recently, you had started feeling like yours and Luke’s relationship was bordering on the “more than just friends” line. He had made it a point to see you as much as he could, which ended up being just about every day. Your friends in your house had started teasing you more and more about how oblivious you were to Luke’s flirting.

You settled in next to Luke and shivered a little, pulling the blanket he grabbed closer to you.

“Come here,” Luke said, opening his arms for you to slide closer to him. The snacks still separated you from the hockey player. You told yourself it was just for warmth, that your sorority house had been known to be drafty in the wintertime.

“You cold?” You teased.

“No, but I know you always are. Your hands are always freezing and you wear, like three layers of clothing everyday, Y/N,” Luke joked. You couldn’t believe Luke paid attention to you like that.

Was it normal to have butterflies for your best friend during a Disney Channel Original Movie?

About an hour into the movie, lots of yelling at Jane Lynch, and one dance break later, you felt your eyelids start to droop. You sat up a little straighter, trying to stay awake to finish the movie with Luke but your night was catching up to you. You could feel him looking at you as you tried to stifle a yawn.

“We can save the rest of the movie for another day if you want,” Luke offered as he paused the movie.

You quickly shook your head. “I can’t leave you in suspense about what happens to Mary Santiago and Joey Parker, Luke. That would be a crime to DCOMs and to you.”

Luke pressed play once again, enjoying how excited you were about the movie and not wanting to miss spending any time with you. “You can rest your head on my shoulder if you want to, Y/N.”

You gave in, resting your head on Luke’s shoulder and cuddling up next to him. You weren’t sure what territory this put you into, since this seemed to be more intimate than anything you’d ever done before. You smelled Luke’s cologne as you moved closer, feeling his arm wrap around you as he welcomed your presence closer to him.

You knew you were a goner right then and there, because three minutes later, you were pressed against his shoulder letting out soft, steady breaths with your arm wrapped around Luke’s stomach. Luke didn’t notice you were asleep until a few minutes later, assuming you had just been watching the movie. He smiled at the sight of you curled up next to him and took in your facial features. After being friends for over a year, he had discovered so many things about you that made him want to be around you even more.

Luke let the movie run on, only half paying attention to what was happening. He had been excited when you asked him to be your date for the night, knowing that there were other guys, including a few of his teammates, who found you very attractive. He would have gone anywhere you had asked him, quite honestly, but the dance was fun and your post-dance plans of showing him one of your comfort movies only made his heart swell more. Even though dancing wasn’t his thing, he knew it was yours, and it made him excited just to see you happy.

Once the film was ending, he reached for the other blanket that was resting on the arm of the couch, not realizing that the remote was right there. The small black box clattered to the ground hit the side of the couch just right so that the sound went up, jerking you awake.

You were so surprised by the sound that you almost didn’t realize you had been asleep on Luke’s shoulder.

“Shit, I’m sorry!”

Luke quickly bent over to get the remote off the ground which gave you a minute to take in the song playing.

“Oh my god, did I fall asleep?” As a true DCOM fan, you knew that Selena Gomez’s song played at the end as the credits were rolling.

“Uh yeah, but not for long. You only missed her and Joey at the end,” Luke said. He placed the remote in between the two of you, since you had moved away from him in your haste to wake up.

“Gosh, I’m sorry Luke. I didn’t mean to,” you said, feeling embarrassed. You had spent the night trying to impress Luke and now you had probably drooled on his nice shirt.

“No, no don’t be. I was trying to cover you up with another blanket and I dropped it by accident.”

You both sat in an awkward silence before Luke cleared his throat.

“You’re cute when you sleep.” You rolled your eyes at his comment.

“I should’ve known my date was a stalker,” you teased.

“Thank you for inviting me, by the way. I had a really great time,” Luke said sincerely. You felt a flush on your cheeks.

“Even though I got a little too tipsy and fell asleep on you?” You questioned semi-seriously.

“Especially because you got tipsy and fell asleep on me,” Luke chuckled. “I’m glad you feel comfortable with me, Y/N.”

“Of course I feel comfortable with you, Luke. We’re friends.”

Luke quickly looked at you with a smirk on his face before huffing out a laugh and shaking his head. He wanted to say something, you knew all of his tells.

“What’s so funny?” You questioned.

“Nothing, I just wish we wouldn’t keep doing this song and dance. We’re worse than Mary and Joey, Y/N.”

Luke took your hand into his. “What do you mean Luke?”

Luke brought his hand to your cheek, the space between the two of you on the couch eliminated as he moved closer. His eyes dipped to your lips, silently asking you a question that you both already knew the answer to.

You nodded, leaning into his touch and pressing your lips against his. Cliche as it sounds, you felt like one of the girls in a Disney movie, kissing your Prince Charming.

Luke pulled away first to smile at you. “Took us long enough, huh? C’mere my Cinderella.”

You giggled and kissed him again, already planning your first anniversary and rewatching of Another Cinderella Story in your head.

———————————————————————

[peachy-wolfhard]

dating yuta okkotsu

a/n: wowzers more than one post a year??? also HAPPY BDAY YUTA LUB U BABYBOY

Warnings: swearing, sims death, yuta gets elbowed accidentally, a little angst

Word Count: 823

My literal bf

He's so in love

Heart eyes whenever someone even slightly mentions you

Yuta will be talking to someone and if they slightly mention something you like he starts rambling about how amazing you are and how much he loves you while blushing and borderline giggling and kicking his feet

He's so sticky too like anything you do he's right there like a shadow

Yuta is also really quiet when he is being your shadow so 99% of the time he ends up scaring you when you turn around 

One time after a mission, you're nerves were still on edge and Yuta just happened to walk behind you and ended up getting an elbow to the eye (Rika beat ur ass sorry)

Yuta isn't that big of a gamer himself but he LOVES to watch you play the sims, especially if you made you and him

Speaking of the Sims ! Whenever Yuta is away for missions you always update him about what's going on

hi yu! Update ab our sims…OUR SON DIED HE DIED IN A FIRE IM SO SAD!!!!!! BUT ITS OK WE CAN MAKE A NEW ONE ;) wink wink anyway we moved to a farm and ITS HAUNTED. ok bye bye baby ilysm MWAH

VOICE MESSAGES!! Yuta can't get enough of them he loves sending them to you and he loves when you send them

yuta

“Hi honey, I just saw a really cute cat that reminded me of you. I swear it looked almost one hundred percent like you, not even joking…ok i gotta go bye i love you!”

Facetimes are another thing that is pretty regular. Its either you walking around campus showing him to all your friends or him show you around wherever he is

“Yuta, look at these freaks. They’re going crazy without you here…me too honestly”

“I know I'm losing my mind not being around you guys but especially you.”

Another thing he loves is sending random pictures to each other

*picture of yuta being cute* 

y/n

OMG IM SOBBING MWAH MWAH IM GONNA EAT U I LOVE MY BOYFRIEND

*picture of you doing something*

yuta

Cries sobs screams throws up I MISS UUUUUUUUUU <333333 :333

ONE LAST THING

Yuta barely uses emojis, he's an emoticon boy :3

He always brings you presents back from wherever they send him

There's always a big dramatic reunion when he returns. Running into each other's arms, fake loud crying, one of you carrying the other (translation: you carrying Yuta) …the works

Nights after he gets home are very chill. Ordering take out and watching reality tv while just enjoying each other's company. Ending the night by cuddling each other to sleep

Yuta has a note in his notes app of EVERYTHING you like and dislike

Everytime you slightly mention something you like or dislike he makes a mental note to write it down

Even if he doesn't write something down, he memorized it. Remembers what kind of candy you like, what your favorite flowers are, your orders from take out and restaurants

While your guys relationship is lovely and amazing it does get hard sometimes with Yuta always being gone and you having missions and school

Going days without hearing from the other because the two of you are so stressed and busy then having to update each other all at once in one message then repeating the process

Trying to facetime each other but when he's in an entirely different timezone it's hard. You'll be almost asleep and his day is just starting

After a while it started to get to you, that your boyfriend was away for so long, you weren't able to see him, and when you were you had to prepare for him to leave just a few weeks after

Even though you were surrounded by your friends and teachers that love you, you felt so lonely

Finally you talked to him about it, about how all his traveling made you feel so alone and he agreed with you. That he too felt so alone (because most of the time he was) and that he just wanted to stay home for at least a year

Loves snuggling with you but only in private (Maki beat his ass)

Holds you so close at night to the point it feels like he's trying to get into your skin

Seems like the type to either wear minimal clothes to bed or pajama sets, no in between

Kicks the blankets off then curls up to you when he inevitably gets cold

Yes he's very sweet but he still likes to mess with you ESPECIALLY at night

His favorite thing to do is putting his cold hands or feet on you and asking “are my feet/hands cold”

ONE LAST THING

He 100% gets you guys those Lego roses so you can build them together

Overall he very much loves you and cant get enough of you

[jeon-ify]

that night : j. yunho - pt. 1

a/n: this is my first actual fic since i’ve just been posting scenarios and requests :3 !! this idea came from listening to ‘you broke me first’ by tate mcrae. its a great song and it reminds me of yunho but toxic yunho. it would kinda be good if you listen to the song while reading !! idk girl i just write

genre: smut, drama, early 20s- mid 20s romance, toxic/dark romance, 18+

warnings: smut, dark romance, toxic!yunho, yunho has a threesome with y/n’s best friends, yunho is a cheater, reader swears a lot, yunho calls reader a psychotic bitch, san is a druggie, alcohol, cocaine, yunho begs, yunho gets sad and guilty, reader claims she moved on, san is annoying as hell, wooyoung is readers bestie!!

“san! i haven’t talked to you in so long, i’m sorry! how have you been?” your phone rang, you look to see that san called you about 20 times. you’ve been ignoring him, since he’s done almost every drug under the sun in the past year since you all have moved to different cities.

“man I called you 6 times. stop playing dumb. yunho’s asking about you again, please call him back. i’m sick of his shit.” san sniffles sharply. you’re sure he’s doing crack again, but when is he not?

you did not want to hear about yunho. you haven’t heard about or seen him in almost 4 years now, recovering from that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~

you call yunho, in hopes that he’d pick up. you left him a voicemail asking if he’d want anything from target when you were off work tonight.

*hello!! it’s yunho, sorry i couldn’t take your call. leave a message and i’ll call back!*

“i’m gonna stop at target, babe. did you want anything? love you, call me back.”

you finish your target run, grabbing a set of shampoo and conditioner and other necessities as you’ve been out of your favorites for a week now. you step out of the car, grabbing your bags and unlocking the door to yunhos apartment. you didn’t live with him, but you practically did since you were there almost every day of the week.

“~yuyu, fuck its so good! so big!” “you fuck us so good oh my god.”

“you’re both so fuckin’ pretty. my god.”

no fucking way.

your heart dropped to your ass, at a loss of every word in the dictionary. you felt like you were being run over by a truck 100 times over.

it felt like every moment with yunho was flashing at once.

he told you he loved you a million times a minute, you thought you were the only one. you thought that yunho would love you and only you, but how could you be so stupid to trust anyone else again?

you walk to where the noise is coming from, tears flooding your eyes, threatening to fall. the door is cracked a little, you see a pile of black hair and red hair mixed, one on top of the other. one of the girls has a tattoo on her wrist while the other has one too— it looks all too familiar.

one tattoo being a moon, the other being a sun.

your best friends.

you want to cut off the star tattoo on your wrist so fucking bad. how could they ever betray you like this? they never approved of yunho, but he’s inside both of them, fucking them on your shared bed. in your (what was once) home.

you didn’t even want to acknowledge the situation, instead you dropped the target bag at the door of the bedroom, leaving as soon as you could.

hours later, yunho calls. no answer.

you stare as your phone rings.

*32 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: hey, sry i didn’t call back. where’d u go?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: babe?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: y/n, pick up the phone.

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: not funny.

Read at 12:43AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: ur reading my fkn messages but ur not answering n its pissing me off

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: alr whatever lmao dnt pick up.

Today at 5:21AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: i cnt sleep, thibkin about yoj

*2 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

you watch your phone ring, waiting for the ringing to stop. your tears flow, deciding to call him back.

“baby? my fucking god, i mis-missed you. *hiccup* had me worried sick.” he slurs. he’s fucking crying.?

“you’re a fucking liar. my best friends? you’re drinking, you piece of shit. and you’re fucking crying?”

“relax, they’re not your best friends and i know that cus they did that to you, plus me and you baby, we don’t belong to each other. been wanting to leave. felt so fucking locked up. you won’t let me do what i want, you controlling fucking psychotic bitch.”

what the fuck.?

you watch the time on the phone call increase as he mumbles what you really meant to him.

you feel like you really did trap him, but you both didn’t agree on a poly relationship. for him to fuck your best friends is an insane thing to do to someone.

you end the phone call after 57 minutes of yunho talking about how much he fucking hated you for never letting him fuck your friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“i’m never talking to that piece of shit again and never bring him up to me. i have things to do, i’ll text you.”

you hung up the phone after 35 seconds.

you’ve grown past the situation with yunho, healing and becoming a better person. you were single, traumatized from your past relationships being a burden on you. but, your best friend wooyoung always supported you through and through. he wanted what was best for you, even though he introduced you to yunho. it wasn’t wooyoungs fault that yunho had fucked up (or was already fucked up), he just wanted to help you find someone. you had your own apartment, your own car and your own lash studio. you were booked for days on end, always working and being your own person.

but, with healing comes pain.

you’d occasionally think about yunho, how he’d pamper you in gifts and he’d take you anywhere you wanted. you thought about the nights that you’d cried to him, he’d hold you in his warm chest, making sure you were held and you didn’t feel alone. you sometimes still toss around in bed, thinking yunho was next to you, on your right side. you’d still bake matcha and white chocolate cookies as if he’d eat them with you, a reminder that you loved yunho— as your love language was baking— and every time you see those cookies, your heart begins to ache.

you pick up your phone and text your best friend, as he’s the only person you go to for anything.

—————-

to: woo 🧍🏻‍♀️

y/n: bitch get up

y/n: r u awake yet

y/n: GET THE FUCK UP BRO ITS AN EMERGENCY

y/n: if ur not up in the nect 5 minutes i’m calling the cips

y/n: next *^ & cops^*

y/n: man i just need to talk 😩 san called me

*seen*

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: girl what the FUCK

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: did u call the cops yet

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: is the cop hot

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: bitch WHI CALLED

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: im calling u rn answer

your best friend calls you in no less than 3 minutes after your series of texts.

“why is san calling you? what’d he want?” wooyoung asks, concern masking his voice.

“woo, i just started feeling like i finally moved on from all that bullshit. he fucking calls me like ‘oh yunho wants to talk to you’ and i’ve been dodging yunho for fucking ever. i know he’s been calling me but-“ you ramble to him. he cuts you off, questioning:

“did you ask him what he wanted from you?”

“it doesn’t matter because im over it and im over fucking everything. its all bad news and i don’t wanna go down that hole again, woo. if you’re so curious ask him yourself. i don’t care and i honestly don’t wanna know.”

“okay. i won’t ask.” wooyoung says in defense. he has a sixth sense, and his sense is telling him that maybe something is wrong with yunho, or maybe he wants to try to give you the closure you deserve. though he already gave you closure— just not the kind you expected from someone you’ve loved for 6 years.

but a part of you really wanted to know why he called. a little portion of your heart still aches for yunho, but you’re healing, remember?

the phone call ends after small talk, and you stare at yunho’s contact info for 7 minutes. you open messages and read the last message he sent you. you have him blocked, but you know it’s his number.

May 19th, 2021 at 3:21AM

*You have new messages from (***)***-**** *

(***)***-****: baby, i’m so sorry.

(***)***-****: you won’t ever forgive me, but i’ve changed. my star, my love, my moon, my sun.

(***)***-****: i can’t sleep anymore.

(***)***-****: i’ll leave you alone, okay?

December 10th, 2022 at 1:21AM

(***)***-****: i can’t live without you.

(***)***-****: it’s been so fucking long

(***)***-****: js need to see ur face. keep staring at the same pic but it was so long ago

(***)***-****: my messages are green, why are they green?

(***)***-****: i met someone today, his name started with an M but i can’t remember what his name was

(***)***-****: he’s helping me heal. ik i don’t deserve to heal but i wanna be better bc u deserve better

(***)***-****: i wanna be the one for u my love

(***)***-****: i fucked up but pls believe me when i say i’ll change for u bb

(***)***-****: i’m going to sleep, goodnight my angel

January 8, 2023 at 7:08PM

(***)***-****: everythibg remjnds me of u baby

(***)***-****: ur everywhere i go

(***)***-****: ur everything i see

(***)***-****: mingi won’t let me live diwn what i did to u

(***)***-****: i deserve to fucking die

(***)***-****: i really lost u

Today at 10:32PM

(***)***-****: i still miss you, my love.

(***)***-****: want you to carry my children and be in my life forever.

(***)***-****: i’ve bettered myself. i’ve changed, please let me see you again.

*seen*

shortly after you open his book of messages, your phone rings.

*2 missed calls from (***)***-**** *

———————

you watch your phone ring twice, your heart dropping 6 times over, you didn’t think he would be this bad about it, but maybe he aches for you the same way you ache for him.

maybe yunho is sorry. maybe he changed and maybe he wants to be with you again.

your phone rings again, the same phone number showing up, as your shaky hands press the green button.

silence. the first 8 seconds is silent as yunho tries to process and come up with what he’ll say to you.

he tried calling you for 3 years on end, you’d blocked him. he was so used to your voicemail being the only thing left of you to heal him.

“h-hello?” there it is. the voice you refused to hear for almost 4 years, its there. it’s no longer only in your head, it’s his voice on the other side of the 7 inch screen against your ear.

his voice makes your stomach twist and turn, your hands sweating as your chest forms a hole within itself.

“you don’t need to say anything, just listen to me, hm? you can hang up any second you want, but if your heart still aches for me the way mine does for you, you’d listen.

my love. i’ve ruined you and tore you to shreds. i don’t even know where i begin. you are the most precious thing that has ever happened to me. the minute you entered my life, i took you for granted and fucked up. i didn’t realize how much i loved you or how much you meant to me until you left. that night is a blur to me, you didn’t deserve any of that. you deserve to be treated like royalty, you deserve to be treated in the most beautiful and enchanting way because that is how you made me feel. but i went and fucked that up for the both of us. i didn’t mean what i said to you. i was drunk but that’s no excuse to talk to you the way i did. it’s not right. it never was.

the only time i ever find myself doing right is when i beat myself up for doing you wrong.

i stay at the same apartment, san comes over and does whatever he needs to do but i haven’t touched a drug since you left me. the minute you left was the minute i decided to better myself. mingi is helping me be the person i want to be for you. my god, i hate myself for everything ive done to you. i’m not asking for your forgiveness, i know you won’t give it to me. but i want you to know that i still am here and i still love you. i love you better and i love you the way you deserve.

are you still with me, y/n?”

he breathes. you breathe. you finally breathe.

“i- yunho. i don’t know how to feel about any of this, you really hurt me and i can’t trust anyone anymore. you fucked my best friends, in our room. i don’t even know why i even looked at my phone or why i even answered san when he called me. i’m doing better, but you calling me again is really making me feel like i’m falling down that hole again.” you try your hardest to not let him hear you grow weak to his confession. his heart caved in, and his stomach grew empty when you’d brought up his mistake.

“i understand. i won’t push or do anything to make you uncomfortable. but, i want to have coffee with you, or one of us can come over and we can talk about this, hm?”

you sigh. you felt like all the healing and all the self care you’ve been doing is going straight down the drain.

but do you wanna listen to what he has to say?

“i’m free tomorrow afternoon. but i can’t stay long.” is all you say. you don’t wanna keep this conversation going, nor do you even want to talk about this at all. you are growing selfish; only wanting to see yunho because you miss the attention you used to get from him.

“as long as i get to see you, its okay. i look forward to talking to you, y/n. been waiting forever. is 4:30 fine with you?” he sniffles and lets out a calm chuckle from within his throat.

he’s aching just as much as you are.

“yes. goodnight, yunho.”

“goodnight, star.” that nickname. the same nickname that dragged you into his lore. he speaks lightly. the phone call ends and he sounds like an angel, making your head spin and your heart confused.

you don’t know whether to trust yunho again because, maybe, he is sorry. maybe he wants to make things right with you.

for the rest of the night, you cannot sleep. you don’t decide on going tomorrow, you really don’t want to face yunho after what he did to you. after 4 hours of tossing and turning, rereading texts from yunho, drinking water, and listening to nothing but the buzzing in your ear, you finally manage to get sleep.

—————————————————————————————

first fic!! yay!! i know yall are gonna hate yunho because what he did to y/n is trash and ass and all of the above. i hope you guys start to understand yunho further in the story. idk what im gonna do with this fic but i hope i come up with part 2 in a timely manner cus i dont want it to be dragged lol. but!!!!!!!!!! i hope you all like this fic just as much as i HATE it 😋

[1d1195]

Traditional XI

You can read the rest of Traditional here.

Thank you so much for the love and support on this story. She and Harry have definitely turned into one of my favorite couples I've had the pleasure of writing about. As an aside, I will be posting a long overdue "how my taglist works" (because I a tumblr-elder and don't know what I'm doing anymore). But for those of you that have been tagged throughout the series, please check out the message at the bottom.

This is the final part (not including the extras I have lined up.) There's a bit of angst and a good bit of fluff. It follows part ten immediately and I also continued with marking the days/time because I think it made it a bit easier to follow.

Truly, really, thank you so much. Part 1-11 is 67k words and I’ve enjoyed typing each one. I hope you continue to enjoy reading. Without further ado:

--

“She gave it back,” he said stiffly. His throat was catching on to the words.

“Gave what back?” Niall asked curiously. “The apartment?”

Harry felt his entire body freeze over with a new fear that Niall mistakenly unlocked. It truly felt like his body was made of ice. He grabbed at his phone anxiously calling the apartment complex’s main line. He had to suffer through prompts before he could finally talk to a person. He asked if it looked as if anyone was moving stuff from his apartment (although he would have given it to her at this point).

Monday

“I’ll kill him,” Louis shouted, almost proudly as he entered the apartment. She shook her head and just burst into tears as she told him about all the things Harry did. While he was prepared to murder him, Louis’ heart softened with each task Harry completed to make sure his best friend was cared for. It was everything he ever hoped for the girl he thought of as one of his own sisters. He wouldn’t kill Harry. He couldn’t...not if he did all that for her.

Eleanor combed her fingers through her hair while the poor girl cried in her lap. Louis was frowning, glancing at Eleanor every so often as she spoke. “Babe,” Louis whispered when she finished her story.

She sniffled. “I don’t know why I did that,” she croaked. “That was so stupid, who does that? You should have seen the look on his face. He’s never going to forgive me.”

“Of course, he will,” Eleanor said easily shaking her head. Her voice was so solid, like she had already talked to Harry about it and knew with every fiber of her being. Louis crouched beside her wiping the tears out of her eyes as comfortingly as he could. “Harry loves you, darling,” Eleanor reminded her.

“Why was I so mean?” She choked on another sob. “I’d hate me. I was so heartless.”

“You were overwhelmed, love,” Eleanor promised. “That was a lot to take in, all in one day. But he meant the best and brightest for you. You have to believe that. Harry has never done anything but try to make sure you’re taken care of.”

She took in a shaking breath as more tears poured out of her; she was so unhappy with how she handled the whole day. Maybe she was overwhelmed. That would at least have made some sense. There was so much to be overwhelmed about. Everything she had been bottling up. All of which was threatening to burst because it just had to be one of those weeks where it all just piled and piled until it all crumbled down.

“Babe,” Louis whispered trying to stop the tears from falling but failing because they kept coming faster than he could swipe her cheeks. “C’mon.”

“I know you all went to the funeral for my dad,” she sniffled. She may as well have wallowed in the hurt a bit more. They needed to know she knew. “I know they had one...I saw it in the online obituary.”

They were silent for a minute. Louis didn’t move his eyes from hers for a moment. He pressed his lips together in a thin line. So of course, she knew she was right. They did hide it from her.

However, Louis wasn’t going to forget that she let them hide it. He stared at Eleanor for a moment; having some silent conversation that only the two of them could have. The entire time she continued crying. Eleanor gave her a comforting squeeze as best she could with her sprawled across her lap.

“I think you’re scared,” Eleanor whispered without addressing her comment about the services.

“El,” Louis’ voice wasn’t a whisper like it had been directed at the sobbing girl. His tone wasn’t gentle. It was like he was warning her not to continue.

“Scared of what?” She sniffed because she may have heard the warning in Louis’ voice, but she was already miserable. It couldn’t be worse than what she felt.

“Tell her, Louis. Tell her,” Eleanor begged. She turned her attention back to her best friend.

Louis reminded her so much of her brother, she wondered if he would have been as wise as Louis was if he were still around. Even for the goofball he made himself out to be, Louis was nearly sagely at his age. He was the one she went to for advice. The one she asked for help when she needed to get Harry a birthday gift. If she was stuck in the middle of nowhere, she was pretty sure she would still call Louis first. He was her best friend because he always knew what to say to her and even if it was hard to hear he always told her the hard truths.

She could see on his face that it was going to hurt to lay whatever he was about to say in front of her if only because she was already so heartbroken. “Being cared for,” he bit the inside of his lip, but he didn’t break his gaze with her. “You think it’s a death sentence,” he told her. His tone was soothing, even though the words were not. “Because when your brother came to get you, he tragically died. Don’t think I’m forgetting that. But then, your parents stopped caring for you...so it was like...you associated the two,” he explained. “And then, you didn’t tell me. So, in your mind, caring for you is a death sentence for those that love you.”

She was speechless. Her sniffles slowed, which allowed her to sit in the upright position, but Eleanor still had her arm wrapped around her shoulders. She swallowed as she listened to him speak without hiccupping on her breath. “Do you really think we wouldn’t have let you live with us?” Eleanor asked softly from beside her. “The only one that thought you needed to get your own space was you...and don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you got Harry out of the deal, but you could have lived with us for forever,” she smiled gently at her.

She stared at the two of them and Louis looked at her tear-stained face with a frown. “Love,” he said so gently. “You have spent so long building up walls making sure you take care of everyone in your life because the last time you stopped taking care of someone else and had fun of your own, something horrible and tragic happened,” She looked away from him, sniffling uncontrollably. “But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t. No matter how many times your mum says it was...no matter how many times you sit next to his gravestone and feel guilty for it. He would have gone and got you and he would have turned that steering wheel to protect you over, and over, and over again,” she couldn’t look at Louis when he talked about it. It was his best friend, and she just took him away forever...all for a party. “I would have done it for you, babe,” he promised. She hated the idea of that too so much that she let out another whimpering sob. “Now, so would Harry,” he told her, and the pang of anxiety at the mere idea Harry would fatally hurt for her rippled all through her body she felt sick at the idea...it hurt all the way to her toes and made her fingertips feel numb.

But Louis pressed on making it hurt even more but with every intention of making it better. “You can’t keep your guard up forever. You can’t stop people from taking care of you because you miss him and worry about the consequences of them taking care of you,” he said. “We all take that risk for someone we love,” he brushed the tears off her cheeks once more as they were finally slowing to a pace he could keep up with. She refused to look at him. But Louis wouldn’t accept that. “Babe,” he said turning her chin back to him. “Let someone else take care of you. Let Harry do it. You’ve done it for long enough.”

*

Tuesday

Niall found Harry throwing the lamp on his desk against the wall of his office so hard he was surprised the wall didn’t shatter. But the lamp certainly did. Nearly splintered into a hundred pieces. He flopped into his desk chair and hung his head practically between his knees.

“Christ, the two of you today,” he grumbled hoping to find Harry in better shape than his typically better mood intern. Obviously, that would not be the case. “What’s wrong?” He asked, closing the door.

Harry ran a hand over his face. He wanted to cry but he was at work, and he shouldn’t have. “She gave it back,” he said stiffly. His throat was catching on to the words.

“Gave what back?” Niall asked curiously. “The apartment?”

His gaze snapped up to Niall and he mouthed the word whoa. If Niall said it out loud, he didn’t hear it. He was shocked by the redness of Harry’s eyes, the withdrawn look. He knew it was bad when she could hardly keep track of what she was doing this morning. It was worse than when her coffee spilled all over her things a few months ago.

But seeing his best friend so distressed…

Harry felt his entire body freeze over with a new fear that Niall mistakenly unlocked. It truly felt like his body was made of ice. He grabbed at his phone anxiously calling the apartment complex’s main line. He had to suffer through prompts before he could finally talk to a person. He asked if it looked as if anyone was moving stuff from his apartment (although he would have given it to her at this point).

He was awarded the slightest bit of relief to hear the word “no” at the other end. It washed over him as he rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, alright. Thanks,” he mumbled hanging up. He sat in his chair, and he glanced at Niall balling his hands into fists. “She gave back all the money,” he mumbled.

Niall did the easy and quick calculations in his head regarding the last eight or so months. “Whoa.”

Harry told him all about the reference calls, the graduation ceremony, and the lawyers’ meeting with her mum, and the good news. He told Niall how he paid for her student loans and kept all of it hidden from her. Harry tried to hide the tears in his eyes, but Niall knew they were there in his voice as he listened.

“Harry...you gotta just talk to her.”

“M’pretty sure she hates me.”

“That’s a load of shit, alright,” Niall said knowingly. “She loves you.” Harry felt his heart hoping a bit by way of fluttering against his ribs. He shook his head. He didn’t want to hope because she looked betrayed, and it was all his fault. Niall shook his head. “She’s all snively and you’re all angry. You two are quite the pair. You could have a show.”

He wanted to throw something at Niall, but he was too exhausted to hold his head up, let alone hold anything worth throwing—and he wouldn’t really throw something at his best friend. So, he sat there, devastated that she gave him the money back. It worried him to the core. It seemed his new fear of her leaving that apartment was going to be real, sooner rather than later.

And if she left Styles Incorporated…

“She said that you needed this today,” Niall shrugged and put a folder on Harry’s desk in front of him. He winced knowing she was still helping even when she was upset with him. “Tragic that I have to play messenger,” he shook his head. “I hope you talk to her.”

But Harry didn’t want to press. It was obvious he pressed too much and now he had to wait for her to forgive him.

Maybe.

*

Wednesday

She didn’t come to work.

There was nothing else to say.

There was nothing he could think about except that she didn’t come to work.

He didn’t get to see her. All day and an entire near-sleepless night. He impulsively shopped for items scheduled to be delivered the following day. Items he didn’t need but he needed to get for her...even if she never set foot in his house again.

There was nothing else he could think about.

*

Thursday

Niall brought his tea to him that afternoon.

So, a new nightmare plagued him, and he continued to think of nothing else but the distance she was putting between them.

*

Friday

For the second time in his life, and moreover, the second time within a year, Harry left work early. Niall was insistent. He was agitated beyond belief, his one meeting he was completely distracted that Niall did most of the talking. Harry’s company was substantial, but surely, she couldn’t avoid him on the entire floor.

But she did. She managed somehow to avoid him even when he kept going in and out of Niall’s office and thereby walking through her little space. But she wasn’t there a single of the seven or so times he walked through. At one point he walked in for the sake of walking in. Niall was on the phone with a client. Harry just shook his head and left before even registering the fact Niall was there.

It was after the meeting that Niall encouraged him to leave for the day. “I don’t need to,” he snapped at his friend. “Jus’ get on with it,” he muttered.

Niall sighed, blew a long breath out his mouth. He packed his belongings from off the table and patted Harry on the back. “Meeting’s over, Harry,” he said and left him alone in the conference room.

He knew he was in tough shape but not even realizing the meeting was over seemed bad even for the way he was feeling. Rubbing the back of his head, he headed once more to Niall’s office. This time he wasn’t surprised she wasn’t there. Harry apologized to Niall quickly, returned to gather his stuff from his office, and left for home.

*

“Harry went home, so you don’t have to keep hiding,” Niall rolled his eyes as she tentatively tiptoed into her office. He didn’t look up, so he didn’t see the way she nearly dropped all of the papers in her arms at Niall’s sudden (accurate) accusation that she was hiding.

She bit her lip and put the papers on her desk. Niall didn’t look up as she walked toward his desk. “I yelled at him,” she whispered.

“Good, he probably deserved it,” Niall said simply. “People don’t yell at him enough. Think because he’s CEO, he’s without a flaw,” he shrugged. “He’s not, I’ve never seen him finish one document on his own because he never remembers how to fill it out. The man can’t multiply to save his life—I always do the tip at the restaurant. He has a terrible signature on contracts. It’s embarrassing to sign my name next to his. Also, he has a terrible handicap even though he’s been golfing for at least seven or so years now,” he said as if that should be the reason that she could yell at him. He looked up and smiled at her because it was an attempt to make her laugh but didn’t seem to do the trick.

“He’s also really cranky when he doesn’t see you at night now,” this was much softer said. His voice quiet as he further explained this. “And he bothers me. Called me at one in the morning last night asking if I wanted a porch swing. Do you know he has an online shopping problem? It’s worst when he's upset. He panic-ordered three sets of dishware when you got burned,” he continued. Her heart fluttered at the mention of a porch swing. It shot through her like a bolt of electricity. That was because of her. She knew it. But Niall’s attempt still got him not even a smirk. “You should probably go after him,” he smiled at her sadly once more. “You need to talk to him.”

She shook her head. “He won’t forgive me.”

Niall rolled his eyes again. “Would you forgive him if this whole crazy scenario was reversed?”

She looked at her feet because she wouldn’t even need to forgive him. It would be a non-issue. “I see why Harry made you his sous-chef around here,” she muttered...because yes, of course she would. Probably before he even tried to apologize, at that.

“I knew there was a reason,” he winked at her. “Have a lovely weekend, darling,” he said going back to the documents on his desk.

“Are you sure?” She whispered after a moment.

“He loves you. I promise.”

“But all the other interns...the...companions. I’d be no different falling all over him.”

“He fell for you long before you did,” he told her simply.

She swallowed, blushing at the notion. Her stomach flipped with hope. “Do you know he went to the funeral?” She whispered.

Niall frowned because he didn’t know that, but he did know that had to hurt her. He looked back up to meet her gaze and he smiled gently at her. “Another reason you should yell at him.”

“You’re a really good friend, Niall,” she rolled her eyes.

“Can’t wait to be one of your best friends, love,” he winked.

She took one more deep breath, hurried over to Niall’s desk. She kissed his cheek as he worked. He smiled. “Sorry I’m taking your job,” she whispered to him.

He threw his head back a bit and laughed. “I’d like to see you try,” but he didn’t mind, really. It would be worth it to have her around.

*

The driver was waiting at the edge of the cemetery. She took her wedges off so she wouldn’t get them covered in dirt as she sat cross-legged on the ground. She fiddled with the flowers—Eleanor probably planted them. Or maybe even her mom. She was surprised because there weren’t as many weeds pushing through the ground as there should have been—especially when she took notice of the other stones nearby. “I think you’d really like him,” she whispered. Of course, there was no response. “Louis likes him,” she told him. “So...there’s that,” she shrugged. “And he has a porch swing,” she added. “We’re not even together and he still didn’t cheat on me, so he beat the last guy, y’know?” she smirked sadly. “I wish you could’ve met him...”

She paused, looking around the grounds for a moment before she continued. “If you look, you can see a car over there, yeah? That poor man has to follow me everywhere because Harry doesn’t want me to get stuck without a ride in inclement weather or something,” she whispered, smiled sadly. “I’m so in love with him, I swear I can feel it in the atoms of my heart,” her eyes watered. “I gave him all the money back. I want him to know that I’m not...I don’t want money. I just want him,” she told him. “I know you would probably hate the idea of me being in love with anyone...but at least I waited until college...poor El stuck with Louis for the rest of her life,” she sighed as if it really were a tragedy. But it wasn’t. She loved Eleanor and Louis so much.

“Niall said he’s really bad at golf though, so you could still make fun of him about something,” she let out a watery laugh. “I miss you...so much,” she whispered. “I hope Dad is happy again,” she glanced over at the nearby plot of land. “He missed you,” she sniffled. “We all miss you,” her voice cracked. “Okay...I’m gonna go grovel for forgiveness, now,” she said. “I’ll see you soon,” she kissed two of her fingers and pressed them over his name before getting off the ground, brushing the dirt off, and headed for the car.

“Are you alright, Miss?” He asked with the utmost concern. He was opening the door for her as she approached.

She nodded, sniffling, and wiping her eyes. “For now,” she sighed. “Can you bring me to Harry’s?” She asked.

*

Harry didn’t want to answer the door. But whoever was on the other side knocked, then rang the doorbell. Knocked again. Doorbell again. Persistent.

If it was Niall coming to console him, he was going to kill him, simple as that. “For fucks sake,” he grumbled marching to the door in an angry fit. “Niall, y’made me leave early, and I did. What d’you want?” He snapped loud enough to hear through the door before ripping it out of the way.

She flinched at his harsh tone. Her eyes were puffy and red. She looked so defeated as she turned her gaze to the ground. His heart hammered against his ribs in total shock that she was there. Left him utterly speechless. “I know this is stupid...” she started. “I’m sorry. It’s not enough because you deserve so much more than sorry. It’s never going to be enough, but I am so... very sorry. I was...” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I was. What I said was so hurtful and so untrue. You have to believe that,” she was staring at her feet while she spoke. “Harry,” her voice cracked, and she was so worried it wasn’t enough. He didn’t make any noise and she was certain if he didn’t forgive her, she would die in that spot. “I know you didn’t mean anything by what you did other than to help me. But I don’t accept help very well... in case it wasn’t obvious. Especially when it comes to something like...my career or my...past,” she explained. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you; I shouldn’t have said such awful things and I would time travel back to that moment and slap myself for even thinking about speaking to you like that. It was horrible,” she shook her head. “I’ll beg every day for as long as you want if you’ll forgive me,” she whispered. “I am—”

Harry pulled her into his arms suddenly, one arm around her waist, the other snaking up her back to hold the back of her head. He clutched her against him as tightly as he could without hurting her or inhibiting her breathing. “You were already forgiven,” he murmured breathing deeply into her hair. He kissed the side of her face. She released a long breath and buried her face against the side of his neck.

“You shouldn’t give in so easily,” she sniffled clinging back to him like he was a buoy. Of course, he kept her afloat.

“I’ll yell at you later if that’ll make you feel better.”

She nodded. “It really would.”

He smiled, kissed the side of her head again. Harry wouldn’t yell at her if his life depended on it. “I jus’ want t’take care of you,” he promised. “That’s it.”

“I know, you told me that first day you messaged me.” He smirked thinking about how a year ago, she wasn’t in his mind at all. He didn’t even know she existed. Now, he thought about spending one second without her beside him and it seemed like full-blown torture. “Louis said I take care of everyone else because the last time someone cared about me, they died,” she said bluntly. “Seven years of therapy and Louis was the only one who said it,” she muttered. Harry was glad she was tucked below his chin because he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. It was incredible she could make a joke in even the saddest of circumstances. She took a shivering, heaving breath. Harry tried to pull back so he could see her, but she squeezed him in place. Like she didn’t want to say it while looking at him. He nodded in encouragement for her to continue. “People will know if you hire me. You’d literally be making a position for me. And so… I thought if I got a job elsewhere... we could…” she swallowed the lump in her throat. She tucked her face deeper in his shoulder. “I…uh...”

He pulled back this time and didn’t stop when she tried to hold him in place. He pressed his hand to the side of her face and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “Thought we could be a real couple?” He asked softly.

Her cheeks turned red as ever and she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

He didn’t pause for even half a second. He didn’t want her to make her feel embarrassed or worried about anything regarding their future. “Kitten, m’so in love with you, I don’t care if we tell the entire world. I don’t care if everyone knows or if no one knows. All that matters t’me is that I love you so much.”

Her eyes watered and her heart melted. She didn’t know how to tell him she loved him so much it hurt but he said it so beautifully and without a care. She didn’t know how to articulate it as perfectly as he did. “They should really put a warning on that site about how you may accidentally find your soul mate.”

He managed to smile this time for just a mere moment as she spoke; his heart skipped beats waiting for her to say she loved him back. While she didn’t say it exactly as he thought she would (but when did she ever do what he expected?), it was exactly what he wanted her to say and meant just as much if not even more.

Then he kissed her so deeply he thought he might bruise her lips. But if he did, he thought she might not even mind.

*

Harry lifted her legs, so they were wrapped around his hips. He carried her all the way to the kitchen, pausing only to kick the door closed. He settled her on the counter and started looking for some medicine. He didn’t ask if her head hurt because the redness in her eyes told him it was aching.

“You have t’take the money back,” Harry said leaning down to take her shoes off as she swallowed the medicine. He tossed them toward the TV room. “I shattered a lamp over it,” he stood back up and kissed her again on the forehead.

 “Niall told me,” she smirked at him. He stood between her knees.

“Can’t have any secrets with him,” Harry muttered.

She giggled and Harry pressed his lips to hers again then pulled back so he could hold her face between his hands. He smiled at her with a shake of his head. “God, you’re beautiful,” he mumbled.

“Mm... the bloodshot eyes? The tired dark circles? The gray skin? That does it for you?”

“M-hmm,” he pressed his nose along the side of her face inhaling the mixture of her hair and soap. He didn’t cater to her insults to herself. “Take the money back,” he mumbled into her ear and pressed a series of kisses down the length of her neck. She shook her head trying to ignore the dizziness she felt from his lips on her skin. “Please kitten,” he was begging. Objectively, it was adorable. But she couldn’t accept it.

“Baby, you can’t pay me a salary, pay my student loans, and let me live here all—”

“You’re going t’live here?” He pulled back from her neck suddenly with a sparkle in his eyes that made it look like he was a little kid. Like it was Christmas, and he was getting the sled he asked for.

Her face was definitely not gray at that moment. She was completely blushing almost beyond recognition at her mistaken words. She shook her head quickly, trying to backtrack (uselessly). “No! I meant the apartment! I didn’t say that—”

“Please, please, please,” he now for sure, full-on begged. “Please live here, kitten.”

Her heart fluttered and she bit her lip trying to recover from how much she had revealed by accident. “Well...what am I supposed to do with all my great IKEA furniture?” She asked.

He rolled his eyes and pressed his face back into her neck. She wrapped her arms and legs around him clinging to him. “Throw it out, of course.”

“You’re so mean.”

He nodded against her and sighed, so happy she was there. So happy she was all his. “The meanest,” he assented. “Please live here,” he mumbled kissing the curve where her shoulder and neck met.

“You do have a porch swing,” she amended verbally but as if she were weighing the consideration in her head. His lips on her skin had such an effect on her it was hard to stand her ground or concentrate on joking around with him about the idea. “Speaking of—Niall told me you asked if he wanted one. Are you getting a new one or someth—what’s that?” She asked, glancing out the window as she spoke. She pushed him away immediately, rushing outside. She stood on his porch in total shock staring at his newest purchase before she turned back to him with a curious expression.

He followed behind her and stood in the doorway. “You said you would sleep out here if you could,” he shrugged. “I thought I’d make it possible...in case you ever came back.”

Where her favorite porch swing used to hang, was now a spacious, gorgeous, porch bed with so many pillows, so many blankets, and it nearly looked comfier than her lovely mattress back at the apartment. Her eyes watered and she swallowed so hard because she knew she had said that nearly three months ago in passing. And he remembered. So even when she wasn’t speaking to him, it was enough that he did something for her without knowing if she’d really be back. “You are something else, Harry.”

“Wait till y’see my new canopy bed,” he smirked feeling his cheeks warm at her compliment. Her heart nearly stopped because the canopy was mentioned almost nine months ago and the idea that he remembered anything from nine months ago was...well it was very Harry and very perfect.

“Baby, I love you and your impulse shopping so very much,” she whispered unable to look away from that beautiful reminder of how much he adored her. It made her feel so light that he cared for her so much. Now that he did, it was hard to imagine not feeling like this ever again.

Harry had other ideas though. He twisted her so quickly, her breath caught in her throat. He turned her back to face him and not the new bed. One arm wrapped around her waist, and he brought his other hand to her cheek in the one instant that she couldn’t even stumble because Harry had such a tight hold on her. He smiled at her, as if he was just told he won the lottery. Truly, he felt like he did. “Say it again,” he mumbled pressing his forehead to hers, his lips almost brushing hers as he spoke. She smiled shyly, the heat coming from her cheek warmed Harry’s hand.

“Say what? I love you?” She asked looping her arms loosely around his neck. He nodded silently and kissed the tip of her nose. “I love you,” she grinned so cutely Harry thought he would burst.

“Again,” he mumbled smiling as he carefully squeezed around her waist to lift her just so her toes hovered above the ground. She giggled.

“I love you.”

He kissed her left cheek. “More,” he inched toward the new outdoor bed.

“I love you,” she whispered, giggling more at his sweet request as he kissed her right cheek.

“Again,” he repeated.

“I love you, so, so much Harry Styles,” she whispered, holding his face between her hands, and Harry laid her back on the bed and kissed her again, fully on the lips with no intention of leaving that space for the rest of the weekend. Or until she asked to go see the canopy bed.

Whatever she wanted.

--

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[gomapda]

sidewalks we crossed [side B: him.] (pt. 1)

this is broken into parts because tumblr has a limit of 1000 blocks.

side A found here!

author's note:

oh goodness. it's been a while.

i really did intend on posting this soon after i published the first part, but then life kind of got in the way. i graduated from grad school, moved to south korea, and have been here since. i'm still a carat, and i really do think about this fanfiction all the time, mainly because this story is truly me bearing my soul to the internet and my friends who have access to the original google doc.

this one is a lot less edited and looked over, but it's because this portion of the fic reminds me of something i'm still in deep grief for. so, for those of you who will read this, i was originally going to have a third installment, but i think i'll leave it at this two. it feels good and true to leave it here.

this was supposed to be published yesterday on seventeen's anni, but i was busy spending time with my korean host family who i've not been able to see that often since moving out :')

maybe i'll write short stories including these two because they are so special to me, but this main story has come to a close. the real final push was jihoon releasing "what kind of future?" officially, the very song that inspired this fic, in honor of his beautiful friend and human, moonbin. bin-ah, i hope you're sailing among the stars and looking over all of those who love you and who you love in return.

and to you, who may be reading this, thank you for being here.

✧⋆°｡☾☼꙳ ੭ * ‧ ⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ‧ ⨯ ς(>‿<.). ⁺ ✦ * . ˚ ⨯ ੭ * ‧☼☽⋆｡°✧

tagging @fiantomartell since you asked me to whenever i published this. it's been a long while, but.

pairing: lee jihoon/woozi (seventeen) x f!reader

genre: romance, fluff

summary: an accidental like, an off-chance comment, a purposeful message. you were in an unrequited love with your childhood best friend and decided to run away from him and your feelings and years later you find yourself in the same city with the same feelings when he stalks your instagram.

rating: 13+

length: 30k (bro WHAT LOL)

tags: idol!jihoon, childhood friend!reader, unrequited love (but not really), reconnection through instagram, this is just different scenes pieced together (including a ton of flashbacks), reader’s nicknames are all bug-themed, reader has depression and it manifests as suicidal ideation sometimes, this is basically real life (aka seventeen exists and debuted 150526), but the years are a little bit off for the trainee period, jihoon left busan later and trained for shorter for the sake of my story hehe, cursing, pining, mamamoo + ateez are the besties of reader, member x member pairings, jihoon and reader are both dumbasses, reader is extremely book smart but has one brain cell when it comes to romantic feelings, jihoon writes music like he’s been divorced 12x, word genius lee jihoon, idk how doctoral degrees work, i only got my masters and it was a non-thesis track lol, also idk how trainee auditions work either, miss communication is a lady we all know too well, super cute soft shit too tho tbh, no beta we die like men, i spent 5 hours trying to format this for tumblr and i’m still unsure

inspired by “drivers license” by olivia rodrigo and “what kind of future?” by woozi

inspo spotify playlist found here!

──────────────────

side b: him.

The rapid beating in his chest drowned out the slam of the door behind him as he rushed down the stairs of your home, desperate to just get away as soon as possible. Your parents weren’t home, so he didn’t have to worry about looking like an absolute fool in front of them.

You knew. You fucking knew.

You knew how much he was in love with you and this was your way of rejecting him.

He was stupid, so stupid. If he just put his feelings aside then you wouldn’t leave. You wouldn’t have to leave. But this was all his stupid hormones and brain chemistry and his fucking heart. He knew that it wouldn’t pan out. You never saw him as anything more than just a dear friend, a brother. You made that clear.

Since the beginning, your pinkies intertwined promised a forever, but you both had different ideas of what that was. And he was stupid to believe there was a chance.

He ran.

He ran so far and so hard that he couldn’t make sense of left or right or forward or backward. All he knew was that he needed to get away from you.

But he couldn’t.

He passed by Old Man Park’s home with a winding tree you were convinced held fae people that would only come out when the entire town was asleep (there was a 50km radius, you said).

He ran by the rusted bars of the playground you two snuck off to instead of going to cram school where you attempted a flip and promptly landed on the crown of your head, wood chips tangling themselves into your hair, tears mixed with laughter and pain streaming down your cheeks.

The library where you would spend more time in the children’s section than anywhere else because you would practice your ‘reading voice’ for your future children’s bedtime stories.

The baseball field where the realization that he was in love with you hit him harder than any fastball pitch ever could.

You were everywhere.

And he needed to get away.

He went to your house to share the news of passing the trainee audition, that was the whole purpose of seeing you.

However, that wasn’t the only thing he planned on confessing.

If you asked him to stay, he would have.

But instead, you rejected him before he even got one word out.

So, he packed his bags up for Seoul, a place untarnished by you. A city that not even your light could reach, no matter how radiant you were.

──────────────────

Years later.

“Jihoon-ah, aren’t you working too hard?”

He glanced up at Jeonghan who was probably let into the studio by Bumzu. Jihoon glanced at the clock to notice a bright 4:02am glaring back at him. “Ah, hyung. I didn’t even notice the time.”

“I figured. I brought you some food.”

Jihoon glanced down at the two bags in his hands. His eyes narrowed. “Hyung, I don’t eat as much as you think I do.”

“I’ve seen you eat three full meals in one sitting. Get away from your desk and we can eat.”

Jihoon sighed before he reluctantly left the seat he hardly moved from for over seven hours. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Jeonghan replied happily, snapping the wooden chopsticks into two. He started chewing on one of the danmuji, the sound of its crunch reverberating in the studio. “Oh. And also, the wi-fi’s down at the dorm, so.”

“So, you’re here to steal my bandwidth.”

“I brought you food. I paid my toll.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “Alright, sure.”

“So, are you in the composing stage or the writing lyrics stage?”

“...Lyrics.”

“Hm. What are you writing about? Or rather, who are you writing about?”

Jihoon stabbed the grilled fish. “...You know who.”

“She’s really got a grip on you, huh.”

Jihoon grunted in response. Obviously.

Jeonghan continued, “I saw that one of the local newsletters interviewed the group home that she volunteers at. She was voted as volunteer of the year. Again. She smiles with her entire body. Seems like a good person.”

The younger of the two picked away at the fish, not bringing it onto his makeshift plate. “Yeah.”

“Do you still stalk her on Instagram?”

Jihoon let out a loud sigh.

“That’s a yes, then.”

“You know it’s not as bad as it used to be. I used to check, like, every few weeks, but now it’s gone down to just a couple times a year.”

“She hasn’t blocked you yet?”

“Hah. I don’t think she even knows that my account is reactivated.”

“Well, you never needed to reactivate before. Her Instagram used to be public. The rest of the members and I used to scroll through wondering how a bright girl like her could be associated with such a deadpan guy like you.”

“Wow. Thanks, hyung.”

Jeonghan merely brushed off Jihoon’s sarcasm, already used to it. “She only made it private this last year, right? Since she complains about her program being out to kill her on her story. To be honest, I’m surprised she didn’t realize you’ve been watching her stories.”

“I don’t think she checks who watches her story since she has over a few thousand followers.”

“She attracts people, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, she always has.”

“Can I see her profile again?”

“You’re not going to do something weird, right?”

“Ey, Jihoon-ah.”

“That makes me really not want to.”

“Ey.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes before pulling out his phone. He opened Instagram and clicked on the “Search” feature and saw your profile appear at the top without even needing to type anything. He signaled for Jeonghan to scoot down the couch so he could sit down and handle the phone in his own hands. Jeonghan peered over his shoulder as he scrolled through your profile.

“Oh, is that Japan?”

“Yeah.”

Jihoon clicked on your post.

But it wasn’t opening.

So, he clicked again. And then again.

And his phone decided to catch up with his thumb’s movements.

The once white heart was now red.

His grip loosened on the device of betrayal and it clattered to the ground. “Oh shit.”

Jeonghan bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. He placed his hand on Jihoon’s shoulder and squeezed slightly. “I’m sorry, but. This is karma for not letting me see her profile on my own.”

“Hyung. Hyung. What should I do?”

“Just unlike it? I’m pretty sure that Instagram doesn’t send a notification as long as you unlike it before she sees it.”

“How do you know?”

Jeonghan shrugged. “Jihoon. It’s not the end of the world if she happens to see it. If she blocks you, then you know, and you end up writing another heartbreak masterpiece—” Jihoon couldn’t even appreciate the comment. “—but. Who knows what’ll happen?”

“...”

“Uh. I’ll just… do it for you, then.”

Jeonghan picked up the phone, facing the screen towards Jihoon, the camera scanning his frozen features to unlock and Jeonghan tapped the red heart to empty it again. He placed the phone back on the younger man’s thigh, but Jihoon remained in the same position as earlier, eyes glazed.

“Jihoon-ah.”

“Hyung.”

“Let’s just wait, yeah? The food’s getting cold. So, let’s finish eating.”

“...Okay.”

──────────────────

Jihoon picked at the rice bowl in front of him, his mind light years away, chest filled with concern for the future. Was auditioning for a company worth it? Even if he started the process now, wouldn’t it still take a while to even hear back?

“Jihoonie.”

His heart constricted once he heard the voice of the person who made him unsure. He caught you blinking owlishly at him. “Y/N.”

“Hrmm. You seem quite a bit down, my friend. You’ve barely touched your first bowl of rice. It’s concerning.”

“Just thinking.”

“Oh, don’t do that. We know that usually ends badly for people.”

“Well, someone between the two of us has to have brain cells.”

“I pride myself in simultaneously never thinking and also being the top student of our school.”

“You work miracles, Y/N.”

“Hey, now I know you’re down because you didn’t call me a flipping nerd. Your best moods are usually accompanied by your worst words.”

“You make me seem like an asshole. You slander me to other people, don’t you?”

“Of course. I can’t have them know just how utterly wonderful and fantastic you are. I’d rather you have that butthole reputation if I get to keep my best friend all to myself. I’m a selfish lady, you know.”

Did you even know how much your words affected him?

“You’re neither selfish nor a lady.”

“Oh, but I am. I’m a selfish lady who’s only checking on you because I refuse to be wrought with worry for the rest of the day. So, come on, Jihoonie. Let’s go play darts.”

“Last time we played you almost stabbed my hand.”

“Your fault for reaching for the board when I was about to own you. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll make a pinky promise with you.”

Jihoon snorted. “Of what?”

“I promise to do whatever you want if you win.”

Jihoon scrunched up his nose in response. You were always so naive with him, trusting him wholly. But a part of him was grateful that you did. He merely sighed and stood up.

He might as well use your promise to his advantage.

──────────────────

“She didn’t block me.”

“Oh, really?” Jeonghan glanced up at Jihoon who suddenly broke the silence.

“Who’s she?” Soonyoung’s ears perked up.

“You know. His firefly,” Jeonghan replied.

“What? Why would she block you?” Seungkwan directed his question at Jihoon, who was simply trying to edit lyrics in his own studio, which was being occupied by several SEVENTEEN members.

“Jihoon accidentally liked one of her posts last night, but we unliked it. Oh, sorry. I unliked it because he was completely frozen.”

“The notification probably didn’t go through,” Seungkwan supplied. “I’m pretty sure unliking a post makes the notification go away.”

Jihoon had set his phone aside earlier in hopes of not constantly checking it. His mind may be unsteady, but he was always self-disciplined.

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Soonyoung glance down at his own phone screen that buzzed a second prior.

“Oh. Jihoon-ah, she liked one of your posts.”

Before his mind could even catch up, Jihoon flung himself to his phone, his self-discipline be damned. He frantically clicked on the notification and it redirected him to his Instagram page, where he saw your name among the list of likers. He wasn’t sure whether his heart was racing or whether it stopped completely because the buzzing in his ears overtook all of his other senses.

He even ignored the boys’ laughter around him.

“Is… Is social media actually facilitating real connection right now? Are we about to prove all of the ahjussi and ahjumma wrong? Are we about to witness history?”

“Seungkwan-ah.”

“Sorry, Jeonghan-hyung.”

“She… She didn’t block me. She saw me. What is this? What do I do? Do I just ignore it? Or should I let her know I saw it?”

Soonyoung snorted. “Yah, I’ve never seen Jihoon this nervous for any performance ever.”

“His heart’s probably racing more than it did the Golden Disc Awards.”

“WHAT DO I DO.”

“Jihoon-hyung,” Seungkwan started. “I think the first thing you need to do is breathe.”

So, he did. In. Out. In. Out.

After what seemed like years, Soonyoung spoke up. “So… Are you gonna message her?”

Jihoon sat in contemplation for a moment before he decidedly shook his head. “No. It’s time to write a song.”

Soonyoung’s eyebrows rose at that. “You’re gonna go back to work after all of this?”

Jihoon bit his lip. “No. This is gonna be a solo song.”

The corners of Jeonghan’s lips curled up at his dongsaeng. “I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.”

Jihoon nodded almost mindlessly.

Everything about her usually is.

──────────────────

“Jihoonie~ Wake up~”

He groaned loudly under the bed covers.

He heard you snicker, the only warning before you landed with a loud thump as he let out an “oof!” from beneath you.

“Get off me. You weigh like a million pounds.”

Rather than listening, you spread your limbs and trapped the adolescent boy beneath you, nuzzling further into the outer casing of his cocoon. “Nope. Just yesterday you yelled at me for not eating enough when you flung me off of the couch by accident because I stole the remote. So.”

“I’m suffocating. You’re killing your best friend.”

“Oh, but to die with a beautiful girl on top of you, isn’t that the way to go?”

There was a moment of silence where Jihoon contemplated catapulting your entire being off of his bed before, “Pretty sure that’s your dream, you damn pervert,” came his muffled reply.

“Huh. You might be right there.”

“Get! Off!”

His hand easily found your weak point between your first and second rib and you cried out as you toppled down onto his bedroom floor. He emerged from the confines of his sheets with hair sticking up every which way.

You grinned lazily up at his disheveled state and he glared right back at you. “Why are you in my bedroom?”

“Because your mom said to come and get you! We’re going to Muju today, remember? In time for the Firefly Festival!”

“Right. It’s your yearly family reunion.”

“Yes, I will become one with the bugs. My fursona will arise again. Or is it bugsona?”

“Is a buggy better than a furry?”

“You’re asking me to choose between two evils, my dear Jihoonie. Come on, get up. I’m excited to spend an entire weekend with our family.”

It was way too early for his mind to whirr as fast as it did at the simple implication of ‘our’. “Alright, firefly. Get out of my room so I can get ready.”

“Okay! I’ll go help Mama downstairs.”

You were committed to calling Jihoon’s mom as Mama instead of Eomma, as the latter held a tone for you that was nothing less than stressful.

Jihoon smiled at your joy, but stopped when he noticed you freeze in place. “...What?”

You shifted the weight in your feet before speaking. “Mm. Just had a thought. With a smile like yours, who would ever need the summertime?”

You grinned at him while his heart stopped. You always spoke without a care in the world; never carefully crafting your thoughts before speaking them aloud. You were spontaneous. Wild, even. Sometimes it ended with you in some kind of trouble, while other times, like this one, ended with him in trouble instead.

You scurried out of his room before he could respond.

He released a dragged out sigh as he felt his cheeks warm.

Forget summertime.

He wondered whether the earth could be sustained through all of the seasons at the sheer brilliance of your smile.

But he ought to thank the summertime.

Because it meant, every year, without fail, he would wake up to you, he would smell the breakfast you helped his mother cook, he would hop on a plane to travel to a different province and see the night sky alight with hundreds of fireflies, your face aglow with soft awe and wonder.

Yeah.

He needed the summertime.

──────────────────

“What? Jihoon-hyung is talking to the girl that just upped and left him and fled the country?”

“Chan-ah, your wording needs work,” Seungcheol chastised. The other members that were near enough to hear nodded, while others were distracted by their own activities.

Jihoon buried his face in his hands. “Eugh, I don’t even know anymore. It’s not like we’re actually talking; she just reliked one of my posts. It’s like, she went back and let me know that she saw me. But is that supposed to be a warning? Is it supposed to be a white flag?”

The youngest member of SEVENTEEN shrugged. “Hyung, I think that you’re putting a lot of meaning behind something that was just a small gesture.”

“Nah, Chan,” Seungcheol interjected. “Jihoon has been in love with this girl since he was a kid. This is more than just a small gesture, after what she did to him.”

Wonwoo spoke up. “Hey, don’t forget Jihoon was the one who left Busan first.”

The accused groaned.

“Wonwoo, you’re just biased towards her because you think that she and Jihoon would make a good couple and you believe in an ideal love.”

“Hyung, I just think that if Jihoon can write what he writes about her, there’s something there.”

“You romanticist.”

Wonwoo shrugged. “Jihoon-ah, I think you’ve tried to reach her with your words time and time again, but maybe it was never made clear that she was the one it was for. You mentioned that she really thought you were in love with your noona—” Jihoon grimaced at the memory. “—so, maybe she’s just unaware.”

“She can’t be that oblivious,” Soonyoung interrupted. Jihoon knew Soonyoung was almost fiercely protective over him because he was the one who witnessed Jihoon’s aftermath firsthand. Soonyoung may be over-the-top some days, but whenever Jihoon needed it, he would help ground him.

Wonwoo’s eyes flicked between the two of his fellow 96ers. “We were all kids once, Soonyoung. We were all so focused on ourselves we couldn’t really see what was happening around us.”

Soonyoung pursed his lips. “...I guess. Jihoon, what do you think?”

Jihoon stared at his hands. “Does it matter whether she knew back then or not?”

They all collectively raised a brow.

“Whattaya mean?” Seungcheol asked.

“I can make a ton of assumptions about her. That she was actually in love with me and was scared. That she was rejecting me in her own cruel, yet kind, way. That she had no idea and the timing was just completely off. But all of that, I don’t actually know. All I do know is that… I want to see her. And not just from afar anymore. But part of me also hates her. But all of me misses her. I don’t know. I guess I’m just too stupid to figure this out.”

A heavy silence passed over the group.

Soonyoung broke it. “If you’re stupid, then I’m the biggest idiot on this planet.”

“That’s not comforting, that’s just a fact.”

“Hoon, you wound me.”

──────────────────

Award shows were weird.

At first, everything was an out-of-body experience for him and could barely process what was happening. He even couldn’t believe that he and his twelve members managed to earn their matching pinky rings and the right to produce and perform, let alone be nominated for an award. When they went on the stage, they did their best to be as refreshing of idols as they could be.

But it was much more daunting than they were used to.

Their debut year went by, and although there were many nominations, they remained only that.

In middle school, he would often tell you that you had a strange fixation on being number one in your graduating class. He said that he didn’t get it, that being in the top 5 was already something that was admirable.

He would never forget the look you gave him when you said, “One day, you’ll know what it’s like. You’ll know what it’s like to almost have something and then not. It’s the kind of feeling that eats away at you, Jihoon. The feeling of, ‘But what if I did more?’”

He merely rolled his eyes and called you dramatic.

That is, until he experienced it firsthand.

The first time ever was when he was doing a music competition for clarinet and compared himself to his bandmate, who received several achievements while Jihoon found that he simply didn’t have the body to be able to hold the same lung capacity.

Then he felt it: that driving force.

You both pushed yourselves further, to higher heights.

And it ended with him sick and bedridden.

And you, heartbroken and unsure of life.

The two of you would reprimand each other for trying too hard, but even with accountability, that envy, that desire for an indisputable win, that fear of failure, would still sneak its way into you both. You, with your academics. Him, with his musical endeavors.

For several years after their debut, at award shows, Jihoon would clap, the rhythmic beating of his hands echoing that in his chest, his smile lined with bitterness, his ears rang with the whispered voices.

‘Those people didn’t deserve it. You worked so much harder. These people don’t even produce their own music. Or maybe it’s because they have real producers and composers, unlike you. Who are you to think you deserve that award?’

One night, after another show of no wins, he collapsed onto his bed, unlocking his phone, intent on watching an anime episode before falling asleep. His members were discouraged and no one wanted to discuss what more they could even do.

Even if they did everything right, maybe it still would never be good enough.

When he opened up the YouTube app on his phone, he saw a recommended video. Your name written out in English caught his eye and he realized it was Part II of a podcast you had done with the channel before. It was a Korean-American podcast and you would share your experiences in the Korean language, connecting with your culture despite being in a foreign country.

Before he could think about what he was doing, he clicked on it, hoping to find comfort in a person he always had, in someone he probably always would.

Several minutes in and he realized just how thick that red string must be between the two of you.

“You know, I thought I undid a lot of my perfectionism before coming to college. Korea is the birthplace of comparison and pressure, I’m sure of it. It was ingrained into me from childhood. So, I did what I could. I got out. Learned to broaden my horizons. But when you attend a school like Yale, your environment really just kinda forces you to be perfect just so that you can survive. Because if you’re not, then you’re cut.”

He thought back to his trainee days.

To his current days.

How similar.

“I remember being at an event where we were being presented awards for our achievements. I remember that I was in the running for one of them, and I won’t say which one so this doesn’t come back to bite me. But at this one event, I remember no other guests were invited, only the nominees and peers in the same field. And when they announced the winner, everyone applauded, of course. However, I won’t ever forget the sight that I saw.”

You chewed on your lips, gazing upward trying to find the right words to say, a habit you’ve had for years.

“The winner had the biggest grin on their face, proud of themselves, as they are allowed to be. But when they turned back to the crowd? I think they saw something. I think they saw that our smiles were forced, that we were judging them, judging ourselves, trying to determine whether they actually deserved the recognition or whether we should have been the ones to win. And… their smile faltered. It was quick, but it was noticeable. And I think the only reason why it even faltered was because it was only those of us who were nominated or could have been. Like, it’s easy to cheer on someone for a prize that you didn’t want, but as soon as you have stakes in the game? Well. That’s a whole different story. But when they lost that smile, it felt like something shattered.”

Your eyes welled up with tears, but they didn’t fall.

“They say it’s lonely at the top. I haven’t been there in a long time, but. I don’t even know if that’s where I want to be. These people have done super cool things, and who’s to say that I would’ve gotten the same results if I had tried? And maybe, maybe they have enough competitors. Maybe they need someone who celebrates them. Someone who knows the hardships of working in this field. And maybe that’s what I can do. I just want to do what I love and what I love doing is social work. Celebrating other people. Learning their stories. Not saving the world, but trying to make it into one that might be worth saving. If I happen to get recognized because of doing those things and they give some kind of trophy for it, then alright. But that’s just a byproduct of the greatest award I’ve already given myself, which is just letting myself do what I love.”

And those were words he carried with him as he went to bed that night. 

When they won their first award. Their first Bonsang. Their first Daesang.

Award shows were weird.

It was all about performance.

Performing on stage, prepped through sound-check, clean-cut choreography, and pre-recorded live vocals to grab the audience’s attention.

Performing when at their designated table, giving reactions at a timely rate for both the fancams and large screen cameras.

Performing when behind the stage, being the best hoobae or sunbae they needed to be, adapting to whatever situation they may be placed in.

He knew how to perform. He was good at it.

It was why he’s in this industry.

But there are some things that don’t warrant worrying about an audience.

As he watched the seven members of BTS walk towards the stage, reaching for their Daesang. He clapped to match the rhythm in his chest, sure and steady, at ease. His smile, genuine and wide. The voice in his head, not unlike yours mixed with his own, provided gentle comfort.

‘They deserved it. They worked hard, just like you did. Their ability to collaborate with other musicians is astounding. It would be an honor to work with them. And you, too, have won, you’ve given yourself the greatest award by continuing to do what you love.’

──────────────────

Jihoon once again found himself at the recording studio, however, at a more reasonable time. He was trying to finalize all of the details on the songs for their comeback album, so he was spending his days in the recording studio and ending it in the dance studio, fully exhausted to where he would only have enough energy to shower and trudge back to his bedroom, just to pass out on his bed.

He heard the door to his room open but didn’t make an effort to turn around.

“How’s the song coming along?”

“The album is nearly complete—”

“No, the solo one.”

Jihoon finally glanced up at Seungcheol who now stood beside him. “I haven’t had as much time to work on it. Why?”

“No, I just wanted to check in with you.”

“You’re a good leader, hyung,” he said quietly.

Seungcheol clicked his tongue. “Of course, I am. But I’m mostly just curious because you’ve never written a song about her specifically that only had you singing it.”

“…that’s not true.”

“What? Which one?”

“The first song I ever wrote.”

“Oh what? What was it?”

Jihoon shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s an old song that I think only I remember anyway, plus, I only had vocals at the time. No instruments or anything.”

“…huh. What was it about?”

──────────────────

You wiped your snot away from your face, unable to differentiate between mucus and tears. Your unrelenting sobs weakened to light shudders.

His voice carried from above you, his hand entangled in your messy knots as he rubbed soothing circles against your temple. You curled yourself further into the tear-stained pillow he so lovingly dubbed, “Y/N’s Breakdown Headrest” which also doubled as “Y/N’s Punching Bag” when your emotions were forged from fire and not a dam that couldn’t hold anymore of the taunts and cruelty from your own parents.

His thigh was a mere hair’s breadth away from grazing the top of your head. He had a tendency to bounce his leg, one you continuously called him out on, but he wouldn’t ever stop his bad habit.

That is, unless you needed him to.

And he always gave you what you needed.

So, he sang to you a song of hopes and dreams and the magic of forever and always. Lyrics of never-ending friendship and pinky promises.

──────────────────

Jihoon paused, wondering how you comforted yourself now, wondering if you now had a Breakdown Headrest 2.0, before he spoke again. “It’s about what all the songs I write are about. Love. Although, more lowkey, not as direct.”

“Love and her are synonymous to you, aren’t they?”

“She’s the one who taught me most of it,” Jihoon said nonchalantly. “A truly honest and genuine form of it.”

“Wow, how romantic of you,” Seungcheol laughed.

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “I’m letting you know I only have the patience to tolerate all of you guys because of her. She believes it’s her divine mission to be as annoying as possible.”

“She sounds terrifying.”

“Yeah, she’s taught me how to be patient and remain calm. But she was also incredibly patient with me. Honestly, it feels like all the things that make me likable are all from her.”

Seungcheol made a “oOooOooOOOooOOooo~” noise before Jihoon got fed up and kicked him out. Of course, his reprieve was short lived as more and more members flocked into his room, a constant moving traffic of his twelve brothers.

He imagined you meeting them.

With Seungcheol, you would probably tease him relentlessly, trying to come up with new names for the S. Coups game, while also thanking him for being so protective and steadfast, praising him for his taste in emo music and asking him to sing My Chemical Romance with you.

With Jeonghan, you both would sneak off to devise plans on how to create chaotic dynamics in between the members and cause more infighting while eating stolen snacks or spend hours just sitting around, doing fuck all, because why not.

With Jisoo, you both would speak in English (with you affectionately calling him by his English name “Joshua!”), sharing music as well as probably arguing between Los Angeles and New York, since that was a common feud topic Jisoo brought up.

With Jun, you would try to get as many reactions out of him as possible or get him to write down the list of all of the authentic Chinese restaurants around Korea or you would sit with him at a piano and watch as he played OSTs to Chinese dramas, applauding all the while starry-eyed.

With Soonyoung, you both would either be each other’s soulmates or the banes of each others’ existence, both fiery and passionate; however, you were always good at matching the energies of those around you, so you would let him ebb and flow while you merely followed, likely to call him, “Hoshingi,” just as Jeonghan does, and you would probably love caring for him the same way you did with elementary school students.

With Wonwoo, you would watch him play his PC games, probably in awe of his prowess or you would discuss lyricism and poetry, both exchanging flowery words for no reason as you would try to pick his brain as to what really lies beneath the surface, whether he truly is as straightforward as he seems, and be intensely satisfied that he simply is as he is.

With Seokmin, likely to sweetly call him “DK~”, you would ask him to sing for you since you loved Broadway style voices, and since you both were so generous with your kindness, there would be no doubt that the two of you would somehow manage to start up a non-profit that manages to eradicate all the bad in the world.

With Mingyu, you would discuss filming and the latest movies to watch and you would ask him how he finds the motivation to do many different hobbies at once especially when busy with being an idol; you would probably try to trick him into listening to you tell ghost stories as if they happened to you.

With Minghao, you would share your favorite poets and philosophical ideas, sharing the life lessons that you two have learned and realized you managed to hack life’s code at a younger age than most, you both realized the real importance of being alive: contentment and love.

With Seungkwan, you would probably be laughing so hard at his wit that you wouldn’t have much time to breathe, you would try to figure out how exactly he managed to memorize so much information surrounding K-Pop and why exactly he was so passionate about it or if neither of those, you would ask him if he could get you the plug for those Jeju hallabong oranges.

With Hansol, you would call him “Vernonz,” since you loved names that began with the letters V and Z, and ask him about his parents once you found out they were both artists, and you two would definitely discuss the effects of late-stage capitalism and social media on humanity.

With Chan, you would do your best not to baby him, but you hold a lot of fondness for those younger than you, you would try to figure out how he is so particular about his attention to detail and whether it is something that is pressuring him (and if there was some way you could alleviate it).

He imagined you there, integrated into his life again. He imagined you showing authentic interest in every one of his precious members, unlike most interviewers they would be forced to interact with every comeback. You would learn all of their names, find out their favorite foods, the best way to make everyone collectively laugh, and ultimately, how to help all of them feel comfortable around you and inevitably love you.

And once they did, he could say that his most beloved people were finally all together.

He fell in love with you, but you’re the one who taught him how to walk into it with his eyes wide open. So, he did it with his members. It took practice, having to actively choose them. With you, it may have always been a choice, but it was as natural as breathing, even if there were times he felt like he was being suffocated (or wanted to suffocate you).

He remembered the first time he became aware of it. Most people talk about how love comes, there was always talk about rose-tinted glasses and how it softened the world around them, unable to forget the brilliant smile on their face, but no. You always shattered expectations.

From anyone else’s standards, his realization came at an inopportune time. But it was so clear. It wasn’t as though you had sparkles around you as you emitted a warm glow, it wasn’t as though your hair was perfectly touched up with no strand out of place, it wasn’t as though you were perfectly dolled-up with eyes lined and lips colored. No. It was just… you.

And that's when he knew.

Because there was no filter to block the sheer clarity he was hit with when he finally accepted he was in love with you.

──────────────────

When Jihoon saw your crying form, a slurry of words filled with concern and instructions were the only thing leaving his mouth as he packed his things up. He only deviated once he gave a quick farewell to his noona who left with her dad.

Jihoon bit his lip. Would you be okay? Maybe he’ll just rush home now and shower then call you later at night. Or maybe he should go prepare his bedroom if you decide to visit. Yes. He should do that.

Jihoon turned on his heel to make his way back home, his newfound mission resounding in his mind.

However, your cousin’s voice reached his ears, “Wait—Jihoon, I can give you a ride.”

He looked back at him, saw the way your shoulders still trembled, and shook his head firmly. His fist clenched, the baseball preventing his nails from biting into his palms. He spun it once. Twice. And up into the air.

“Here, firefly.”

You caught it by instinct.

Your gaze met his.

He felt his heart ache at the sheer brokenness apparent in your eyes, rimmed with red and puffed skin. He grit his teeth. He hasn’t seen you cry this hard since the day your parents told you that your number two class ranking was nothing to be proud of and that they expected more from you.

His jaw clenched so hard, he heard an audible bite.

“Why are you giving me this?”

Your voice sounded so soft, like a child. A visceral instinct within him wanting to lull you into a peaceful rest with a lullaby.

But he wouldn’t do that.

Because that would be embarrassing.

(That was a future Jihoon problem.)

“It’s your win today.”

He much preferred the look of confusion on your face to the look of agony you held just a few moments ago.

“Huh?”

He swallowed thickly, his brain unable to keep up with the words tumbling from his mouth. “Even when you feel like you’ve lost, even when you feel like you have nothing to gain, just the fact that you’re still here, that’s a win. So. Scream. Cry. You can do what you want. It’s your win.”

Your gaze trailed down to the baseball, too large to wrap your fingers around entirely. It was probably much denser than you thought it would be, the weight foreign in your hands, unlike his.

You sniffled.

A soft smile formed on your lips.

And Jihoon realized he preferred that look on your face than any other he’s seen.

Pretty.

He rapidly turned on his heel before he even gave a second to try and unpack that thought.

The weight of his baseball gear was really doing a number on his heart, he realized belatedly.

That night, he didn’t prepare his room. He didn’t even call you.

(Not that you reached out.)

He merely stared up at his ceiling, his heart in a constant flux of rapidly beating or stopping completely.

He groaned loudly as he played through the day’s earlier events, thinking himself stupid for giving you a fucking baseball. You don’t even like sports. Did he think he sounded cool when he said all of that cringey stuff?

It’s your win?

But despite the feeling of wanting to curl in on himself, he couldn’t help but still agree with his earlier self.

You did win his heart, after all.

(He threw his pillow at the wall.)

──────────────────

“You’ve been liking her posts more easily.”

Jihoon merely grunted as he tapped away at his computer, Soonyoung on the couch beside him. “I decided to just… stop overthinking. Well, more like just stop thinking in general. I’m too tired to try and pretend I’m smarter than I actually am.”

Soonyoung raised an eyebrow. “You got it bad for her.”

Jihoon glared at him, who was scrolling through his (Jihoon’s) phone. “Be careful what you say. For the amount of songs that are about her, she covers basically 60% of your salary.”

Soonyoung laughed. “Guess I owe her a lot, huh? If she didn’t up and leave, you wouldn’t have come here and we would’ve never met. So, I guess I’m grateful to her. Plus. She’s cute.”

“She’s more than that.”

“Yeah. I can tell,” Soonyoung went quiet for a moment. “She… A part of me really doesn’t want to trust her. I keep remembering that day, you know. Where you just… didn’t seem like yourself. Barely there—” Jihoon cringed at the recalled memory. “—but she also just seems so genuine that it makes it hard. I want to be your bro, you know? Bro code and all—”

“I never asked you to do that.”

“—And I’m nothing if not a bro. But I don’t think you’re the type of person to be hung up on someone who’s not trustworthy. Like. You lose interest in people easily if you don’t see them on a regular basis. But her? It’s been years, bro.”

“Okay, bro.”

“Just letting you know I support you in your decisions,” Soonyoung stated, but there was an edge to his voice that sounded as though he was trying to convince himself more than Jihoon. “If she’s really who you say she is. If she’s the one who’s captured that stubborn heart of yours. Then I’ll do everything I can to help you out—Oh, she posted again. Wow. She posts often and yet still gets over a thousand likes. It hasn’t even been a day. Oh wow!”

Jihoon twitched but tried not to show his eagerness. “What?”

“They’re doing a donation drive for the group home that she works with. Ey, how can someone who does volunteer work to help kids and teens be a bad person? Jihoon, are you kidding me?”

“Young-ah, you’re the one who said it, not me—”

“So close-minded, Hoon.”

Jihoon rolled his computer chair over to Soonyoung, snatched his phone back, and smacked the annoying gnat’s hand in the process. Soonyoung yelped in pain, but laughed it off. He saw your post (noticed that Soonyoung ‘liked it for him’) and a figurative lightbulb lit up over his overworked head.

“This looks like something Bumzu-hyung would post on his story. Maybe I can ask him to share it. Oh, but this is her private page. Oh wait. She tagged the group home.”

“Thanks for the play-by-play.”

Jihoon ignored him and clicked the profile to see they had the exact same e-flyer post. But he knew that you’d probably notice there was an influx of donations (hardly anything got by you) and he didn’t want to bombard you with unsolicited help.

But it’s for a good cause!

But he might be trespassing on her territory.

Everyone cares about youth and kids!

This group home wouldn’t have even caught his eye had it not been for you.

He groaned inwardly. “I don’t know whether I should ask Bumzu to reshare or what—”

“Dude, just ask her if you can share it and then wait for her reply. It’s not like there’s only a one day donation thing.”

Jihoon blinked at Soonyoung. “You’re right.”

Soonyoung immediately sat up straighter, pulling out his own phone from his pocket. He opened up his voice memo app. “Say that again, I need to record that so I can set it as my ringtone.”

Soonyoung pressed the Record button, extended his phone receiver to Jihoon, who leaned in promptly and said:

“Fuck off, Kwon Soonyoung.”

──────────────────

“Kwon Soonyoung, what the hell are you doing?”

“What do you mean? It’s not like I planned this.”

Jihoon glared at the boy before him who was somehow wearing matching clothes again. He specifically came home after rehearsal to change into something different and yet, here he was, matching with this endless energy ball. Jihoon specifically changed out of his all-black garment to choose a long, plain blue button-down overshirt and ripped, dark jeans. Something different from his usual style of a t-shirt and shorts.

Yet, there Soonyoung was, in nearly the same outfit, minus the overshirt being a blue flannel.

“I think this just means that we’re soulmates, Jihoon-ah.”

Jihoon pulled back his fist as if to hit Soonyoung, but the latter didn’t flinch at all, only laughed at the expense of his friend. The other members were downstairs waiting for them so Jihoon didn’t have enough time to change out of the outfit. And it felt almost ridiculous to give this more attention than it deserves, as if he was losing by admitting that it bothered him to the point of needing to change clothes.

But Kwon Soonyoung, the man that he was, would not let him live it down.

“Wow, we look like a couple. We should go on dates, huh? Get some sushi or–ack!”

The shorter of the two pressed his foot against the back of the other’s knee and Soonyoung nearly came crashing down had it not been for his instincts to catch himself.

Jihoon huffed down the stairs, shaking his head at the situation and readying himself to be made fun of by his members. Once he got through that door, it was game over.

And he was right.

Seungkwan, Mingyu, and Dino were the ones who rallied the rest of the group to heckle, which only added insult to injury, as those three were the ones who had the longest rap sheet to make fun of. Jihoon kept his disgusted face on as Soonyoung wrapped his arms around his shoulders, announcing to (what seemed like) the world about how he’s ‘matching with his best friend.’

Jihoon came back with a slew of half-hearted insults at the rest of his members, but they unfortunately outnumbered him. He is rarely on the receiving end of this level of teasing, but he was dragged into it thanks to Soonyoung, who was eating it up.

Even in the midst of it all, Jihoon couldn’t help but feel thankful that he even had someone to accidentally match with who would wear it with such pride and not shy away from it. Sure, it might seem dumb and annoying, but it reminded him that he could have that kind of playful relationship with others outside of you. He had other friends in school or at baseball, sure, but none were as comfortable, as relentlessly fun. He thought there would never be another you.

And there never was, but that feeling of acceptance, of joy, of gratitude.

He was able to find it outside of you.

Which was a heartbreaking realization before, but now he only hopes you’ve done the same.

And mere hours after his own outfit debacle, Jihoon sees your instagram story to find you accidentally matching with Hyejin, her making the same face that he did not too long ago. But you had a shit-eating grin, no doubt proud of causing a disruption in your friend’s life.

Your caption read: “oh, you and your soulmate are tied by a single, red thread? that’s nothing compared to the matching threads we got on right now. eat your heart out, makoto shinkai.”

Beneath it in smaller letters: “if you can’t tell by her face, this was not planned at all, but man, am i really rolling with it.”

Jihoon snorted at the serendipity of it all.

Perhaps the string of fate really isn’t just a single thread.

──────────────────

It was a rare day in which Jihoon found himself at home.

Which meant he had a lot of time to think about you.

(You replied to him. He shouldn’t have been so surprised. But he was, pleasantly so. Of course, it included a thumbs up emoji which was the visual manifestation of the acquaintance zone, but he would take what he could get.)

Album preparations were underway, and although there is a part of him that feels as though he should be scrambling, especially as their anniversary date was literally tomorrow, he thought back to a voice from his youth.

Years ago, he laid in his childhood bed, struck with a nasty fever from pushing his immune system too far by attempting to balance school and various music competitions. There was a half-asleep you, exhausted by misplaced guilt, with your fingers intertwined with his, who said: Jihoonie, Koreans always say ‘fighting’. I told you that this morning, and I knew you weren’t feeling well. I could’ve stopped you. And now here you are. I said ‘fighting,’ but why? Why do we have to fight? Life isn’t a battle to win. You don’t have to overcome anything, okay? You can just lay here and be with me. Please don’t get sick again. Please remember to rest. Some days, it’s okay to just be.

So, here he was. Simply being.

Whenever massive events (like SEVENTEEN’s six year anniversary) happened, he made sure to spend the 24 hours prior doing nothing than just being, to gain enough energy to last the following day.

Otherwise, the nagging guilt would get to him.

You were always weaving stories with even the thinnest of threads. Your knack for adding dramatic flair, amping it up to eleven, was a nightmare sometimes. For example, when he got sick and you kept repeating that you should’ve said something instead of letting him go on stage only to nearly faint afterwards. You took on too much responsibility for things outside of your control, which only caused you to lose your grip on what you actually could.

His chest tightened at the thought of you losing your grip completely. There were very few things in life that terrified him, but you potentially ending yours was one that plagued him until he learned how to remain steady when you were feeling unsure, and even still, it tore him up inside. But he knew that it wasn’t his battle to face; he wasn’t meant to save you. You reminded him of that time and time again, so instead, he learned how to let you live the life you weren’t sure you wanted. He observed warily.

As a teenager, he knew just how bad these thoughts could get for people at that age. He knew how people fell prey to the lies that they were unworthy of life and love.

So, he simply tried to be as honest as possible. He would do his best to not invalidate your experience, but he refused to enable those insidious feelings. He would come off as abrasive, he was sure, but your ability to detect bullshit was like no other. Your parents had a big hand in that. So, instead, he was truthful in his own way, in his own language, one that you learned to understand.

A few years ago, you did a two-part YouTube podcast at Yale. The first one was released a couple of months prior to the second, and he’s sure at least one hundred of the views are from SEVENTEEN (not all him, his members also took away a lot from your words).

He listened to that podcast time and time again. He heard the life in your voice, the curiosity of the future outweighing the pain of the past. You said that life was, at first, a means to be with the people you loved. But you slowly came to believe that life was something that you would choose to love every single day, and so you did.

He hoped that you still did, but trusted that, if there were days that would come where you did not, you would reach out to someone to wait with you until the storm passed and you could choose to love again.

His chest filled with pride thinking about how far you’ve come.

But he couldn’t help but wish there were some things that remained from back then.

That glimmer of hope spurred him to become mindful of the object he was fiddling with in his hands. He held up a bracelet of years ago, hardly worn by time or by him. He wasn’t sure whether he was still allowed to. It was one-half of a pair, but if its partner no longer existed, then.

However, he never had the desire to throw it away.

The metal charms felt both foreign and at home in his hands as he fiddled with them, the faint clicking sound of the chain barely registering as his mind was in an entirely different place. His eyes focused once again on the charm of the sun caught between his fingers.

If only catching you was as simple, he mused.

Jihoon sighed and covered his eyes, desperately trying not to cringe at his internal monologue, habitually reaching for the Chopper plushie that you gifted him years ago, squeezing the body to diffuse the embarrassment he felt.

He remembered when he saw the charms at some random shop he heard about from others and thought you would enjoy, so he decided to scope it out in advance for the two of you. It was easy, on his way home after spending a few hours on his own to rehearse his clarinet, a regular occurrence.

Although there was no doubt the two of you gravitated towards each other, you both valued your independence and alone time.

──────────────────

“We’re giving us the chance to miss each other, Jihoonie.”

“Who said I’d ever miss you?”

“Well, gosh darn. Guess I’ll cover for you and miss you twice as much.”

“…You’re dumb.”

“Yes. Can I have some of your fries?”

──────────────────

He retaliated by taking the ketchup bottle and squeezing them all over the tray of fries and you immediately retracted, believing that fries should be dipped in its respective sauce (unless they were loaded fries, of course, which warranted using a utensil of sorts).

He chuckled to himself. Fifteen was one of the most turbulent years of his life, but there were plenty of moments (like fries drowning in ketchup) that reminded him it wasn’t all intense.

Your fifteenth year started off with that charm bracelet.

Two weeks before then, you were so moody that he nearly gave you your birthday gift earlier than he intended, just so he wouldn’t have to see you be so upset (for which, he has only a vague remembrance of what could have made you so upset). Of course, it might have been easier if he had simply brought up his concern and asked how you were, but he knew you would have brushed it off as nothing.

He paused.

Did he know that though?

Or did he just assume?

He clicked his tongue, annoyed at his own self-reflection.

Communication was easy in theory.

Application, however.

He often found it difficult, matching your pace.

You were always so quick.

Quick-witted. 

Quick to anger.

Quick to assume.

Quick to run away.

He heard a soft knock at his bedroom door (which meant it wasn’t Mingyu or Soonyoung) and he grunted in response. The door slowly opened (that ruled out Seungcheol and Chan) and revealed who decided to greet him in such a manner.

Ah, he was right.

“Woozingi~”

“Jeonghan-hyung.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Jeonghan moved to sit at the edge of Jihoon’s bed, with his legs crossed. “The members are wanting to get dinner tonight altogether since we have a schedule tomorrow. The staff said they’ll pay since it’s our six years.”

This had Jihoon propping himself upright. “Barbecue?”

Jeonghan snickered. “Yeah, it’ll be good to get ready in a few hours. But I just wanted to stop by and tell you in person since I know you like to mute the group chat.”

“That’s because it’s constantly going off,” Jihoon grumbled.

“Yes, that happens when people are trying to have a conversation, Jihoon-ah. You should try it sometimes. Especially since it sounds like you have communication issues.”

Jihoon winced. “Hyung. Your timing is terrible.”

“No, it’s impeccable. Just not for you. Anyway, a word of advice.”

“Hm.”

“You don’t have to fear rejection anymore,” Jeonghan started, slowly, the words seeming almost foreign in his mouth. “Regardless of what happens with her, you have people in your life that care about you as you are. You don’t have to try and match her. I don’t want you to subconsciously fall back into a habit of appeasing her because you’re afraid of scaring her away again.”

Jihoon blinked slowly. “I wasn’t expecting actual advice, so I’m a little stunned right now.”

Jeonghan chuckled. “I’m gonna be honest. The other members told me to come talk to you because the rest are either too scared or don’t know what to say.”

“Hah, we’re back to our trainee days, huh?”

Jeonghan grinned, probably recalling the amount of times that he was the emotional support pillar of the boys before they each learned to open up to each other. “Speaking of, I remember when I first met you. You were a teen with a cold-hearted exterior and a lot of opinions as well as the weight of the world on your shoulders. You had the responsibility to carry the music of twelve other guys and you had just lost something that was precious to you. You threw yourself into your work and that became your identity.”

“I—”

“I know you’re not that way anymore, but I’m just reminding you that, no matter what happens with her, no matter how she may respond, you aren’t that cold teenager who had to bear the weight all on your own. You’ve grown and are surrounded by people who can help ease the load.” Jeonghan paused for a moment. “Also, if I could think of a member who laughs easily at anything, you are one of the first that comes to mind. So, it concerns me that you haven’t been laughing lately, even when Mingyu accidentally sneezed out his ramyeon noodles—“ Jihoon snorted at the memory from last night. “—and, if I can assume anything about her, I don’t think she’d be very honored to know that it’s because of her. So. Come back to us, Jihoon. If she’s really meant to be in your life, she can match your rhythm. Don’t leave us in the dust.”

“Is this a long-winded way of saying ‘bros before hoes’?”

Jeonghan burst into laughter. “Maybe so!”

──────────────────

“Our Jihoonie~”

The teenage boy grunted in response, shooting up a look at one of the older members. “Is there something that you need, hyung?”

“You speak so formally, it’s off-putting.”

“That’s because someone refuses to act his age.”

“What a tough Busan guy,” Jeonghan teased.

Jihoon’s face twitched.

“Bumzu-hyung is looking for you. Said he wanted to finish up some more lessons.”

“Agh. I knew he was going to have criticisms. I’m barely getting a grip on this music production stuff, so I don’t even know if what I’m making is good enough to sell. Everyone might hate it.”

“Even if everyone else hates your music, just know I’m one of your biggest fans.”

“...If my music is hated, then we won’t make any money, which means you’ll be poor. What? Is it your dream to become poor?”

Jihoon expected Jeonghan to laugh and tell him that he was right and that money mattered. But instead, Jeonghan replied, “Jihoon. Your music is good. And if we don’t make money because other people aren’t able to see it. Then what’s the point? You say that it’s your responsibility as to whether SEVENTEEN succeeds or not, but, we’re thirteen members. Three units. One team. We’re SEVENTEEN. Stop acting like it’s all about you. Maybe my dream used to be becoming rich. But now, it’s just doing this. With all of us.”

──────────────────

Jihoon stared at his hands, at the charm bracelet. “Is it selfish to want this life and her as well?”

“Maybe it is. But, so what if you’re selfish?”

“Isn’t being selfish supposed to be a bad thing?”

“Just hope that she’s as selfish as you are,” Jeonghan shrugged. “By wanting her in your life, does that mean you want to be with her romantically?”

Jihoon paused. “You know, I’m not sure. I think I would be over the moon if we could even just be a part of each other’s lives. To have that line of communication open. But as the people that we are now. I think I’d like to meet the new Y/N. She probably has more in common with the new Lee Jihoon than the old her anyway.”

“You two have grown apart, aren’t you worried?”

Jihoon went silent for a moment, trying to pick out the right words. “Rather than grown apart, it feels like we’ve simply grown in separate spaces, by taking different routes, but our lives seem too intertwined for our paths to never cross again. Plus, she’s one of the few people that I could really be myself around. It’d be nice to have another safe space like that outside of SEVENTEEN because who else can I complain about you all to, that wouldn’t cause conflict between us?”

“Ay. What is there to complain about?”

Jihoon gave his hyung a pointed look.

“Alright, alright,” Jeonghan started. “But be honest. Real talk. You really think she wouldn’t spread it to Dispatch?”

“She has always valued people’s stories more than anything, so it really annoyed her when other people would take out-of-context excerpts and twist them. So. That’s how I know she wouldn’t spread it. Also, if she was that kind of person, she would’ve done so by now. She has a ton of blackmail material on me.”

Jeonghan chuckled. “Interesting. You said she likes stories, so is she a writer like you?”

“Not in the traditional sense. She’s more of a speaker than a writer. In high school, of course, she had her awkward moments like everybody else did, but even then, she was a tier above the rest. I don’t know how to say this kindly, but she doesn’t really think before she talks, but she doesn’t usually have to because what comes out is almost always what she intended.”

“So, she must be eloquent then.”

Jihoon clicked his tongue. “Just because things come out as she intended doesn’t mean she wouldn’t intentionally be mean or annoying.”

──────────────────

“You like unnie, don’t you?”

Jihoon spluttered. Shit, shit, shit. He tried to gather his thoughts, but failed. He wasn’t good with spontaneous spoken words, that was always your realm of expertise. He needed time to think of the right thing to say, but you never waited for him. “F-Firefly, I—”

You barked out a laugh, and he nearly retaliated at the harshness. He wasn’t sure why exactly you were being so harsh. “Hey, it’s fine. I don’t blame you. She’s pretty high up there, above us mortals. From now on, I’ll do my best to help you out, yeah? That’s what best friends are for. Plus, you’re like family, like a brother to me, so.”

Jihoon sank back.

Family? Brother?

He wondered why that left a bitter taste in his mouth. But that didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t being called family the highest praise?

So why the hell did that piss him off?

Instead of speaking his actual thoughts, his mouth had a mind of its own. “I can handle myself, Y/N.”

You sneered at him.

God, you were so infuriating sometimes. 

She wasn’t like that.

She was the soothing waves of Busan, ebb and flow, constant and expected. She was everything you weren’t. She was older, more experienced, graceful, calm, soothing.

She was beautiful.

But she didn’t have that burning fire you did. Didn’t have him reacting the way you managed to every time you opened your damn mouth or rolled your eyes—there you went again!

What the hell was wrong with you?

Rapid escalation, raised voices. You, accusing him of not trusting your judgment and hiding his crush from you, saying that you wished he trusted you. Him, arguing that he didn’t need to share every little thing, that it wasn’t about his trust for you at all, and that God, he did! He did trust you! Of course, he did!

So, why didn’t he tell you about the stupid crush?

It wasn’t that deep, but you were convinced it was, and he was too tired to even try and correct you. So, sure, he could be “in love” with his noona, like you believed. Because then he wouldn’t have to untangle the mess in his chest. He could shove it under the rug like he always had, always would.

You slammed your fists down onto the table before you walked away from him, in a rampage. Like a damn wildfire trying to clear everything in sight.

You were a volatile thing, explosive, even.

But.

You fizzled out just as fast.

He awoke around midnight to the soft knocking at his window, your silhouette perched on the thickest branch the tree outside his childhood home had to offer. He had half a mind to not open the glass pane but he saw you shiver and his body leaped out of bed without a second thought.

“I’m sorry, Jihoonie,” you said, a few moments after you clambered into his room.

“Okay.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for being friends with me anyway.”

“Sure.”

So, he wrapped your favorite blanket around you, the one he kept in his room for nights like this. Color slowly returned to your face and he saw the stains of tears on your cheek in the moonlight. You muttered words of apologies and told him about your day, not having the chance to earlier.

You were better like this, quiet, but not silent. Like a crackling fireplace beckoning all to come and listen, to be enveloped in warmth and light.

He never once called you his family.

But he’d be damned if you weren’t his home.

──────────────────

“Funny enough, despite the fact that she’s more of a speaker than a writer, even more than that, she’s a listener. She listens to more stories than she tells them. I think that’s helped with her pride. If she knew she messed up, she would always apologize, even if she hated doing it.”

“Well, that’s one lesson you haven’t learned from her yet.”

Jihoon pulled a face and Jeonghan laughed in response. The older of the two snatched away the Chopper on the opposite end and started throwing the doll up and down.

“Alright, lover boy. What I got from this conversation is that you’re still in love with her, but you gotta make sure she’s worthy of your love, alright? Heed my warning, don’t be afraid of being rejected by her. It’s already happened anyway, and here you are: world-star idol with twelve bros behind you no matter what.”

Jihoon cracked a smile. “You’re right. I got lucky.”

Jeonghan tossed Chopper back in his original vicinity. “I think Dokyeomie wanted to ask something from you too, but I don’t remember what it was, so maybe you can go get ready and he’ll come find you.”

“What a useless messenger.”

“Your luck can’t be perfect, Jihoon-ah,” Jeonghan quipped. He turned to leave the room but stopped in his tracks. “I hope to hear her story one day. Hear her side of things.”

“…Me too, hyung.”

──────────────────

“How much is the corn dog?”

“Hmm… Tell me your favorite color and how it makes you feel.”

Jihoon mustered as much displeasure as he could hold in his six-year-old body. “Y/N, you can’t pay with stories, that’s stupid.”

“It’s my shop!”

“Jihoon, we’re just playing pretend,” your cousin added, his eyes darting between the two of you, likely worried about needing to do damage control.

“Hyung, her idea is dumb!”

“Why!” You whined. “People pay with money all the time, but you can get money whenever! I don’t get to hear stories! I like stories! My parents don’t read to me every night like yours do, Jihoon!”

Jihoon stomped out of the playroom in annoyance, ears grated by the sound of your crying and your cousin’s failed attempts to console you. Stories couldn’t buy the new toy race car that he got. Stories couldn’t buy him candy at the corner market near the kindergarten. Stories couldn’t buy a GameBoy.

Stories didn’t matter.

Money mattered.

Still, nearly a decade later, you never failed to ask for your unconventional form of payment every time he took a portion of your lunch. He knew you packed more for him anyway. And he knew you would always ask for a story in return.

And he intentionally packed smaller meals so he could tell you about how the History teacher had botched up his classmate’s test and accidentally graded off by one, about how the clarinet solo he was learning required a finger pattern he wasn’t used to, about how that one guy—oh, the tennis player?—no, no, the flautist—isn’t it flutist?—it doesn’t matter—yes, it does, Jihoon—anyway, he asked out a girl—the senior?—yes—oh wow, how bold.

And you would smile in return, sliding your food choice of the day within his reach.

He learned that you hated money; it was the one and only thing your parents ever gave you consistently. Simply, it was the manifestation of their love (or lack of) for you.

So, he paid you with recountings of the mundane. You never complained, even when he felt as though his storytelling skills were lackluster. He held your rapt attention; your eyes wide with wonder, voice laced with curiosity.

Eventually, he asked you why.

Why stories?

“Because without them, I wouldn’t have learned that you love the X-Men series because of Hugh Jackman, that you prefer winter over summer, that the first ever K-Pop group you listened to was Brown Eyed Girls, that when you tell me a funny story, you wait until I react before you start laughing.”

And you gave him that smile that made his heart stutter.

“Money is everywhere, Jihoon. But there’s only one you. That’s all there is to it. People, at the core of it all, are just stories. So. That’s why. People will always matter more than profit.”

──────────────────

After Jihoon readied himself for the group dinner, he plopped himself down onto the communal couch and found himself scrolling through Instagram. He stopped at your latest post, a candid shot of you reading a children’s book to several six-year-olds, your face aglow with excitement, a high chance the photographer captured you mid-way through some silly voice attributed to the character on the page.

“Hey, hyung.”

“Hm?”

“Can I borrow your microphone for the day?”

Jihoon didn’t even have the chance to think twice before the words left his mouth, “Tell me your favorite color and how it makes you feel.”

An uncomfortable silence blanketed the room.

“Is… Is this a hidden-camera?”

“...never mind. Just put it back when you’re done.”

“It’s blue, by the way.”

“I don’t care—”

“It makes me feel happy because it’s the color of the sky and of the ocean, which means it can be super calm or super exciting. It’s also one of the colors of our Caratdeul.”

“Okay, Dokyeom-ssi. Get out.”

“Yes, hyung. Thank you.”

Jihoon thought about how, if given the chance, you would ask Seokmin if he liked the paleness of 9am or the depth of 6pm? If he liked the gentleness of serenity or the vibrancy of cerulean? Or if he appreciated all that the shades encompassed before fading into greens and indigos?

But he wasn’t you.

You were the inspiration; the muse.

You were the reason to write.

He was just a storyteller.

──────────────────

“THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO IS HERE. THANK YOU TO THE PLEDIS STAFF, OUR MANAGERS, OUR CHOREOGRAPHERS, OUR MUSIC TEAM, OUR DANCERS, OUR STYLISTS, OUR CAMERA WORKERS, OUR FAMILIES, AND OUR SEVENTEEN MEMBERS! HAPPY SIX YEARS. HERE’S TO MORE!”

Everyone in the rented out restaurant cheered before drinking together. Even the sound barrier breaking screams of Soonyoung wasn’t enough to dampen Jihoon’s pride and spirit over how far they’ve come as a team. He looked around at his table, several members already seemingly drunk, and couldn’t help but smile to himself.

“Jihoon-ah, make an exception for tonight and drink!”

He shook his head fervently. “There’s going to be several of you who are going to regret drinking when we have our V LIVE tomorrow. You’re going to look super puffy.”

“I can already feel it,” Seungcheol laughed, his eyes slightly glazed. “But the food and the beer are too good to pass up.”

Speaking of, Jihoon made sure to snatch a piece of kalbi to put onto his plate before Mingyu could. The younger one gave him the stink-eye while Jihoon merely smirked and tilted his head back, challenging him. Mingyu decided to change his target and grab at Seungkwan’s piece, who promptly smacked his hand with a “Kim Mingyu!”

Laughter went around the table as they reflected on the last six years, the amount of embarrassing moments that were brought up were positively correlated with the amount of shots that were taken.

Jihoon grit his teeth as he tried not to fold in on himself, remembering how they threw him up as a cheer and nearly ended his life by creating a Jihoon-shaped hole in the ceiling. He was so much smaller back then, easier to launch without thinking.

They laughed about the incident where Mingyu was nearly beaten to death by Jihoon with a guitar, which Jihoon argued that he still believed he was in the right. They discussed one of their first performances as a team, where they performed NU’EST’s “Hello” and they all had helmet hair. They poked fun at Seungkwan for his revolutionary English skills when he said, “are you kimbap kidding?”

They’ve grown so much.

International interviews with BuzzFeed, Seventeen the magazine, and others. GOING SEVENTEEN as a show has grown alongside them, more than just showing Carats the behind-the-scenes, but has now turned to variety that garnered the new fanbase of Cubics, and has been an honest highlight to Jihoon’s career, where they can just go wild and laugh with each other, just as they always do.

They talked about how they used to sneak in food, how they used to help each other get ready for school, how they still have the same playful spirit as they did back then, but with more trust that has formed between them (although, less for Jeonghan since his cheating at games has only gotten worse).

Jihoon leaned back, full of food and laughter and gratitude.

He wouldn’t trade his life with his team for anything.

(Not even you.)

However, that didn’t mean Jihoon didn’t want you to be a part of his already complete life.

He was a selfish human being.

He hoped you would be one too.

──────────────────

May 26th.

Six years ago, “Adore U” came out, marking the beginning of the journey of a thirteen member boy idol group named SEVENTEEN.

Now, here he was, trying to not be bullied into drinking another shot of soju after already consuming several in a short period.

Their anniversary V LIVE ended not too long ago and they did not have a schedule the following day, so the team decided to celebrate on their own, playing Mafia and messing around. A few hours ago, Jihoon would’ve hardly been able to tolerate the noise level, but since his hearing has been compromised due to his heart beating so loudly in his ears from the alcohol, he was plenty fine.

He shooed away his members and retreated back into the corner of the room, pulling out his cellphone and ignoring Mingyu making stupid kissy faces and noises. Jihoon shot him a look of disgust, but Mingyu merely laughed it off and went to go bother his next victim, who seemed to be Boo Seungkwan, a prime choice indeed.

As soon as he refreshed his Instagram app, there you were (with a highlighted gradient ring around your profile picture, your head tilted back with a soft smile grazing your features as you took in the endless sky above you).

He clicked on the circle and saw you and your friends there, a dimmed photo but your collective smiles large and wide. He recognized Hyejin and Wheein easily (the former with a disgusted look apparent on her face and the latter with a deep dimple), as they were two friends who were a common occurrence on your feed.

And there you were.

alexa, play congratulations by post malone ft. quavo 🥳🎓 #PHinisheD

The corner of his lip quirked up at the cleverness in your caption.

Perhaps it was because of the alcohol in his system, he swiped up to send a message:

i figured u would be a day6 or eric nam kind of fan

His brain short-circuited.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Fuck.

Who was he to think he could directly message you like this? Also, who the hell was he to figure anything about you? He hasn’t even spoken to you. Jesus Christ, what has he done?

Before he could stop himself though, his thumbs decided to speak his thoughts.

sorry that was dumb of me to assume

of course u would like post malone considering u could rap the entirety of eminems album

What the hell, dude.

You were going to freak out and call him a creep and then block him.

You’ve literally never done that.

He tried to calm his heart.

However, not even ten minutes later, he realized he couldn’t take that risk.

sorry that was stupid

ignore me

congrats y/n

He felt nearly every goosebump that crawled along his skin, creeping up to his neck, threatening to choke him out. He breathed in deeply through his nose, hoping no one bears witness to him.

“Yah, Jihoon-ah.”

His eyes trailed up to see Soonyoung with a look of concern, mixed with a twinge of panic and anger.

Ah, it would be him.

“What did she do?”

──────────────────

For people who didn’t know him, Kwon Soonyoung comes off as, well, not-so-bright.

But that wasn’t (entirely) true.

Kwon Soonyoung was aware.

He knew how to read a room, but oftentimes, he would purposely choose to simply do what he wanted anyway. Hardly did he ever prioritize another person’s comfort and complacency over his expression of his individuality. He knew what it took to be a performer, and he never denied himself the opportunity to be one.

So, him simply staring at his friend in silence with eyes that alone could have earned him his moniker of “Tiger’s Gaze,” was a major indicator that something was amiss.

Also, the fact that his friend was shrouded in near darkness, eyes rimmed with red, only a corner lamp illuminating his pale features.

“She went to America. She’s never fucking coming back.”

Soonyoung tried not to wince at his friend’s broken tone. Jihoon cursed like a sailor when they were trainees, but it was a habit that he slowly lost since he would often be reprimanded for his speech. He had to do the work to censor himself.

Well, the K-Pop industry was not a stranger to censorship, he mused.

“Wasn’t she already at an international school, though?”

“Yeah, but I just… I thought she would come back after graduating from that boarding school, you know? She wanted to go to Seoul National University, but. Fuck, dude. What if I’m the reason she stopped? What if she stopped following her dreams because of me? What if I–”

“She made her choice, Jihoon.”

“This is all my fault.”

“How?”

Soonyoung saw confusion flit across Jihoon’s face, but it quickly settled with a shake of his head. “It just is, alright?”

“Jihoon–”

“I’ll never be good enough for her. Fuck, I just thought if I tried, then maybe I could be, and– God, who do I think I am? Of course she’d never want someone like me–”

“Dude! Shut the fuck up, will you?”

Jihoon sat there in stunned silence.

“This might not even have anything to do with you. And if she really went to America because she’s trying to avoid you, then she’s a massive bitch–”

“Don’t fucking call her that–”

“I can do whatever the hell I want. Just like she’s doing whatever the hell she wants.” Soonyoung’s anger was slowly morphing into rage. Who was this person in front of him? He was so used to the sure, secure Lee Jihoon who would never truly get riled up.

But one mention of you and suddenly he would spiral.

Who the hell did you think you were?

Leaving this man who loved you so fucking wildly, to the point where he was just one moment away from begging on his knees for your return.

Soonyoung felt disgusted, but it was more of a ringing concern in his ears.

“Jihoon, you’re acting crazy right now. So what if she doesn’t come back to Korea? Are you gonna wait like a fucking sad dog out in the rain? Hoping that she’ll come pick you up again? You’re missing your own fucking life here.”

“I just–”

“Yeah, yeah, you love her. I get it. But… If she were to see you right now, do you think she would even want this kind of love? This obsessive, insecure kind?”

Jihoon’s face was now contorted in pain and Soonyoung tried so terribly hard to keep his face neutral. Soonyoung was plenty capable of being a soothing person, especially to his fellow members, but he was so riddled with frustration that he knew that he would come off as disingenuous if he even tried to pretend to be.

“Let her go. If she comes back, then she will. But don’t let her come back to someone who is incapable of even picking himself off of the floor.”

“...Okay.”

Kwon Soonyoung was aware.

Aware of how much Lee Jihoon was in love with you.

Painfully so.

──────────────────

“I just–”

“You just what?” Soonyoung’s eyes bore into his friend’s face.

Jihoon recoiled at his tone. “I replied to her Instagram story and it was some dumb comment, but what if she thinks I’m being too much and she backs off and–?”

“Jihoon-ah.”

“...Soonyoung-ah.”

“She’s human, right?”

Jihoon raised an eyebrow at that. “Yeah, no shit.”

“Then why are you acting like she’s this untouchable goddess? Who cares if she thinks you’re being too much? You’re putting her on a pedestal she probably doesn’t even want, dude.”

──────────────────

“Why’d you reject the guy?”

You glanced up at her best friend. “What’re you talking about?”

Jihoon cocked his head to the side. Was it already so quickly forgotten by you? It happened at lunch and it was kind of rowdy. Poor dude. “The guy who asked you out to the dance. You said you thought he was cute before and that he was good at tutoring math.”

“Yeah, I might know him, but he doesn’t know me.”

Jihoon raised an eyebrow. “I thought you guys tutored together.”

You clicked your tongue. “Yeah, we do, but. He doesn’t know me. I know him because I ask him questions. I ask him about himself. But he never once asked me a question about me. If he did, he would know that I hate public gestures. He would know that I don’t like receiving flowers. He didn’t even care to ask any of my friends about what I liked. The main reason as to why he asked me to go to the dance is probably because I made him feel good about himself. I might know him, but he doesn’t know me, and that’s one of the most annoying things.”

“What, that people don’t know you?”

“No. That people assume they know me.”

Jihoon paused for a moment.

“People think that I’m this super wholesome good kid who gets perfect grades.”

“Well, one of those things is true.”

You cracked a smile at that. “Yeah, well. The more people assume I’m on a different level from them, the lonelier it is. I just… I don’t want to be lonely, Jihoon.”

“It’s alright. I’ll make sure you aren’t.”

It was chilling, how your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes, as if you knew a secret he didn’t, as if you already prophesied a future that rendered his words empty. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Lee Jihoon.”

──────────────────

Jihoon nearly bit his tongue.

Ever since he no longer had the security of having you be by his side, he became exactly like one of them, forcing assumptions onto you.

You were out of sight and he was out of his mind.

He told you that you could always be yourself around him, and here he was, creating a caricature of you in his head that he knew didn’t exist. To push forth the narrative he wrote. One born of insecurity. “...I don’t understand how you’ve been so right lately?”

“I really do wish I had my phone around to record you when you say that,” Soonyoung said off-handedly. “So, you’re not going to try to unsend those messages?”

“You can unsend messages?”

“Uh–”

Jihoon immediately unlocked his phone to go to his messages. There, he saw your chat. He long-pressed the message without much thought and his thumb hovered over it.

But he hesitated.

“...Just watching from afar isn’t enough for you anymore, is it?”

Jihoon stared up at his friend, who had a look of (almost) pity etched across his features. Jihoon swallowed the lump in his throat. “...No. I don’t think it is.”

“Well, if she rejects you in any kind of way, I can comfort you.”

“No thanks.”

“Yeah, thought you’d say that.”

──────────────────

Almost exactly sixty minutes later, Jihoon witnessed a miracle.

“...She replied.”

Seungkwan glanced up at Jihoon. “Who?”

Jihoon turned his screen to his younger member, who leaned forward to read his screen. Only to audibly gasp and cover his mouth with his hands. “You messaged her?!”

“Yeah, like an hour ago. Keep up.”

“Hyung, you didn’t tell me–”

“Ah, Boo Seungkwan.”

The corner of Seungkwan’s mouth twitched and Jihoon merely smirked. He turned his attention back to your messages, smiling fondly at your usage of 🥳 after greeting him a happy anniversary.

Oh shit, wait. You knew SEVENTEEN?

And he portrayed that sentiment exactly when messaging you.

(With some typing errors.)

(He may or may not have taken one, two, several shots once the anxiety settled back into him.)

(His alcohol tolerance was nonexistent.)

The messages were now rapid-fire. He found out that you were a Carat and that you favored Yoon Jeonghan.

He snorted at that, of course you would.

A lightbulb lit up over his head. Ah. He could do something for you.

He jumped up from his seat on the couch, away from Seungkwan who was watching over his shoulder the entire time who chose to remain silent because he knew he would be kicked out if he said anything compromising. “Jeonghan-hyung.”

“Woozi Woozi~?”

“Can you do something for me?”

Jeonghan stared at him, frozen. Then after a moment to process what exactly Jihoon said, the older one crossed his arms over his chest, a scandalized look in his wide eyes. “Depends on what you’re asking for.”

“YAH.”

“Lee Jihoon, don’t yell at someone you’re trying to ask a favor from. You’re lucky I’m a nice guy.”

Jihoon held his tongue, but his expression must have given it away because Jeonghan laughed and said that he would rather not die, and asked Jihoon to continue with what he was saying. “Y/N just graduated and she basically said that you’re her favorite SEVENTEEN member–”

“WOW! I like her already.”

“Hyung.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do for both my cute fan and my even cuter dongsaeng?”

“Just a video to congratulate her.”

“My videos are rare, it’s not easy to get something like this, you know.”

“Hyung, please.”

Jeonghan cackled, but quickly acquiesced. “Alright, alright.”

Soon enough, he found himself in a rhythm speaking to you. It was so easy, there was no residual awkwardness (on his end, at least) and it felt so natural. The banter was still there and so were your emoticons, escalating from the “:)” of your childhood to the iPhone emojis. You seemed so close, within reach, attainable.

That felt dangerous.

He could feel it. He could feel that desire to spill out everything he could. He spent years coming up with the words he wished he could’ve told you, some of them now award-winning songs, and it feels almost euphoric to know that he could tell you it all.

But.

He wasn’t sure, still. How receptive you would be. Would you run away like you did in the past whenever things became too much, too overwhelming? He always reminded you that you could never be that, but he wasn’t sure whether he was of the same capacity.

He wants you in his life. There is no doubt about that, especially not now.

But what if you leave again?

He cannot mess this up. He can’t.

So, he kept things light between you, jokes and jabs.

But that didn’t stop him from pushing for more, disguised in a (not-so) innocent attempt at ensuring that he would be able to have open contact with you in the future.

And that’s all he needed. A future with you in it.

That wasn’t too much to ask for, right?

──────────────────

Yes. Yes, it was.

After a few days of no response from your end on KakaoTalk, your Shikamaru profile picture almost mocking him with his permanent deadpan look, the answer was resounding.

But Jihoon’s entire identity was based on his stubbornness.

So, he decided to take a chance and message you on Instagram.

Only to retract immediately saying you didn’t have to reply.

Stupid.

Thankfully, though, you responded within 30 minutes, admitting that @narutofanfreak123 was not exactly a username you wanted to share with anyone above the age of twelve. You both quickly resolved the miscommunication (wow, Jihoon thought, imagine if we had this before).

He chuckled at your choice of KKT username, @MadameFirefly, oddly touched that his nickname for you still held enough weight to be your moniker for a messaging app.

He did his best to casually ask what you were planning on doing in the future (not like he wanted to see if he could somehow fit into it, or whatever).

Jihoon was left staring at his phone screen, the weight of his phone now burdened by the weight of your choices. Seoul? Or New York City?

──────────────────

“You didn’t have to miss the dance just because I got a B on an exam, you know.”

“Your parents are insane for grounding you to the library for a B on an exam, you know? And for a hagwon that’s way above our grade level.”

You shook your head, not willing to admit out loud that you agreed. “What I mean is that you don’t have to keep me company while I study when you could go off and meet cute girls and sweep them off their feet.”

“Why would I do that when I can watch you and your snot-nosed face trying to do college level calculus?”

“It’s all so that I can get into Seoul National.”

“Firefly, you could get into any school, even outside Korea.”

“Maybe I’ll do just that,” you laughed. “Finally get out of here.”

“Just let me know and I’ll stow myself into your suitcase.”

“Oh please. You’ll probably be the one traveling internationally doing whatever you do. A world-renowned musician.”

“Alright, you can be in my suitcase instead then.”

“Okay, can you leave breathing holes for me?”

“No, get better lung capacity.”

You clicked your tongue at him and he laughed. “Seriously, though, Jihoonie. You could be spending your teen years the way the movies do it. You could be ‘swearing you’re infinite’ while a slow-mo cam focuses on you as you dance, surrounded by beautiful people definitely too old to be cast as teenagers.”

“No thanks.”

You put your forehead down onto the table. “Please. Do it for me. Get a girlfriend because I can’t.”

“You know, you’re probably why I can’t get a girlfriend.”

No. You definitely were.

You shot him an annoyed look. “You could easily go and find someone who’d be smitten with you. But instead you’re about to watch me get a nosebleed over how hard I’m working my brain here.”

“Maybe I’m a sadist and want to watch that happen.”

You threw your eraser at him, but easily missed, the rubber object bouncing off of the table and onto the carpeted floor. You whined at the idea of having to leave your seat and Jihoon just rolled his eyes and picked it up for you.

Sure, he could be dancing with his friends, with cute girls, with whoever. He could be surrounded by endless snacks and overly sweet punch, the dance no doubt smelling like youth and pride and reckless decisions. He would see that there are plenty of people in his life outside of you.

But, no.

If he did, you would be left here, in this almost deserted library on a Friday, pouring blood, sweat, and tears into what your parents have convinced you matters more than your health.

You gave him a large grin as he passed you your eraser before you went back to focusing on your work.

Yeah, he’d much rather see this instead.

──────────────────

Later that evening, he found himself again in his recording studio.

Our past that didn’t line up,

If I could go back in time,

Rather than roughly, but warmly,

Would I be able to let you go?

He stared at the lyrics he wrote, feeling discontent. He wanted to be the kind of person who didn’t feel any kind of residual emotions towards you. Who would be able to meet you where you were and wish you well, no matter where you decided to go.

One of his biggest regrets was storming out of your childhood home the way that he did. He could’ve had answers but instead he was left with hostile emotions and questions.

He could only hope he would’ve done something different.

But now that he is faced with letting you go, he’s not sure how easily he would yield.

He took a moment to bury his face in his hands and tried to think about this from your perspective (something he had to practice while living with twelve other boys). He breathed in deeply and thought about the you that you are now, about how the person he fell in love with could easily be gone, and you were nothing but a shadow of what remained.

But that didn’t feel right either. It seems as though the person that you’ve grown into, that you’ve flourished into, is someone he would’ve wanted to get to know regardless of whether you had history or not.

Perhaps that is because of the artifice of social media, or perhaps it’s because you carry an air of authenticity with you that has now been given the opportunity to bloom instead of stifled in the environment you were raised in. Whether or not you were mere remnants of his past, it does not mean that the person you are now is any less lovely.

He groaned loudly.

Emotional labor is hard.

How is this something you enjoy doing?

──────────────────

“You really want to become a social worker, huh?”

You shrugged. “I mean, yeah. It feels like the best use of my skills. I like being able to potentially help people like me and well, there are a lot of people like me, you know. I don’t know whether I want to become a private practice therapist, but that seems like a solid option for now until I know more about what else is out there in the field.”

He would disagree, but he decided not to. “I just can’t deal with all of those emotions.”

You gave him a raised eyebrow. “What are you talking about? You’re one of the most sensitive people that I know.”

Jihoon felt ruffled by that. “What? What are you talking about?”

You quickly put your hands up in mock defense. “I’m not saying that being sensitive is a bad thing. I’m saying that there’s no way you would be my friend if you couldn’t handle emotions. I have way too many of them, I’m not that blind to that. Also, I’ve read your poetry and heard your music and that’s some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Like, even the way you hold your clarinet is emotional.”

“I think that’s you projecting yourself onto me.”

“Say what you want, Jihoon. You’re a sensitive soul, but I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

“Yeah, well, sensitivity isn’t what gets you awards, you know. Skill does.”

You huffed in response. “Yeah, well, once you build up the second, the first is what will create a legacy that will be one to remember for ages to come. I’m speaking it into existence now. And I lay claim to the title of being your first fan. I will support you the entire way, no matter what you do. Music, baseball, comedy. Whatever!”

Jihoon snorted. He wouldn’t dare become a comedian, but it made him feel good that you thought that was a viable prospect for him. “Whatever industry I’m in, I’ll probably have to protect you from all of the bad people. You’re too soft. Even just last week, I mean…”

“What? You mean, when Nahyun made fun of me during my presentation in front of everyone?”

Irritation washed over Jihoon. 

The self-proclaimed It Girl decided to try and belittle you while in the middle of your presentation, as you were explaining the measurements that you used in your findings, she asked whether you had ‘measured’ your weight recently because ‘you really ought to’.

He never wanted to get into a fight more than then, especially when your other classmates laughed along. It was a subpar, typical, low-class mean girl line, but it filled him with rage.

You were completely unphased by it, continuing on with your presentation, not even choosing to spare a glance in her direction.

Luckily, the teacher, not being a prick himself, called out Nahyun and pulled her aside after class to apologize to you. (Jihoon would’ve preferred a public execution apology.)

Jihoon stood just a few feet away as you accepted her half-assed effort. You paused for a moment and muttered something to her, something that only she could hear. Nahyun merely pursed her lips afterwards before walking away. Irritation rushed through him again.

“Seriously, though. You’re too soft, firefly.”

“Hm. I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“No. I just think everyone else is too hard on themselves. And each other.”

“...You’re gonna be a great therapist.”

“Thanks. Hire me.”

──────────────────

Jihoon had his own fair share of meetings with professional counselors (especially in the midst of living such a hectic life as an idol), but he was worried whether you would be as cut and dry as they were, whittled down by years of academia. It seemed almost like they were reading out of a textbook, using vocabulary words like ‘empathy’ and ‘self-care,’ so he never saw it fit to return if it wasn’t necessary.

However, the places you’ve poured your time into left only glowing reviews for your passion and compassion for the field that you were in.

Jihoon was roused from his thoughts at his phone ringing on his desk. He looked at the Caller ID and saw a name he has been in and out of contact with for over a decade, it was your cousin. He picked it up. “Yo, hyung. What’s up?”

“Are you busy right now, Jihoon?”

“No. It’s a slower day today. Do you need something?”

“Yeah, just wanted to let you know that I’ll be in Seoul in a few weeks. Your noona and I are planning on celebrating saying goodbye to our single days by drinking way too much within the span of 12 or so hours. I wanted to see if you were down to join.”

“I probably won’t drink, but if it’s for you, hyung, I’ll go.”

“Nice. And you can feel free to leave after the dinner, we’ll just be at an apartment we’re renting out in Gangnam, since I don’t trust those fools to walk around the streets of Hongdae.”

“I’ll probably do that, I don't want to accidentally be caught by Dispatch.”

“Right, right. We wouldn’t want to sully the name of the best producer in all of K-Pop.”

“That’s a title I don’t think I’ll ever get.”

Your cousin laughed. “You never know, you might get that award sooner than you think, kiddo. Alright, I’ll keep you updated on our schedule. But uh…”

Jihoon knew his hyung well. He was about to bring you up again. “What about her?”

“I just wanted to ask whether you’d be interested in a meet-up with her. Not that we’ve asked her or anything, but I know we’ll probably meet up with her at some point, and I know it’ll feel weird if we’re not all together, you know? The four of us.”

“Yeah… I want to say that I’m courteous enough to wait for her response, but I just know that I’m willing to meet with her, if anything. Even just one last time.”

“That… sounds kinda sad, but. I guess I’ll take it. If you’re down, we could even make it a surprise on her end.”

He imagined your deer in headlights look but couldn’t think further than that. “Sounds like we’d really be putting her on the spot, if that was the case.”

“Hey, she’s rarely played it safe. Same with you. Might as well keep the flow going. And if anything, I’ll take the brunt of it all. She can’t stay mad at me for too long.”

“We both know that’s literally not true.”

“Okay, fine. Your noona can take the blame.”

“Wow, very excited to see how this marriage will go.”

His hyung laughed. “Amazingly, I’m sure.”

A thought occurred to Jihoon and he realized it was strange that he was mentioning it as an afterthought, as if it was something to be expected, something natural and normal. “Oh, hyung. By the way, I’m talking to Y/N again.”

Jihoon heard the undeniable ‘beep beep beep’ of being hung up and he stared confused at his phone screen until he saw another phone call from your cousin. He picked up with a, “Hello?”

Your cousin sounded much more flustered than he did just seconds ago. “Sorry. I hung up because I dropped my phone by accident. Say that again. You’re what?”

“I’m talking to her again. Kind of. I guess. Like, Instagram DMing went to KakaoTalk.”

“Jesus Christ, you slid into her DMs?”

“Can you not say it like that?”

“Can you say that that didn’t happen?”

Jihoon relayed the entire experience to him, only now realizing he didn’t even share all of the details with his members because it would’ve been too much teasing fodder from them. But your cousin, his hyung, was the kind of fellow that wouldn’t do that, even given the opportunity.

──────────────────

“Hyung,” Jihoon started one day, across from said person in a local Busan restaurant. “I don’t get how you’re single.”

“Why, you wanna date me?”

Jihoon’s eye twitched and your cousin laughed. Jihoon bit on his straw, the family style meal between the two young men long since devoured. “People compare us, you know.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “What’s there to compare?”

“I don’t know. So many people around us know how cool you are. You’re good at sports, you’re smart, you have a lot of friends, you’re handsome. Everyone always says you’re one of the best listeners they’ve ever met.”

“The trick is to not pay attention sometimes and just nod.”

“I’m gonna tell Y/N you said that.”

��I’m sure she knows,” he laughed. “Well, I'm honored that you think all of those things, but those are all traits you have too. You do realize that, right?”

Jihoon grunted. “Not… really.”

“Well, just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean others don’t. My cousin definitely does. She’s a good kid and has a good heart. Same with you. If you ever decide to do anything about those feelings of yours, just know that I approve.”

Jihoon nearly choked on his drink. “Wh–?”

“Oh, it was a secret?”

“Hyung!”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t say anything to her, don’t worry. And if you ask me, I’d say that you’re the only one on this planet that even has a chance. Well, except that girl from the cake shop.”

Jihoon sneered.

Fucking Woo Soyeon.

With her shiny hair and long eyelashes and doe eyes and tanned skin from her beach volleyball playing.

Giving out discounts to you like nobody’s business. Calling you cute and flirting nonstop while twirling a lock of her hair. Saying you’re her favorite customer. He could swear Woo Soyeon would throw a knowing smirk at him every time you stuttered a little too long when saying thank you.

That damned girl behind the counter, the one whose beauty and voice (“It’s just so velvety, you know? Like the chocolate cherry cakes.”) he knew you were smitten by.

She was even taller than him, especially in her heels.

At the ripe age of 15, Jihoon understood what jealousy was.

Because of fucking Woo Soyeon.

“Watch out, Jihoon. I can hear your thoughts all the way from over here.”

“Sorry.”

Your cousin laughed. “Trust me, you mean a lot more to her than cake counter girl. My cousin wanted all of us to go see the Christmas lights in the city together. You don’t see her inviting that cake counter girl, do you?”

Jihoon felt a weird sense of pride well up in his chest. Then immediately deflated. It felt stupid to feel like he won against a person who’s just trying to sell cakes to a loyal customer. “Hyung, how do you do it? You’d never let yourself get angry or jealous over stuff like this.”

The older of the two cocked an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t get jealous over a cake counter girl.”

“Says who? I get jealous. It’s normal, you know. Jealousy isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s just what you do with it, right? Like, just because you’re jealous of cake counter girl, does that mean you stop Y/N from going to that shop?”

“What? Why would I do that? She loves that shop.”

“Exactly. Emotional maturity doesn’t mean you stop yourself from feeling the emotion, it just means you learn how to handle it as it comes. And once you practice it enough, it becomes easier and easier.”

“You make it sound easy, but it’s not.”

“Hey, I’m not anything big and special myself.”

Jihoon shook his head. “Hyung, you’re a superhuman.”

“No, I’m just human and letting myself be that,” he corrected. “Trust me, there’s plenty of good people out there. A lot of them just aren’t making the decision to do so. It’s easier to be cruel, but. I want to prove that you can be kind and still be a man. We get to define what that means. If I decided to be cruel, to become what society says is ‘a man,’ then I have no doubt Y/N would lose trust in me, and probably, all men.”

Jihoon noticed that his hyung stared at him for a second.

“Actually, maybe not all men.”

Jihoon felt embarrassed, but also honored, at the implication. “Thanks, hyung. You know, for not making fun of me. And for admitting that you also feel those kinds of things.”

“Absolutely, I’m glad I could help.”

“I’m seriously still surprised that you’re single.”

“Yeah, well. That might not always be the case if I can figure out what to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well… you know your noona?”

──────────────────

Jihoon couldn’t help but shake his head at the way the events unfolded. Your cousin told him about his feelings for his future wife, but it still took a few years for anything to come out of that. He wondered whether being childhood friends had anything to do with it, as if the longer and deeper the bond, the riskier the chasm was to try to jump across.

However, your cousin still managed to do it.

“How did you do it, hyung?”

“Hm? What’s up?”

“Just… how did you manage to tell noona how you felt?”

The older man laughed. “You really think that it was me who confessed? No, no. It was her. I think she was tired of the back and forth that was happening between us. I mean, so was I, but I was a coward, but thankfully, she wasn’t. Now because of her saying that she loved me first, I get to be the one who says it last. Then we start again. It’s a dialogue, you see. It doesn’t matter who starts the line, as long as it continues.”

“Oh…”

“Am I proud that I was a coward? No. I sometimes wish it was me who said it first so she wouldn’t have any room for doubt. But we can’t go back and change the past, only commit to a better future. All of this to say, though, Jihoon, it’s been long enough of not saying anything between the two of you. I don’t think you want to wait any longer.”

“…yeah. I agree.”

That night, hours after preparing for the album, Jihoon’s fingers tapped away on his Notes app.

This waiting, it’s not easy to endure.

It was past 4am now.

But he didn’t want to wait any longer.

So, he switched apps and instead of a blank Note, he began typing into a message box.

i know its late. rehearsal never ends until 3am and i know that when u get texts you wake up even if ur phone is on silent bc the vibration wakes u up so im trying to type this all in one message so that it doesnt wake u up (hopefully) but i didnt want it to seem like i left u on read because i was upset or something. but i didnt want to message until i had the time to have a full conversation but i dont think thats happening any time soon anyway. when you see this i hope it makes sense im not sure if i am

A response from you was the last thing he expected, but you always managed to surprise him.

The first time he heard your voice directly in his ears, he thought he was going to spontaneously combust. But he tried to keep his voice level as he asked you about where you were leaning towards for your career.

The relief that rushed through him.

The hope that ignited in him.

That was the spark needed for him to explode.

And so he did, into words.

“I’m proud of you, you know?”

He heard your throaty stutter, one that only came out whenever you were really caught off guard. “Uh—what?”

“You got a whole ass PhD. From the best university in Korea,” Jihoon still couldn’t believe the two of you went to the same school. “You got offered a job at a super big school in America. One that’s super big in the field that you studied. You graduated from an even school for undergrad, a school that even I know the name of. And just… I know that people expect you to achieve because you’ve always been a genius, always so brilliant, but. You also work really hard. So I’m proud of you.”

He could barely hear your, “It’s not that big of a deal—” over the pounding in his ears.

“But it is, firefly.”

And suddenly he was brought back to all the years before. Where he spent more years in love with you than not. How that nickname encapsulated exactly as he saw you: inspiration, guidance, hope.

“I mean, I just—”

Your flustered response only encouraged him to continue. “You don’t have to believe me. But that won’t stop me from feeling it.”

“Jihoon, I—”

He didn’t realize just how much he’s missed hearing you say his name. But more than that, “I’ve missed you.”

There was a pause on your end, but he was done with his.

“I’ve missed you a stupid amount. Like us stealing your dad’s car to drive to McDonald’s at 3am and then running a red light on the way there. And then somehow almost hitting an entire flock of seagulls—” which he would never admit to being the reason he never wants to get behind the wheel again. “And then going to some random, deserted parking lot. And then realizing we didn’t know the way home, so we drove aimlessly, for, like, 45 minutes. And then panicking when we kept seeing the gas needle going down. That kind of stupid.”

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why he was naming a memory that you no doubt remember as well, it was near traumatizing. But there was something in him that didn’t want you to forget. He didn’t want himself to forget. Because…

If I forget someday, as if nothing is wrong,

Our future will be empty and sad.

It’s not that I want to forget you.

Ah, he made a mental note to switch to his Notes app later.

“I… I missed you too.”

Jihoon couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his cheeks, almost to the point of straining them. It was already so late and he still had enough function in his brain to know he ought to cut this short now. Otherwise, he’d be on the phone with you for an ungodly amount of time. “I have to sleep now, but. I just. I couldn’t not tell you. That’s all.”

“Okay.” Your voice sounded so small, he had to press his phone closer to his ear to ensure he didn’t miss anything.

“Get some sleep, firefly. Or should I call you, Dr. Firefly now?”

“That sounds like a cartoon villain.”

He laughed hard at that. You would say that. “Alright, we’ll just go with firefly then.”

‘We’ felt good on his tongue.

“Night, night, Jihoonie.”

“Sleep well, firefly.”

He told you he needed to sleep, but with the way that he was running on sheer endorphins from finally releasing some of that pressure inside of him, sleep was the furthest thing on his mind. Instead, he imagined you getting some well-deserved rest, wondering what kind of dreams you hoped to have.

You were falling asleep, he was falling in love.

──────────────────

In less than 24 hours, he was going to see you in person for the first time in years, no more needing to find YouTube videos or podcasts or news articles or social media posts.

Tomorrow, he’ll be face to face with you.

And the dorm was in chaos.

“He should wear the white button down!”

“No, he should wear something funky, with cool patterns!”

“What? Absolutely not, hyung! Jihoon-hyung looks best in plain clothing, his skin shines that way!”

“Well, he’s been avoiding his skincare, so that might not be the best route to go down.”

“Hoon is handsome no matter what!”

Jihoon was exhausted. Why were his members more invested in this than he was?

Even Soonyoung was getting giddy. And that was a problem. When it came to you, Soonyoung was his voice of reason, but after he relayed the phone call he had with you, Soonyoung was easily won over by your: ‘I missed you too.’

“I knew it!” The tiger had exclaimed.

(Jihoon wasn’t sure whether he did.)

Junhui was thriving off of the chaos and was now leaping across the wooden floor, with Jeonghan quickly on his tail, trying to coerce him into stopping and failing miserably. Seokmin was still trying to convince Seungkwan that a funky pattern was like how, in nature, peacocks showed off to their mates—“he’s not a bird, hyung!”—while Soonyoung kept interjecting saying that Jihoon was attractive no matter what so he could just wear a plastic bag (which earned him a gentle slap by Seokmin). Mingyu disappeared for a moment after Wonwoo’s off-handed comment about Jihoon’s skin, only to return with his skincare products that Jihoon knew were going to be slapped on him soon enough. Seungcheol kept repeating in an exasperated tone, “Stop fighting, we already got a noise complaint this week,” while Jisoo and Minghao were probably off in Jihoon’s closet trying to establish an outfit for him without his consent. Hansol was on his phone, noise-canceling earphones on, completely uninvolved in what was going on. Chan was only goading on whoever was the loudest in the moment (currently, Junhui).

Jihoon piped up. “Do I get an opinion on this?”

In near perfect synchronization (including the boys in his room), everyone responded with a, “No!”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

God, tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

[continue reading here]

[natsukishinomiyaswife]

𝓒𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓭: 𝓝𝓸𝓽 𝓐 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰

I originally wrote this for my OC, based on this video my friend Mah (@midnightmah07) sent me! I decided to make it a x Reader, so that everyone can enjoy it (and because I love this fic lol) but if you want to read the original, you can find it here! ♡ Enjoy! ♡

⋆ The Pop Music Club was sitting in their club room, eating snacks as they talked. They had a show coming up in a few weeks, and were debating on what to perform. There were certain songs they would always play, but this time they wanted to do something different, to really make the show stand out. Lilia suggested they try a new genre, while Kalim suggested they incorporate a new instrument. Cater didn’t really have any suggestions, scrolling through Magicam for inspiration. While scrolling he comes across a new post from you, a smile coming to his face as he likes it.

⋆ As he continues scrolling he comes across fan edits, dancing videos, comedy skits, memes. He was about to switch apps when he comes across a post, a girl gushing about how her partner wrote a song for her, as a surprise for her birthday. The post includes a short clip of them singing to her, the girl standing there in shock for a moment before looking like she could cry. In the comments everyone talked about how romantic it was, some saying how they wished they had a partner like that.

⋆ A sudden thought occurs to him, looking up from his phone and turning towards the others as he suggests, “Why don’t we try writing our own songs?” Kalim and Lilia look to each other for a moment before agreeing, the two of them excited at the idea of writing their own song. After eating a few more snacks and talking for a little bit longer, they go their separate ways, each of them needing to have a song written for their next club meeting.

⋆ Cater stretched in his desk chair, sighing. He had been staring at his computer for a few hours now, a blank word document in front of him. He kept thinking and trying yet a song just wouldn’t come to him, getting up from his chair. He grabs his phone and earbuds before moving to lay on his bed, needing a break. He scrolls through Magicam as he listens to music, liking and sharing certain posts. He sees a post from the bakery in the village near Night Raven, announcing new items they would be adding to their menu soon. One of the items is a dessert that seems to be trending right now, everyone talking about how good it is.

⋆ He smiles as his mind immediately goes to you, knowing how much you like sweets. Without thinking he shares the post with you, sending another message right after that asking if you’d like to go with him when the bakery debuts their new desserts. It takes a few minutes before you respond, but your reaction was what he expected, telling him you would love to go with him and how excited you were to try the desserts. Your message had a mix of heart emojis throughout it, something you always did. Their was one particular heart emoji you seemed to use more than the others, Cater putting it next to your name in his phone. He did it because the heart emoji reminded him of you, that’s all. There was no other reason. (At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself)

⋆ It’s a few days later when the bakery debuts their new desserts, Cater waking up early knowing how busy they will be. You were already waiting for him outside campus, standing at the entrance gates. You were dressed more casually than usual, no longer wearing the uniform he was used to. He couldn’t help but stare, thinking how good you looked. You ran over to him as soon as you noticed him, thanking him again for inviting you. Cater wasn’t paying attention as you continued to talk, eyes focused on your mouth. There was just something about that lip balm you wore that he was drawn to, tempting him. It makes him want to…

⋆ He shakes his head, stopping himself from continuing that thought. You made your way to the bakery, talking and laughing as you walked. As you pass by a house Cater catches a glimpse of your reflection in the window, the sight almost making him stop. He never thought about how you held hands whenever you go somewhere, enjoying having you close. But seeing your reflection, your hands linked together as you talked, he couldn’t help but think…

We look like a couple

⋆ It doesn’t help that others would mistake you as such, strangers calling you his partner or his dorm mates telling him to enjoy his “date”. Trey had even complimented his appearance that morning, asking him what he was dressed up for. They’re wrong, Cater thinks. We’re just friends. Yet, the idea of you being “just friends” hurt, Cater choosing not to linger on it.

⋆ There was already a line when you got to the bakery, having to wait around fifteen minutes before you could enter. Cater’s attention was drawn to the dessert that was trending, ordering it to take a picture for his Magicam. You went to order one as well before Cater stopped you, reminding you that you could just eat his. You laughed, saying you forgot and thanking him. Once he got the dessert you went to sit outside, not wanting to stay in with how packed it was.

⋆ It was a nice day out, the table he chose giving you a nice view. Cater took the dessert out of it’s container, setting it up so that it looked good. He used the natural lighting to help take his photo, immediately uploading it to Magicam. When he looked up from his phone he noticed you sitting across from him, eyeing the dessert eagerly. His heart raced as he told you he just needed to take one more photo before you could dig in, focusing on you rather than the dessert as he took it. As soon as he said you could eat it, you started digging in, looking happy due to how good it was.

⋆ You stayed there for a while, Cater scrolling through his phone as you ate, talking and laughing in between. Whenever Cater saw a video or a meme he knew you would like, he would hold his phone out to you, watching as you tried not to choke on the dessert while laughing. Before you went your separate ways Cater gave you a hug, thanking you for coming with him. You hugged him back, telling him that you should be the one thanking him, considering he paid for the dessert. You promise to treat him next time as you wave goodbye, Cater watching you go before heading back to Heartslabyul.

⋆ As soon as he got back Ace was there, a teasing grin on his face as he asked how his “date” went. Cater gave him a look, used to his behavior as he tells him it wasn’t a date. After a moment he goes on, letting him know he had a good time, and that the dessert seems to be worth the hype. He heads to his room, running into Deuce along the way. He too asks how his “date” went, though his question seemed more genuine, Cater not having the heart to correct him. He breathes a sigh of relief once he’s inside, immediately laying in his bed.

⋆ He did his best to relax, mind racing as he pulled up the picture he took of you earlier. It had turned out better than he thought, your eyes lit up as you looked at the dessert on the table. You looked almost like you were glowing with how the sun hit your face, your hands clapped together in excitement. You looked so happy, so cute. He had to resist the urge to make it his phone background, shaking his head. He sat his phone on his chest, holding his arm over his eyes. He just needed to calm down, everything would be alright. You guys were friends, you were only hanging out. You weren’t dating, you weren’t his partner, he wasn’t…

He wasn’t…

“I’m not in love with them” he mutters to himself, though his racing heart wants to prove him wrong.

⋆ It’s in this moment that he realizes what he wants his song to be about, slowly getting up and moving to his desk. He writes what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, using it as inspiration. After having to edit and rewrite it a few times he was finally happy with it, realizing how late it was when he checked his phone.

⋆ At their next club meeting Cater bursts into the club room, presenting the song he had written. Lilia gave him a knowing look as he read the lyrics, Kalim complimenting him on how good it was. After talking some more and discussing the songs Lilia and Kalim had written, they decided to perform the song Cater wrote, with him singing the lead vocals. As it got closer to their show date they began advertising it, posting on their socials and putting up flyers around campus. You even made a post on your Magicam about it, encouraging anyone who could to attend. You texted Cater the night before the show, telling him how excited you were, and wishing them good luck. He tried not to think about how it made his heart skip a beat.

⋆ The night of their show the Pop Music Club was buzzing with excitement, a fairly large crowd coming to see them. As they went on stage Cater’s eyes were drawn towards the front, right where you stood in the crowd. You waved at him, mouthing good luck as he gave you a small wave back. They did their usual introduction, playing some of the songs they were known for before playing the one Cater wrote near the end. He did his best to focus on different parts of the crowd as he sang, but he couldn’t help how he would always go back to you, locking eyes with you more than once.

You’re always on my mind I think about you all the time Um, no Let’s not talk about it Drama, we can live without it Catch a wave if we’re bored There’s a clock we’ll ignore Find a way around it Hey, I can tell there’s something Even when you say it’s nothing When you’re playing with your hair Like you just don’t care It’s a tell you’re bluffing Now please don’t take this the wrong way I love the things you do It’s how you do the things you love Well it’s not a love song, not a love song I love the way you get me But correct me If I’m wrong This is not a love song, not a love song I love the things you do It’s how you do the things you love The way you sing it, Put me through it I guess I always knew it (I always knew) I love the way you get me But correct me If I’m wrong This is not a love song (not a love song) Not a love song (I know it’s not a love song)

Bonus scene:

⋆ After their show the boys headed backstage, ecstatic by how well their performance had gone. Lilia turns to Cater, a knowing smile on his face as he informs him, “You do realize that was a love song you wrote, don’t you Cater?”

Cater stumbles for a moment, laughing awkwardly as he shakes his head. “It totally wasn’t! I don’t know where you got that idea from, Lilia!”

Lilia eyes shine with amusement at his response, asking, “Oh, really? Can I ask what the inspiration was for the song, then? Perhaps, you had someone in mind…?”

Cater was quiet after that, knowing his response wouldn’t help his case. He couldn’t say that he wrote the song thinking of you, after all. ♡

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾! ♡

[mintyeve322]

for anyone concerned by my writing style on my posts that my fic(s) might have no capital letters, random capital letters, or some other issue, i just wanted to clarify i type posts and messages very different from stories.

in stories I'll use proper punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar. (at least to the best of my ability) i just couldn't give two shits about that stuff while I'm rambling here.

just a warning or heads up, haha.

anyway, so that we're on topic, fiddlestan time below the cut.

I think their relationship is pretty quick to take off but slow to be official. i feel like Stan is so starved for affection that she's scared to acknowledge her feelings, especially since affection is sometimes just "platonic girl stuff". don't worry stan, overly affectionate heterosexual female friends drive me insane too.

on Fidd's part, i think she is hesitant to make things official because at first she's not sure if her feelings are genuine or if she's accidentally using Stan, but once she realized thats not it, she's still hesitant to say anything because she doesn't wanna make Stan uncomfortable if she's not right about her feelings.

Fidds is a people pleaser and unhinged as hell before she uses the memory gun, let alone afterwards, so she for sure has made or aquired some crazy shit as gifts for Stan. She for sure has made her at least one robot that malfunctioned and had to be decommissioned, she bought Stan a fish, I'll do some fish research to figure out what kind later but it has some sort of significance, to occupy the empty tank in the shack since Frilliam is lost at sea. She's probably helped Stan make exhibits and made a cryptid up that reminds her of Stan. I feel like she'd get gifts for Stan constantly, and Stan wouldn't know how to act about it because her instinct is to be skeptical of kindness but Fidds was her sister's friend and she hasn't asked Stan for anything in return and she doesn't know why.

Related to Stan's belief that affection is transactional, if Fidds ever gets nervous about the portal or if Stan keeps something from her, like why she got arrested last night or where she found a part and Fidds says she owes Fidds an explanation, Stan will shut down and probably cry in her room for an hour.

Stan is VERY worried that Fidds is gonna reveal one day that she's only there for some sort of payment or gain on her end, and if she even implies that Stan owes her something, Stan will spiral until Fidds is able to figure out the problem and apologize, even if she agrees that she does owe Fiddleford something for all she's done.

Related to this, there's probably a period of time where Fidds is working really hard, to the bone, for Stan. She hates not feeling useful and may have hit a road block she's trying to push through or something, and when Stan tells her to take a break, she interprets it as a sarcastic "just let me do it, idiot" comment and not the "please take a break im worried about you" way stan intended it, due to the fact Ford, with her one track mind, has been harsh to her in that way before.

Fidds is apologetic and swears she's almost got it she just needs more time and please don't maker her leave she promises she can do it, and Stan has to basically grab her, look her in the eyes, and tell her she just needs to take a break and come back later. Fidds says she just wants to be useful for Stan, and Stan tells her she doesn't care if she's useful, she just needs her there and burning herself out working on the project is not worth it. they have a long conversation about how even if fidds never worked on the project again Stan would still want her around and its sad and fluffy.

also a thing where stan gets frustrated and implies Fidds isnt useful and has to comfort her and insist that isn't what she meant because it genuinely wasn't what she meant agh i love miscommunication hurt/comfort

idk im rambling and i feel like we're all so busy unpacking Stan's trauma we forget that Fidds has very real trauma from her work with Ford that has plenty of hurt/comfort potential as well.

[eureka-its-zico]

I’m gonna need one of those short prompts of zoro just thirsting after doc. I wanna see heart eyes and bullying from Nami.

With that being said, something light would be nice. The series has been pretty dark for the last two chapters and it’d be nice to see them act relatively normal again

I took a small break from working on Ch. 10 to write this out. This chapter is a lot more fun and way less serious than the other two, and I feel like this little spin-off I wrote gives good insight into the chapter.

I hope you like it 💕

P.s. I wrote this on my phone and posting it from my phone so if it’s a little wonky, please forgive me.

——————————

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Staring.”

If Nami called him out one more time he was going to need to hit something. And if aforementioned orange-haired friend asked how long he’d been watching you, Zoro was going to lie.

Just like what he was doing now.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The shit eating grin Nami wore at his response told him all he needed to know.

He was a terrible liar.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Nami quipped.

“I’m sorry is there a reason you’re here? Besides to annoy me.”

“Ouch!”

Zoro didn’t finish watching Nami pretend to cover up a wound or to see her finish the playful pout she’d been sending his way the past couple of weeks. It allowed his gaze to fall back on where you’d been the last half hour tending to the tangerine trees they’d taken with them for Nami. A piece of Nami’s old life - her old home - planted on the ship as a reminder of all she’d overcome and what she’d gained.

It had taken less than a day for you to talk Nami into showing you how much water to give them and how to carefully trim their branches. Zoro warned you not to overdue it. You were still healing - some of your stitches barely keeping the once open wounds an inch from reopening with one wrong move.

You quickly overruled his worries with a soft press of your lips against his. He refused to admit it had left him shellshocked as you walked away; rooted to the spot next to the island in the kitchen with that damn cook smirking at him while his brain tried to remember how to make words.

“Shut up, waiter.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” Sanji replied, flabbergasted and yet, still smirking.

“Keep it that way.”

Zoro stormed out of that kitchen and wanted to storm away from Nami too, but this place on the upper terrace of the deck gave him the perfect spot to watch you. To make sure you were being careful and only a short distance away if you weren’t.

“I thought you guys were together.”

God, he really needed Nami to fuck off. Crossing his arms, Zoro leaned his forearms against the railing and hoped it would send the message he was done conversing. Unfortunately for him, Nami moved closer. Her back against the rail and her arms draped behind her. It gave Nami the perfect view of his face.

Zoro knew she wasn’t going to leave him alone until he answered.

“We are.”

“So, care to tell me why you are watching her like you’re still pining for her?”

“I’m not pining,” he grumbled back.

“This is the definition of pining.”

That’s it. He was going to toss Nami overboard.

“I’m not - “

He refused to admit defeat but damn it he couldn’t stop his forehead from pressing down into the wood of the bannister. He wasn’t a religious man, but he prayed to anyone listening to give him strength.

You would be super pissed if he did throw Nami overboard.

“Is there a reason you’re still here bugging the shit out of me?”

“If you’re with her Zoro, go be with her. That’s all I’m saying. You shouldn’t have to creep around and be away from her when you clearly want to be next to her.”

Zoro did.

He couldn’t describe it. Fuck, he couldn’t deny it, either. Every atom of his being craved to be next to you. To bury his face in the crook of your neck and breathe you in. Memorize the smell of the sea on your skin and the different herbs you dried and for whatever concoctions you made that day. He loved it when he could smell Rosemary in your hair or the ginger that reminded him of home.

But he didn’t want to overwhelm you. It’d only been a couple of weeks since Luffy and crew had left the Conomi Islands. Only a few weeks when Zoro thought he would never…

“I’m just trying to give her space.”

Fuck. Why did his voice have to be so soft? Now Nami was giving him that look and - fuck.

Zoro refused to glance up at Nami - the look that must be on her face. So, he kept his eyes on the safest place he could find.

You.

“Look, I know this relationship thing is kind of new for you, Zoro. It can be scary, at times.”

“I’m not afraid,” he cut in.

“-but,” she continued ignoring his sudden outburst. “I know for a fact the last thing she wants is space. Doc wants you, Zoro more than she’s going to want to be left alone.”

She clapped her hand against his shoulder, signaling she was departing, and left him brooding against the banner. His eyes no longer watching as you gently cut dying stems from the tangerine trees, but out into the endless blue and wondered if it was possible that Nami was right.

He was never going to hear the end of it if she was.

[yawntu]

Golden Hour

A/N: ngl i’ve been fiending to write more Tsu’tey but y’all can’t let me become a one trick pony fr. This one’s a little self indulgent my legs be kicking and shit. This isn’t proof read but will be eventually LMAO. I just wanted to get it out bc ppls were messaging me, I tried giving u actual plot this time. Sully reader, Neteyams twin &lt;333 why does tumblr always eat the end half of my posts what the FUCK

pairing(s): Ao’nung x (Sully)(f) Reader

word count: 10k

warnings: NSFW MDNI, weed oop, squirting, 2 little slaps but they’re not hard, consent king, mating, standing sex?, dacryphilla, semi public, a little bit of degrading / mean bits but not really, he just thinks you’re real pretty idk, size kink, brat taming if u squint readers got a bit of a catty attitude, you both have attitudes, idiots in love, PINING, idk i have a soft spot for idiots in love, Ao’nungs so in love with u, i’m about to start getting ppl to read these over and do the tags for me bc idk how to

na’vi glossary: skxawng: moron, Ole’eytkan: clan leader, kurkung: asshole, vrrtep’ite: demoness, Nga yawne lu oer: i love you, tanhì: star, kxener: I took park of the word that describes the act of smoking, idk I’m out here making up Na’vi slang.

Perhaps you were in such a delightful mood today because of the rich scented soaps and the pretty shimmer body oils that left your skin hydrated and vibrant after your bath, or perhaps it was the fact that Tsireya had just done your hair with little pearls and shells the night previous.

You’ve grown to love so many things that Awa'atlu offered you. You think, however, that your favorite thing was the sheer amount of turquoise geothermal warmed springs scattered around the bustling seaside village. You had often found yourself alone now that you had grown up, appreciating the peace that solitude brought you. Soaking in the warm watered spring of the mangrove beaches not terribly far from the village only added to said peace. Besides being a good place for one to watch the sun rise in the morning, it was also a good place to be left alone. As it wasn't an increasingly popular place to bathe it meant you got to spend your morning with pretty scented soaps, oils and creams while eating fruit and enjoying a kxener all in your preferred solitude. It wasn’t that you didn’t love spending time with friends and family- in all honesty a war torn childhood made you appreciate them and the peace you now lived in even more.

A fact you attempt to remind yourself off when an obnoxious smack of feet against the rocky grounds of the warm springs past the mangals pull you from your fruit eating haze. Your head snapped over to the sound, ready to scold someone for disrupting your tranquil morning- yet your eyes fall upon Aonung’s advancing form. You can’t help but allow a quick smile before your act begins. Your faux scowl at his towering approaching form.

“I literally just got in, what could you possibly want of me this early in the day?”

It’s a lie you tell as you lean back on the rocky wall of the spring, pointing two accusatory fingers towards him. You had been in long enough to quickly wash your hair and body. Even enough time to oil the ends of your hair, and though you were quick with it if he ended your bath here you’d at least have enjoyed your little acts of self care. No doubt you’d have to get dressed and follow him somewhere to help with something you’d much rather not be doing on your supposed free day. If the Eyktanay was saunting over to you, then no doubt your perfect morning would be a fleeting moment crushed to dust at your feet.

He gives you an look of dumbfounded distress, brow muscle jutting up into an arch while his lip curls up into a contemptuous grin,

“And to think I thought we were dear friends who enjoyed each other's company, vrrtep’ite,”

He is silly looking, as he squats at the edge of the spring, large imposing arms dangling between his legs, his tail curved towards you, eyes unnaturally trained at the horizon despite the fact he’s apparently cross with you. You can’t help but grin up at him, enjoying the quips and banter he often offered you; yet showed you enough respect as to not oogle at you.

Part of you was surprised to have him stumble upon you, as of late he is usually too busy to share a moment with him before the eclipse. He grabs the kxener next to your bowl of fruit, and the flintstones, barely looking at you. It’s endearing, how he holds the smoke between his full lips, his too big hands managed to spark rocks together to light it. For his towering frame, Aonung moves rather gracefully. His jaw is sharp as it clenches when the herbs spark at his face, eyes fluttering. You watch the muscles of his neck and shoulders flex when he puts the tool down and moves to hold the kxener with his left hand. He grabs a berry motioning towards you,

“What?”

His voice is haughty as he notices you staring. Even as he talks out of the corner of his mouth, lips holding the kxener smoke from fully creeping past his pointy white canine and incisor. The way his face contorts makes you giggle, resting your arm on the rock he was perched on,

“I don’t know. It’s silly seeing you act so civilized,” you say as you run one of your nails down his ankle to mess with him, “Decide you want to enjoy my brunch, huh? What, wrestling a tsurak too brutish today?”

He is instantly making a face, mimicking your voice in a faux girlish shrill as he finally grabbed hold of what he was smoking, seating himself fully, then plopping the fruit in his mouth giving you a displeased look.

It had been a long time since he was a truly troublesome, rough edged hooligan and though you would have still called him a hooligan to this day, Ao’nung was proud of how he had grown. Though he had his stubborn and even volatile moments he had won the close friendship of your twin brother, and even the younger siblings he once put in perilous danger. You had all long let that dead pa’li lie.

“You are the jungle savage,” he jokingly sneers, handing the kxener back down to you, then poking at your forehead for annunciation.

The mix of the thickly sweet and tangy fruit on top of the sour, peppery and earthy taste of the kxener is pleasant, but the fact that you can taste the balm that was on his lips is what makes your tail swish slowly in the water. 

“You’re mad your mother likes me better than you right now,”

You nod matter of factly to the freshly added tattoo creeping up his shoulder, an obsidian addition to his growing collection. Ronal was displeased with who had done it, not so much the design. Soon he'd be covered in them, rarely a part of his pretty face untouched by ink. Ronal knew this, yet it was in her nature to be argumentative. You didn’t stick around for the argument as by the time Ao’nung walked completely into their home, you and his sister had made a quick dash out as to not inherit the wrath of Ronal. The two had been bickering over everything since.

“Ha!” His laugh is boisterous and booming like the storms that would crack down over the ocean, “I am my mothers favorite! She’d drown you before-“

Drown was a funny idea. And now that he didn’t have your lit morning smoke in his hand, there was nothing defending him from your swift hand clutching the wrist closest to you, dragging him forward into the depth of the spring. It was a quick decision really, you had been a little shocked you did it considering if you didn’t pull him with such force he’d have surely hit the rock you were currently seated on- and this rather foolish quick decision meant that poor Ao’nung was as equally not prepared for the assault. The splash of his bulking body is huge, unceremonious and forces you to quickly turn half your body to avoid the brute of its wave.

The mischief is worth it as he rises from the water unharmed yet in disbelief. His sea-foam eyes wide open, curls sticking to his forehead as they fall from his silly little bun. Seeming to be dumbfounded that you dared to pull the practically aquatic man into such waters. As if he hadn’t stepped towards a rocky plateau as he stood up, and that the water barely reached his belly button.

“At least you did not drown-”

Perhaps if it wasn’t for the pesky second eyelid of the Metkayina then the water would have blinded him long enough for you to playfully escape from the splash he sent your way; far too powerful of a crime as the ends of your hair rewet and stick to your torso. It’s a foreign feeling as your hair had already begun to dry under the intense heat of the sun previously.

“You’re the worst out of the lot of you,” he interrupts himself with a sneeze from inhaling the water he wasn’t prepared to breath in, “i’m still clothed, skxawng,”

It makes you laugh, he seems genuinely annoyed but it still bemuses you. They were always wet and in and out of the water. How could it have possibly mattered to him, you were sure he’d have gone diving once he was content with ruining the peaceful start of your morning.

You knew him. You knew he came here to pick on you in his usual manner until something else caught his attention and he’d leave you alone and unfortunately missing him. So you’d enjoy your moment of terrorizing him back. You liked humbling him. Especially now that he’s growing closer and closer to being Ole’eytkan.

You obviously wouldn’t have ever grown to be as forward with your hazing had his sister not emboldened you; and though he stands ahead of you, almost posturing, you both knew there was an unspoken rule that Ao’nung lets you tease him. Though you danced across the exasperated too-far line, Ao’nung would take a great deal from you with a playful surrender. You huff the herb one more time before passing it to his dripping form, a peace treaty.

“You interrupted my bath, it is only fair,”

You’re far too occupied with how soft the almost too warm skin of his hand was when it was wet, and the tantalizing shivers it sends up your arm when your fingers make contact with him to notice that he sees you. Maybe he had inhaled too much water as you had caught him off guard, or maybe he had just inhaled smoke too deeply immediately after you had stolen the physical breath from the vacuum of his lungs, but Ao’nung is entirely too entranced with the moment that plays in front of him that it makes him dizzy.

The sun rising behind him was finally starting to lose its pinkish hues, casting warm golden rays onto your freshly washed glassy skin. The oils across your azure skin reflected the sparkly luminance that only the crushed up shells of Awa’atlu could provide. He can’t help but think the sun looks its best reflecting off the amber of your eyes. Though you are one of- if not the most beautiful girl- he had had the pleasure of knowing, the golden rays of the rising sun dancing across the apples of your supple cheek weren’t where his eyes have trailed to. In fact, your long hair moved slightly from where it had been covering your out of the water torso. Though you had never really worn much coverings, the fact that you were not only nude, but comfortable enough to be relaxed nude around him made his chest feel just as fuzzy as his head.

He’s glad you’re lost in thought so he can take a split second to stare at you breast without you noticing, despite the almost painful desire to stare at your gracile forest form he doesn’t want to be caught staring. He’s only been caught staring at you once- not by you of course. For someone so clever he was surprised you were so oblivious to the world around you sometimes. No- he had been caught staring by your twin brother who had rightfully punched him right in the back, making contact with a rather fresh, and rather painful tattoo. Though it turned into a light hearted, overly rowdy horseplay between friends, Ao’nung understood the undertone. If he touched you, Neteyam might just kill him.

“If you wanted me to take a bath with you, you could have just asked,”

Why in Eywas great paradise did he say that? He was just thinking about how your brother might knock his teeth out for the fact that he had been staring at your bare chest and he felt as though stupid mouth spoke on its own accord.

He was glad you turned so red at his words though- probably out of anger at the implication. It overshadowed how he had embarrassed himself- drew your attention away from the embarrassing mauve heat creeping up his own neck. He hated how visible the contrast of flushed skin was compared to yours. The splash of the water you sent towards him forces him to hold the half done kxener far above his own head.

“I’m surprised you even know how to bathe, kurkung,”

He thinks it’s cute how quickly one arm covers your chest as you go to sit up slightly- suddenly very aware that you’re more exposed then usual, despite the fact you didn’t seem to care before- reaching to grab at his arm and try and snatch the kxener from his hand. It’s his turn to laugh at you know, and plop himself down on the water smoothed stone you had lounged on.

“I’m very clean actually. It’s hard to have such magnificent hair,” He hands you the kxener and with his other hand motions to his bun.

You snort, rolling your eyes and taking the herb you had both been using as a peace treaty from him. Your body turns towards him, head propped up on one of your pretty delicate hands, and the other holding the kxener to your pretty plump lips. Had he not embarrassed himself once already he’d have just sat here and blatantly watched you smoke in the morning light.

“It is going to grow thin if you keep it up all the time,” You motion to him.

Though you knew it was probably a pile of talioang dung, and that his hair would be fine despite the past five years of his well known bun- you couldn’t help but love when his long curly terraces fell down the expanse of his prodigious back. You wouldn’t waste an opportunity to convince him to keep it down.

“I’ll tattoo my bald head,” he’s grinning when he tells you, mimicking the way you had propped your head up on your hand, and reaches to swirl one of your own wavy strands around his finger, “Probably shave yours in your sleep to get back at you for jinxing me,”

“Your mother would scalp you if you did such a cruel thing, very unbecoming of the Eyktanay,”

You mock his status over you. He supposed that was fitting for you. The eldest daughter of the Toruk Makto was sure to have an issue with authority, 

“Well this is rather unbecoming of me. I could be doing countless other things but sitting in a spring with you smoking a kxener and watching the world go by,”

His argument is valid. Though you know he’s joking there is a twinge in your stomach. An argumentative spark that tells you he isn’t joking- that he did not prioritize you the way you had grown to prioritize him. 

The snippy comment rolling off your tongue dies as Ao’nung’s shoulders hunch slightly, leaning his head further down into your space. At this point you were close enough that he could hit the rolled smoke from your own hand.

It was ridiculous. Evil even. How Eywa dangled what you wanted so cruelly in front of your face. The cruel waltz of tension that has suffocated the friendship as you aged. The fact that you can feel your stomach drop at the feeling of his lips so close to your fingers, could taste the shared air between the two of you. Here you sat almost stunned in the shadow of his form.

The Metekyana were large- huge even. An’oung was large amongst them. Well into ten feet you’d assume considering he was ever so taller then his father when he stood straight up. In comparison to his big, stubborn bull-head, your sylphlike hands holding the mostly finished intoxicant to his tantalizing lips looked delicate and small. He could break you. He could toss you around like a rag doll and you’d even thank him after.

You feel bad for the addled look on your face, it’s just been increasingly vexing growing into adulthood due to this bastard. You know you really want to be grinning at his close proximity and the fact that he trusts you so close to his face with something burning. You should be cooing over the fact that he flutters his pretty eyes closed and admires his long eyelashes. Yet you couldn’t stop the bubbling of an attitude under your skin. You knew you were attracted to him, most people had known you had fancied him. Especially when he had grown comfortable enough around you to privy you to the earnest, callowly charming and flustered side of him- but there was something about the way life turned out that kept you both in this tense ‘we aren’t together’, but we are very obviously much more than friends.

You were an older sister at your core. Bossy and with a desire to be the center of attention; Ao’nung thought it was a game to play, and would never fall at your feet the way you charmed others into. At least he’d put up a fight in the pathetically self imposed game you had both committed to.

“Others would gladly take your place, leave then, find somewhere else to be,” you find your resolve finally, after your embarrassing pause. 

With a roll of your eyes, you snatch your hand from his lips. In annunciation of your irritation you had stood up slightly, careful to not remove your body from the turquoise waters of the mangrove spring as you began to move towards the end furthest from him.

He doesn’t really like the years-long game you’ve been playing at this moment, and he really doesn’t like that you have moved away from him. He’s tired of competing in this ridiculous long winded courting ritual with you. He’s been at it since he had made you sob when he left Lo’ak outside of the reef all those years ago. It was the first time Ao’nung had been embarrassed by his own actions. He had been spoiled his whole life, taking whatever he could want- and for the first time he realized he had taken something from someone else. He had taken happiness from someone. He thanked Eywa for letting Lo’ak return relatively unharmed, and swore the wretched sobs that had fallen from your lips never again even ticked the back of your throat.

Year's. Years he has gone out of his way to emulate the humility you so easily radiate. You had forced him to grow; for year's he's learned how to be a man who deserved you. He wasn't a perfect man, in his eyes still not very deserving of you; he was still loud, impulsive and painfully cocky. It’s probably what had pushed him to wrap a large hand around your delicate wrist, unceremoniously pulling you back until the back of your thighs touched him, tail squishing between you and the muscle of his thigh.

Though Ao’nung would pride himself in the fact that you haven't sobed once or even cried often in years, he can't say you didn't hiss. As you are right now, a soprano squeal of a hiss right in his face. Now that the kxener was finishing you were pleasantly buzzing; and the quick drawback of your body had made you dizzy. It’s not his actions that have you embarrassed; you're embarrassed your stomach is fluttering at the feeling of coming into contact with his legs and torso, comfortably aware of the heat he added to the warmth of the water. You try to hide the embarrassment of being close to him like this with only half-real annoyance. Had you not been so civilized Ao’nung was sure you would snap that pretty little jaw at him bite a chunk out of his face,

“I am naked!” Your voice cracks as you yelp, hand landing on his thigh, using the waters aid to help elevate yourself off of his lap, mortified as you were far too close to the water's surface to enjoy the privacy the turquoise water had provided you with yet the idea of your bare skin on his was somehow scarier.

“I am not,” he remarks, taking the kxener from you, moving the hand that had grabbed you to land on your thigh.

You freeze in his lap. Now that the sun's completely up there's nothing to hide you. No beautiful colors to bounce off of your face that you can pass off the blushes accreditation.

“Sit and finish it, you wanted to enjoy a relaxing morning- you do not seem so relaxed,”

You blame the softly buzzing high for the softness you feel for him at this moment. Assuring yourself that his stupid oval head wasn’t terribly handsome and that his warm blue eyes didn’t make your chest tighten. You wouldn’t admit to any of the stupid love sick thoughts that have plagued your mind the entire time he’s been here with you.

More so, you certainly wouldn’t admit that despite his usually rowdy behavior and need to bicker with you, sitting against his imposing form made you feel safer than ever before. It was the work of a herbal paranoid if he dared poked fun at you for how it did not take much convincing for you to sit yourself down on his lap. Flinching at the feeling of the fiber of his tweng against the nude back of your thigh and glutes. You hope he doesn’t notice, even going as far as to lay your head on his chest before doing as he told you and lifting the dwindling end to your lips,

“Don’t you want to finish it?” you ask him, refusing to look up at him. Instead you stared intently at the sun over the sea. He runs his fingers across the expanse of your shoulder.

“It’s yours, I want you to enjoy your morning. Besides, unlike you I have real things to do this afternoon,”

You huff at his jab, knowing he respected the work you did around the village and the aid you offered his mother. A small part of you aches over the lingering idea that he didn't think you enjoyed the time spent with him.

“I've already enjoyed my morning. It’s not often the future Ole’eytkan spares time for me and graces me with his presence,”

You know he's busy, you'd never actually hold that over his head. And when you feel him move your hair off of your shoulder and lay his head on top of your own you almost feel bad for reminding him he’s so busy. Especially when he so sweetly caresses your decolletage as well. You didn’t understand how you always danced this edge with Ao’nung. Years of this pining and yet you’d both always end up here. Stuck in a strangely intimate moment that neither of you would dare go past. You are glad to finish though, finally tossing the item that had kept you both in this painfully frustrating stalemate, maybe you’d go sulk the rest of the day as he was busy doing Eywa knows what.

It’s your ego really, that makes you want to end the morning. Or embarrassment. How could you be sitting naked on top of him; how could you have let this go on all morning. Not just this morning actually, how could you have played this game so long with him when you were so unsure of his own feelings.

“I’m going to prune though so we should get out,”

Your voice is snippy when you speak to him. Hurt evident in your voice as you look up, and finally notice that he’s staring intently down at you. Committing the sight of your nude lissome Omatakyan form perched on his lap to memory. His wagging tail rippling the water and allowing him to watch the waters reflection dance across the bare sapphire of your skin. You were often close to Ao’nung. He didn’t make you uncomfortable in the slightest. You had sat in similar positions, been casually intimate- hell when you were younger the whole group of you would sleep in piles. Being pressed against him wasn’t new to you, yet this is very different. He had made the situation you were in very different in the span of minutes.

“Ao’ i’m serious-“ your voice cracks, “We’ve been here far too long, i’m sure someone will come looking for you-”

“Only me, you and Eywa here,”

It’s said with such a coy yearning you can’t help but flush purple. It wasn’t often that he had ever caught you off guard- at least not to this extent. Despite his usual impulsive nature he was usually relatively predictable when it came to you,

“Y-you’re never serious,” your ears flatten, when you try to turn your head, however his hand is quick to catch your cheek, and he uses his thumb to smush both together. 

It’s not as easy for your tail to wag submerged in the water, not as easy as his does. You’re fighting against the water but you can’t help the flick of your tail- there was too much going on. You felt too much. You’re not really sure why you keep up the charade. He knew you had a great deal of admiration for him surely he wouldn’t have drawn this out had he not been interested in you?

“How could I not be serious when the most enchanting woman in all of Pandora is looking up at me like that?” and his big hand is dwarfing your cheeks and you can swear that you’d choke if you spoke, “Huh? All shy now are you?”

You weren’t shy. How could he call you shy? Shy was hiding away from him or avoiding conversation. He couldn’t call you shy if he did things to embarrass you into dumbfounded silence.

“You drive me ins-”

Your scold dies at the feeling of his kiss on your lips. It’s soft and his breathing against your face makes you smile. It's embarrassing how instant the grin is. How can you be mad when he’s kissing you finally. Perhaps you’d just say you were throwing a nantang a bone when your greedy berry stained tongue eagerly glided across his lip, or when your hips dug down into his lap, curling your tail around his thigh. Ao’nung could justify that his hands gripping and groping frantically as your sun warmed torso pulling you back into him was him doing the same.

And when one of your hands falls to caress your nails against the skin of his lower abs he can’t stop his hips from jerking and thrusting upwards into you, sending your body jostling up. Prematurely ending the oral exploration of both of your tongues.

There’s a string of his saliva connecting you together and his hands brace your jolted form. He means to ask you if you’re alright much quicker then he does. He can’t help but get distracted by your pretty flushed cheeks and with your wide amorous amber eyes. It set him a thrill with a sense of his own stomach warming bliss. He can’t shake his worry though. Worried he had pushed too far too suddenly.

“C’mon, you’re not ready for all this yet,” he rubs his nose against yours, and lets you kiss him softly again. 

        He paws at your hip, and then motions back towards the village with his head breaking your lips apart. How could you have possibly wanted to go back to the village now? You give him a queried look at his cocky barb,

“Perhaps you’re the one not ready for me,”

The raillery in your voice is a comfort that would have made his knees buckle had he not been seated. He smiles, because he knows you’re both right; and his cheeks hurt from the grin as he watches your eyes flutter close as your noses touch once more. A magnetic force that kept bringing your faces close to one another. You couldn’t see him now that your eyes were closed and you were enjoying the comfort of being close to him. It made him shift in his seat. You couldn’t see him. Not now. Not when he wanted you to see him so terribly. See how hard he had worked for you- see how badly he wanted you to just tell him you wanted him so he could move past this terrible feeling of insecurity he had over you. Then again perhaps, he thought it meant more in this moment that you knew him. Knew him so well that you could see past his coyness. As if to coax him further you bite down gently at his lip.

How could he leave you wanton like this? He relishes in the the sweet wiggle of your body at the gentle press of the pads of his calloused fingers roaming the length of your spine and dancing across the valley of your breasts. Soft and slow—just for the sake of caressing you. He has wanted to touch you like this for as long as he could remember. None of his lingering touches or platonic embraces could pale to the invigorating pulse your skin against his gave him. And he’s barely touching you- ghosting over your pretty sapphire skin and you’re trembling. Trying to squirm away from his lithe hands as to prevent his gliding fingers in their  pursuit towards your peaked nipples. He’s sure the drag of his fingers as he groped at you was probably more tortuous than any direct overstimulation he could cause you but he wouldn’t grant you that clemency. Not until he feels satisfied that you’ve been disproven. That he was more than capable of taking care of you, more than ready to.

Ao’nung is competitive, and you know this. He knows you know this. How often have you both gotten into trouble over silly competition? He can’t help but huff at the thought that you knew how to press his buttons and roll his hips up once more. The sound of water squishing between where you meet makes your ears fall flat against your head and your nails dig into the soft skin below his abs.

“Ya, yer gonna see,” He moves with you easily, sliding from under you and propping your knees up on the smooth stone you had both sat on previously, standing behind you. 

Ao’nung casts an imposing shadow over yourself and the ground around you. The water only offers to cover you to the top of your thigh, rendering you the most exposed you’ve ever been for him. You can’t help but shift your weight and squirm at the feeling of Ao’nung wrapping his hands around the freshly cleaned halo of curls that were your last sense of modesty. Now that he’s pushed your hair over your shoulder there’s nothing stopping him from seeing all of you. You attempt to focus on how the ends of your hair dip into the water, or how tan your freckling hands and arm appear next to the light lime wash of the smooth stony structures of the springs.

You feel strange, knees on the smooth stone you had originally sat on, palms bracing yourself on the stoney ledge as his prodigious hands dance up and down the shape of your curves while he causes in the water to plop rhythmic against your skin as he gives into his desire to rut against your form quickly. He is even quicker to catch himself and return his focus to you. You should feel much more vulnerable than you do at this moment- quite literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. Yet the cooling overcast of his form protecting you from the sweltering rays of light made you feel far more secure then you had previously thought. 

It’s tantalizing- dizzying even when you feel his fingers run down the expanse of your back. It was easy for him to become distracted with the enchanting visage of your form arched prettily in front of him.

He knows you were right. He was nervous. For more reasons than one. Firstly the longer the sun made its ascension into the sky the more likely anyone could have the misfortune of stumbling upon you. More importantly he knows he should not mate with you right here. That you deserve much better than this. He aches knowing this is the closest he has ever gotten to it despite years of literally grasping at sand for the chance to be mounted over you like he was now.

Ao’nung did not have the resolve of a man you deserved though. He couldn’t swallow the anxiety he felt over the fact that perhaps if he didn’t come across you today someone else would have. And you would have been bent over for them. He wanted to do this much better for you- as cliche as it sounded. Yet, when he watched his hand dwarf the intricate and soft dips of the dimples that framed the sides of your softly twitching tail, his resolve snapped.

“Yer’ gonna be my Tsahìk?”

He watches you jolt under his sudden slurred words, the added stimulation of his left palm gripping the pliable sphere of meat that was only centimeters from his own longing groin adding to your need. Gripping just a bit too roughly. He didn’t mean to handle you so impolitely, he could not bring himself to have any resolve as his fingers curl against your skin to pull you apart for him. He’s embarrassed at how excited he is to receive the reward of your pretty moan at his chilling intrusion. He had been blessed with hearing your whiney groans and faux whimpery cries many times before, but he had never been privy to such an entrancing sound as your desperate moan.

He can’t stop his upper body from clambering down, hands quickly bracing his imposing form down on the same rock that held you up. His face instantly in the visible crook of your neck. All you can do is turn and gaze dumbfounded at his hand that twitches almost too closely to your own while you listen to him practically pant in your alert ear. His panting breath cracks in your ear when you raise your hips slightly, the feeling of the ridge of your tail, and curve of your ass against his ever throbbing manhood results in his own guttural moan followed by a sloppy open mouth kiss under your ear.

“Ao’nung, please,”

You don’t know what you’re pleading for him to do and he can’t believe you could be the one pleading right now considering how tightly you had wound him up already. He can’t bring himself to understand the complexities of your own emotions when he can now fully feel his body on top of yours.

“Please what, huh? Want me to mate you? G’onna be mine?” He enunciated his words with uncharacteristically gentle kisses to your neck. 

You hear the wet plap of him forcing the fabric of his tweng down enough for you to feel the weight of him on your back. You’re unsure if the tender caress from your sensitive belly up to the valley of your breast from his free hand is what makes you shiver, or the feeling of the heavy tip of his cock that still manages to hang down onto your body despite Ao'nungs desperate grip at his own base.

Instantly one of your hands reaches to clasp around his wrist that has moved electrifyingly close to your breast, dinging your nails into him ever so slightly, causing him to jerk slightly. You huff at the feeling of his tip smearing precum across the small of your back.

“I thought you wanted me to enjoy my morning- why must you torture me instead,”

There was that pretty desperate whine. That inexorable and perpetual babble that you put on to get the things you wanted from those around you. He wanted to say he had better resolve then them, but the sound of your frustration laced whine has the weight of his cock twitching against the pudge of your ass. The wrist you had grabbed onto continued its ascension up your body, fingers dancing up your neck until he could hold your mandible.

It’s endearing really, the view he’s greeted with. With the easy squish of the cute chub of your cheeks together between his big hand, he’s effortlessly forcing you to look up at him. The Metkayina were expressive, maybe because they signed to each other a great deal- you wouldn’t know. But you’d still thank Eywa for it, as you can’t deny the aura of pure desire that radiates off of his face like the heatwaves the morning sun had begun to cast across the horizon. Eyes blown out wide, and the ends of his kiss swollen lips curled into a soft smile.

A soft smile that doesn't match the feeling in your stomach when his big hand leaves your ass and wraps around the base of your kuru. You swear you see Eywa in his eyes, and he swears he hears her in your gasp. He’s quick to push his lips back onto yours despite the unnatural position. And though your spine and neck ache from the arch he has pulled you back into you can’t help but clank your teeth together as you kiss again. You’re not sure who’s spit is all over you both; all you know is the sloshing sound of your mouths and the embarrassing sound of water sloshing at the disturbance of his rocking hips that ground his twitching cock against your ass. He wanted to reach down and force your tail out of the way so he could relish in the feeling of you hammocking his throbbing cock- but he had something far more important to deal with.

The most beautiful girl in all of Pandora was sparkling in the sun below him, and you wanted him as terribly as he wanted you. He really did want you to enjoy your morning and promised himself you’d enjoy every morning after this one too.

“I need you,” You’re whining into his mouth.

The very woman he has painfully longed after- the love of his life- was moaning into his mouth as he kissed them. The huffy and croaked out, “Need all of you,” should have been all he needed to hear from you. All he had ever wanted to hear from you. Nonetheless, Ao’nungs egotistical charm was a facade. In actuality he was terribly insecure. In fact he couldn’t truly wrap his head around how he had even gotten this far with you. He grounds himself in the feeling of your heavy breaths against his lips before he speaks,

“Tell me how bad you want tsaheylu. Tell me how bad you want me to be your mate,”

He doesn’t mean the growling undertone of his voice, or the side to side grind of his hips against your ass, but he loves the feeling of your cute little tail rolling over his cock at the motion and he can’t control how good he feels. Your wide eyes would be enough consent, the adoration in your topaz iris unmistakable.

“Nga yawne lu oer,”

One of your hands reaches up to hook around his neck, letting your delicate hand wrap around the base of his own kuru. And in the same breath you just loved him in, you assure him-

“I see you, Ao’nung. I see the real you. I want you so bad,”

He would normally laugh at the weakened tug at his kuru, but all you want is for him to kiss you again. How could he laugh when his pretty girl is begging him so nicely? How can he not kiss you once more and run his big hand down your delicate kuru. Dance his fingers across the pretty, intricate and adorned goddess loc protecting it. Had he felt a bit meaner he would have twisted the little curls that escaped it’s end just to hear you squeal and whine.

He had more pressing matters. Something far more interesting for him to focus on. You had a bundle of nerves practically dying to be connected to him, flailing tendrils kissing the bottom of his abs. Desperately swiping across the water slicked skin of his stomach looking for his own nerves to curl and wrap into. You wanted to feel him. All of him and it drove him wild. By the time his fingers trail the nerves of your tswin you’re crying. Actual tears that clump your pretty long lashes together and redden the tip of your cute crinkled nose.

His throat hurts. Choking on his breath at your sparkling tears. He can’t help but use one strong arm to cradle you into his body, pulling your torso taught against his own and relishing in the feeling of your boobs squishing against his arm. He tries to sooth you, hushing you with a voice uncharacteristically gentle for the man you had spent the end of your childhood roughhousing and bantering with. 

“Shhh, tanhì,” his head is besides yours again, and you welcome the feeling of your cheeks rubbing together, and the gentle nuzzling of his face into the crook of your neck, “Nga yawne lu oer, why do you cry pretty baby?”

He feels you clench below your tail when he asks, and he feels bad for the bead of precum that squeezes on the dip of your spine again. Your soft quivering,

“‘s too much,” as you shake your head a bit, “feel’s too much,” your rounded red eyes peer up at him again. You’re blushing now, purple and pretty for him.

“Let me feel it with you then, ya?” Your noses are slotted against each other when he moves to speak against the crown of your head, ending his question with a kiss to your slightly furrowed forehead. He lets the arm bracing you against him slowly begin to tweak your ridged nipple between his fingers. Letting himself enjoy the feeling of it hardening between his thumb and pointer finger, “Please, Ao’- wanna feel you,”

There’s a chuckling undertone in his huff as you drop forward on your arms again, bracing your palms onto the watery ledge. Though he had wanted to pull you back up, the sight of you arching your back and grinding yourself back into him grants you reprieve from having to hold yourself up.

It was almost difficulty, shaking your hips against him as well as you could from your knelt position, yet the stones assault on your knees was barely an afterthought as you had finally arched yourself in such a way that Ao’nung’s balls had finally began to drag blissfully across your swollen clit.

He doesn’t think you’ve ever sounded so pretty. Practically purring under him and gasping as you grind yourself against him and he paws at your breast. He’s proven wrong when he watches you jolt at the feeling of the hair at the end of his kuru raise towards where he dropped yours against your back. You feel the teasing kisses of his own tendrils on the skin just before where your own danced wildly waiting for him, “One more time baby, tell me you want me. I need you t’be sure,”

Had you not been driven mad by the slow pace he had subjected you to you’d have felt bad for the obvious crack in his voice. You hated that he thought you didn’t love him, it’s what drove you to reach up and grab for the base of his own braid,

“Ao’nung if you don’t i’m going to lose my-“

You don’t finish your reprimand. You can’t. Not when you feel his tswin latch onto yours, pulling you tightly into him. Tsaheylu. You had ridden ikrans and ilus of course- but this was different. Like a rush below your skin that left you panting in his arms. You had never felt like this before. Never throbbed like this before. All you could do was squeal as a relentless wave of wetness practically leaked from your twitching cunt. In a desperate attempt to ground yourself from the sudden rush of fire across your body you raise you hand from the base of his own kuru to the mass of curls held up in a bun.

You didn’t mean to yank at the tie that kept them out of the way. In fact, you were shocked when his inky tresses fell forward, covering you in a curled veil of obsidian and forcing you to drown in the smell of salted ambergris of the sea and smoke that was permanently locked in the ringlets of Ao’nungs mane. It blocked you from perceiving anything that wasn’t him, not only could you feel him, you couldn’t see anything besides him. He had engulfed your senses the same way he had engulfed your mind.

“Oh f-uck,” Eywa save you, his throaty whine makes you drop your body weight against the arm that had originally only been ghosting across your breasts, rendering you into a blubbering pile of putty forced to listen to him practically moan into your ear that, “I had no idea you were feeling so good baby,”

You can hear the swish of his paddled tail as it escapes the confines of the spring that you’d blame the sweat accumulating on your body to. You can feel how absolutely delighted he was. Though you couldn’t physically see where your nerves became his you couldn’t shake the picture between your eyes. As though the pretty loop of your braids had been branded behind the eyelid of your third eye by your mate.

“Ma’ pretty mate wants me so badly,” his opposite hand meanly grips at the fat of your hip, pulling you up to him.

You felt like a rag doll, pulled up against him just so he could grind you up and down against his length. He can understand why you were crying now. You felt a lot of emotions for having such a small form, it’s probably why you had the attitude problems you did. The mixture of panic and uncontrolled longing that tickled the pit of your stomach was an addicting feeling to him however. He makes a cruel grab at the base of your tail caressing his thumb on the smooth, sensitive skin under your tail.

“You’re either gonna move your tail out of my way or I'm going to move it for you,”

He’s straightening his back a bit as he speaks, arm sliding to let you go slightly, though his grip on your tit stays firm. Almost too quickly your tail curls up to give him a view he’s been dying for since he’s stumbled upon you this morning.

You’re swollen and flushed and so wet. He wonders how long you’ve been this sticky. And you don’t even care that he’s practically drooling over the sight of your pretty tail curled up because that pretty useless head of yours is too busy swirling with silly little thoughts about how much you loved him. He was sure it was some evolutionary effect to get people to keep having kids to keep their species alive, but to Ao’nung nothing has ever felt real to him. Maybe love was a scam for everyone else, but for him? Eywa herself couldn’t offer him more than the moment in front of him.

“Prettiest thing I ever fucking seen,” His hand had to leave your azure tail to palm at himself. He had only just began to realize how badly he was throbbing for you, “Need you so bad too,”

You rub yourself against him, pushing one of your hands down on the rock to offer more pressure

“Ao’nung please, i’ll be okay you can-“

You’re cut off with your own shaken breath when you feel him rub the blunt end of himself against your sticky slit. 

“Nu-uh,” he’s hunched forward over you again, rubbing the head of his cock against your slit, “you can’t take it like this,”

It’s your turn to feel shared panic. Not that you focus on it, choosing to clutch to his arms as the speed of his steadily rubbing intrusions picks up. It feels good. Too good on your still stoned, too stimulated body. Too good considering you can feel how good he feels. Every time the tip of his cock slides over your swollen clit and catches another glob of slick that only makes it easier to speed his assault up you moan.

Your thighs clench against him, but it does little to deter him. Not at his size. Not when he’s obsessed with the fact that he’s so much bigger than you. There wasn’t a thing you could do to keep him from making you cum. It really was foolish for you to clench your thighs. It only served to create a new angle for him to rub against. The smile you can hear in his moans is almost as embarrassing as the sloshing sound of your cunt at the enjoyable pace he had set.

He really did want to finger you, he wanted to feel your pretty cunt clench down around his pointer and middle finger too terribly but he can’t avoid the painful throb of his cock any longer. He’d been ignoring the pulse of his lower stomach since he had first seen the heavenly image of you sitting nude in the water watching the pink and lilac sky kiss stars goodbye. He was glad you seemed to like the intrusion of him practically jerking himself into you. Coating his cock in the enticingly scented albumen of your slick. He could cum probably, if he wasn’t already buzzing with overstimulation.

The naive part of him is confused when he watches your hips roll away from him, thighs clenching. Maybe it means you want him away from you, but all he can feel is the part of you screaming in his brain to keep going. So his hips follow yours so he can continue the sloppy drag of his cock-head though your folds. He’s starstruck when he catches on your clit rather roughly and is gifted with the sight of your spazzaming leaking cunt.

He’s so occupied with the liquid leaving you’re pretty swollen hole that the hand holding your chest up drops down to your tail again, yanking your hips up. He drops his cock from his hands to continue his assault on you with his fingers to rub faster then he previously was. You scream and he’s never been happier. The sight of him holding you up by your tail (that now wraps up around his forearm) while you brace yourself up by your hands as he rubs an orgasm from you, extending it as far as he could.

He knows he made you feel good and it only adds to how good he feels. If he was a bit more shameless he’d have probably busted the second you started leaking onto his swollen tip. His patience was almost in vain as he watched you lay your head on your arms, sitting up on your knees more to arch your back for him.

“Ao’ wan’ you to feel good too,”

So considerate of him always. He can feel the throb of your pretty pussy from where he still holds your tail. He laughs a little, he can’t help it. It’s a little mean when he sends a softish spank to where your ass meets your thigh. It’s mostly just to see your pretty body jolt under him, and to hear your pretty whine but it’s also to give him a second to compose himself. He’s not trying to claim your pretty azure skin with his cum yet.

And you look at him with those pretty slitted eyes, plump lips curled into the softest snarl he’s ever seen on your bratty little face. He doesn’t mean to so unceremoniously hunch down to catch your face in his palm and kiss you. He’s just so excited that he finally has what he wants.

“I can put it in ya?” He mumbles against your lips, 

“Gonna let me make you feel good?” He questions again, and it’s his turn for a twitch to shoot up his cock to the soft patch of fat below his abs at your pretty moan.

“Ao’ you can! You y-you don’t have to ask,”

He ignores the amusement over how snappy your sentence started, yet ended in hiccupy adoration filled stumbles. Once again he’s lining himself up against your slit, and with the added force you can finally feel the girth of him. You’re thankful he hasn’t let you see him fully yet, worried the sight might have unsettled you more than the feeling.

He has to refrain himself from shooting forward, shoving you full in one snap of his hips. Has to stand up and slide his weighty dick between your cheeks to lay it on your back just to remind himself how deep he’d be in you. Sliding against you for a few lazy thrusts just to admire the view. He's dumbfounded at how intrusive his cock would be in comparison to whatever Omatikaya loser Eywa had intended for you to be mated with before he had set his eyes on you. One hand moves to spread your cheek one more time, the other returning to its place on his cock to help guide him between your folds. He starts groaning as he pushes the tip in.

Warm. Fuck you’re warmer then the suns rays on his back. Warmer than the heat his downed hair traps around him. And you match his moan. A hypnotizing harmonization that’s only paused when he feels a foreign stinging. A warm burn where he had never felt pain before, and though it was nothing more than an inconvenience he couldn’t stand the idea of his girl in any pain. You didn’t even get a chance to whine at the stretch before two if his large fingers are clamoring over your bud, trying his best to roll tight figure eights to lessen the sting for you.

Ao’nung can’t help but be confused. He can feel you slicking up his cock as he pushes in, the sheer wetness welcoming him in with almost ease. The only resistance the clenching muscle could offer against his intrusion was the sheer tightness of it.

Why is one hand reaching up to dig your pretty nails into his thigh, to scratch and push at him even though you’re feeling so good? Do you forget he can feel you? Can he blame it on you feeling too good? He’s not even half way into you and yet your hips keep stuttering away from him. He’s even paused his movement to appreciate your little huffs over being split open on him,

“You are alright,” you feel one his hands wrap around your waist, guiding you to sit up on your knees all the way out of the water, forcing his cock to slide out slightly. He makes sure to guide your face up towards you, forcing your eyes to lock on his. 

His big hand then sides under your thigh and pulls your one leg up. It’s an embarrassing display, Ao’nung holding one of your legs up against your chest so he could force the remnants of his aching cock into your hole.

“Ya yer pussy knows it’s mine. Good girl sucking me right in,”

Both of your round exultant eyes are locked onto each other as he bottoms out, his words making you clench down. You marvel at the flush of his face and the hiss that falls past his teeth after the wet plap of his balls hit your ass. You swear you can feel him against your fruit filled stomach. As though he had truly impaled you on something. There was no way he could have prepared you for such a stretch. It was nothing like any of the self imposed violations against your cunt by your own fingers- what Ao’nung was doing to you was entirely different. This was beyond any girlish fantasy that had ever crossed your mind about the man.

"I need a second please-wait,” you sound so desperate for someone who knows that he’d never think of pushing you past your limit- not this time, not like this. Not when you’ve been so kind as to let him mate with you. He doesn’t answer you, kissing up and down your neck and shoulders. Allowing himself to bite and suck as he rolls your clit between his fingers,

“Deep breath baby, I already taught you how to breathe. Don’t make me do it again,”

There’s a smile against your throat as you feel him suck particularly hard, it makes you smile too. You don’t know why you listen to him, taking in a deep breath and craning your neck to lay against his chest.

His ego has skyrocketed. Feeling how much you liked being crammed down on his dick while he played with your pretty clit, legs spread wide for him. He hasn't even really gotten started and you feel twitchy like before you came. He can admit you’re clouding his brain quicker then he intended. He hadn’t felt so brain dead since his very first rut (which he had spent the entirety of silently fixated on you). He doesn’t really mean to shift his hips, doesn’t mean to push his fat cock deeper into your sweet little hole-

"Ah fuck, too big- it's too big!"

The sight of your furrowed eyes looking up at him makes his chest tighten and his dick a little harder. You didn’t mean it- even if he could feel the aftershock of the burn that dances across your nervous system into his. He knows you don’t mean it cause you’re grinding your pretty cunt against him. Chasing the high his fingers against your clit are providing. 

“Stop ya whining,” he knows he’s been nice enough to you. Which is why he pinches down on your swollen clit ever so gently, twisting softly between the pads of his fingers ruining how close to a second release you were. It feels good when it makes you jump and impale yourself deeper against his cock, "Maybe you're just really fucking tiny,"

And with his words he begins the slow roll of his hips forward. After the few experimental rolls of his hips in conjunction with his comforting mumbles that you would be fine, Ao’nung feels that he can finally pull almost all the way out of you. You hate the feeling of being empty so suddenly, and are almost too loud when he begins to deliver shallow thrust into you. The water of the spring is splashing below you, and the sound of the spring mixed with the violent wet slapping of your skin together would alert anyone who got too close to the springs as to the torture Ao’nung was putting you though.

As if he is reading your mind (he probably is in one way or another) his mean hand grips the fat of your thigh tighter, and forces the leg higher in effort to open you more- so far even that you feel your lips part completely- as he uses the fat of your thigh as reigns to deliver deeper thrust.

“Ya yer right, anyone could walk out here with your legs wide fuckin open for me, huh?” he starts, and you wrap your tail around his torso to keep yourself stabilized against his thrusts into you, “Toruk Maktos daughter getting fucked stupid in public,”

He’s biting you again, just to hear that pretty little squeal and feel your pussy clamp down on him. He knows he should wait just a little longer before revving up the brutality of his pace- but the sight of you drove him to madness. And feeling your fingers reaching up to knot into his hair and yank only spurs him on more.

Feeling you cum felt better the second time then the first time. Is dizzying how quickly this one crashes over you. He’s a little disappointed that there’s a lack of liquid to splash against his muscular thighs this time, but promised himself your third would be messy after seeing the creamy ring you left around his cock. A welcome addition of more lubricate so he could comfortably drag against your spongy wall. It mind numbing how good it felt to fuck you though it- he was sure you were tearing up his thighs with your pretty up kept nails but he couldn’t be bothered with the white hot burn when he feels the lingering throb of your orgasm.

“Wrap your arms around my neck, baby,” he pleads with his lips against you, thrusting at an almost animalistic pace. 

The up kick in the power of his thrust distracts you. You don’t move quick enough for him as he growls, smacking at the bundle of nerves between your legs. It’s all it takes for you to jolt and snap your arms above you and wrap them around his neck.

It knocks the wind out of your smoke assaulted lungs when his other arm loops around your other thigh. Heaving you out of the water into his arms. You see the world from an uncomfortably high angle as he stands straighter. Gasping as you grasp the inky tendrils of his hair in a painful tug.

“Oh fuck,”

It’s sinful, the way he’s slamming you up and down on him. Bouncing you in the air like a toy. Small and weightless in his hands as he used you to cum. There was an ache in your hips at the position, the sea breeze against your exposed cunt only edged you on more though. You were shaking in his hands, and he’s never seen you so delicate and vulnerable for him- he’d be sure to make fun of how quickly his dick turned your sour bratty mood into nothing but a brain dead euphoric smile.

“All you fucking needed all these years, huh?” he asks you, “Woulda saved me so much grief if I had just mated with you then, huh?”

He isn’t expecting an answer, just mindlessly babbling to himself as he slides against the spongey spot of your cunt. It’s amazing to him how you jerk in his arms, stretching yourself backwards to clutch onto his neck better, straining your head sideways to pull at his hair and yank him into another sloppy kiss. Your wet lips are chilled by his breath as he pulls away,

“Touch your pussy for me baby, I wan’na cum so bad,”

As if he needs to feel your orgasm rip across his nervous system to make him cum. How could you deny the pretty aqua eyes pleading with you. It doesn’t feel as good when you do it considering you had grown so used to his much larger fingers padding against you but it still felt good. Too good to be so dirty. Too good to be mated in the early hours of the morning in a public space. His hips jerk up to match the painful drop of your ragdolled body against him and it makes you see stars. Stars that were successful in blinding him as well.

“Ya that’s it baby, don’t stop-“

It hurts to clench down on him. The painful snap behind your belly button could only be met with you dead weighing your body down deeper onto his cock and the fluttering push of your plush cunt.

He could have topped over with the speed he used to look down over your shoulder. He didn’t want to miss the sight of your pussy cumming for him. Not when you show him how much his pretty pussy can gush for him. He thought the small splash of liquid from your first orgasm was squirting- but at the sight of the liquid that sprays against the rocks ahead of you his thrusts grow sloppy. He doesn’t know how he was so lucky to have your juices splash up into him but he’s thankful for it- never wants the smell of you to leave his face.

How can he not want to cum at the feeling of your body completely giving into him. Laying limp in his big arms while he fucked up into you. There was no clenching resistance of your fluttering hole or pulling yourself up off of his body. Only his pretty girl in his arms getting filled the way no other man could ever fill her.

He hates how bad it hurts to slide out of you when he feels himself starting to cum. You offer no support in keeping his composure as your fingers slide down from where they rested on your cunt and gently caress the tips of your fingers against his tightening ballsack.

“You’re gonna make me cum,”

He knows he’ll never live down the breathy gasp of his words or moaning the way he does for you. He prays no one is within earshot of the wanton moans that leave his throat but he can’t help himself. You’re so wet and warm and tight. He swore there wasn’t a pussy in all of Pandora that would milk him half as well.

And Eywa, when he finally finds the strength to give in and pull out and your small palm wraps around the head of his cock, twisting and jerking him until an embarrassingly fat load shoots from him- he can't stop the loud growl that his moans turn into.

He would accredit the buckle of his knees to the fact that you were failing at aiming his cum towards your belly due to the erratic jerking of your hand against the tip of his cock, sending his cum not only over your pretty body, but shooting haphazardly onto the floor and most likely into the water. But the real reason for his weak legs was the sweet and huffed way you were babbling that you would love him forever.

[agustsmuse]

Somebody Does Love | MYG

Pairing: BestFriend!Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Idol au

Synopsis: You never wanted to burden Yoongi with your problems, he was healing and you weren’t even close but he was your best friend and he’d always turn up for you.

Warnings: Depression, self depreciation, implied self harm.

WC: 2.1k

Posted: 18 August 2023

It didn't take much for Yoongi to worry about you. He could tell something was wrong by something as simple as the way you worded a text or how you carried yourself on a particular day. In fact, he knew you better than you knew yourself. Habits, tastes, quirks. Some of which he'd tell you, others he kept to himself because he didn't want you to stop doing them, because he knew you'd stop if he did.

He knew you well enough that you'd stop all the things he loved most about you if he uttered a word about them, it was a habit of yours he hated. You never did it consciously, of course. It was like it was programmed into you that the second someone told you they loved a feature, you’d change it or one of your quirks, you'd stop doing it almost instantly.

And that list of things he loved was long. He'd probably have to write a book, but there were things he hated, one in particular.

You never wanted to bother him with your problems.

It drives him mad.

He's your best friend, Yoongi would remind you constantly. You're problems were his problems and vice versa. someone broke your heart? They broke his. Someone mistreated him? They mistreated you.

One thing always remained certain for both of you, no one would argue it. You'd take a bullet for each other in a heartbeat.

"You've been staring at the same screen for twenty minutes, hyung." Namjoon broke the silence of Yoongi's studio, interrupting the elder's thoughts.

"Sorry, You wanted something?" Yoongi asked nonchalantly as he swung his chair to face Namjoon, greeting him with a forced smile.

Namjoon held up a set of headphones he'd taken from one of the shelves in Yoongi's studio. "Mine broke, I knew you had a spare."

Yoongi rolled his eyes endearingly, a small breathly laugh slipped out.

"It wasn't my fault this time!" Namjoon protested his innocence.

For once, it actually wasn't the clumsy man-child’s fault.

"Ah yes, it's the little man that mysteriously comes in your studio and breaks all your stuff," Yoongi teased.

"Uhm, It was, actually." A blush rose on Namjoons cheeks, whether he wanted to admit it or profusely deny it, he could give a tomato a run for its money. "Jimin was in.. he.. sat on them."

"Suuure," he teased further, "I'm sure that’s what he, no, the two of you, were doing."

"Hyung!"

"Dongsaeng?" Yoongi hummed, giving Namjoon a knowing look.

"Back to the original point," Namjoon deflected. "Are you okay? You were miles away."

"I'm fine," Yoongi looked back at the lyrics on the screen, his expression changing instantly. "It's y/n."

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know" He rested back on his chair while running his hands through his long, fluffy hair. "I haven't heard from her in two days. I was meant to have dinner with her and got really into writing this song and I had an idea for the beat and went all in. She knows I get like that sometimes, and that's the reason when I don't reply."

"Sometimes." Namjoon rolled his eyes jokingly.

"I messaged her that I was sorry and we should have breakfast, no reply. I text about dinner an hour ago, and it's not even delivered."

"You're telling me this like you've never just welcomed yourself into her apartment a million and one times." Namjoon reminded him with a raised brow.

"I really have to fin.."

"GO!" Namjoon ordered his hyung. "Leader privileges," he defended quickly when he realised how abrupt he was while still pointing towards the studio door.

He didn't wait a second longer. Even leaving the studio in his slides, forgoing the Nike dunks by the door. Leaving Namjoon to save his work and sort all his equipment which he gladly did. He was worried about you too, more so because you meant so much to someone that meant equally as much to him. Thirteen years isn't easily forgotten, and you were there too.

He made it to your apartment twenty minutes later, letting himself in like it was his own home.

The sight he saw was enough to cause an ache, vice like grip on his heart.

Quickly making his way to be by your side.

With gentle calloused fingertips your best friend tilted your chin up, his smile was warm and inviting, but his eyes were filled with worry and sadness, even guilt for not noticing something was wrong sooner.

The pad of his thumb wiped away the tears that stained your cheeks, neither set of eyes straying from the others, you only briefly cut eye contact to blink away oncoming tears as they clouded your vision.

You weren’t there, not really. Yoongi knew better than to pressure you into talking, so he stayed silently knelt in front of you for a moment, his large hands engulfing your little ones before bringing them towards his lips for a quick peck before he took a seat beside you. He took you into his arms and kept you close until you stopped crying, not a care for the time that went by or the fact that his phone kept going off. It wasn't important, not right now.

“You're gonna be okay,” He talked softly, quiet as a mouse like he was afraid to startle you.

He repeated himself over and over, followed by 'i love you', 'you're safe with me" and every other sweet thing he’d ever told you. Your cries eventually turned into quiet hiccups to unsteady breaths and eventually a quiet calm, the room filled with nothing but your breaths and the noises from the street outside.

You stayed like that, in the comfort of his arms, in silence. An hour went by, maybe more.

He looked down at you, almost falling asleep from exhaustion, your entire face red and puffy from so much crying. All the overwhelming feelings all on your own, so intensely burst like a dam. He wasn't leaving your side, music would have to wait. For as long as you needed him, he was going to be there.

"Don't sleep, jagiya. Let me make you something to eat, alright? We'll get you cleaned up and in some fresh clothes. You can sleep after that."

You shook your head.

"Yes," Yoongi told you sternly, not too harsh, but he wasn't going to let you keep doing this to yourself, not on his watch. "I will chew it for you and spit it in your mouth like a mother bird, if i have too."

You scrunched up your face in disgust, causing Yoongi to chuckle softly.

"That's what I thought."

You didn't protest when Yoongi ushered you into your room, you didn't want to hurt him. He was getting you in the bath regardless. It wasn't like he hadn't seen you naked before, definitely not under the same circumstances, but it didn't faze him then, and it won't faze him now.

He went into the bathroom and starting filling the bath, picking your favourite bathbomb and dropping it into the bath, smiling to himself as it turned purple and a light lavender scent began to fill the air. He grabbed some towels and put them in the dryer to warm up for you before coming to help you out of your clothes.

"Do you trust me?" He asked.

"Always," you replied in a coarse whisper.

He was careful, gentlemanly, checking your face for any sign you were uncomfortable. You were okay until he went to help you out of your tracksuit bottoms, he watches your hands clutch tighter to the bedsheet and the faint hitch in your breath.

"I'm sorry," you tell him before nodding in permission for him to take them off.

He took one look at your thighs before looking up at you, leaning up to press a light kiss on your forehead. "Don't ever apologise for how you feel, I just wish you'd told me it was getting this bad again."

He wrapped his arm around your body, helping you toward the bathroom and helped you step into the bath. He relaxed a little when he heard you hum as you lowered into the water.

"Is it hot enough?” he asked, watching for any discomfort.

“S’good.” you hum, tracing over the bubbles with the tips of your fingers. Yoongi watched on with a little smile before he sat himself on the edge of the bath, reaching for your favourite body wash and a soft sponge, opting for the soft option rather than a loofah.

He squeezed a drop of soap onto the sponge and scrunched it together in his hands until it was covered in vanilla scented suds.

“Tell me to stop if you want me too,” he told you, leaning forward to get a look at you when you didn't reply. You nod for him to go on, even though you were miles away. He could tell by your eyes, he decided to just get on with it. He moved gently around your back, air in the bathroom filled with it's vanilla scent, mixing with the lavender. It was even making him sleepy. He watched you close your eyes beginning to relax as he continued on.

Once he had you covered in bubbles he rinsed you off with a cup he had sitting near by in the water and began washing the bubbles off. He saw your back rise and fall with a deep breath, a yawn he came to realise. He glanced at your face and your eyes in a fight to stay open as you moved your hands up to your face slowly and rubbed at your eyes for a moment before dropping your hands back into the water. Yoongi smiled. You looked adorable, if he was honest.

He was equally as gentle when washing your hair, missing some of your routine but the goal was to get your freshened up and comfortable, not Miss Universe.

“You can lay back now if you want.” Yoongi offered, you sighed and slumped in the tub, body sinking into the bubbles.

"Why do you do this for me? You're always there." You finally spoke more than one word.

"Because even if everything else was to disappear, I know you'll always be there."

"What if I'm not strong enough?"

"You are," he told you, leaning down to kiss your forehead again before he left for the kitchen to make you a quick snack, knowings it’s probably all you could stomach or be bothered to eat.

Crackers and a makeshift topping would have to do because it was all you had.

He brought everything you two would need for the night including the hot towels from the dryer to the bedroom before Yoongi helped you out of the bath, taking you into the bedroom wrapped up in the toasty towel to get you dried off and into some PJs.

“Which Pyjamas do you want?”

You pointed to him with a sweet, innocent smile.

“My top?” he chuckled. “Really?”

“Please?” and like clockwork you put on your best puppy dog eyes. Jungkook taught you well because Yoongi could never say no.

He rolled his eyes playfully and took off his shirt, pulling it over your head for you and smiled contently when he took a look at you. “You’re so adorable,” he smiled up at you before instructing you to sit between his legs with the hairbrush he had in hand.

You sat in front of him, lightly snacking away on the food he gave you when you sat down while he brushed through your hair, effortlessly putting it into two french braids. He’d watched you do it enough times and he was a quick learner, especially if it was taking up his cuddling time with you.

When you finished eating, Yoongi went to tidy up while you got yourself into bed. Half asleep when he came to join you, he switched off the light and climbed into bed with you.

Instantly cuddling into him with your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as you began to drift off to sleep.

“Can I play you a song I’ve been working on?” he asked, cuddling you in close.

Yoongi presses play on his phone as you nod.

Somebody does love but I'm thinking ‘bout you.

He watched as you drift off to sleep, running his hands through your hair, softly singing along until his eyes fell heavy and he drifted off too.

Maybe one day he’d tell you the song is for you.

Authors Note: A huge thank you to @sopebubbles /@sopebubbles-replies for encouraging me to write this fic and proof reading, it's been a long time coming for her, you have no idea! also my bestie @lifeinakpopbubble who never thought she'd see this day.

[obeymeshallwedateaddict]

Hi I'm new to Tumblr and came across your blog. I have an ask for a fic, if you don't mind. I am reading the main story from the original Obey Me on the nightbringer game, and I'm almost at the end (chapter 72).

Thanks to no spoiler warning on a post, I am aware of Simeon's situation. I can't help but feel MC isn't as concerned as they should be for him. Fair enough, they are respectful of his boundaries, saying he would talk when he's ready, but would it be possible to write a little something about MC (preferably female, but not necessary) offering Simeon support and comfort, or even just a fun day with him to take his mind off things.

Hiii I can understand where you are coming from. I also felt like MC didn't cut much slack about how Simeon felt during the time while I was worried about him too. So there you go! (I kind of lost myself in my writing so it's quite long. I hope it's not a problem)

Post contains: fluff; emotional fallout (angst); might contain spoilers up to lesson 72 OM

Fem!MC

Simeon x reader

You can find more of my work here: Masterlist

Simeon's troubles

You were sitting in your room thinking about what you should write in the requested report from Diavolo. You had just gone through the surveys of one part of the student body about their opinions about the exchange program that Mephistopheles provided you with.

There were pretty positive ones saying that they made friends with some of the exchange students and they liked the atmosphere of having angels, demons and humans in one place. But there were also negative ones saying that the exchange program is bullshit and there should've never been something like this in the academy. You were tired of constantly reading different surveys with different handwritings as well the poor grammar some of the students had. You were completely exhausted. Walking over to the bed and laying on it you dragged your hands over your face. Suddenly you are reminded of Simeon. At first you smile at the thought of the magnificent angel and the friendship both of you share but then you remembered something. You remember how Simeon has been really secretive lately. He's been looking anxious and uneasy most of the time. He is distracted and upset, sometimes he's even lost in thought that you can barely get him to speak to you. You are worried. Is everything okay? You are sure of the fact that something is bothering him though respect his privacy and boundaries. Even when he tells you that everything will be okay you can't help but worry over the angel. The last time you and Mammon visited Purgatory hall to get Simeon to speak the only thing he mentioned is that he is no longer worthy of using the angel's blessing. What is that supposed to mean? How could he be not worthy? He is Simeon. A highly ranked seraph in the Celestial Realm loved and respected by many. What could have possibly happened? You think about it for a long few minutes before you decide to text the angel.

-"Hello, Simeon! How are you?" –You send the message and wait for his response though you don't have to wait too long since you get an almost immediate response.

-"Hello, MC! And yes. I'm fine. Is there something you need?" –You stare at the message for a few seconds thinking how to phrase it without making him worry further more. Suddenly an idea comes to mind.

-"Actually I found out that tomorrow there is a flower festival coming into town and I was wondering if you'd want to go with me?" –It's true. You heard from Diavolo a few days ago that a big flower festival is coming into town for a day. The demon also mentioned that it would be nice for a future representative of the student council to attend so you had a great reasoning.

-"Tomorrow? Yes I suppose I'm free. I would like to go with you, MC." –You smile at the message, knowing that you will finally get to spend some time with the troubled angel. Hopefully you will help him feel less uneasy after a day of full happy memories.

-"Great! Then it's settled. I will come by Purgatory hall tomorrow to get you, see you, Simeon! Sleep tight!" –You respond and get ready for bed.

The next morning after getting ready for the day you find yourself waiting in front of Purgatory hall, impatient to see the affectionate angel. After a while he finally shows up at the entrance wearing the same outfit that he wore in the human world instead of his angel attire though you don't give it much thought since Simeon himself mentioned that he liked the outfit. You extended your arms happily, willing to give Simeon a warm hug. His face still carries that uneasy look, which tugs painfully at your heart. Yet, when he sees your open arms, a soft smile slowly spreads across his features, accepting your silent invitation for a hug. He walks into your embrace and gently wraps his arms around you, burying his face into the crook of your neck. You embrace him tightly. You were sure of the fact that Simeon needed a hug. Everybody does at hard moments such as those. You might not be sure of what he is going through but you can feel it through the warm embrace. You two remain like that: Standing silently into each other's arms. Speaking through actions.

-I needed this... –You hear the soft voice of the broken angel, whispering into your ear as his arms tighten around your body.

-Thank you, MC. –He mutters once again before pulling away.

-Shall we go? –You offer Simeon your hand and he takes it with a gentle smile on his face. You lead the way to the festival and when you get there you are left speechless. It is beautiful. There are all sorts of flowers around. Gentle lights hoovering over the place, offering comfort. A faint sound of relaxing music and the noise from waters hitting the basin of the nearby fountain fill your ears. There is a refreshing floral scent all around the place. And all the demons around seem happy and relaxed. You squeeze Simeon's hand and lean your head on his shoulder gently.

-What do you think? –You question with a soft voice.

-It's beautiful here. In every aspect. In a way it even reminds me of the Celestial Realm. There would always be pretty flowers all around the place. It was... Calm and relaxing. –He responds and lets go of your hand to wrap it around your waist instead. He pulls you close against him and you smile. Though.. what did he mean by "was"? He can always go there? He is an angel after all... You figured he might miss home and the flower festival seemed like an amazing opportunity to give him something similar to the comfort of home. You could understand the feeling. You felt the same in your first days here in the Devildom. Surrounded by completely new people, new atmosphere, new place. All alone, forced to trust strangers who turned out to be demons on top of everything. But Luke was always there for Simeon. As well as you. You had always been friendly towards him. And always been there for him as well.

He led you into the festival. As you walked around you felt Simeon relax a little which speaks that your plan is successful.

-Usually at festivals like these in the human world we make bracelets or crowns of flowers. Do you want to make some? –You mention that to Simeon, thinking it would be a great way for him to get his head away from things.

-I would love to, MC. Though you might have to teach me. I'm not as good with those things. –With that you and Simeon walk over to the fountain and sit on the edge. You had gathered some beautiful flowers on the way there and were ready to craft some pretty pieces. You grab a few flowers and show Simeon a simple pattern to braid the flowers. He on the other side tries to copy your pattern. He successfully does though it isn't identical, which of course isn't important.

-MC... I would like to braid you a flower tiara. It would look beautiful in your hair. –Simeon says softly.

-Thank you, Simeon! –You exclaim in excitement. And he begins to braid. The angel is focused on the flowers in his hands which makes him look especially handsome. You smile and carefully wrap your arms around his waist to which he relaxes into your arms. Resting your head on his shoulder you whisper softly:

-Simeon? How has life been treating you lately. You seem tense.

-I have some problems, MC. As I have mentioned before. And as much as I would love to get it off my shoulders and tell you what's bothering me I'm not sure if I feel comfortable yet. –Silence follows and he sighs before continuing to speak– I'm still questioning some things and I wouldn't like to give you false information. –When you hear that you tighten your arms around his waist and speak softly.

-Simeon, I want you to know that I will always be here for you. Whatever happens, whatever is happening. I respect the fact that you may not be ready to tell me yet and I'm not forcing you to do so. I will happily wait and be there for you until you feel comfortable. –You state making sure not to say something harsh or make him feel even more uneasy than he already is.

-Thank you, MC. I really appreciate it. And I promise. Whenever the moment comes I will explain everything.

-Simeon it would make it nice for you to know that I'm not forcing you to speak. I will be here whenever you feel comfortable. –You move your arms away from his waist and proceed to gently massage his shoulders.

-God, Simeon! You are so tense it's unbelievable! Let me ease off some stress off of those stiff shoulders. –He groans in pleasure as you hit a nerve somewhere in his neck.

-Oh MC.. ngh... I never knew how much I needed that.... Thank you..

After a few minutes of you massaging his shoulders and neck the angel mentions that the tiara is finished. Simeon turned towards you and put the tiara into your hair.

-MC... You are more beautiful than any flower at this festival.. and the tiara makes you shine even brighter than you already do. –You blush softly to his statement and he cups your cheeks with his hands.

-You are always so understanding and gentle with me, MC. Never have I thought that I would ever meet a girl like you. Such a soft and caring creature. And on top of everything she is also a human. A human.. a creature I never thought that I'd fall in love with. But... Here I am, MC. –You look at him with pure happiness and sincere love in your expression. He chuckles softly and leans in to kiss your nose.

-You look adorable when you blush, MC. Has somebody ever told you that? –The color in your cheeks deepens and you roll your eyes.

-Simeooonnn! You are flattering me too much! As if you aren't the most amazing and affectionate angel that I know.. –You say softly and kiss his cheek.

-You are also sweet and caring. And whatever it is you are going through will not stop you from being my perfect angel. Always.. I assure you. –You whisper and lean in to gently brush your lips against his. It is a gentle kiss. There is no force. No tension. Just pure shared love and affection between two individuals. Just like it has always been between you two. It was easy to love and care for him. He has always been there for you in hard moments. And now it's your turn to show how much you actually care and worry about him. How much you actually love him. How much he means to you. Whatever it is that is happening you know that both of you will get through it. That it will always lead to a happy ending. Hardships and happiness walk hand in hand after all. Every hard moment is followed by a happy one. So you know that Simeon will be okay. And you genuinely hope that he will be okay. As a sorcerer you can always ensure his safety even if he can't do it himself. He is your everything. His feelings mean a lot to you. And you are genuinely worried about him.

-I love you, Simeon. You mean so much to me. You and your feelings. Remember that. –You whisper against his lips and pull away to embrace him instead. He relaxes into your arms and smiles warmly.

-Thank you, MC. I love you too. Just as much.. –He murmurs and kisses your temple. As the day continues you and Simeon make a lot of happy memories and you know that he feels at ease around you. You're sure that you helped Simeon forget about his troubles even if it is just for a day. The fact makes you happy and heals the deep concern about the troubled angel.