#zip ups avoid that by being actually convenient to take off

[espytalks]

I wonder why noone sells zip up hoodies. All i ever see anyone selling is pullovers, aka the worst ones to take off.

[takusan-no-ai]

Inner Demons

PAIRING: Aura x Male Reader (Romantic) (Fluff)

SUMMARY: Aura loses to (Y/N), but later discovers why he won’t kill her.

A full blown battlefield. Corpses lied about on the grass, blood taking a permanent stain on the land. Screams cried out as weapons clashed and magic pierced eardrums. Demons wailed and gnashed as humans roared in anger. It was a war almost unlike any other. Almost.

The party of heroes had long since slain the demon king, thus his minions scattered about in a feeble attempt to reclaim lost territory. Those who were the strongest of the demons, like Aura the Guillotine, led their army by the front lines; unbeknownst to those demons, in their meager endeavors for reclaimed glory, they overlooked a dangerous anomaly: (Y/N).

Graduated at the top of his class, no missing days, a perfect track record, and a first class mage on his first try. (Y/N) was a powerful mage in all senses of the word. Even esteemed mages like Frieren and Serie looked at him with respect. His work was unlike any other, and no being of his generation came close to his skill. Sheer effort.

That effort favors the bold more than fortune ever could. And that’s something Aura wished she’d realized sooner.

Mistakenly, she assumed a human like (Y/N) could never amass more mana than her; especially when the mana he gave off was so utterly small and worthless. Mistakenly, she used her scales to control (Y/N). And now, her life was his to command.

All this effort. All this torment. All this death. And he had the same blank staring face. Eyes cold as ice. No emotion showing. For once, Aura was petrified.

“He’ll kill me instantly,” she thought. “There’s no doubt about it!”

He turned around, his back now facing the defeated demon army. He looked out amongst his fellow soldiers; they cheered in triumph over the victory. But all (Y/N) could do was scoff.

“This was but a small skirmish. The real war is on the horizon, we’ve got little to no resources left, and they have the nerve to think we won. What of the lives lost over this small victory?” He lamented.

The young man quickly spun around, staring down at Aura. She gulped despite her best efforts to remain in control. “Your kind displeases me—” he smiled, “…but I’m certain I can find a good use of you.” Aura now glared at him.

“I am enthralled by your power, but my loyalty remains the same.” Her snide reply didn’t go unnoticed.

“And I, enthralled by your power too. But unlike you, my loyalty isn’t with humanity. It is simply against demons. The fact that our goals align is simply convenient.”

He started to walk off, the rest of the soldiers looking at him quizzically. “Get up. Follow me.” He commanded her. She did as instructed against her will. The stares and snarling faces of every human pissing her off each ticking second.

…

…

…

It had been some months since Aura became (Y/N)’s servant, and through all of that time, she hasn’t figured him out at all.

He avoids her in public, and keeps going on and on about a plan to kill the demons by using her. Yet not once has he actually acted on it. At first it seemed like he truly was just plotting. But now Aura thinks he just wasn’t planning on doing it from the get go.

Together they leisured in his private office. Aura stared at him accusingly. She clearly wanted to say something. Unfortunately (Y/N) told her to “zip it” because of her constant whining. Thankfully Aura had a way of making even the most patient people uncomfortable.

“WHAT?!” He asked calmly(?), tired of her unwavering gaze.

“Why haven’t you used me? Or killed me?” Aura asked. (Y/N) turned back to whatever he was writing down, ignoring her question.

“Why haven’t I?”

“Why are you always with me? When we’re in public you treat me like trash. But you could easily just tell me to stay somewhere and I would.”

Again, he ignored her. “Why do I do that?”

“And while I’m at it…every time a human tries to attack or even makes a threatening comment about me, boom! You jump to my rescue.”

He slammed his hand on the desk. Aura wasn’t the least bit startled. She continued to stare at him, this time with a smirk.

“Just stop talking!”

“It’s almost as if you love—”

“I simply like to protect what is mine. I’ve never been good at sharing and have always been possessive. End of discussion.” He couldn’t have been anymore obvious.

Aura chuckled with a small blush.

“Sure.”

- Fin

[longeyelashedtragedy]

For the wip ask game

10022? I have no idea what it could be

yes! 10022 is a fic i have that is just...tons of little sections that i have no idea how to make into a "plot." i almost think it...won't have a plot? just a series of vignettes in chronological order. it's a fic about someone finally risking it all, or trying to, in order to discover themselves a little, and that's an ongoing process so it kind of doesn't naturally have plot?

that someone is of course frank, and this fic is about his season living in new york and playing with NYCFC. this is my favorite player era of his for a lot of reasons. i actually don't know where you're from so i'll assume you're not from the US just for this purpose (i'm really sorry if i assumed wrong!!) 10022 is the zip code (postal code) for the neighborhood where frank lived in manhattan--midtown east. it's weirdly a neighborhood that i like a lot, and i'm generally no longer a fan of manhattan and now that i don't work there i try to Avoid it--it's just very very noisy and crowded and too many of the worthwhile stores and restaurants that i loved have shut down post-covid or bc of stupid high rents. but this neigborhood is an interesting mix of Huge Buildings, some touristy places, and then as you walk east toward the river it becomes sort of...insular? like just residential buildings with stores geared toward the local population. most of the neighborhood doesn't have very convenient public transit access, so if you walk a couple blocks in you feel kind of cut off from everything else. it suits frank well i think.

wow, i still haven't said what this fuckin fic is about lol. my theory is that in new york he was alone for the first time in his life--no dad to harass him, and while i think christine visited plenty (i mean, london-new york is one of the easiest international flights around, and she certainly could afford it), she does live tv so it wasn't like she could work from home. so frank had all this time to 1) be the Elder Good Example (37 years old) to a team just starting out with a bunch of Young Lads, and 2) to try to be brave enough to explore the sexuality he's known he's had for decades. as part of the fic, he nervously looks up gay bars and ventures off to pick up men, and they're certainly very interested, but he always chickens out at the last minute. i think he's afraid in general, and also the guys aren't...cousin jamie.

something else that makes me want to write this is the way frank talks about living in NYC--he truly loved it here, and a lot of his favorite places/restaurants were not rich people/tourist traps (also one of them is literally down the block from me, lol) and i find that very touching. i appreciate his appreciation for this pain in the ass hometown of mine. i also really think he enjoyed the relative anonymity and the attitude toward things, as part of his Gay Explorations:

If home is the place where you can relax and take the pressure off, then New York City is already home.  The only expectations of him here are professional ones. He can do those things, or try his best to. He can move the ball down the pitch, intimidate the opponent, smash the ball into the net the way it was drilled into him decades ago, score some confident penalties, and mentor the young lads (in football, anyway--regardless of what José has said, he's the last person who should be teaching anyone how to be a Man.) and if he can't do all that, at 36, then he'll know he gave it a good try, and the fans in royal blue will still love him all over the world.  But personally? He's alone as long as nobody is visiting, and being alone in New York will be different from London. He's looked it up. London is the slightly bigger city, in terms of the population, but New York has a firm culture of mind your own damn business and you better not be staring at me and if you saw something no you didn't.  Anything could happen.  If no one saw something you could do anything, really.

getting to write something in a place i'm very familiar with is really fun--i can load it up with authentic details, including stuff that was going on in the social backdrop of the city, weird weather, etc. (though, MLS seasons work differently than a lot of the big european league seasons because of the very cold winters we (used to) have in a lot of the country, so i got confused by dates/timing as usual and kinda gave winter 2016 some of our weird winter 2015's attributes...oh well literally no one will know)

sorry this was a lot to say very little. this fic is really fun to write but i just kind of work on it at random bc there's no plot, haha. i have a scene i kinda recently started working on where frank takes young english lad jack harrison to this diner down the block from his house, but it's not a date! not a date at all! look frank's got his wedding ring on!

here is another excerpt hahah

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 122 (Apr. 25, 1988) - “Skin of Evil”

Teleplay by: Joseph Stefano & Hanna Louise Shearer Story by: Joseph Stefano Directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan

The Breakdown

Deanna Troi’s shuttle craft suddenly loses power on it’s way back to the Enterprise and she (along with her pilot) end up crash landing on a barren planet.  Fortunately, Enterprise was in communications range when the shuttle went down, so the gang zips off to help.  UNfortunately the planet is controlled by a quasi-omnipotent puddle of crude oil named Armus, who has a developed penchant for inflicting pain, and emotional turmoil in others; and he senses a prime opportunity to do just that.

As it happens, one of Armus’ vaguely defined abilities is to emit a forcefield around Deanna’s shuttle to stop her from being beamed to safety. Not yet aware of what-or-who he’s engaged with, Picard sends an away team comprised of Will Riker, Tasha Yar, Dr. Crusher, & Data, where they first encounter Armus as a black puddle that keeps blocking them from reaching Troi’s shuttle (it/he slithers in front of wherever the away team attempts to go). Eventually Armus re-forms as anthropomorphic garbage bag covered in tar, and threatens to kill anyone who attempts to save Troi. Since Tasha isn’t one to take shit from a villain-of-the-week, she bravely pushes forward… and is immediately killed.

Armus allows the away team to return to their ship (although still without Troi), where Dr. Crusher tries her best to revive Tasha, but to no avail; Lt. Yar is very dead.  To make matters worse, the crew is also no closer to saving Troi.  Indeed, at barely 15 minutes, the bulk of the episode has yet to play out, which effectively remains in a stalemate, as Armus psychologically and physically torments the next away team (but mostly Riker).

While Armus spares no opportunity to remind everyone of how evil he is, Troi slowly manages to pump him for information back in the shuttle wreckage, with the aid of her empathic abilities.  Meanwhile, Worf notices that Armus’ anti-transporter forcefield seems to weaken slightly whenever he’s busy taunting Troi.  The meaning of this isn’t initially made clear, but since the episode is starting to run out of time, Picard figures it’s safe to start wrap things up, and heads down to the planet for this week’s big philosophical showdown!

Upon beaming down, Picard offers himself to Armus in exchange for his crew’s safe release, but only after he’s been allowed to have a private conversation with Troi.  For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Armus agrees to these terms, giving Picard the opportunity he needs to figure out a solution.  Troi explains that the Armus is a living manifestation of all the hate and rage (akin to a “skin of evil”, if you will) from some race that somehow had those traits removed from themselves, and then presumably discarded on this planet in the form of a sentient waste byproduct.  It turns out his one weakness is receiving emotional validation over being abandoned, which is remarkably convenient.  Armed with that knowledge, Picard unleashes an unrelenting barrage of sympathy in the manner that only a grumpy French dude (with an English accent) could deliver; using pretentious soliloquy, and verbose sentiment. 

And it works!  Armus feels so seen by Picard’s observations (namely that he’s just a sad and empty shell of a tar-monster), that he lowers his guard just enough for Worf to beam the survivors and Piccard back to the Enterprise.  With everyone safe and sound (except for Tasha), the crew of the enterprise leave their exasperated foe behind, along with a warning buoy for future explorers to avoid the goopy incel stranded on the desert planet. 

All-in-all, a close call, but another happy endin-

...oh wait, that’s right.  You see, since the crew member who died also has a star billing in the opening credits, we actually have to spend some time showing the bridge crew in a state of grief (whereas if Deanna’s barely-mentioned pilot had croaked instead, we’d be halfway through the credits already).  Picard holds a funeral wherein he plays a pre-recorded holo-message of Lt. Yar herself, which I guess must be a normal thing to do in the future.  Her hologram proceeds to give a VERY long, personalized thorough message for each person in attendance.  Data wonders aloud if he’s missed the point of this gathering, since he keeps thinking mostly “about himself and how empty life will be without Tasha”, and Picard is like “Nah, you’re pretty much dead on.” [No pun intended]

So… another happy ending, I suppose.

The Verdict

Honestly though, I’m with Data.  ‘Empty’ is basically the only word to describe how I feel about this episode, and that’s a shame.  It’s widely known that Tasha was only killed off because Denise Crosby asked to be released from her contract, but the writers could have chosen a more interesting episode to feature this story beat.  The thing is, I actually appreciate that Tasha’s death wasn’t built up beforehand; I tend to fall in the school of thought that character deaths are often better served when they aren’t heavily projected or drawn out.  The problem is everything else about ‘Skin of evil’ effectively amounts a nothing-episode, with very little to say, and even less to show for it.

Armus as a villain is… certainly a villain I guess, but his motivations and what drives him would leave me with more questions than answers, if only what little we did learn about him wasn’t so dull.  Too much of the episode is spent on the incessant back-and-forth of Picard and Co. insisting they be allowed to save Troi, to be met with Armus regurgitating one insufferable tangent after another about how he won’t because it pleases him not to.  Pretty much the only character who moves the story forward is Troi during her verbal sparring sessions with Armus, while everyone else effectively spins their wheels (I’ll give a few points to Worf though).

I don’t blame the cast for any of this though, as all my criticisms fall to the writing.  In fact, most of the cast have some really solid moments whenever they’re given something to work with.  Worf resisting his warrior impulses in order to take up Tasha’s mantle is well executed by Michael Dorn, as is Data’s confusion over grief (courtesy of Brent Spiner).  Also, despite the fact that I didn’t find Troi’s scenes particularly compelling in-and-of-themselves, Marina Sirtis gives a strong performance, if only because she’s given something to do beyond serving as Picard’s personal lie detector.

The whole episode is such a squandered opportunity to tell a story that could have been one of this season’s (very few) highlights.  Bearing in mind, this episode marks the first time in Star Trek history that a series regular dies without being brought back to life (not counting alternate realities or time travel).  From the stories I’ve heard about the working conditions on the show, especially for the women cast members, I can’t say I blame Denise Crosby for wanting to leave.  Still, there’s a selfish part of me that wishes she stayed until the later seasons when the show began to improve; there was just so much untapped potential for Tasha’s character.

1.5 stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

So exactly how long ago had Tasha prepared that “in the event of my untimely death” holo message?  She’s presumably known most of the crew for slightly less than a year, but had a full speech for each main character, as if she’d known them for considerably longer.  I’m not saying she couldn’t have made close friends with the crew in that time, but that still means her recording must have been made fairly recently.  Timing is everything, I guess.

Given Picard’s rigid adherence to following rules, and borderline obsessive code of honour, I would have half-expected him to stay on the planet with Armus.  I wouldn’t even be all that surprised if there was an episode in season 2 where a corrupt Admiral calls out Picard’s actions from this episode, by reminding him that a “Starfleet Captain’s word is his bond”, and that he must return to Armus and be tortured for eternity, or give up his rank as captain.  Of course, Picard would accept his fate because his devotion to Starfleet is absolute, but then Data would probably find a loophole in the rules somewhere, which the Admiral would have to begrudgingly accept.  But seriously, you can’t tell me that premise is any less preposterous than a good chunk of season one.

Troi-SPIRACY: In an earlier post, I put forth a scenario that Troi has actually been faking her empathic abilities in order to get her lousy mom off her back, and now she’s in too deep to admit the truth. This episode would seem to refute that theory outright as evidenced by the use of her abilities on Armus, but she’s not fooling me!  We mustn’t forget that Troi is a professional counsellor, who attended one of the most prestigious, and well funded academies in the galaxy.  Clearly, she just used her training and experience to make some astute observations about Armus, and later attributed it to her ‘abilities’ in order to keep up the ruse.  And I know what you’re thinking, “But Troi’s counsel has always seemed hiliarously antiquated in the past, almost as if it was a caricature 80’s pop psychology”; but I maintain that even that was all part of her deception.  Think about it.  Really THINK about it.  What better way to trick everyone into believing you have superpowers than to draw attention away from them with questionable guidance?  Then, having thrown everyone off the scent, all you need to do is to utilize your intellect and sharp deductive reasoning in moments of great need, and pass it off as an ‘empathic ability.’  NICE TRY Deanna! You may have everyone else fooled, but I see you for what your really are.  A keenly proficient student of the human experience, and a valuable ally!  Consider yourself exposed, you fraud!

Worf and Tasha were clearly flirting, right? That can’t just be me.  If she hadn’t died, those two would have done the warrior tango for sure. Poor Worf. Oh well, I’m sure his future romances will all end less tragically.

[cinnaminyoons]

( JUDGING COVERS. )

ミ☆ books are made to be read, not just skimmed.

⤷ PAIRING poly bangtan x m!reader

⤷ WORD COUNT 2.5k

⤷ REQUESTED

male reader with bangtan. reader being all tough looking with tattoos piercing leather jackets tall and all but who owns small little kittens

there are bad rumours about you. bad rumours that can’t actually be all that bad, since people seem to flock to you like seagulls to a dropped chip: hungrily, and relentlessly.

not many people have the pleasure to say they’re friends with you – and ‘not many’ means none. you’re easy to spot in a crowd and hard to talk to. brave individuals often wander up to you, hoping for your number or a short but passionate flame, only to be met with a frosty glare.

tall, quiet, with tattoos that peek out under your sleeves each time you reach up to adjust your hat – the dangerous, careless aura you radiate does little to give what you so crave. it just pulls you farther and farther away from glorious silence.

it’s a friday evening, and namjoon’s just clocked off. his shift at the little bookshop on a side street is officially over. the shop’s run by an old couple who had been instantly taken with namjoon’s courteous manner and his resume, the latter of which was so splendid it deserved a place on a pedestal in a lit-up glass box.

later, he would come to wonder if they hired him specifically because their ladder was on its last legs.

he steps out into the alley, whistling softly as he locks the back door. upon dropping his keys, they zip towards his hip where he has a small, round mechanism attached to his belt loop.

his phone vibrates in his back pocket as he jaywalks across the street to the bus stop, and he narrowly avoids becoming a pancake under a grey audi. it honks him, and the driver inside glowers as she gives him the finger. her long red nail is filed to a sharp point.

taking his spot against the side of the shelter, he opens his phone. the screen has a long crack down the left corner.

have you heard from tae???

it’s a message from seokjin. namjoon raises an eyebrow. seokjin never uses more than one punctuation mark like that unless he’s panicking. he replies with a quick and bland no, and the bubble pops up immediately.

he left for the convenience store three hours ago and isn’t back yet

taehyung does this unfortunately frequently, to seokjin’s chagrin. telling the others he’ll go somewhere nearby, and then not showing up for ages, is something of a talent of his. he always turns up eventually.

once, when he was sixteen, he came back after forty minutes of abrupt radio silence with a wriggling jacket that yapped. he was heartbroken when hoseok had to gently tell him that their cramped place couldn’t make a dog happy.

given taehyung’s track record, namjoon isn’t too fussed about his disappearance. besides, he’s an adult now – he can drive, has a credit score, and pays taxes – and he can surely find his way back home without a gps.

seokjin’s worry only seems excessive until he tells namjoon that his calls go straight to voicemail.

he pushes off the bus shelter, heart sinking. taehyung doesn’t miss calls – especially not from his jin-hyung.

by the time namjoon reaches home, the group chat is pinging like crazy, turning his hand numb from how tight he’s clutching his phone.

taehyung is family. if anything happens to him, nobody would ever forgive themselves.

he takes the stairs up two at a time, and before he can touch the doorknob, it’s flung open. jimin grabs his arm and pulls him in, kicking the door closed behind him, and there’s a lot of hushed shouting and panicked whispering.

everyone’s huddled in the living area. three of them are pacing holes into the carpet, and the remaining few hold each other for comfort.

“—too early to go to the police? i-i mean, there’s no harm in it, right, and if something has happened, better sooner than later, yeah?”

“we shouldn’t be so hasty, hyung,” says jeongguk, though his voice is tight. “he might’ve just forgotten to charge his phone completely.”

“but he wasn’t at the convenience store,” jimin presses from beside namjoon. “how could he have gotten lost on the three-minute walk back?”

namjoon rubs his temples. “look, why don’t we take a few minutes to just – calm down. breathe deeply and try to think rationally.”

“think rationally. of course, why didn’t we think of that?” yoongi had begun to bite his nails despite the foul-tasting nail polish hoseok had applied for him. hoseok has the steadiest hands out of all of them, and now they tremble.

“don’t get mean.” namjoon frowns.

“i’m sorry, babe.”

“at least he knows this area well,” says hoseok. “he was only walking, he couldn’t have—”

somebody’s phone rings.

hoseok snatches his vibrating phone off of the coffee table. his brow furrows at the unknown number but picks up anyway, pressing the speaker button.

“hello, hyung! did ya miss me?”

relief sags everyone’s bodies and the stress evaporates. seokjin buries his face in his hands and jimin holds him tight.

“holy crap, taehyung,” hoseok gasps, “where the hell were you?”

“i, um… got into a fight.” his sheepish smile is practically audible. “but don’t be scared! i made a friend and he helped me. this is his phone, by the way. mine got messed up.”

seokjin grabs the phone. “you, young man, are in deep fucking trouble.”

“for what it’s worth, it wasn’t my fault,” protests taehyung. “i got jumped.”

“and you couldn’t have come home immediately?”

“i wandered.”

namjoon asks, “for what reason?”

he’s quiet for a moment. “they… didn’t have any pumpkin seeds…”

jeongguk smacks his head with his palm.

“i thought i’d take a quick detour to the other store that always has ‘em. however,” he sighs regretfully, “ten minutes driving isn’t ten minutes walking. plus, it’s friday night, so everyone’s puking their guts out in the gutter and i wanted to avoid them.”

jimin pipes in, “and avoiding the main streets got you jumped, huh?”

“yeah.”

“terrific. where are you now?”

“at my new friend’s place.”

“taehyung!” everyone cries out, aghast.

yoongi groans. “did everything we teach you go through one ear and out the other? stranger danger, you fool!”

“hey, he’s a nice person!” he lowers his voice. “seriously, you should all be grateful. he’s hobi's type.”

they share a look with each other. leave it up to taehyung to put his entire trust in someone just because they’re attractive.

“where are you?” seokjin sighs. he rises. “we’re coming.”

—

the address they’re given leads to a block of flats. floor six, room number six-oh-three. it’s right across from the elevator.

after crowding around the door and whispering a debate on who will knock, and more importantly, who will bear the burden of apologising for taehyung’s stupidity, they come to the conclusion that namjoon will do the talking. he’s a philosophy major and is really good at making things up as he goes.

jimin stretches out past yoongi’s shoulder and knocks thrice. he darts back behind him.

the door opens. “yeah?”

their brains simultaneously short-circuit. for some, it’s fear – the guy standing before them is built like an action hero. for the others – the guy is built like an action hero.

a head of dark hair ducks under the guy’s heavily-tattooed arm, which is fully visible with the black tank top he’s donned. “you’re here!”

taehyung crashes into the outstretched arms and they swallow him up until just his head is visible, pressed happily against seokjin’s comfortable shoulder. they take their turns hugging him in relief and holding him by the shoulders so they can check him for injuries.

he’s got a split lip and a black eye. the bruising isn’t too bad, only a slanted purple cup beneath his eye, but the cut on his mouth is more worrying. he winces each time he smiles or speaks reassurances.

“this is the friend i told you about,” he chirps, quite peppy despite his situation. “his name is yn! he’s in yoongi-hyung’s classes.”

yoongi nods once warily. “yeah, i know him.”

taehyung grabs your hand and uses his free one to point at each of them, introducing them. it’s a lot of names – the most you’ve ever had to learn at once in several years – but it probably doesn’t matter. you won’t see them again.

“sorry to interrupt,” you say. your voice rumbles deep like a tempest and not even hoseok, a career people-reader, can pick out your mood. “you mind if we keep chattin’ inside? walls are thin here and i can’t afford more angry knocking.”

“okay, hyung,” taehyung says, and ducks under your arm again. you turn and leave the door open for the other six, rather comically squished into the narrow hallway.

they look at each other. ‘hyung’? so soon?

jeongguk shrugs and moves inside. one by one, the rest follow him around and line their shoes up neatly on the rack.

none of them is quite sure what to do, so they fan out and do some low-key exploration. the place is smaller than theirs, but then again, it’s for one person and not seven.

seokjin finds you and taehyung in the kitchen space, with him on a tall bar stool and you instructing him in a low voice on how to hold the pack of frozen peas to his lip. a small cream-white towel is wrapped over it.

“swelling’s going down,” you mutter, and seokjin’s close enough to hear it. “keep it there. don’t eat anything acidic or spicy until it heals, and you might want to keep chewing to a minimum for a day.”

“oh-kay,” says taehyung past the towel, his awe-filled eyes following you around.

moving forward, seokjin cups taehyung’s cheek, turning it this way and that and checking him one more time. rather unnecessary, since taehyung hadn’t injured himself in the three metres from the entrance to the kitchen, but it’s a sweet gesture all the same. “i guess it’s no lemonade for you, hon.”

“i’ll just have ice cream, then! yn-hyung says icy pops are good for numbing it.”

seokjin exhales softly, letting taehyung go. he takes in his surroundings.

the kitchen is clean and neat. a few dishes are drip-drying on the rack next to the sink. seokjin had been on edge the entire trip here. that edge softens a little – if only because you seem to take care of yourself and your home.

bad people don’t take care of their hygiene, so you must not be a bad person, he deduces with whatever brainpower he has left. most of it had gone into overdrive at taehyung's absence and his logic might’ve been lightly fried by it.

he eyes you carefully as you open the freezer half of your fridge. several blue packs sit in the door’s shelves. “why don’t you use those?”

you glance up and stand upright. you point. “these?”

he bobs his head in assent.

“they’re no good here.” you turn your eyes back to the freezer, inspecting its contents. “the peas mould to the face. solid blocks don’t. helps lessen the swelling when it’s got a bigger contact area.”

“when will it heal?”

you tilt your head at taehyung thoughtfully. “give it three days. should be better by then.”

seokjin uncrosses his arms. he doesn’t remember crossing them. “right... thank you.”

“no worries. he your boyfriend?”

he starts. “well, uh, we all kind of are.”

a lot of people don’t like that. seokjin’s used to weird looks and awkward words. 

you nod and dry your hands on a towel hanging over the oven handle. “one of you needs to teach him to not talk to strangers in alleyways. or if he does, for whatever reason, get him self-defence lessons.”

“oh! can you teach me?” taehyung gasps, his hands lifting in excitement-tightened fists.

“no.”

“why? you were so cool when you fought those guys! you were all wham, bang, and it looked like an action movie from where i stood – or lay, actually—”

you place your hand gently on his shoulder. a thin leather and chain bracelet sits beside a cracked watch on your wrist. “if i hurt you, i have to face the wrath of six people. not risking it.”

“please? pretty please? i’m broke. i can’t pay for lessons. if jeongguk teaches me, it’s gonna hurt, and everyone’ll just laugh. you’ll be gentle, right?”

you pause. you glance at seokjin. you’re sure there’s something off about saying yes, too. even if you had no eyes you could tell that taehyung likes you, and agreeing to teach him felt like the equivalent to agreeing to a date.

taehyung turns his puppy eyes on seokjin when he realises he’s the reason you’re cautious. “please, jin-hyung? you can watch if you’re worried.”

all of a sudden, jimin rushes into the kitchen, his massive grin brightening up the whole room. “look, look! kitty!”

he shows the small round mass of fur cradled in his arms. the tuxedo kitten chews on the strings of his white hoodie and jimin seems overjoyed, cooing and rocking it like an infant.

almost immediately afterwards, namjoon joins jimin’s side. he’s smiling – oh, you think, he has such cute dimples – and there must be an edge of something in it because seokjin places his hands on his hips and asks what he’s hiding.

namjoon turns around. another black-and-white face pops out of the hood of his jacket. it’s too small to weigh the cloth down. it blinks sleepily, then lowers its head until only the twitching black ears and the top of the fluffy head are visible.

“you have kittens?” taehyung nearly shouts, dropping the frozen peas to pet the one in jimin’s arms. he uses just one finger and is oh-so gentle.

from your bedroom – now open – comes a meow. sleek and peaceful, a calico pads over and jumps up on the stool taehyung had once occupied. you stroke its forehead and it closes its eyes.

“don’t tell my landlord,” you say.

“look at the little bumper car tail,” taehyung whispers, grabbing jeongguk's hand to let him pet the kitten.

with a sweet, bright smile, taehyung turns to you. the introduction of the cats makes all thought of pain fly out the window. “they’re all yours?”

“mm. originally i only had her,” you open your arms and the calico takes it as an invitation to jump into them, “but she really took a liking to the little ones, so here we are.”

hoseok moves to shut your bedroom door out of politeness, since jeongguk had opened it and had been too enraptured by the calico to remember to close it. “took a liking?”

“work at a pet shop,” you explain. “i took her along because the landlord was gonna check everyone’s places that week.”

taehyung beams. it drops as he gingerly holds his jaw, and you’re quick to offer the bag of frozen peas again. he takes it and his lips turn up again, a little shyer, as your tattooed fingers brush his.

a small smile creeps onto seokjin’s face. he sighs fondly. “fine. yn, you can teach him how to fight.”

taehyung pumps his fist in the air and winces. 

he adds, “but only when at least one of us is with you. you better not break any of his bones. just saying – we know where you live.”

for the first time since they’ve met you, you crack the tiniest smile. “got it.” 

[kneelesssharks]

How to Lose the Lottery

Hi! This is my first actually story post on tumblr so please give me feedback! :) 

George Weasley X fem!Reader (Muggle!au)

Inspo: this song

Summary: You’re remembering the night that you broke up with George Weasley. Looking back at your relationship you’re missing the good, but you can’t forget the last day you were together.

Warnings: Angst

If you have to go on one more ridiculous date you’ll scream. Ever since you and George broke up your friends had been insistent that you find someone else, or at least try and break out of your slump. 

You had been with George since your second year at university. He had already graduated and was working on becoming a computer sciences professor. He was in grad school, and you were a beautiful, fresh faced sophomore. It seemed simple, he had a decent enough job that he had a nice apartment close to campus. You were just nineteen, he was twenty-three. It made sense, guys your age were focused on partying, rather than being responsible young adults. 

Your first couple dates were fun, he’d taken you on the London Eye, and taken you for some really amazing food after. He was really sweeping you off your feet. A couple weeks into your relationship you started to spend more and more time at his apartment. You’d stay over on weekends and spend the week at your dorm to get your work done. Every Saturday morning you’d make pancakes in one of his old shirts he’d let you sleep in. You always woke up before him, used to your classes being earlier in the day, while he scheduled his for after ten am. He told you how much he loved waking up to you making breakfast in his shirt while playing music quietly as to not waking him up. 

Every morning he’d walk up to you half asleep without a shirt on and wrap his arms around your waist, placing a light kiss on your temple before nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. He used to love hearing you giggle. Used to. 

About a year into your relationship he’d asked you to move in with him. Obviously you were excited. This is the first long term serious relationship you had ever been in. You really felt like George was the one for you. You really loved him.

Then everything sort of... stopped. The hugs from the back, the sleeping in his t shirt, him waking up to drive you to class. Being together all the time made all the niceness of being together fall to the wayside. There wasn’t any excitement in your relationship, even when you’d tried to surprise George with dinner and a tight dress, with a beautiful and delicate lace lingerie on underneath, he’d be working late at the library. You’d changed out of your dress and into one of your pj sets and packed up the food into the fridge by the time George got home.

Then Angelina entered the picture. She was a transfer from Oxford that George had been assigned to show around the Comp Sci department. She was brilliant and beautiful, and closer to George’s age than you were. You were a little jealous of how perfect for George she seemed. She was tall and into computers too. Her and George even started to work on their projects together. Your first reaction was to worry, but you’d convinced yourself that you were being paranoid. That it was good for George to have a friend outside of Lee and his brother Fred. That you and George had built a relationship on trust, that there is no way that he would ever be willing to throw what you had built away.

Then it happened. One night in the heat of the summer, he came home really late. You were awake, waiting for him. Sitting in your pjs watching one of your favorite movies. You had already eaten your dinner and put his in the fridge to reheat if he was hungry when he got home. So when he came back at two in the morning, you were surprised to say the least. 

“Hey babe, are you hungry? Do you want me to heat up your food,” you asked tiredly. 

He dropped his bag on the ground and huffed, causing you to look over at him. He looked utterly defeated. You immediately stood up and went over to him. Your hands went to hold the sides of his face, but he gripped your wrists before you could touch him. 

“George what the hell is going on,” you asked in a quiet worried voice. His face looked so guilty, he wouldn’t look into your eyes, your worry dropped, replaced by a sinking feeling in your stomach. “George, what did you do,” your voice was eerily calm as you pulled your hands from his grip.

His eyes finally meet yours. He looks teary, but not sad, not sorry for whatever he doesn’t want to tell you. “Y/N...” he started. 

“Don’t bullshit me George just tell me what happened.” Your eyes started to fill with tears, dreading what he would tell you. He stayed quite as you quietly yelled, not wanting to wake the neighbors. His back slid down the door until he sat on the floor. 

“I found someone else,” he said barely above a whisper. But you heard him. You wished you hadn’t.

Your jaw dropped and you backed against the wall that sat across from the door, the one that separated the kitchen from the living room in your shared apartment. You slid down as your throat felt like it was closing. You tried to blink back the tears, not wanting George to see them fall, but they slide down your cheek silently.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally looking up from the floor to look at your stunned and hurt face. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Is that supposed to make it better,” you ask, your voice betraying you and cracking. “Is that supposed to make all of this shit better? That you didn’t mean to ‘find someone else’ after we’ve been together for almost three years? When we live together,” your voice starts to raise, as tears fall down your face with reckless abandon.

“You have to know I didn’t mean to hurt you,” his voice is raised a bit now, his head squared as he finally has the courage to make eye contact with you.

“Oh,” you ruefully laugh, “well then it’s all better then isn’t it? I’ll tell you right now that it’s a little too fucking late to say that. To say that like you haven’t been hurting me for the last year of our fucking relationship.”

“It’s not my fault that you stopped trying for us,” he stood up. 

“I stopped trying,” your feet launched you up. “I’m the one who cooks for you every single day. I’m not the one who won’t even get up to take my girlfriend to school when it’s five minutes away. I’m not the one who spends all of their free time away from their house as to avoid their girlfriend. No George, that was all you.”

“Oh don’t blame all of our issues on me. We both had a hand in the end of this relationship.”

You stormed into the bedroom to start packing some of your things to leave. You can’t stand to look at him for one more second, much less to stay in the same apartment with him for one more night. 

“What the fuck happened to betting everything on us? You swore to me that you wanted to be with me for the rest of our lives. You told me that meeting me felt like winning the lottery. What happened to that? What? Some girl comes all the way from Oxford and all of a sudden all of that was bullshit?”

“Don’t bring Angelina into this, you know we were falling away from each other before she ever came into the picture,” George grabbed your arm to get you to look at him. His face morphed from his angry excuse making mug to something much softer, showing the small part of him that still cared at all for you. When he saw your tear stained face and the pure and painful hurt in your e/c eyes.

“Get the fuck off of me George,” you shoved him with all your strength. He didn’t even fight back as he fell to sit on the bed behind him. “I’m getting as much of my stuff as I can right now.” You wipe the tears from your cheeks. “I’ll stop by tomorrow when you’re in class and get the rest of it. I’ll leave my key on the counter. Then I never want to hear from you again. I don’t want to see you if I even hear your name anywhere close to me I’ll walk away.”

“You don’t have to do all that. It’s three in the morning you have nowhere to go. I’ll leave and you can stay here for tonight,” George sighs.

“I can’t stand to be anywhere that reminds me of you right now,” you glare at him over your shoulder. “I can stay at Cedric’s for the night and figure things out from there tomorrow.” George scoffs. You roll your eyes and turn to him. “What?”

“Of course you’re running to Cedric,” he bites.

“The hell do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” he rolls his eyes, “just seems convenient that you know you could go over to his place at this time of night. He always had a thing for you and you know it.”

You finish zipping your suitcase and stand up, looking at him. “Well it doesn’t matter now, does it? Because one of us already chose someone else.” You felt too calm. You knew you shouldn’t feel as relieved to leave as you do. That you should feel a little more crushed by the ending of your relationship. That you should be screaming and begging for more of an explanation. That it shouldn’t be as easy as it was to walk out on what you thought was going to be the rest of your life.

“Whatever, just go,” George’s eyes looked just as detached as you felt right now.

God, this is really ending, isn’t it.

[danishmiilk]

𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙤𝙨 - huang renjun. for @radiorenjun​ || love letters pt. 2

type: superhero!au, friends to lovers!au, enemies to lovers!au

warnings: swearing i think, not very well explained plot holes

synopsis: from personal experience, you can tell that fighting crime with two best friends who can fly and turn invisible respectively is way easier than having a crush on one of the aforementioned best friends. also one extra little complication: the vigilante imposter who calls himself a member of your organisation screwing shit up.

taglist: @lebrookestore @starlightsooyoungs @sweetlyjaem @allegxdly​ ; send an ask or a dm to be added to the taglist (for all of the fics, and that can be quite a lot so do keep that in mind.)

wc: 1.2k

“he’s on the move again,” donghyuck swipes his phone screen viciously with two fingers, zooming in, “what’s his deal?”

you hum, “i mean, he claims to be one of the neos, but he’s always giving us trouble with missions and such, you know? an impostor, i’d thought. calls himself r, doesn’t he?”

“yeah, so pretentious, isn’t it?”

sniffing, you roll your eyes, remembering the time this r had almost ruined your mission and let lee sooman go free to continue terrorising the citizens of neocity. he’d simply gotten in the way of you and donghyuck, even shooting you and injuring you in the leg, and it was only thanks to donghyuck that you’d even managed to get close enough to your shock gun to fire at the villain who was flying away.

so a long story short, you hated r with a burning passion for being annoying, hurting you, and then still daring to claim that he was a neo. one of you. heck, you still couldn’t run at 100% speed.

“where’s renjun, by the way?” only just realising that the third and final member of your mission team was missing, you shrugged at donghyuck, not having the answer to that either. “shouldn’t he have been back already? our mission ended, like, 5 hours ago.”

“nothing happened to him, did it?” you didn’t need to look in a mirror to know that your eyes were clouded with worry for your best friend. best friend that… ah, you’ve fancied for quite a long time now, pining in silence. not that anyone else knew, of course.

there’s the unmistakable sound of muddy shoes squelching along the sterile clean floors of HQ (you’d know, you’ve tracked mud in too many times to count, to the dismay of the cleaning lady. or man, as far as unofficial cleaning man lee taeyong was concerned.) you whip your head around so far it nearly cracks, then quickly dart out of the way to avoid the boy sliding across the floor clumsily.

donghyuck isn’t so lucky though, because renjun barrels straight into him, showering him with water droplets.

“why are you so wet?” donghyuck shoves him away in disgust, “nothing happened to you, did it? i just saw the news today and r capsized one of the neos’ ships at the harbour. no altercations, right?”

renjun shook some water out of his hair like a dog, then pushed his fringe out of his face, “no. i tried going after r earlier, which is why i’m back so late, but i fell into the river. so there.”

you cringe slightly, moving as far away from renjun as possible, “go and clean yourself up, what are you still waiting there for?”

“to kiss you,” renjun leans over, puckering his lips, before turning around and rushing off in raucous laughter.

“i hate him,” you muttered quietly, trying to hide your flustered expression from donghyuck.

“no, you like him,” donghyuck shrugs, like that’s a universally acknowledged fact, “what? it’s true. everyone knows you think he’s so handsome and fine and-”

“shut up!”

—a few days later

cradling your injured arm, you hissed, cursing out lee sooman with the worst curse words you knew in ten different languages and crawling behind a trashcan, hoping against hope that donghyuck and renjun would be able to take care of him. sure, you hated always being the one to get hurt, but it wasn’t like you could 1. fly or 2. turn invisible. the only power you had was healing, and it didn’t even work on yourself, so what was the point?

“i mean, as long as r doesn’t show up and ruin shit, they’ll be fine, won’t they?” you mumbled to yourself, taking cover behind a discarded barrel. there’s a sudden sound and you swear in your head, whipping around to point your gun at its source. it couldn’t be an enemy- your dominant hand was essentially useless until you got back to HQ and your other hand was nowhere near fantastic at shooting. 

“who’s there,” you call out unwisely, before cursing yourself even more, “are you a friend or a foe?”

there’s no reply, so you inch even closer, using the barrel as protection while you rounded the corner, only to be met with someone zipping up their full latex superhero (or supervillain, you couldn’t tell) uniform. 

and it was r.

the little fucker.

raising your gun, you aimed it right at him, but hesitated. didn’t it go against everything you stood for as superheroes to outrightly shoot someone without concrete evidence that they were a villain? all r had done was to spoil some of your equipment and ruin some missions, but he hadn’t actually killed anyone, had he? but in the split second it had taken for you to decide, he’d turned around to face you, suit fully zipped up now. revealing a very familiar face.

“huang renjun?”

“shit,” renjun’s eyes darted around frantically, fiddling with his hands like he didn’t know where to put them, “that’s not how i intended my crush to find out about my hidden identity as a vigilante.”

“your what now?” your brow furrowed. too many revelations in too short a time.

“that was also not how i intended my crush to find out about my crush on her,” he groans and pulls a hand across his face roughly, “right. i bet you want an explanation. so basically i know i’m classified as an impostor and repeat offender right now, and i think you hate me, but i just wanted to… garner some glory for myself as an individual superhero who’s super famous worldwide or- that sounds dumb, nevermind. but i was kind of clumsy so one dumb thing led to another and… yes! alsoiwaskindofwonderingifyou’dgivemeattention.”

blinking, you lowered your gun and stared at him hard, taking in a deep breath. renjun cringed away slightly, awaiting beration, but you just set the gun down with a thump and narrowed your eyes at him.

“huang renjun, did you just say you have a crush on me?”

“is that bad?”

“no- it’s- like, i like you too. so you didn’t have to sink ships to get my attention,” you smiled gently at him, conveniently ignoring donghyuck’s hopefully overdramatic cries of pain in the background.

“that’s- great. wow,” renjun grinned giddily, stating intelligently, “i never thought you’d say that.”

you laughed breathily, hoping your voice wasn’t going up by an octave, “well. so i have.”

donghyuck rips his newly healed hand out of your magical grasp and glowers at the new couple. “you’re telling me,” he growls, “that when i was getting my ass beat by lee sooman, the two of you were sucking face behind a wall? some friends you are.”

“we thought you were being overdramatic. the boy who cried wolf, you know?” renjun grinned at him, “but you’re fine now, right? sorry.”

the former walks out of the medical tent backwards, features still arranged in a frown that was meant to be intimidating, but all the effect was soon lost on you as he mumbled a small “congratulations” on his way out.

donghyuck would come around.

or you’d have to make him.

©danishmiilk, 2021.

[cakesunflower]

Just My Kind [Teacher!Calum AU] Part 6

A/N: this one’s kinda longer than the previous parts, which is fine given that i haven’t updated in a hot minute. happy reading!!

Previous Parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

           There wasn’t a schedule the students and teachers were meant to follow while at Big Bear Mountain. The group of students were divided up into three sections according to the bus they arrived in and were the responsibility of the two teachers they had come with. So Odessa and Calum were in charge of some thirty-odd students, giving the students their phone numbers to check in with them every few hours during the weekend. For the most part, the students were free to do as they pleased on the resort; the only thing they must do was meet with everyone for dinner later on that night and for breakfast on Saturday morning as well as Sunday before they left to go back home.

           After making sure the students in her and Calum’s charge were gone to their rooms to take the time to settle in, Odessa went to her own. She tried not to think of Calum’s room right across the hall from hers, instead focused on putting her toiletries bag in the bathroom and bringing out the coat she’d borrowed from Sierra. Even getting off the bus and walking to the lobby of the hotel allowed Odessa to feel the cool temperature of the area, and mentally thanked Sierra for the coat she knew she’d be wearing all weekend long.

           She didn’t really see the point in unpacking, knowing they’d be there only until Sunday, so she rested her suitcase on the table meant for it by the window before peering out. Her room provided her with a beautiful view of a lake, catching sight of the snowy slopes not too far away that she knew the students were excited to take advantage of. Apparently, many of her Los Angeles students knew how to ski and-or snowboard. Odessa didn’t know how to do either, so she was going to take advantage of the small shopping center village their hotel was located right next to—a walking distance—as well as a heated indoor pool and other amenities that didn’t involve skis or snowboards.

           She didn’t know how much time had passed, but she’d spent it relaxing on the comfortable bed, reading the texts that came through of students in the group chat informing her and Calum of where they were heading to. It wasn’t until Odessa made sure every student in their charge had checked in that she decided to leave the room. In the mood to walk around to grow familiar with her surroundings, Odessa put on some warmer clothing, chuckling softly as she caught sight of the red beanie Grams had knitted for her. The woman was a whiz with those knitting needles.

           After dressing warmly, Odessa grabbed her purse and left the room, boots padding softly on the carpeted hall as she headed towards the elevators. She stepped into the empty lift, and just as the doors began sliding shut, a hand shot through to keep it from closing, startling Odessa. Her gasp seemed too loud in the small space, widened eyes watching as the doors slid open once more, only to reveal Calum standing on the other side. Of course.

           His dark eyes met her blue, and he offered a small smile as he stepped inside, looking warm in a hoodie under his coat, a grey beanie of his own covering his blonde hair. Odessa pressed her teeth together. She absolutely hated how awkward things were, knew it was her fault, knew she had the power in changing it. The doors slid shut and Odessa stared at their blurred reflections against the doors, Calum standing tall next to her, the silence in the limited space damn near suffocating as she picked at her nails, hands buried in the pockets of her coat.

           Surprisingly, Calum broke the silence. “Where you headed?”

           Odessa glanced at him, but Calum was checking something on his phone, conveniently avoiding her gaze. Was that for her benefit or his? “Uh, just checking out the little village,” she told him.

           “Oh, me too.” She bit the inside of her cheek as he added, “There’s this café I’ve heard about, supposed to be really good. D’you wanna check it out?”

           She looked at him once more, chest tightening at the hopeful look he wore in his eyes. The stubborn—read: stupid—part of her wanted to reject Calum’s offer, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Distance was one thing, blatantly ignoring a friend was another, and Odessa didn’t want to be that person. She was already annoyed with herself for treating Calum the way she was—through no fault of his own, only hers and her incapability of figuring out her feelings because she always let others influence her.

           “Sure.” Her answered seemed to surprise him and Odessa fought the urge to swallow. How sad was it that Calum was actually taken aback at her agreement of joining him for something? She pushed herself, “Some company would be nice.”

           Ironic, coming from her. Odessa was just glad Calum was kind enough not to call her out for it.

           The elevator stopped, doors sliding open, and Calum held his arm out and gestured for Odessa to step out first. He followed after her and Odessa zipped up the jacket as the cold greeted them as soon as they left the hotel. There was a large, wide round-about in front of the hotel, one road leading towards the freeway their busses had come from and the other leading right to the village of shops they could see from where they stood.

           There were people all around, a few Odessa recognized as students from their school, and she and Calum continued down the path leading right into the village. It was more like a pedestrian street with short one, maybe two, story buildings on either side, going on for miles, consisting of boutiques, restaurants, smaller cafes, and other kinds of stores. As they walked down the path, Odessa couldn’t help but feel as though she stepped into some kind of Hallmark Christmas movie, everyone around her dressed warmly to fend off the cold, a low hum of chatter in the air that was quieter than what she was used to on the streets in Los Angeles.

           It almost reminded her of her small hometown in Nevada, nearly bringing her that same semblance of a calming peace.

           “Is this better than being in the city?” Odessa bit the tip of her tongue, startled at how Calum seemed to read her mind.

           She glanced up at him, noting that he was just looking ahead as they walked, sunlight shining on them from above the short buildings on either side of the path. Odessa took a breath, hands in the pockets of her jacket as she responded slowly, “Yeah, I guess. It’s a lot less. . . Hectic.”

           “Do you miss your hometown? In Nevada?” Calum asked. Odessa refrained from frowning at him. She was positive they’d had this conversation before, and Calum wasn’t the kind to forget details about others. Was he just trying to make useless small talk? Had her stupid efforts of putting distance between them worked a little too well in making things awkward between them?

           Odessa kept her gaze ahead, rolling her lower lip into her mouth. This felt strange. Wrong. Being with and talking to Calum had always been so easy, from the moment she had met him. Whatever tension existed between them, it was her fault. She had to fix it. “Not as much as I thought I would,” she answered truthfully. “I grew up in Ely but. . . There’s nothing there for me anymore. I miss my students, sure. But my mom’s always flying around, my grandparents are here, and so are my friends.” Odessa glanced at her feet, feeling a small fond smile curl at her lips. “Los Angeles isn’t so bad.”

           “Yeah,” Calum hummed as they continued along. Someone whizzed by them on a bike, and Odessa was caught in the gust of wind they left behind. Damn, wasn’t it cold enough? “I’m glad it’s goin’ well for you, Odessa. I really am.”

           She glanced up at him, catching the small yet genuine smile he flashed her way. Her heart clenched, feeling the guilt of pushing him away once again resurface. Odessa knew, in that moment, this particular guilt was a lot stronger than when she had felt it for feeling as though she was betraying Paige. Harsh as it may sound, Paige wasn’t someone Odessa could, or had to, betray. They weren’t friends, no matter how they painted the picture. It was about time Odessa came to proper terms with it.

           They reached the café Calum had been talking about, and Odessa smiled as he held the door open for her. The inside of the café was warm, a somewhat busy, smelling like fresh sandwiches and coffee as the hostess greeted them with a smile and ushered them over to a table by the window right away. They sat across from one another as Odessa shrugged off her coat, hanging it on the back of her chair as the hostess handed them the menus before wandering off.

           Odessa took the menu, not really reading what was on it because her attention was on the man sitting across from her. She peeked up from her menu, and maybe it was too warm in the cafe because Calum took off his beanie, running his hands through his short blonde hair, and Odessa noticed the darker roots growing in. Still, he looked good. Unsurprisingly.

           She looked back down at the menu just as Calum asked, “Is your mom visiting for the holidays?”

           He was trying to make conversation, Odessa knew, and the least she could do was keep it up. “Yeah,” she answered, feeling a small smile tug at her lips. “Bringing her boyfriend for us to meet, too.” Her mom hadn’t been able to make it for Thanksgiving, which would’ve been sad if Odessa particularly cared about the holiday, but she was definitely flying in for Christmas. Her boyfriend, one of the pilots of her the airline she worked for, was coming with her too so she could introduce him. Odessa was excited to see them both. “What about you? What’re your plans?”

           “Ah, gonna be in New Zealand,” he told her with a small smile. “Spending it with my mom and grandparents.”

           Odessa nodded in acknowledgment, eyes on the menu. She decided to go for the chicken panini. If Calum was going to spend Christmas with his mom, that meant his sister was going to be spending with their dad. He had told Odessa, one time when they were talking about their families, how he and his sister, Mali-Koa, switched off who they spent Christmas with every other year, with the one in between where both siblings were together with one parent. When that happened, New Years was spent with the parent they didn’t see during Christmas. Odessa silently wondered if that was better, of it she just preferred being with her mom every year and never seeing her dad.

           Just as quickly as that thought had come, though, it disappeared all the same. Calum’s parents were still friends, from what he told her. Both Odessa and her mom wanted nothing to do with her dad.

           A waitress came by soon enough, taking their drink orders and wondering if they wanted to order food right then too, which they did. Once she left, a silence befell Odessa and Calum, immune to any disruption by the chatter of the other café patrons. She loathed the mild tension she could feel between them, loathed that she knew it was because of her putting some distance between her and Calum for weeks since she had been unable to figure her feelings out. She wasn’t doing anything to ease the tension, either, as she opted to gaze out the window to her right, watching unfamiliar faces walk past the window, wondering if the lived their lives without making them complicated for themselves.

           “Gotta be honest—I’m surprised you agreed to eat with me.” Odessa felt herself freeze where she sat, gaze snapping over to Calum before she could even think about it. When she looked at Calum, her breath silently hitched in her throat because instead of appearing accusatory like he had every right to, Calum looked almost reluctant to bring up the topic. Like he didn’t want to venture into somewhat dangerous territory, but had to anyway because he knew it was the path that led to honesty. Which Odessa knew he deserved.

           “Calum—”

           “I’ve been trying to give you your space, Odessa,” Calum sighed, head tilting from one side to the other as he sat with his arms crossed over the table. She bit her lower lip as his dark eyes locked with her blue, and her chest tightened when she didn’t see any anger in them. He would be justified if he felt that. Instead, all she saw was confusion, hesitance. He looked unsure, which was a look Odessa wasn’t used to on someone as confident and firm as Calum, and she hated that she put that look on him. “Figured you’d talk when you were ready about what’s been bothering you but—” he let out a short, empty laugh, muddled with confusion. “It’s been a couple of weeks and I’m still in the dark.”

           If Odessa was being honest, she hadn’t quite expected Calum to outright ask her about her behavior. She had assumed he’d let her approach him, wait on her like he had been doing for weeks. Maybe he got tired of waiting, wanted answers sooner rather than later—and she didn’t blame him. Still, despite coming to an understanding about her own feelings, Odessa still wasn’t quite sure how to move forward from there, so she didn’t really know what to tell Calum.

           Shit. She’d brought this on herself, didn’t she?

           When the hell did she become someone who would let anyone have power over her actions—whether they were aware of it or not?

           Odessa tried to find the right words to express what she wanted to say without actually spilling what’s been sitting in her heart in some random café. Just because she had come to terms with her feelings for Calum, didn’t mean she was exactly jumping at the opportunity to let him know. She was still at war with herself, mind heavy with the following consequences of letting him know how she felt. Despite what her friends may think, she couldn’t blind herself to the possibility of Calum not feeling the same way. Letting him know that she had feelings for him and him not reciprocating could make their friendship awkward, put a strain on their professional relationship, too. The latter would change no matter how Calum felt about her, but she would selfishly rather it be because they would do something about their mutual feelings rather than because he was avoiding her and her feelings for him.

           She suppressed a sigh. Odessa wished the chatter in the café was louder. Maybe it’d drown out her own buzzing thoughts.

           “I don’t want you to think you did anything wrong,” Odessa finally spoke up, her words slow and deliberate. Calum’s gaze remained on her; it was an encouraging warmth rather than a demanding heat. “Because you didn’t. This—it’s just something I’m dealing with on my own. And I’m just—I’m sorry for avoiding you. I was just trying to figure some stuff out.”

           There. That was vague, but Odessa felt as though it got the message across. Hopefully.

           “Did you?” She met his gaze, eyebrows knitting together slightly as Calum offered a barely there shrug. “Figure it out?”

           Odessa’s lips parted, though what would say, she was unsure, just as the waitress returned with their food and drinks. She dropped her gaze to her panini, Calum’s question running through her mind. When she looked up again, his eyes were still on her, not even bothering to reach for his food, expectant. Her heart jumped and she exhaled through slightly smiling lips. “Yes and no,” she answered vaguely.

           Before Calum could ask what that meant, a familiar voice interrupted them. “Oh, there you two are! On a little date, are you?”

           Both of their gazes looked up and Odessa could feel the warmth instantly pooling in her cheeks at Justine Greggs’ comment, freezing in her seat. Justine stood with Bridgit Donnelly, one of the other English teachers, both of them grinning at Odessa and Calum like they knew some secret. The implication behind their smiles, along with Justine’s words, had Odessa wished the ground would swallow her up.

           The older women were eyeing her and Calum impishly, and when Odessa chanced a glance at the man sitting across from her, the heat in her face intensified when she saw that charming, boyish grin easily take over his face. A subtle smile, yet enough to completely take her breath away. “Somethin’ like that,” Calum confirmed smoothly, leaning back in his chair as he looked up at them. Odessa tried her hardest not to focus on his words too much—or him—though it was proving to be difficult. With a tilt of his head, he asked Justine and Bridgit, “Would you ladies like to join us?”

           Bridgit laughed lightly. She was in her late thirties, and her personality reminded Odessa of Grams. “No, no, we don’t want to intrude,” she grinned teasingly, shooting both of them a knowing look. Odessa wished she could present herself as unaffected as Calum, who merely chuckled along, not showing any signs of fluster like Odessa probably was. “We’re just going to pick up some coffees before heading to the ice rink. You two should check it out, too.”

           Odessa may not be able to snowboard or ski, but ice skating was something she was capable of. She had gone through a rollerblading phase when she was fifteen, and holiday trip to New York once had proved that she was able to ice skate, too. “Oh, yeah, that sounds fun,” she replied without much thought, offering the two other teachers a smile.

           The two women smiled before Justine said, “Alright, well we’ll let you get back to it—enjoy your meals, you two.”

           There was a glint in her eyes, aligning perfectly with the teasing tilt in her voice that had the warmth in Odessa’s cheeks reheating. She had a good idea of what the two women were thinking, their implications not at all lost on Odessa, and she wondered if the universe used the people around her as a conduit to fluster her nerves when it came to Calum. At this point, too many people have teased or alluded to the concept of Odessa and Calum being something more than friends, colleagues. It didn’t help in easing her mind.

           Once Justine and Bridgit left, leaving just her and Calum, she tried to push aside any awkwardness by biting into her panini. And while Calum paid attention to his food, Odessa had kind of hoped their previous conversation was forgotten. Until he spoke up once more. “What did you mean?” he asked carefully. She glanced to see him watching her after he swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “You said yes and no—what’d you mean?”

           Odessa hesitated, lips parting as she thought of a proper, worthy answer. Calum was patient. She let out a breath and offered the best she could, “I mean yes, I figured out what I was working through but I’m, uh, not sure yet how I wanna move forward with it. If. . . That makes sense,” she finished, shooting him a somewhat apologetic look. It was another vague answer, she knew, but there wasn’t really any other way for Odessa to tell Calum without telling him. And it wasn’t the right time for it—if there ever would be one.

           Calum eyed her momentarily, his gaze as intense and warm as ever, before his features softened and he nodded. He seemed to accept her answer, not that it was much of one, and Odessa appreciated it more than he would know. He wasn’t pushing her, even though he deserved to know; she knew he did. She’d been the one pushing him away, creating distance between them without so much as a warning. Calum did nothing wrong. He was unknowingly caught in a situation he was oblivious to, and Odessa was trying her hardest to untangle all of them out of it on her own.

           “How are midterm preparations going?” Odessa then chose to ask, wanting to steer the conversation away from herself. Midterms were being held in the coming week, and Odessa had spent the last few days coming up with exams for her freshman and sophomore classes that wouldn’t drive them too hard into the ground.

           “Good,” Calum answered with a nod after sipping his drink. “Exam’s ready—just hopin’ my kids are, too.”

           Odessa cracked a smile. “Same here,” she said, catching sight of a child running down the street, an excitable grin on her face as she pointed towards a souvenir shop opposite of the café, waiting for her parents to catch up to her. Looking back at Calum, Odessa continued, “I spent half an hour debating if I should have a multiple choice section before deciding against it. I hated them when I took tests—I’m not putting my kids under the stress of second guessing their answer.”

           Calum quirked an eyebrow. “That is, if they didn’t study well.”

           “Not necessarily,” she pointed out. “I have some students who know all the material but they don’t test well. Multiple choice questions certainly don’t help those types.”

           He tilted his head, curiosity sparking his dark eyes as he gazed at her. “You don’t think the challenge will help them in the long run? Not every teacher’s going to be as considerate as you, Essa.”

           The nickname had her heart skipping a beat, but Odessa willed herself to relax, not to get too ahead of herself. Still—it was a struggle to fight the smile from tilting her lips. Her name, any variation of it, sounded so nice from Calum’s lips. “Maybe, maybe not,” Odessa shrugged, letting out a light chuckle. “There’s plenty of other teachers who can throw them off with multiple choices. I’d rather read the responses in their own words in open ended questions.”

           Calum nodded, seeing the reasoning in her answer. “You can tell by that how much they know more clearly—yeah, I agree.”

           Odessa flashed him a grin, feeling more at ease as the minutes passed by. “Plus, I’m too lazy to come up with wrong answers.”

           He snorted as he picked up his glass of ginger ale. “I hear that.”

           She could see his smile that he didn’t try to hide behind the glass, and Odessa didn’t really try to get rid of hers as she bit into the panini. Saying that she missed this, the ease of conversation and Calum’s company, would be an understatement. Depriving herself of Calum’s friendship in the past few weeks had been such an idiotic decision on her part, no matter how many times she told herself it was the right thing to do. Even though she had believed it somewhat, at the time, it now felt like an utterly moronic choice she wouldn’t be making again. Calum and their friendship meant more to Odessa than Paige’s territorial feelings and passive-aggressive comments.

           Their lunch, much to Odessa’s pleasure, passed by comfortably, with conversation flowing easily without drudging up Odessa’s dumb distancing decisions over the past few weeks. The comfort Odessa felt with Calum had returned, despite her ever present thoughts lingering in the back of her head, and she couldn’t help but chastise herself for thinking separating herself from him was ever a good idea. For too long she had been putting Paige’s warnings above her own feelings, and with the help of the sight of Calum sitting across from her, grinning that bright smile, Odessa understood it was about time that changed.

*****

           The ice rink wasn’t as busy as Odessa had expected it to be. She still had yet to venture onto the ice, the skates already tied securely on her feet, but she stood just outside of the rink, looking in through the transparent screen as a few people skated around. Music was playing throughout the arena, and from the two handfuls of people that were there, only a couple were students from the school.

           It wasn’t that late in the day, barely five-thirty. The dinner scheduled for students and the chaperones wasn’t until seven, so Odessa had plenty of time to enjoy the rink for now. But before she could step onto the ice, Calum’s voice suddenly sounded to her right. “Are you gonna skate or stare?”

           She let out a light laugh as she glanced at him, noting the small smile playing on his lips, hoodie pulled over his beanie. He looked so warm. After their lunch, they’d walked around the little village for a bit before separating; he’d gone to ski and after telling him she wasn’t risking an injury by joining him, Odessa had headed to her hotel room for a nap. She’d woken up earlier than usual that day, and the cold weather only added onto the sleepiness that had crept on her.

           “No need to be pushy,” she responded teasingly before stepping forward. Odessa found her footing easily, the blades sliding against the ice as she moved, Calum stepping on right behind her.

           “Oh, Jesus—fuck.” Odessa’s eyebrows shot up as she turned around, feeling an amused smile tilt at her lips as she watched Calum right himself, letting out a huff as he found his balance.

           With a curious tilt of her head, Odessa asked, “You do know how to skate, right?” He knew how to ski—skating should be a piece of cake, shouldn’t it?

           “Yes,” Calum responded instantly, putting a pointed stress on the word as he skated to come up next to her. “Just needed to find my balance.”

           It was comical that as soon as he said that, his body tipped forward, feet threatening to give out under him. Odessa’s eyes widened and she instantly grabbed his hand, gloved fingers wrapping around his without much thought. She didn’t dismiss the jump of her heart when Calum tightened his grip, a small yet grateful smile lifting his lips as she tried not to dwell on the pinkness of his cheeks and nose because of the cold. Odessa’s throat dried, the music playing in the rink being drowned out by the notion of Calum having no intention of letting her hand go becoming prominent, and she slowly pulled him along.

           Neither dwelled on the glaring fact that Calum, who could ski and play soccer, didn’t really need Odessa to keep holding his hand as they skated. But he hadn’t let go, and Odessa sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first to loosen her grip. So they skated on, the arena echoing with music playing and the chatter of others around them, mixing in with the blades gliding along the ice. Despite that, Odessa didn’t want there to be any silence between them, even though it was often comfortable; there had been enough unwilling silence existing between the two of them lately because of her and she wanted to fill it. Talking to Calum was too relaxing and effortless to deprive herself of.

           “How was skiing?” she casually asked as they started their second lap around the rink, side by side.

           “Not too bad,” Calum responded with a raspy chuckle. “Took me a minute to get used to.”

           Odessa shot him a playful smile, raising an eyebrow as she asked, “Like skating?”

           He returned her smile with a boyish smirk, the kind that flipped her heart, as he smoothly responded, “Something like that—except you weren’t there to hold my hand on the slopes.”

           The warmth flooded Odessa’s cheeks at his words, surprised that she didn’t slip because of the shock they greeted her with. She hoped the coldness of where they were would present itself as reason enough for the harsh pinkness in her cheeks. Odessa had no idea if Calum was just joking around with her or if he meant what he said; his smirk remained, but there was a hint of something other than playfulness in the dark of his eyes as he watched her that only warmed her even more.

           Her throat worked, looking ahead once more as they skated on, and Odessa let out a gentle, short laugh as she forced herself to respond, “I don’t think that would’ve made skiing any easier.”

           “Maybe,” Calum hummed thoughtfully, fingers still interlocked with hers. She only embraced the knowledge of it once more when he gave a squeeze to her hand. “But I would’ve welcomed it anyway.”

           He’s flirting with me. The thought screamed through Odessa’s mind, manifesting itself in the lump that formed in her dry throat, skin firing up even more. She knew he was; she could hear it in the quietened way he spoke, words tilting with hesitantly alluring tone. Like he couldn’t help himself to say innocently suggestive things, but was unsure if she would welcome them or not. But Odessa did—she very much did. Now that she was aware of her feelings for Calum, his flirtations that crossed the line of friendship Odessa had failed to establish—not that she minded—were words that made her heart race and in excitement and had the knots of anxiety tightening her stomach loosen and disappear.

           Safe. Comfortable. Calum’s made her feel those things from the moment she met him—more so than anyone else she’s met that wasn’t her immediate family.

           “Odessa.” She let out a barely-heard startled gasp as Calum forced them to a stop towards the side, out of the way of those skating around. He stood in front of her, tall body towering over hers, dark eyes meeting her widened blue. “I know it’s none of my business—but what happened? You kind of just. . . Stopped talking to me and, I gotta tell you, I’ve been trying to figure out what I did wrong.”

           “You didn’t do anything wrong, Calum,” Odessa instantly replied without much thought. She couldn’t bear the thought of him thinking it was his fault, despite coming to the uncomfortable realization he most likely thought just that over the time she tried to put distance between them. Her nerves crept back, but Calum’s presence didn’t allow them to take over her. “I was just confused.”

           Calum’s throat worked. “About what?” he implored, a gentleness in his voice not lost in the buzzing rink. It was already beginning to feel like it was just the two of them, nobody around to disturb them, as Calum kept Odessa grounded. His gaze, intense as always, was warm and encouraging, softer than what Odessa felt like she deserved.

           She looked up at him, took in the pinkness of his cheeks and nose because of the cold, the blonde hair peeking out from under his beanie, the stubble on his chin and jaw. Odessa felt as though every detail of his appearance was engrained in her mind, the sight of him so achingly familiar. A warm light guiding her closer and closer to the truth until the words were slipping past her lips without much thought.

           “How I feel.” Odessa didn’t particularly think to elaborate on that, feeling a hint of embarrassment creep up, mixing in with the nerves of finally, finally, finally telling Calum how she felt. Voicing it would make it feel more real than it already was, but Odessa just needed to get out of her head. Since she met him, Calum never made Odessa feel as though she should be embarrassed about anything—if she ever was, it was because on her accord. But as he stood in front of her, patient and, dare she say it, hopeful, she allowed herself to add in a somewhat wavering tone, “About you. Us.”

           “Us?” Calum repeated, and was that hope settling in his features?

           Odessa swallowed, heart jumping as he kept his gaze purposefully locked on hers. She couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. Calum’s eyes had her trapped and she wasn’t too keen on escaping. “I realized how lucky I am to have you as a friend,” she carefully started, her voice quiet, gentle. Was she imagining the way they seemed to be drawing close to one another? She was trying hard not to let her gaze drop from his eyes to his lips, no matter how inviting they looked. “And I’m just. . . Not sure how far that luck goes.”

           She was being annoyingly cryptic, she knew, but Odessa had a feeling Calum knew exactly where she was going with this.

           If anything, the way he let out a short breath through curling lips before closing the gap between them was pretty solid of an answer.

           Odessa leaned into Calum immediately, her surprised gasp silenced with his lips meeting hers in a kiss so warm, so thrilling, that it allowed her body to feel shivers down her spine and heat spreading throughout her skin all at once. It was unexpected, but the shock wore off quickly as her free hand—the one that wasn’t still holding onto his—reached up to rest on the back of his neck, lips moving with his as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And it felt like it was.

           There were no butterflies or fireworks, but a wave of calmness that blanketed itself over Odessa as Calum kissed her, feeling his arm wrap around her waist to keep her close, a warmth spreading through her. His stubble tickled at her skin and his head tilted ever so slightly to deepen the kiss, the sensation of his tongue languidly meeting hers sending another thrill down her spine. Odessa was deaf to her surroundings, uncaring of anyone or anything around her, her focus solely on Calum and the way he kissed her. Like he’d been wanting to do it for as long as she did. It was better than Odessa could have ever imagined, the taste of mint dancing against her lips, mixing in with his familiar cologne enveloping her.

           They pulled away too quickly in Odessa’s opinion, eyes still shut as her mind reeled from the kiss, not even realizing she was subtly chasing Calum’s lips with her own until she heard him let out a soft chuckle. His warm breath tickled her, his forehead resting against hers, and Odessa pressed her teeth together to ground herself. Holy shit. As far as kisses go, Odessa wanted this one to be her last first kiss.

           “I’d say your luck goes pretty far,” Calum spoke, a teasing tone in his raspy voice.

           His words had Odessa letting out a breathless laugh despite her entranced state, opening her eyes to catch sight of his deep brown ones. Her breath caught in her throat as she noticed the way he was looking at her; soft, warm, delicate. A small smile played on the corners of his lips, a boyish smirk, yet his eyes gave away to the gentleness she knew he possessed. Had the pinkness in his cheeks darkened? Odessa was sure hers had.

           Her hand dropped from his neck, but her fingers caught the drawstrings of Calum’s hoodie, playing with them as she found herself reluctantly asking, “You don’t think this complicates things?” She lifted her gaze to meet his, almost shyly. “We work together—”

           “There’s no rule against that, Essa,” Calum reminded her gently. He then ducked his head, maintaining her gaze, raising his eyebrows almost knowingly as he added, “Unless there’s something else that’s holding you back from figuring out what this is.”

           Odessa rolled her lips into her mouth, throat tightening momentarily as Paige’s face involuntarily flashed through her mind. Her fingers absently tightened their grip on the drawstrings of Calum’s hoodie she was playing with, looking away from him as a frustrated frown knitted at her eyebrows. Hadn’t she told herself she wouldn’t care about this anymore? That she wouldn’t put Paige, who clearly didn’t give a shit about Odessa, and her feelings above her own? Calum kissed her—and he obviously wanted to pursue something with her. Why was Odessa unwillingly finding reasons to not let him lead her in the right direction?

           “Is it because of Paige?” Odessa’s eyes widened almost comically at Calum’s question, looking at him in surprise, taken aback at how he reached that conclusion so quickly. He was an observant guy, Odessa knew, but still—how had he picked up on that? Noting the disbelief in Odessa’s face, Calum offered a small smile, letting out a breath as he confessed, “Luke told me.”

           Odessa’s expression dropped into a flat one, unimpressed at their friend’s inability to keep things to himself. But, honestly, Odessa wasn’t mad at Luke; him telling Calum what had been weighing so heavily on Odessa made things easier for her. It was probably cowardly of her, but Luke did her a favor, saved her some awkwardness, and she was grateful for it.

           “Odessa,” Calum spoke up, broad shoulders squared and staring down at her pointedly. She did her best to focus attentively, warning herself not to get lost in the dark of his eyes. “You gotta know that Paige and I were never serious—it shouldn’t’ve happened in the first place, but I can’t change that.” Odessa’s heart jumped at his words, his admittance of not wanting to pursue anything with Paige feeling like a weight off of Odessa’s shoulders she didn’t know she needed, a relief she’d been silently craving for longer than she’d like to admit.

           She parted her lips, hoping the skates on her feet would keep her steady, oblivious to the world around her as she quietly asked, “What’re you saying?”

           The corner of Calum’s lips curled up softly, far too handsome, and Odessa was overcome with the urge to kiss him again. But she kept herself still, waiting for his answer. “I’m saying,” he started with a short chuckle, “that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the moment I met you. And—” his smile widened, a playful tilt, “—being your work-husband isn’t enough.”

           “You’re not proposing to me, are you?” Odessa cut in, unable to help the joke from slipping past her lips despite the anticipation tickling her stomach. She couldn’t stop herself—it was effortless when it came to Calum.

           He let out a laugh at her question, the sight of his smile bringing on her own, especially at the light dancing in his eyes. With a quirk of an eyebrow, Calum pointed out, “I think I have to take you out on a date first.”

           Before Odessa could respond, the excitement tickling her nerves, a shouting voice echoed throughout the rink, “Oh shit, Coach and Ms. Kline! I knew it!”

           Her eyes widened in surprise, Calum’s eyebrows shooting up as they leaned away from one another and looked over. Odessa pursed her lips, fighting the sheepish grin from tilting at her mouth when she saw a couple students, mostly boys from the soccer team, towards the middle of the rink as they comically cheered their two teachers on. Heat pooled in Odessa’s cheeks as she saw the few boys and girls looking at them in teasing excitement, and suddenly Odessa herself felt like she was a teenager as she subtly slid back from Calum.

           His hand was still gripping hers though as she peeked a look at him. His eyes were light with mirth, though he wasn’t going to give the kids the satisfaction as he shot them a look. Odessa wondered if they could see the subtle smirk on his face from where they stood. “Keep it movin’, kids. Nothing to see here,” he called back to them, waving them off with their free hand. Standing tall, he added, “Go on before I make you skate laps.”

           One of the kids from the team, Frankie, puffed his chest out and hollered, “We’re on vacation! You can’t make us, Coach.”

           Calum skated forward a bit, eyebrows raising and a challenging gleam in his eyes that had Odessa biting back a smile. “Wanna bet?”

           And with a cacophony of “Sorry, Coach”, the boys and their friends were skating away, though Odessa wasn’t oblivious to the way they glanced back over their shoulders. It was amusing, if she was being honest, looking back at Calum as he skated to stand in front of her. He cracked a smile, letting out a silent breath. “Maybe I can take you out when there aren’t any kids around.”

           She laughed, a flutter in her chest. “Sounds good to me.”

           And even though there were a couple of students in the rink, their interest in their two teachers amusing, it didn’t stop Calum from tightening his grip on Odessa’s hand before they continued skating. Odessa couldn’t stop foolishly smiling, cheeks soon beginning to hurt, but she didn’t care. For the first time, she allowed herself to give into her feelings without a care for anyone else.

*****

           “Correct me if I’m wrong, but were you and Calum on a little date earlier today?”

           Odessa pressed her lips together as she forced down her sip of wine, widened eyes meeting Justine Greggs’ impish grin. Her fellow teacher had a knowing spark in her dark eyes, and Odessa felt heat creep up her neck as she put the glass down. “I—no, no. It wasn’t a date,” she told her with an embarrassed laugh which only served to make it seem like Odessa was lying—which she wasn’t. That was not a date. “We were just having lunch together, that’s all.”

           “Mhm,” Justine hummed, not at all convinced as her lip curled while she took a sip of her wine as well. With a tilt of her head, she asked, “Then how come I’m hearing whispers among the students that a couple of them caught you two being close at the ice rink?”

           “Oh, my God,” Odessa’s jaw dropped, gaping at Justine as she leaned forward. The two of them had been sitting the bar in the resort as it neared eleven at night, just a few people around. In a whisper, Odessa asked, “Are Calum and I on the rumor mill now?”

           Her coworker smiled in amusement. “You two are the only focus of the rumor mill,” she informed Odessa, whose skin fired up even more.

           She felt embarrassed, almost shrinking into herself as she told Justine, “I’m so sorry about that—we definitely should’ve been more careful about students seeing us—”

           “Odessa, please, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Justine laughed lightly, waving the younger woman off. Odessa quietened, her nerves still playing on her features as she mentally berated herself. She hadn’t thought about it much at the time, too blissed out on Calum’s kiss and the confessions murmured in the rink, but now when she thought about it, she had noticed some of the looks she’d been receiving during the dinner earlier. All from students looking far too excited and as if they’d stumbled upon a big secret. They might as well have. “You and Calum are two grown adults with your own lives. There’s no rule preventing you two from being in a relationship.”

           Odessa pressed her lips together in a small yet grateful smile, the blush still heavy in her cheeks as she sipped her drink. There may not have been a rule at the school keeping her and Calum from being together, but there had been an unspoken one that had nestled in Odessa’s mind for so long, all thanks to Paige. Now, though, it was being etched out of her mind for good, and as it went, so did the tension tightening Odessa’s chest.

           “Speak of the devil.” Odessa’s head snapped up at Justine’s words, noting that she was looking past Odessa’s shoulder with a small smirk.

           Odessa turned around in her stool, feeling a smile tilt at her lips as she caught Calum walking into the bar, feeling a nostalgic sense of déjà vu wash over her as she remembered the first time she saw him; Mrs. Brewer had uttered the same words when Calum entered the teacher’s lounge on Odessa’s first day of work.

           His gaze met hers right away, a smile playing on his lips as he approached where she sat, his walk as confident as his smile quiet. He still wore his clothes from today, minus the jacket and beanie, a sight Odessa never would tire of.

           “Evenin’, ladies,” he greeted despite it being way past the time for it to be considered the evening, waving down the bartender. “Mind if I join you?”

           “You can keep Odessa company,” Justine said as she got up, her glass now empty. She smiled at the two of them, the knowing look too bright in her eyes as she paid. “I’m going to head to my room for the night.”

           She left, leaving just Odessa and Calum at the bar as he ordered a beer for himself, spinning in the stool so he was facing her. “Did you hear?” he started, a ghost of a smirk tilting at his lips. “We’re the hottest topic in high school gossip today.”

           Odessa let out a short laugh, eyebrows raising as she nodded, looking down at her nearly empty glass of wine. “Yeah—the kids aren’t that subtle about it.”

           “No, they aren’t,” Calum agreed with a deep chuckle, nodding thanks to the bartender as the bottle of beer was placed in front of him. Lifting the bottle to his lips, Calum scoffed, “I haven’t been high school gossip since I was seventeen and streaked across the football field.”

           A startled laugh escaped Odessa, blue eyes dancing in amusement as she stared at Calum in surprise, and he merely smiled boyishly as he sipped his drink. “Are you serious?” she asked with a laugh, facing him in disbelief.

           He offered a shrug, not too apologetic about it. “Michael dared me. I couldn’t back down from it.”

           Odessa rolled her eyes though she was still laughing, licking her lips before musing, “Of course you couldn’t.” When her laughter died down, Odessa took a breath and glanced at Calum, voice quieting as she asked, “Seriously, though—you don’t feel awkward about it?”

           “Not really, no,” Calum answered with a shake of his head. He smiled, then, small and subtle, before adding, “It’s not anything I haven’t heard from my players.”

           Her gaze darted to him as she drank her wine, eyebrows shooting up as she lowered the glass, swallowed the sip, before sputtering, “What do you mean?”

           Calum faced her once more, right elbow resting on the bar top, chin lifting as his smile remained playing on the corners of his lips. The amusement danced in his dark eyes under the dim yellow lighting of the bar, features softened in the glow as Odessa peered up at him. “All the boys have mouths on ’em. They aren’t shy about teasing me ’bout you.”

           “Teasing you about me?” Odessa repeated, the disbelief thick in her tone. She was having a hard time processing that this was even a conversation Calum had with his soccer players—on more than one occasion, so it seemed. She was amused and embarrassed and curious all at once as the heat remained pooling in her cheeks. When it came to Calum, Odessa might as well be a middle school girl with a crush. “What do they even say?”

           “The most reoccurring?” Calum hummed, leaning towards Odessa just a bit, instantly making her oblivious to her surroundings. It wasn’t like there were that many people in the resort’s bar anyway, but as soon as Calum neared her, there might as well have been none. She noted the sweep of his eyelashes as he gazed at her, eyes briefly flickering to her lips before brown eyes met blue, her heart fluttering excitedly. “They kept telling their coach to do everyone a favor and ask you out.”

           Odessa rolled her lips into her mouth, tasting the wine she’d been drinking, her left elbow propped up on the bar as she, too, faced Calum. The way he was looking right back at her—his gaze was never something Odessa felt like she would get used to, like he was taking in every part of her, committing her to memory. Her own voice lowered, pointing out softly, “You already did that.”

           “I did,” Calum replied, smiling boyishly, his knee brushing against hers. Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Right after I kissed you.” Odessa hummed an affirmative, feeling as though something was pulling her closer to him. She found herself desperately wanting to close the space between them. “Which is something I should’ve done a lot sooner. But—” Odessa’s eyebrows quirked up ever so slightly, not even at her own accord, too lost in Calum and the gap between them closing. They’d already kissed in public once—what was a second time? Her gaze dropped to his lips, soft and full and pink, made to be kissed. She saw the corner of his mouth comply with a ghost of a smirk, voice low as he finished, “You were worth the wait.”

           Odessa felt her neck tense as her throat tightened, Calum’s dangerously sweet words sending a thrill down her spine she did her best in hiding. The effect he had on her wasn’t one she’d ever experienced before—it wasn’t one she wanted to go without anymore, either.

           They didn’t kiss then, like both of them so desperately wanted to do. Instead, a mutual yet silent agreement passed between them and they pulled away, sitting up in their stools, sipping their drinks as they let the conversation take a natural turn over towards something less enticing.

           Odessa ran her finger around the rim of her glass, aware of Calum’s gaze on her, as a thought crept into her head. With a slight furrow of her eyebrows, she asked slowly, “What exactly did Luke tell you? About. . . The Paige thing?”

           There was a subtle change in Calum’s features, a resignation as his cheeks puffed slightly with a sharp exhale. “Nothing that surprised me,” he told her truthfully. His gaze met Odessa’s. “Luke knows how I feel about you and he may have admitted that there was a chance you felt the same.” He cracked a knowing grin at Odessa rolling her eyes, muttering under her breath about Luke being unable to keep his mouth shut. Not that she was truly annoyed with him. Calum’s smile faltered a bit then. “But you weren’t going to do anything about it because Paige more or less told you to back off—which she had no right doing, by the way.”

           Odessa scoffed, eyebrows raising. “Could’ve fooled me.”

           “Listen, Odessa,” Calum sighed, facing her with a pointed look on his face. “Do you want me to talk to her when we get back?”

           She paused for a moment, considering his offer. If Odessa was being honest, the less interactions she had with Paige, the better—though, she wasn’t sure how that would be possible, given their friend group is the same. But sooner or later, Odessa would have to confront Paige herself, especially now that she had come to terms with her feelings for Calum and realizing it wasn’t just some passing crush.

           “Don’t talk to her on my behalf,” she decided. “I have to talk things out with her myself.”

           Calum nodded, accepting her reasoning. “Fair enough,” he murmured before taking a sip of his beer. “I’m gonna have to talk to her myself anyway—set the record straight about where she and I stand.” He then glanced at Odessa, lips curling into a boyish smirk as he added, “Especially if I wanna make things work with you.”

           Her cheeks were aflame once again, yet Odessa didn’t mind one bit as a shy yet thrilled smile curled at her lips, already aching her cheeks as she ducked her head. Calum chuckled quietly at her reaction. He had a way with words, which wasn’t surprising given his profession, and he used it to his advantage to render Odessa speechless. She could only hope to get him back for it one day.

           Once they finished their drinks, it was nearing midnight, and given that it was their first day at Big Bear, it would serve them better to go to bed. So they paid for their drinks and headed out of the bar and towards the elevators, the resort a lot quieter this time of night than earlier in the day. There was a comfortable silence between Calum and Odessa as they rode the elevator to their floor, and as they stood next to one another, Odessa had the foolish feeling of stretching her left pinky out just so to wrap around Calum’s. But she didn’t. Instead she just glanced at him from the corner of her eye, peering up at the much taller figure to her left, fighting off her grin when she saw his own lips twitching into a knowing smile.

           She was giddy. Relieved. The tension that had been weighing her down disappeared in a matter of a day, and keeping a smile off her face wasn’t too possible.

           The elevator doors slid open and Calum waited for her to step out first before they walked down the empty carpeted hall. They’d already checked in with their students earlier that night. Odessa’s hotel room came before Calum’s, since he was just two doors down, and as she pulled out her key card, he stood with his hands shoved in the front pocket of his hoodie, gaze on hers.

           “I’ll see you in the morning, then?” Calum said just as Odessa’s door clicked open after she used the card.

           She stood in the doorway, gripping the door handle tight as she peered up at Calum. There was a fighting urge to invite Calum inside, to continue the kiss that hadn’t lasted long enough back at the ice rink. And the way his brown eyes were peering at her, soft yet alluring, gave Odessa the feeling that Calum wanted to come into her room just as badly as she wanted him to. But he wouldn’t, not unless she said so, and as badly as Odessa wanted to, she shouldn’t. It would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it? While they were on a field trip with students and other teachers?

           Having morals sucked. More so lately than usual.

           So she smiled, leaning against the door she kept open reluctantly. “Yeah,” Odessa answered, almost breathlessly, with a nod. “In the morning.”

           Calum nodded, a muscle in his jaw jumping momentarily, a subtle smile playing on his lips. Something silent passed between them as his eyes remained on her blue, and Odessa’s throat tightened. Calum lifted his chin. “Goodnight, Essa.”

           Shit, she didn’t want him to go. “Goodnight, Calum.”

           With one last smile, Calum turned to go, and Odessa stepped back to shut the door instead of watching him leave. She squeezed her eyes shut as she leaned her back against the door, head tilted back to face the ceiling, and her nose scrunched as she battled with herself. The moral side of her was telling her she did the right thing; inviting Calum inside wouldn’t be a good idea, for no reason other than it wouldn’t entirely be the responsible chaperone thing to do.

           But another part—a much larger part—was reminding Odessa that she had waited long enough. Keeping herself away from Calum—hadn’t it lasted for too long already? Now that her feelings were out there, along with his, there technically wasn’t anything stopping either of them from pursuing what they were feeling. How many more excuses would Odessa dig up to keep herself from being happy? Why was she constantly doing that? She deserved more, didn’t she?

           She bit her lower lip, eyebrows scrunching together above closed eyes. Odessa wasn’t a selfish person, and in this situation, she wasn’t even being selfish to anyone but herself. That had to come to an end; sooner—now—rather than later.

           Her eyes opened, staring into her empty hotel room, and a deep breath escaped her as she made her mind up. Heart doing an excited flip in her chest, Odessa pushed herself away from the door, gripping the handle, and pulled it open quickly. Only for her breath to catch in her throat when she saw Calum still standing there, hand raised halfway as if he was about to knock on the door.

           Odessa stared at him with startled eyes, only able to hear the escalating beat of her heart, as Calum stared right back, lips parting yet nothing coming out. A beat of silence passed between them, both taking in the sight of the other, and just as quickly, they met in the middle.

           Calum’s lips found Odessa’s in a swift, desperate kiss, hands gripping her face as her own pulled him closer by gripping his sweatshirt, allowing him to push her into the room as she kissed him back just as fervently. His touch was warm, kisses hinting of beer and electrifying, and stubble scratching at her deliciously. Calum kicked the door shut behind him, the slam of the door drowned out by Odessa’s racing heart, and not a thing mattered except for the man who once again kissed her like his life depended on it.

--

tags: @irwinkitten​ @sweetcherrymike​ @meetashthere​ @loveroflrh​ @astroashtonio​ @softforcal​ @loverofhood​ @captain-what-is-going-on​ @angelbbycal @singt0mecalum​ @hopelessxcynic​ @lfwallscouldtalk​ @bodhi-black​ @findingliam-o​ @softlrh​ @highfivecalum​ @malumsmermaid​ @erikamarie41​ @quintodosuniversos​ @longlastingdaydream​ @babylon-corgis​ @lukehemmingsunflower​ @miss-saltwatercowgirl​ @pastelpapermoons​ @conquerwhatliesahead92​ @rotten-kandy​ @metangi​ @neigcthood​ @ohhmuke​ @mindkaleidoscope​ @5sos-and-hessa​ @trustmeimawhalebiologist​ @vxlentinecal​ @pettybassists​ @vaporshawn​ @lu-my-golden-boi​ @visualm3nte​ @isabella-mae13​ @dontjinx-it​ @lifeakaharry​ @neonweeknds​ @antisocialbandmate​ @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave​ @calpalbby​ @grreatgooglymoogly​ @cocktail-calum​ @miahelizaaabeth​ @dramallamawithsparkles​ @kaytiebug14​ @hoodskillerqueen​ @bitchinbabylon​ @empathycth​ @xhaileyreneex​ @inlovehoodx​ @calistheloml @aestheticrelated @tpwkcal​ @sublimehood​ @madbomb​ @raabiac​ @britnicole11​ @outofmylimitcal​ @wildflower-cth​ @wildflowergrae​ @bloodmoonashton​ @vxidhood​ @gosh-im-short​ @notinthesameguey​ @mycollectionofnuts​ @cthwldflwr​ @everyscarisahealingplace​ @socorroann​ @talkfastromance4​ @calumftduke​ @musichoney​ @treatallwithkindness​ @partlysunnycal​ @dead-and-golden​ @kaeleykaeley​ @harrys-sun-flower​ @br-hoe​   

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ― Chapter 9: The Arrival

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 2 ⥽

They fled New York with one purpose. Find, hunt down, and return with a way to kill a vampire god. They abandoned their loved ones and survived the City of Shadows; had their trust broken and darkest secrets brought to light. All that... and Gaius still won anyway. But now that they have nothing to lose, Nadya and her friends are finally ready to do whatever it takes to see the King of Vampires overthrown.

They just have to avoid a vampire population eager to gain favor with their new monarch, the ruthless Order of the Dawn, and whatever plans Gaius has that involve Nadya captured and brought to him alive. So... easy-peasy, right? The worlds of both dark and light hang in the balance. The time has come for the Bloodkeeper to embrace her destiny. So if anyone wants to clue her in on whatever that means, now would be great!

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing reimagining project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

TAG LIST: @googlesentmehere​, @cess02​, @hellyeah90sbaby​, @tayab12​, @saratustra4​, @imnotdonewiththeelementalists​, @thepotatobleh​,

*join the Tag List here!

⥼ Summary ⥽

It's the night of Vlad's masquerade ball, the most prestigious social event a vampire can attend. An entire ballroom full of faces and names every vampire in Europe knows... and apparently Nadya is going to upstage them all.

content warnings: language

[READ IT ON AO3]

A pretty big chunk of their plan relies on the staff of the Tepes Estate being just as snobbish and uppity as the man they serve.

So thankfully at least something is both easily predictable and surprisingly convenient.

Staff all around, and none of them pay the pair of them much mind. Beyond the fact that they get told by more than one footman that “guests really shouldn’t be back in the staff corridors” and receive multiple warnings about how “the Count has ensured all guests for the evening, (said while looking down the biggest snooty nose in all of Prague no less) no matter their prestige, will receive adequate time to sup on the serving staff,” and that they “really shouldn’t be allowing an undisclosed human on the premises but will look the other way this time,” Nadya and Cadence are pretty much left to their own devices.

Which means scurrying out of sight before any lone particularly loyal member of the Tepes household decides to go narc and everything ends up exploding in their faces anyway.

Because there’s no way on earth these full-face masques of theirs are providing any damage cover should their plans go KABOOM!

Nadya casts another look up at Cadence as they come across their umpteenth fork in the road. Watching him decide between right or left is starting to feel as nerve-wracking as actually choosing which direction they ought to go.

“You’re sure you know where we are?” You’re sure you know we’re going the right way?

“I’m starting to feel like you have less than zero faith in me, Nadya.” He probably thinks the glance down her way is a reassuring one. But the masque over his face is almost too neutral. It’s just a mask but it feels like it’s trying too hard, you know?

“That’s not it at all. This place is just…” A lot.

He barely remembers to reach back and take her by the hand before he chooses left in a hurry. Who knows how much time they’ve wasted just trying to find their way through this seemingly endless castle.

“It takes me a moment to recall the map Serafine showed me before we left, but I’m… ninety percent sure I know exactly where we are.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“Is trying to keep an ear out for party noises. So if you’ll zip it, thank you.”

Admittedly Nadya would have a lot more faith in this plan if it wasn’t just the pair of them, proven stumbling disasters that they are, relying on the apparently flawless memory of a man who literally introduces himself as ‘the one with amnesia.’ She understands the rationale behind it, just as she understands the rationale behind everybody else going through the front door like an entourage of normal party-goers. They have three prestigious faces and what Jax and Lily lack in clout they make up for in being practically invisible as nobodies to this upper echelon of attendees.

But shoving the two bigwigs of their gang — well, the most recognizable face in any room of vampires and the obviously human girl losing her freakin’ mind amid a cluster of the heartbeat-less undead — through the staff entrance with nothing more than simple masks to disguise them and trusting them not to mess up finding their way among the rest in time for some famed big reveal they still don’t know the full-on details of…?

Well if they live through this long enough to chronicle this part of their journey, nobody is ever allowed to even so much as imply via metaphor that Nadya never trusted her friends wholly and completely.

Actually if they’re talking about chronicling stuff, better they leave these more vague and improvised parts of their master quest to the footnotes. That way they can pretend they knew what they were doing the whole time.

For example Nadya isn’t gonna let anyone write down that she got so wrapped up in her thoughts about what may or may not get written down that she walked face-first into a brick wall.

OW.

Not a brick wall, actually.

Cadence turns around and catches Nadya’s mask just before it falls and shatters on the ground. Thank you vampire super-speed.

“Are you okay?” He asks, wide-eyed and worried, hesitant to give her back her disguise to take stock of how she really looks.

That’s such a loaded question though, so Nadya ignores it and rubs the redness on her forehead instead.

“Why’d you stop?”

The vampire takes a moment to look up and down either end of the corridor and even around the next corner. When he’s satisfied they’re alone he pries his own mask off with a groan; practically peeling his flattened hair from where its been stuck to his forehead the moment he put the darn thing on.

“Because,” with pursed lips he blows his fringe out of his eyes, “I’ve been talking this entire time… and even when I ramble you usually have some two cents or other to pitch in.”

That’s fair. Nadya takes back her mask with a sheepish shrug. “Sorry, got distracted.”

“That much is obvious. Care to share?”

“Not really. Care to keep going?” Not like they’re exactly full of free time, here.

He sweeps his arm in an after you motion, but keeps pace with Nadya’s shorter stride. “I can hear the string quartet by now. We’re close, but they haven’t begun the announcements Serafine told me to wait for.” So maybe they have a bit of free time. Got it.

Only now she can’t stop thinking about what will be on the other side of the big grand ballroom doors.

And Nadya without her set of note cards to at least help her through her dumb speech all because her dumb dress has no dumb pockets.

“You know I still don’t get why they wouldn’t budge about you not being discovered.”

“You don’t see me complaining,” Cadence says with a shrug; and actually now that he points it out…

“No, I don’t.”

He doesn’t need to look at her to know exactly why she says it that way, either. It’s not the first time they’ve had this talk. Probably won’t be the last either.

His sigh sags from his shoulders to his fingertips. “‘Surprise warmonger back from the dead’ might accidentally eclipse ‘reincarnation of the vampire Goddess.’ Can’t have that, now can we.”

“Cadence.”

“Nadya.”

They turn another corner in complete silence. Nadya’s ears strain to hear this quartet of his but nope, not close enough for her poor human ears quite yet.

Finally Cadence seems to decide on something. Gathering himself up all the way to his full height while fiddling with the porcelain in his grasp. “Actually… Serafine and Kamilah gave me the option. When they talked about prestige all this week it was largely assuming I might be able to pretend just enough to add to their collective fame. But they gave me the choice as to whether or not I wanted to try.”

“And you said no.”

“Of course I said no. I don’t envy you, Nadya. You have to do this regardless of whether or not you want to. But for the first time it feels like I’m not in that position, and I want to take full advantage of it.”

His face falls, voice going somber. “Surely you can see why.”

She can. She did, in the flesh, and while he’d been useful at the time she can still close her eyes and remember how easily Cynbel had threatened Jax, hurt Adrian and Serafine; how callous he’d been with her life even though she’d agreed with him at the time… Not to mention all the implied things that come with Serafine, always calm and cool and collected, losing her freakin’ marbles every time he ended up a part of the conversation.

He continues. “I don’t think I could have pretended to be him if my life depended on it. And if you think about it, your life does depend on it in a way. I couldn’t risk you like that. Not after how kind you’ve been to me.”

Her fingers brush over his arm. Cadence either takes it the wrong way or chooses to give a purpose to something so small; he bends his elbow and lets her arm slide into his like a proper escort to a proper ball.

“A lot of people’s lives depend on me pretending to…” Nadya can’t quite say it though, so she swallows it down. “I just have no idea what I’m supposed to do when we get there.”

“Understandably.”

“Seriously,” offering him a wry and dry smile, “that’s all the advice you’ve got?”

He mulls it over for a good and proper think. The effort is more than appreciated even if it doesn’t actually yield results. At least this way she gets to vent it out before messing up royally when the time comes.

Cadence stops first — their linked arms jerk her back and to turn and face him. “I wouldn’t call it advice, per se,” gee—great, “but maybe we both suck at pretending because we ought to be accepting, instead. Accepting who we… were. Possibly, in your case. That way we still have the chance to move on.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, but Nadya can’t help the way her nose scrunches up slightly.

“I don’t think that applies to this case, Cade.”

“Fair enough. Can’t say I didn’t try.” And that makes the pair of them laugh, no matter how weakly. Something neither of them knew they needed, nor how badly they needed it.

It doesn’t last long… but it doesn’t need to.

“You’ll figure it out when the time comes Nadya. You usually do.”

Usually.

In wordless agreement she and Cadence don their pretend masques with mutual reluctance. At least he doesn’t have to breathe in his. But it’s easier this time to see what his face really says beneath that neutral doll-like expression.

She smiles at him in return. Like many things these days they can’t quite see it, but the feeling is there.

When they get close enough that Nadya’s ears no longer strain to catch the occasional tittering laughter or melodramatic voice, Cadence diverts them yet again. This time for a staircase he just so happens to catch sight of out of the corner of his eye.

He keeps her close; closer than before. Practically hovering over her like a shadow less than a step behind her the whole way up. She pauses when he pauses, she waits when he waits, and trusts him enough to know her faith isn’t misplaced but some explanation would be swell any time he’s feeling his usual chatty self.

Crouched close to the ground (which is a feat for him, for her not so much) Cadence crooks a finger at Nadya to join him in inching steps along the carpet towards the railing overlooking the main foyer below.

Nadya is, understandably, hesitant. “What if someone sees us?” What if someone smells me, hears me, all-of-the-aboves me?

“Same principle as before.”

“Keep close and your blood will cover me up?”

He nods. Not like she really has any other choice. Well, that and the more snatches of conversation she plucks from thin air the more curious she is.

And when has her curiosity ever not won out?

Cadence’s cloak comes heavy around her other shoulder and all but smothers her. She grabs the edge and pulls it tight while making sure not to jostle it from his shoulders. For some reason she can’t shake the feeling like she’s hiding behind a curtain with her feet sticking out underneath.

But they’re here, so they might as well take advantage of it. So Nadya joins him in peering through the stone balusters to the hustle and bustle happening below.

The foyer had been beautiful already during her visit with Serafine and Jax the other night — Nadya would even go so far as to assume it was nearly completed. That assumption would have been vastly incorrect.

It’s not her contacts; she’s not seeing double. Every bauble and ribbon and glittering glassy gem brought along the entire family. There’s practically no surface without something shiny added in some form or another, and in many cases that shiny thing has a shiny thing has a shiny thing of its own on top.

On their own the decorations probably look gaudy and too-much. But when you fill the room with graceful vampires all dolled up in unique fashions and splendors everything else is lost in the background. Tasteful would probably have ended up the equivalent of a fifty-buck Party Town Supply budget. So at least the Count knows his audience.

She should be looking for their friends… and she is. But Nadya tells herself it’s being a good and thorough secret agent to observe all the other guests along the way. Two birds and all that. But it’s not easy to just sweep her eyes over the assembled masses in search of a few key faces. Not when each masque is a face all its own.

You’d think there are only so many combinations of colors, designs, and styles to make before they start getting repetitive. But that couldn’t be farther from the case. She gets it now, seeing everything and everyone from way up high and afar like this. The importance of not just the masque itself, but having the right kind of masque above everything else.

Masquerade balls are about hiding and blending in; being just another face in the crowd.

Les Visages de la Gloire is the exact opposite. And even that feels like the most watered-down way to put it she can think of.

A gentle weight falls on Nadya’s back and she shudders a gasp. When had she stopped breathing? Not for fear of being caught, but at the beauty of it all that could only be described as—literally—breathtaking.

Faceless in their full face-coverings and headdresses each more ostentatious than the last; not important enough to show who they are but still in competition with each other — still with deeds to announce and reputations to uphold. Half-masks covering the left side, the right side, the top of one and the bottom of another and all of them made uniquely for a single soul and nobody else.

Some vampires have masques that match their costumes. Others clash in a way that can’t be anything other than on purpose. Even from a distance Nadya can see the difference between carefully crafted metalwork and porcelain painted with glossy lacquer; can compare wood carvings with rich varnish and contrast that with the vast rainbow of matte colors on terracotta. Most are adorned with embellishments and jewels heavy enough to make her neck hurt just by looking at them.

Nearly all take full advantage of the fact their wearers won’t end up suffocating on the other side.

And I’m supposed to show them all up without so much as a sheer ribbon over my eyes? Yeah, Nadya’s confidence takes a knife to the gut just thinking about it.

“Over there.”

Not like Cadence’s finger isn’t pointing down to a massive crowd or anything, but that’s exactly the point — forgive the pun.

Though they can’t quite see double doors leading inside the castle from the exterior from their hiding spot, the sudden hush that falls over the idle crowd offers up an equally dramatic entrance.

It’s the kind of arrival that would be filmed in slow-motion. The kind that pans up from the purposeful echo of each expensive step; dragging over the exquisite details of their costumes in one long smooth glide all the way to the big reveal. And what a reveal it is.

Kamilah’s spindly masque may be made of steel but it curls over her sharp features with all the grace of a silken thread. It’s a face covering by only the thinnest margin of definition, with too many gaps in the framework to even pretend to conceal her identity. But after taking in the rest of the crowd… it’s obvious she’s the kind of face — the kind of presence — that simply can’t go unrecognized.

Everything about Kamilah, from her posture to her raised chin to her not-at-all-faked aura of superiority, demands recognition.

On the surface she’s the woman that Nadya knows; that she trusts and cares about so so much. But look beneath, something all too easy to do — like sweeping aside a mist, it’s impossible to miss how she’s so much more.

The Bloodqueen has arrived. And the entire foyer is speechless before her.

Without even moving a muscle the closest groups stagger back several more steps. Dozens of them nearly tripping over themselves and each other in their haste.

It’s no surprise that the space is quickly taken up by the two figures flanking Kamilah’s sides.

Serafine’s masque isn’t so much a mask as it is a scrap of lace just wide enough to earn the collective approval. As if anyone here doesn’t already know who she is regardless. But that’s how she can pull the look off if Nadya is remembering her explanation right.

No one would dare partake in Les Visages without knowing—without introduction—the woman who started it all.

Some final vestiges of their psychic connection tugs Nadya towards her; not physically so much as emotionally. Even without seeing Serafine’s features up close there’s a bittersweet ache in her chest that’s definitely not Nadya’s own.

The vampiress can offer up all the scarlet-lipped smiles she wishes. They are all hollow and fake. The simple act of being here causes Serafine nothing but distress.

And then there was Adrian.

Who, in comparison to Kamilah and Serafine, makes the women nearest him seem positively giddy and gleeful to be here tonight.

He wears his tailored costume perfectly; that wasn’t in doubt. It’s the masque that leaves him stony-faced. Gold rich and dark that catches every little flame on the chandelier over his head that covers his eyes but can’t hide the tension wracking his jaw.

He and Kamilah both wear near-identical rich crimson garnets inlaid just beneath their masque’s right eye. Shared stones for a shared Maker. But along his edges are thin metal spires, short but wicked sharp, that vary from the same gold, to steel, to a coppery hue.

A second glance confirms Nadya’s suspicions; Adrian isn’t the only one with those kinds of embellishments along the edges of their masques. Scouring a few of them from the crowd, the way they carry themselves and mirror Adrian’s ramrod-straight posture answers a question she didn’t know she needed to ask.

If the garnet labels him and Kamilah both as Turned by Gaius, then the spikes are the mark of the soldier. Any soldier; but one worth recognition for their service.

Which is everything Adrian doesn’t want. Everything he had worried over, and was working now towards overcoming in the wake of his past.

Nadya ducks her head hastily to catch her tear before it falls. Thankfully she’s quick enough. If only she could wipe away the reason for it just as easily.

Pull yourself together, girl, she scolds, and it’s just enough to do the trick and pull Nadya’s focus back to everything around them. All the stillness and nothingness and the way a room full of the undead hold their collective unnecessary breath waiting for what will happen next.

Which is exactly the kind of attention-grabbing showstopper the three of them are supposed to be. All eyes turned on the prestigious trio they are together, and away from Nadya and Cadence one floor above.

All focus on who they are, why they’ve come, what they will do; and away from the practically invisible dynamic duo that slips through the crowd towards the closed ballroom doors.

Behind her, Cadence lets out an impressed little “hah” when he finally manages to pick Lily and Jax out of the crowd. “I completely missed them. Did you see them sneak in?”

“No,” answers Nadya, but that’s actually a good thing. That was the whole point.

Without a word Kamilah takes one step forward. Her aura of command acts like an invisible shield that parts the rest; holding them at a respectable distance.

But the sudden shifting of the mass of faces and their masques gets dangerous when it turns right in their direction. If even one wandering eye looks up, they’re done for!

Without a word the vampire pulls Nadya backwards, letting the force of his bulk pull them out of eyesight in the nick of time. That was a little close, huh.

Nadya doesn’t get the chance to thank him though.

The moment she opens her mouth a loud echoing clang rings out below them, followed by the distinct shuffle of something heavy being dragged achingly close to the foyer’s marble floors.

Neither of them needs to risk sneaking a look.

Right on time. The ballroom doors have finally opened, allowing the first wave of prestige to spill forth out to the grand dance floor.

And though the shuffling of boots and sharp tapping of heels fills the vacuum of stunned silence as the attendees start to move, it’s not nearly enough noise to drown out the sudden and familiar exuberant laughter of delight that echoes across every polished surface below. The kind of laughter designed to be projected across adoring crowds; and carefully rehearsed to always seem full of intriguing promise.

What Nadya wouldn’t give to borrow a little of Vlad Tepes’ seemingly endless confidence for her own performance… looming ever-closer and starting to pick up real steam.

“Remember my lovelies! Faceless and no-names, see yourselves inside. New blood and the lucky virginal attendees right beside them!”

Her full-body shiver of discomfort is more than warranted. But Nadya only wishes she could be surprised at his… unsettling word choice.

“I’m suddenly very glad to be up here.”

She snorts at the wide-eyed stare looking out from Cadence’s mask. “You and me both.”

“Yes yes darling, oh you look a treat. And you there — you must tell me the story behind that engraving later, you simply must.” It’s really to their luck and benefit that the Count likes hearing himself talk so much. They can stay far away from the railing and still keep tabs on what gauge of prestige is next to be welcomed into the bal masqué proper.

They just have to wait until everyone—Vlad included—is inside. Everyone but the most prestigious of the lot of them. And when all eyes are (once again) on the Bloodqueen herself… they’ll have no choice but to witness Nadya’s arrival.

Having Kamilah by her side might just give her the kick in the metaphorical pants to do this thing. Not the literal though. There’s no way this practically bleach-white linen getup will survive a boot print, and especially not to the rear end.

Down below there’s a momentary lull; all but shattered by Vlad’s returning laughter now pitched higher than before.

“Why there you are, Serafine! Here I worried I had somehow lost track of your arrival in the excitement.”

His words are followed by two unmistakably wet noises; which Nadya prays are just over-dramatic kisses to her cheeks.

“Surely you jest,” she teases good-naturedly; said with all the humor of someone whose smile can’t possibly reach her eyes, “I see before me you follow the old traditions quite well. Showing the prestigious their due, their arrival witnessed by all who look to them in admiration.”

“Well of course! It makes for the grandest of entrances.”

“Ah, yes,” the elder vampiress croons, “and as the illustrious host yours would be the last, non?”

“Don’t worry darling — I would never claim credit for your centuries of contribution to our dwindling community.”

“Meaning?”

Somehow Nadya just knows Vlad throws his hair back unnecessarily as he laughs again.

“You can enter just before me, of course.”

���Then when, may I ask, might you suggest my blood-kin Adrian and I make our entrance known, old friend?”

Unlike Serafine, who at least pretends to smile while enduring the torture of his conversation, Kamilah’s question is cold and clipped. It rings with all the disinterest of the Kamilah that Nadya had met so long ago — and she’d place good money on the single raised eyebrow hiked high enough to be seen over her masque, too.

But if anyone could render Vlad speechless…

Nadya struggles to hear something, anything, until she catches the faint rustle of stiff and expensive fabric moving with haste. Vlad’s gesture of greeting, no doubt.

Just like she has no doubt that Kamilah and Adrian don’t humor him as long as Serafine has. It certainly explains the flustered, hasty way his next words tumble from his tongue with practically no filter.

“All the best surprises are the ones that sweep one off his feet. My humble gathering of our kind—nay, our family—from the nearest branch to the farthest root is made absolutely resplendent by the honor of your presence!

“Your Majesty, mon cherie —” —a beat, his attention likely shifting to Adrian— “— and Sergeant Adrian Raines, just when I had resigned myself to an evening of only the old and antiquated in renown. Here you stand before me, as handsome as the day we first met.”

Nadya quickly schools her bewildered expression — too long and it might get stuck that way. But that is flirtation if she’s ever heard it. Not good flirtation, but nevertheless.

“Vlad, as… lively… as ever.” Adrian just barely recovers, but now she’s dying to know what he had almost said instead. “Hard to believe it’s been nearly seventy-five years since last we met. Time… flies so quickly.”

“Oh pish posh,” replies the Count, “you wouldn’t know it but for the calendars. My memory of those chiseled features of yours obviously needed a refresh.”

He’s barely finished speaking when he gasps, clapping his hands together delightedly. “Speaking of memory! You’ll have to forgive my fright. As you all know surely, my recollection skills are of world-renown. Yet the sight of you all almost thrust me spiraling into self-doubt.

“And not without good reason! As I could have sworn you — the both of you, that is to say — had… cast aside your former titles.”

It’s just like before. Everything that pops into his head said without a filter all the way up until what he’s saying isn’t as vapid as it was at the start.

It must be so easy to write Vlad Tepes off at first glance. Just look at the public opinion of the guy. Nadya had, she’s humble enough to admit it. But the hard truth is that he is Vlad Tepes; he is Count Dracula.

But whether he’s all the things the myths and legends claim or not it can’t go ignored that he knows what he’s doing (even if it doesn’t seem like it). He knows how to play a crowd, how to stroke an ego. He’s a master of misdirection.

Has nobody pitched a Vegas residency to this guy yet? Seriously?

But if he thinks he’s going to out-wit someone like Kamilah he must have those leather pants on just a little too tight.

She doesn’t address his comment. Brushing it aside proves a much more important point.

“Shall Adrian and I wait patiently here while you and Serafine follow through, then?”

Vlad must be used to playing the ‘host with the most’ card, because he hesitates. But Kamilah wasn’t asking — she was just being polite.

“Yes,” he finally agrees, though surprisingly less strained than Nadya would have expected. “I would not dare nor dream of presuming your prestige. Nor would I separate the grand entrance of the progeny of our King.

“The three of you will have a most celebratory announcement, I give you my word.”

Did she hear that right?

Serafine offers a gentle tittering laugh. “I see no reason why you and I should not enter together, ma puce.”

“We shall.”

Vlad’s words die to the sound of heavy heels across the foyer floor. Too many steps to be one of her friends; but certainly more than enough for them to bring a person across the length of the room to where they are gathered.

Of course something is going wrong. They should have anticipated something going wrong. They had, her brain reminds her, and probably thinks its being helpful by doing so.

She dares to inch just close enough to catch a glimpse down below and spoiler alert — it isn’t helpful at all.

With his head held high, Marc Antony makes a bold statement in taking Kamilah’s hand without it being offered. Then he goes a step further with a half-bow and a kiss pressed to the back — or the ghost of one. He barely manages it before she yanks it from his grasp — in surprise, in anger, that’s not the part that matters.

With everyone fixated on the two oldest vampires in the room, Adrian dares to steal a glance of warning up to the railing. Wide-eyed and with pursed lips, the message when he gives the tiniest shake of his head is clear.

Nadya retreats, practically crab-walking backwards.

Cadence tries to help her sudden shaking panic with an arm over her shoulders. It’s the thought that counts.

“What,” he asks worriedly, “who is it?”

“Antony,” Nadya exhales, and the man goes rigid beside her. “It’s Marc Antony.”

[colorseeingchick]

hi enya! i’d like to request the self ship date for your 200 event!! congratulations again 💞

right now i’m currently in love with murasakibara 🥴 i really like him because well he’s just so cool even though he’s “lazy” and the fact that he snacks a lot is cute and also relatable because i feel like i’m always snacking as well. plus his determination is admirable even though he always whines about being tired, which is also relatable. and he’s just so pretty!!! agh maybe it’s the long hair or maybe his height but he’s just so pretty i cant 🧎‍♀️💞

as for myself, we both know you know me pretty well 😌 but for some hobbies, i dance, i can cook & bake i’m just to lazy to or don’t have the stuff for it, i love to read romance manga, i like roller skating, and of course watching anime/moves/tv shows!!

Meg have mercy on this monstrosity I've created. This is the DEFINITION of carried away.

Premise: You had plans with your friends to hang out, but last minute they had to cancel. When you walk out to the main hall of the dorms, you find Murasakibara snacking on some food and watching TV. You were the manager of Yosen, so you considered Murasakibara a good friend, even though you two hadn’t really hung out without other people around. When he asks you why you look down, you tell him that your schedule was now (undesirably) empty. He has a solution.

“Why don’t we do something?” He pauses the rustle of his hand rummaging through the chips.

You look up at him from your spot on the floor (you’d been lounging around in your pjs, a large stuffed animal acting as a pillow as you sprawled out on the ground). “Like what?” You weren’t used to Murasakibara asking to do things, especially not with you.

“We can go, get food? Or something.” he wouldn’t look you in the eyes, but you didn’t care too much. A huge smile crossed your face as you jumped up, quickly shuffling towards Murasakibara on your knees, opting not to stand. His eyes go wide as he sees you approaching him.

“Really! Will you really go with me?” You look at him, leaning against the couch he sat on.

“Yes. I already said I would.”

“Ahhh, you’re the best, Mu-kun!” You leap up, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders (you can barely get them around to his back), before running off to get changed. “I’ll go get ready quickly! I’ll be back!”

You didn’t see the way his face erupted pink- but don’t worry. There was time for you to see later.

You throw on a pink crop top covered in tiny cows and a pair of ripped jeans- if you were going out, might as well look a bit cute, you think to yourself.

Stepping out into the hallway, you’re shocked to find Murasakibara...trying? With his appearance? He had a decent sense of style, you knew, but he usually just defaulted to a graphic shirt and joggers. Finding him a black fitted shirt with ripped jeans and chains of his own was surprising, but very welcomed. He had one of his huge zip up jackets on, though.

“Murasakibara, you look so good!” You cheer at him. Running to him and grabbing his hand, you tug him (well, try to) out the door. “I’m hungry, let’s go.” While slow, he followed you, internally noting how small your hands were in comparison to his. “I’m driving.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Don’t crash us.” He teases as he reclines your passenger seat as far back as possible.

“Ah, excuse you-” you nudge him. “Where should we get food from?”

He stares at you, looking at your features illuminated by the street lights. You’d already started driving, but who knows where to. “Wherever you want.”

You ended up driving to your favorite restaurant in the area, a diner with food on the cheaper end with great quality. It was comfy. As you and Murasakibara sit down, you’re greeted by a young male waiter who takes an obvious interest in you.

Actually, uh. Well, it’s obvious to Murasakibara. Not so much to you.

“How are ya doin’ tonight?” His flirting wasn’t obvious per say, but Murasakibara sees the way he looks at you. The waiter manages to ignore the death glare that was sent his way, though. After you both order your food, you noticed Murasakibara’s pout and glare.

“Hey are you okay?” You ask him, unsure of what had unsettled him.

“Just hungry.” he waves your concern off. “...so, how was your day?”

You assumed he was trying to avoid the work of carrying the bulk of conversation, which was pretty in character, so you happily chatted away, telling him about the stupid things that happened when you went shopping in the morning and when you got your nails redone.

When your food came about, you thanked your waiter when you noticed a pin on his shirt.

“Oh my gosh, is that a Red Riot pin!?”

“It is! Are you a My Hero fan?”

As you expressed your love of Kirishima, you were surprised when the waiter seemingly abruptly excused himself.

“...I wonder what that was about.”

“Mm. eet was ooddh” Murasakibara responds, mouth stuffed. His demeanor was relaxed, but had you turned around moments earlier you’d have seen that his eyes were screaming murder.

After eating your shares of food and talking about random things, you were ready for the check.

“I’m paying for you.” Murasakibara says.

“You don’t have to, Murasakibara-kun!” You’re quick to respond.

“I’m paying.”

“No.”

“I’m paying.”

“Are you sure?”

The waiter walks up to you both, hands clasped and a nervous look on his face. “So, are we doin’ a split bill or-”

“I’m paying.” Murasakibara says to the waiter.

“Got it. He’s paying.”

“Hey, I’m serious you really didn’t have to! That’s not fair is it?”

“You always buy me snacks and things. Lemme pay for you this time.” His tired eyes gaze up at you, something unspoken lingering behind them.

“Fineee, but I’m paying next time, okay?” He smiles at that, so you’ll take it as a yes.

~~

Driving back to the dorms, a sign catches your eyes.

“Oh my gosh, they’re open!” You cut your previous train of thought short.

“Ehh? What is?” Murasakibara turns to you, curiosity heavy in his voice.

“The new roller rink! I love roller skating I’ve wanted to go for so long. Can we go?” The question slips out of your mouth before you realized you’d asked it.

Murasakibara just stares at you from the passenger seat in silence. “What a pain.”

“Wait, really?”

“Go before I change my mind,” his tone was whiny as he stared out the window, resting his chin on his hand propped up on the car door. You let out a delighted squeal as you drive to the rink.

~~

“I’ll be sitting here.” Once you two enter the rink, Murasakibara sits on the side immediately. It takes a lot of pleading and tugging on his arm to get him to come with you.

After getting the skates (and the people behind the counter struggling to find a pair in the back big enough for Murasakibara), the two of you entered the rink. In your excitement, you glide through the rink, going fast in a circle and smiling wide. It’s only once you come around that you realize Murasakibara hasn’t moved. He’s still by the side of the wall, holding on.

“What’s wrong?”

“...” the blank stare on his face and the irritation rising on the corner of his lips said everything.

“You don’t know how to skate, do you.” You hit it on the head. His pout exaggerates as he tries to slide forward, losing his balance at even the smallest movement.

“I promise it’s not that hard, I can teach you!” you’re grateful that the rink was empty except for you two, the 3 workers, and some other teens who were minding their own business on the other side.

He listens to your instruction, moving away from the wall, and glides forward three times before slamming onto the ground.

“Ahh, are you okay?” you reached out to help him up. You’d seem him slam to the ground harder in games, but the concern was real nonetheless.

But he just waves you off and manages to stand on his own. This process repeats for a couple more times, with each passing time Murasakibara getting better and better.

“You’re such a fast learner! It took me a while to learn.” He wouldn’t say anything but he glowed from your praise. All that being said, he was still slow to move. You didn’t mind taking the initiative and grabbing his hand, holding it as you got him to skate with you. Admittedly, it gave you butterflies (you’d wanted to hold his hand properly for such a long time, instead of just tugging him in a direction before letting go). His hands are giant compared to yours. ou could barely even see your hands while he held it, except for your bright pink nails. But he held your hand tight the entire time, quietly keeping his balance. As you two started to go faster and faster, you gained good momentum till Murasakibara miscalculated on a turn and ended up falling. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for you, his hold on your hand hadn’t let up.

“AH!” You fall back onto the giant man who met the grounds only moments before you do.

“Shit, are you okay?” It’s his turn to ask you. When you burst out laughing, he lets go of his baited breath quietly.

“That was so fun!”

“Are you...hurt though?” Showing concern is hard, he thinks. It’s hard to do without his face burning up.

As you say “I’m fine, you cushioned my fall,” you both notice you’re still on top of Murasakibara, your chest pressed against his stomach. Out of shyness you shuffle away, hurrying to your feet. “We should get going,” you remark, trying to get out of the rink. But not without falling onto your face.

“Oi- Meggie-chin!” That sounded like it hurt.

By the way you sputtered and shook your head, he could tell it shook you a bit. He was able to help you get back on your feet and roll you to your shoes (he really did learn fast).

“Let’s go home. I’m hungry.”

“There’s a convenience store next door! Let’s go get some snacks!~” You seemed unphased by your fall at the thought of more food, running out the door to the store.

Yeah, it was no surprise Murasakibara was down bad for you. What more could he have wanted than a girl who loves food the way he does?

~~~

The store was illuminated with neon lights, the isles neatly organized. As Murasakibara snagged snacks off every wall, you were checking out the dairy product isle.

He comes up beside you, noticing the way you shivered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t decide what type of ice cream to buy. Or if I want ice cream at all. It’s so cold in here! But what if it’s hot back in the dorms and I’ll want ice cream then?” You pause to think. “Ah! I can’t decide.”

Your sight is blinded when a warm fabric falls over your head. “Take my jacket. Then decide.”

As you pull the jacket off your head, you pull it over your arms. It was giant on you. The ends came down to your mid thigh and the sleeves consumed your arms. But it smelled of his cologne and was so warm. Blushing at the fact your crush gave you his JACKET, you happily grab 2 cartons of ice cream in celebration. As you walk up to the register, you see Murasakibara with 2 cartons of strawberry milk.

“I know you like them. We can drink them back at the dorms.” You never recalled telling him you liked strawberry milk, even though you did drink them quite often. But you didn’t take him for the kind to notice that.

~~~

“I had a lot of fun, Murasakibara-kun.” You smile as you both walk back into the dorms. “We should do that again. Maybe. But only if you want to!”

“I wanna watch that show.”

“Huh?” You didn’t know what he was talking about.

“My Hero. You were talking about it earlier. I haven’t had time to watch it, so if you wanna watch it with me you can. I guess.”

Your crush asked you to watch tv with him? Big dub!

“I’d love to! Just let me know when, okay?”

“Next Friday?”

~~

Jumping onto your bed, you squeal into your pillow as you process the fun hangout you had with your crush. You hadn’t really been on your phone much, so you finally decide to check it.

“New message from: Enya-chi” : swiping on the notification, you see-

IASIUDHFOSIJDF MEG UR GOING ON A DATE WITH MURASAKIBARA!?!?!?! GET IT GIRL ;)

Unsure of how she knew and it being called a date, you videocall her.

“MEG oh my God how was it!” “Wait wait wait Enya what do you mean “date?”

She looks at you in shock. “Bro, I was with Kise, Aomine, and all them when Kise got a call from Mu-kun and he said he asked you on a date and wanted advice. What do you MEAN you don’t KNOW what I mean by date!!?? Ma’am!!!!!”

As you think back on everything that happened throughout the day, the implications of it being more than a hangout started to settle on you. Your face burned a bright red.

“Earth to MEGGG~ oh my God did he really not tell you it was a date?” She dissolves into hysterics.

"No!!!???? He just asked to hang out!"

“Meggie-chi he’s an idiot! He was supposed to tell you. He probably forgot okay?” Kise’s voice cuts through as he jumps onto the screen.

“He didn’t forget he definitely just didn’t have the nerves-” Aomine’s voice can be heard in the background.

“So when’s the next date~” Kise and Enya wait expectantly for your answer.

Oh my God.

Let’s do this again.

“Oh my I asked him out again, and he said next Friday.”

“I think you’ll be seeing him sooner than that though. You have to return that jacket you’re wearing.” Enya giggles, a broad smile on her face.

At the realization you still had it on, you hang up, too overwhelmed to talk.

This was about to get interesting.

---------------------

Funnily enough this only took like an hour total. But yeah i'm crazy I'm sorry you're friends with a crazy girl meg

[hailing-stars]

@febuwhump day 20: betrayal  don’t say clown

summary

“You’d be dramatic too if you were about to get your teeth stolen and ripped from your mouth,” says Peter, shoving his phone in his pocket.

“Uh, ripped is not exactly what happens, and no I wouldn’t,” says Tony. “And I didn’t. As you constantly like to remind me, I’m a dinosaur. I’ve already had the privilege of having my wisdom teeth taken out.”

Peter huffs and digs his back further into the seat, as if he wants to disappear into it. “But do I really need to get it done today?”

“Do you want to be in pain when they start growing in?”

“No but-”

“Then yes.”

OR

Tony tricks Peter into actually attending his appointment to get his wisdom teeth removed, after him bailing several times. 

Tony feels a sharp pang of guilt as he turns the car into the parking lot of an oral surgeon’s office. Peter’s face is still buried in his phone, so he’s got a little time before the gremlin discovers his fate and tries pulling out the puppy dog eyes.

But it isn’t long enough.

He parks the car, and Peter jerks head up from his phone. His eyes go wide as he reads the letters printed across the giant, glass double doors. “This is betrayal, Mr. Stark. Betrayal of the highest order.”

“Dramatic, much?” asks Tony, shutting off the car.

“You’d be dramatic too if you were about to get your teeth ripped from your mouth and stolen,” says Peter, shoving his phone in his pocket.

“Uh, ripped is not exactly what happens, and no I wouldn’t,” says Tony. “And I didn’t. As you constantly like to remind me, I’m a dinosaur. I’ve already had the privilege of having my wisdom teeth taken out.”

Peter huffs and digs his back further into the seat, as if he wants to disappear into it. “But do I really need to get it done today?”

“Do you want to be in pain when they start growing in?”

“No but-”

“Then yes.”

“They probably don’t even have an aesthetic strong enough to put me under.”

“They don’t,” says Tony. “Which is why I rented out the office today and paid the Avengers medical staff to assist. They have the good stuff Brucie invented.”

“Okay, but I have school -”

“-May’s already told the school you’ll be out a couple days.”

“You guys are awful,” says Peter. He unbuckles his seatbelt, and Tony knows that means Peter’s out of his excuses and arguments. All he has left is whining and pouting. “You could’ve given me a heads up.”

“Sure,” says Tony. “And then you would have conveniently disappeared and missed your appointment, like the last three times.”

“I see your point,” says Peter. “But to be fair the last time was a real emergency. The lizard guy almost destroyed me and MJ’s favorite coffee place.”

“Why does every person who fights you have a ridiculous name?”

“I’m called Spider-Man. I’m kind of asking for something ridiculous.”

“That explains it,” says Tony, with a nod of his head. In full agreement.

The conversation stalls, and Peter looks truly miserable. Another pang of guilt ripples through Tony, though he knows it isn’t logical. It’s better for Peter to get this over with, rather than wait, but there’s something written across the boy’s face that gives him pause.

“Okay, let’s talk about it,” says Tony. “Why all the avoidance?”

“I dunno,” says Peter.

“Perfectly natural to be afraid -”starts Tony.

“-I’m not afraid,” says Peter. “I just don’t wanna be out of commission for days while I recover. It’s so boring.”

“You’ll likely be medicated so I don’t see you having enough coherency to be bored.”

“That’s worse,” mutters Peter.

“If it makes you feel any better,” says Tony. “You’ll probably be healed up and ready to hit the skies as Spider-Man by morning, with your healing factor.”

Relief washes across Peter’s face, but it’s there only seconds before it’s replaced by another perplexing frown. This time it’s better. This time Tony doesn’t have to pry to get his answers.

“...You’re gonna stay here?” asks Peter. “While I’m… out?”

“Yep,” says Tony. “Pepper made me bring a bunch of SI stuff I’ve been neglecting.”

Peter swallows. “And you’ll be there? When they knock me out?”

“Knocking you out is a harsh way to put it,” says Tony, with a frown. “But yeah, if you want me there.”

“It’s just - I dunno, what if I don’t wake up for another five years?” asks Peter. “And the world passes me by again?”

“I’d never let that happen,” he tells him immediately, and with confidence he doesn’t understand.

Tony’s seen enough tragedy in his lifetime to doubt he’d have control over a situation like that, but the words had come automatically, and they seem to smooth the worry creases on Peter’s face.

“Ready?” he asks him.

“Yeah,” sighes Peter. He grips the door handle and pops it open. “Let’s just get it over with.”

Tony follows through with his promise. He’s there when the medical staff inserts the needle into Peter’s arm. He holds his hand, tells him he’ll see him in a few hours, and watches as Peter’s scared, lost eyes slip shut.

His anxieties catch him by surprise. Seeing Peter lose consciousness like that brings him back to Titan, and although he allows staff to shuffle him out of the operation room, his fears beg him to stay, as if holding onto Peter's hand will keep him from dissolving back into dust.

*

Tony doesn’t concentrate on the work Pepper had given him.

His mind terrorizes him with illogical fears and his leg starts bouncing.

There isn’t a sturdy thought for his mind to dwell on, so it’s like his mind is swimming through varied traumatizing outcomes to Peter’s very common procedure. He’s like that the entire time they’re extracting the kid’s wisdom tooth, and he’s mentally berating himself about forcing Peter to go through with it.

And then the nurse pops her head out of the door. Tells him that it’s fine. That he should go on back to the operation room, because Peter’s about to wake up.

Tony holds his hand again, and Peter’s eyes flutter open. They’re dazed and confused, but still hold that soulful Peter Parker look inside them, so Tony breathes.

Something inside him snaps back into place. Something’s been corrected and healed.

“Hey, kid, you’re back,” he says. He squeezes his hand.

“‘Ony.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“I don’t like it,” says Peter.

He wrangles around in the dentist chair, and Tony puts a hand on his chest. It’s enough to stop him, at least while Tony takes instructions from the oral surgeon, and collects Peter’s super special painkillers.

“Okay, ready to go?”

Peter slowly nods his head, and Tony wraps an arm around his back, helping him to sit up without the help of the dentist chair. Tony helps him swing his legs over the stand of the chair, and does most of the work transferring him to a wheelchair provided by the staff.

It’s the same once they get outside and it’s time for Peter to leave the wheelchair and climb into the car.

Tony offers his arm, and Peter uses it as a guide and as a way of lifting himself from the chair. Tony doesn’t let him go, keeping his hands firmly locked on his arms until he’s sitting in the passenger’s side seat, looking every bit like the lost Golden Retriever puppy he’d once tried convincing Tony to home.

He takes the wheelchair back inside and quickly zips back to his vehicle, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“You left me,” Peter accuses, as Tony sits behind the wheel.

Tony starts the engine and switches the air on. “I wasn’t even gone a minute.”

“Felt like an eternityyyy,” says Peter. He lets his head rest against the window. “Don’t like feeling this floaty. Like I’m in IT and the clown’s got me.”

“Don’t say clown.”

“Clown,” says Peter, defiant even in his drugged state. “You’ll float too, Tony.”

“Okay, clearly it was a mistake to let you watch that movie.”

“Maybe they should’ve stolen Pennywise’s teeth,” says Peter. “Dentists could’ve ended that movie before it started.”

Tony laughs, and the smile’s still on his face while he watches Peter try and fail to insert the end of the seatbelt into the connector. After a couple more misses, Tony takes over and buckles him in.

“Can’t even stop making movie references when you’re dopey, you fiend.”

Peter lets out a noise that’s between a growl and a whine.

“Which is good,” says Tony. “We can watch lots of movies while your gums stitch themselves back together.”

“Yeeesssss,” says Peter. “I love movies.”

“I know, kid.”

“We gotta watch IT.”

“Okay, veto,” says Tony. Knowing the type of villains Spider-Man attracted, Tony’s convinced it isn’t long before his kid is facing off against a serial killing monster clown. He doesn’t want to tempt the fates. “How about something nicer-”

“Ohh, the one with the dinosaurs,” says Peter. “What’s it called…” He trailed off, lost in thought, and Tony imagines those drugs must be strong if the kid’s forgetting movie facts. “Jurassic Park!”

An image pops into his head of Peter fighting an actual dinosaur, and he begins to wonder if fatherhood was going to ruin movies for him. Damn kids.

“I want a red balloon,” says Peter, out of nowhere.

“Pete,” says Tony, with a breath. “Please move on from IT.”

“But I’m floaty.”

“How about a sit-com,” offers Tony. “Nothing bad ever happens in a sit-com.”

Tony wishes life were that way, that he could move his family inside of a bubble that he controlled and where nothing could touch them.

“Okay,” he agrees. “As long as I can still have a balloon. I went to the dentist. I deserve a balloon.”

“Fine, but it’s not going to be red,” says Tony. He lets himself be consumed by hatred for this fictional clown for stealing his signature color.

He pulls the car out of the parking lot, and just before he turns onto the street and joins traffic, he notices Peter’s eyes fluttering closed.

“Tony,” says Peter, voice quiet and dazed. “Thanks for being here, you know, when I came back.”

He doesn’t know whether Peter means after his surgery, or after he was stitched back together from dust. He decides he must mean both.

“Of course, Pete,” says Tony. “Thanks for coming back.”

Peter flashes him a grin, before nodding off, and warmth fills Tony’s chest. So live isn’t a sit-com, but in that moment, everything was great and for now, it’s enough.

[bwglifestyle]

Travelling - Do And Don’ts At The Airport

So you’ve decided to take that vacation you’ve been dreaming about, or your business has sent you to a new location for a business opportunity. If you are travelling abroad, or even locally, and plan on flying, you may find the following advise helpful for your next trip.

Our number one advice would be not to rush at any point. You want to start your trip off relaxed and not panicked. Plan well ahead of time, the further ahead, the better. Try to plan your itinerary at least one week building up to your departure. Never start your planning on the actual day. By following this most important piece of advice, the rest of your trip should run smoothly, and you should feel calmer, and more relaxed during the entire trip.

Familiarise yourself with the airline you are traveling with. Visit their website to find out about your luggage requirements for stow away and on-board packing.  Make sure you do not go over the baggage weight as this will cost you more when checking in and can just be frustrating at the best of times.  Make sure you do not carry any forbidden items in your hand luggage, as this could become an embarrassing situation if you are asked to unpack your luggage in order to remove any unauthorised items from your baggage. You can generally find a list of these items on the carriers website.

Did you know that the biggest airport in the world (by property area) is the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Saudi Arabi? With the airport spanning almost 780km² (which is basically the size of New York City), could you imagine arriving here, getting lost and nobody speaks your language?

Have a look at the airport website you are departing from. Know where you need to go, along with your nearest entry points to where you need to be. This will save you from walking long distances to your departure gate. This goes for your connecting flights as well. It is stressful enough with connecting flights – never mind having to deal with delays and possible missed flights. Try not to be anxious, rather plan ahead. Know the distance you will have to cover to the gate. Check the airport you will be connecting at, for ways to get to your next gate without hassle, confusion or frustration.  It is also very important when booking your flights, to ensure that your connecting flight allows you time to get to where you need to be. This should not be shorter than one and a half hours, preferable two hours. You do not want to have to run across an airport already full of people, trying to make your way to a gate that is on the other side of the airport. Alternatively, when booking in, ask to be seated near the door of the aeroplane to disembark before others.

Then you have the dreaded security checks. Again, try to arrive well in time, then sit and wait for turn. Listen for when your flight is announced (no headphones at this stage, as you may miss important announcements or the call to your flight).  Always be respectful of fellow travellers, be well prepared to avoid holding up the queue. There is nothing worse than someone in front of you not being able to find their ticket or required documents to board the plane.

Keep your travel documents close at hand, all in one pouch or travel wallet. These should be kept in your backpack or handbag. Accessible immediately, preferably in an outside pocket, but at the same time, safe from being lost/stolen. Once you are past all the security and gates you can store it away safely for the duration of your flight.

Wear suitable clothes for your flight, this is not only convenient for you but necessary for this part of the process. Try not to wear laced up shoes or boots as these take time to remove. Try ones with zips or that are easy to step out of. If you are wearing a belt, first keep it in your hand luggage for quick and easy placement in the tray. You can put it on once you have cleared. Place your fluids in a see-through plastic bag or container so the security can see it all at first glance. Make sure your medication is also placed in a see-through bag. If necessary, have a doctor’s authorisation letter for prescription medication with your documents or in the plastic bag for quick and easy access, should this be required.  

Always listen to the security and customs officials. Know what is going on around you. Never, never make jokes about situations, or items not allowed on board.  This could cost you your seat on the plane, hold up others and could also delay the flight.  Do not take your frustrations out on the gate officials. They are not involved with issues that cause delays. They only know what they have been told to keep passengers updated.  They are merely the messengers and causing a scene over something neither of you can control is unpleasant for everyone around.

Be kind and courteous to fellow passengers and all airport staff. It makes for a more enjoyable experience for everyone. The best bit of advice when travelling, is to be prepared. Not everything goes according to plan 100% of the time, but being well-researched will better equipped you should something go wrong. Happy travelling!

[nomnomsik]

Three Squeezes (M) | Pt. 2

Summary: Yoongi is notorious for his grumpy and emotionless behavior as director of an upcoming company. Yet, it’s a mystery to everyone how manager Hoseok always seems to soften him up. The truth is that the two are actually engaged. Unknown to this fact, you happen to take an interest in Hoseok… and he does too.

Pairing: Sope x Fem!Reader

[ Part One ]

Word Count: 8K

A/N: Three squeezes was originally a birthday present (in May) for @kimseokmomjins​ but because she gives me puppy eyes all the time, I decided she deserves Christmas early. She started my most popular oneshot on this blog and I’ve been so dedicated to this au whenever I talk to her, so thank you so much bb Shay. You always give me the best inspiration in the world. I’ll try not to tease you how smol you anymore. I hope you like the thing you begged me to put in and I love you sm!! I’ll hold your hand forever~

Trigger warning: Smut everywhere, bisexual sope, threesome, unprotected sex, double penetration, lots of crying, profanity, polyamorous relationship, major angst, sexuality dysphoria, insecurities, and slight mention of mental breakdowns.

»»————- ♡ ————-««

June 1st. Cicadas and a large amount of heat that fizzled into rooms, AC blasting and fighting it out.

Two bodies intertwined, fingers locked with sweat pooling down both of your bodies. His fringe tickled your skin as you gazed at each other, cheeks warm and reddened with sparse breaths. His eyes were soft and clear, transparent even as if you could see into his soul. As if you knew exactly how he was feeling. 

That moment was fleeting, yet connected the chord between the two of you that started out separated. But, that disconnect couldn't disappear forever. It was as if the wires snapped in half rather than being pulled apart. 

"Good morning."

"Good morning, director." 

You responded formally and bowed politely at the man as you ran into him in the hallway, your cheeks slightly pink as you looked down at the ground, set on avoiding looking at his face, and those eyes that always seemed to fluster you up.

"Follow me." He softly instructed, causing your head to snap up, caught off guard as you were only going to brew a hot drink. You quickly obeyed, your body tensing as he led you through the hallway and opened the door to his office, not that he needed to show you the way. By this point, you knew where his office was, having come there many times. It was pretty much the same as every other time you had seen it, red curtains draped over the windows that overlooked the workroom, conveniently directly over your cubicle and his fiance’s. 

The director moved towards his desk, taking a seat in his office chair and ushering you to sit down in front of him. He set his sights on his computer, rapidly typing away on the keyboard while your eyes roamed around his workspace in slight nervousness to occupy your mind with something else than being right in front of his intimidating aura.

You couldn't help but notice the small amount of iced coffee left in his cup which stood on top of a blue rectangular coaster. As you tried to peek further, the bottom of his drink apparently blurred the embroidery, condensation dripping down as the coaster soaked it up. 

“Hoseok did it himself.” 

Your mouth gaped open as you stared back at the director, trying to hide the fact that you were caught snooping at the things on his desk. 

“That’s rather... Endearing.” You muttered shyly, cursing yourself for getting caught so easily by his sharp eyes.

“He taught himself because he wanted to make them for me…” Yoongi continued, removing his cup as he picked up the coaster to show to you. You noticed the slight errors of the stitches immediately, yet despite that, you smiled, understanding the sheer persistence and willpower he must have had into finishing it. You trailed your finger delicately over the pattern as if to feel each stroke of the needle, to comprehend just how he must've felt, his heart full and warm.  

“You better get going. I didn't really need you for anything. Just wanted to look at you for a bit.” Yoongi spoke from his desk, turning his head back to his computer screen before giving you a small smile that sent a shiver down your spine.

You stood up, brushing your office skirt as you sluggishly walked over to the door, giving a small bow and shutting the door closed. The walk back to your cubicle was rather short, but you couldn’t ignore the slight murmuring around you that made you want to bury your head and run away as you headed out of his office. With your head down, once again, the only thing you could do was stare at your shoes with each step you took back.

It really didn’t take long for the people in the office to speculate about your relationship. After all, with Hoseok always so affectionate, even mistakenly kissing you in public on several occasions, the office was restless.

“Why did Hoseok kiss her if he’s already engaged to the director?” 

“Do you think he’s chea-”

“No way… It had to be an accident… I think.” 

“Does the director know?” 

"Good morning, angel!" Hoseok chirped as you passed by his cubicle, hand extended with an iced cold coffee. His hand was soaked with the condensation, making you wonder if he had waited all this time to give it to you. 

"Thank you." You replied, taking the cup gratefully as you took a refreshing sip. Hoseok just nodded, pulling out several files from his drawer as he began his workday. 

The entire office fell into a trance, the sound of keyboards filling the empty space as everyone worked for hours, only small conversations carried in whispers and the occasional break for more coffee. You stared at your computer screen for hours, hacking away at the piles of paperwork that slowly dwindled down as time progressed. Even when the twelve o’clock bell struck and everyone stood up, stretching and cracking their back, ready for lunch, you stayed, looking back and forth between your notes and the screen. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?” A voice interrupted your line of thought as you looked up, only to find Hoseok staring at you, his bag over his shoulder. 

“I’ll be okay. I had a big breakfast.” You quickly persuaded, returning back to the documents, retracing back to your previous thought. Hoseok frowned, his lips pouting as he gave a slow nod, backing away with hesitancy but entering the elevator to descend down to the cafeteria. 

For some strange reason, almost ten minutes later, you found yourself distracted, unable to find the right words for the report. You sighed, blaming it on the slight tension that was slowly growing in your relationship as you grabbed at your hair. You slowly stood up from your desk, dragging your feet over to the lounge and pouring your third coffee that day. Returning back to your desk with a bit more energy than before, you noticed the curtain open in Yoongi’s office, a clear view of his side profile as his eyes concentrated on his computer screen. 

A warm smile found its way onto your lips as you drank from your cup, staring at the hardworking director who was completely oblivious to your stares. You couldn’t rip your eyes away from him, adoring the way his nose scrunched up in annoyance, obvious that he was cursing at the screen, probably ready to call Hoseok from his break and drag him in himself.

You took a seat back into the stiff office chair, your arms reaching up to the ceiling as you stretched and returned back to hours of typing and paperwork. Hoseok returned shortly later, taking his seat quietly and immediately working as well. You had expected for him to drop his bag down like he did every day and waltz off to see his fiance, but he remained in his seat, eyes probably glued onto his computer. But, you couldn’t tell, his cubicle directly across from yours. 

Hour after hour, you worked, only occasionally stretching your back and knuckles. It wasn’t until the sunset grabbed your attention from the corner of your eye, pink and warm tones slowly overtaking the office walls that filled it with color.  

You turned to gaze out the window, chin propped up as your eyes adored the pale pink clouds that were slowly descending from the horizon. If only you could feel that ease right now, floating away and free. 

"...angel."

You turned around only to find Hoseok and Yoongi standing next to each other by your desk and you noticed how their jackets were zipped up as well as their bags, which were tightly strapped onto their shoulder. It was obvious they were planning to head out for the day, their shifts finally over. 

"You're so cute," Hoseok cooed, cupping your cheeks together. "You didn't even hear me say your name and only responded when I called you angel. So so so cute." 

You bit back the whine that would've escaped your lips, a few of the straggling workers watching the scene unfold. Instead, you gave a shy nod, blush evident in your cheeks, enough to satisfy Hoseok. 

"Umm, so…we- ….would- actually-" Hoseok started, stumbling on his wording of what he wanted to say. You sat there at your desk looking at him as he looked at Yoongi awkwardly for help, the older gladly chiming in.

"We need to take care of some things together," Yoongi said rather bluntly. "We're going on a date, me and Hoseok."

"But-but don't worry, okay? We won’t leave you out next time!" Hoseok reassured, face filled with worried as if trying to read your feelings. "So head on home early, okay angel?"

Hoseok gave you one of his signature bright smiles and although you felt like you should've been reassured, it was everything but that. 

You gave them both a shy nod again, the two of them turning away and heading toward the set of elevators. As you watched them, you grew upset, brows furrowing and face growing hot, envious even. Their hands slowly touched from where they fell from their sides, fingers slowly creeping towards each other as they finally intertwined. When you heard the elevator ring, you watched how Hoseok strung Yoongi in, their hands still connected together with warm cheeks and affection in their eyes that you couldn’t recognize. 

Was it wrong of you to want the same kind of relationship they had? Who were you to think you were on the same level as them in their relationship? How would people convince you that you're overthinking it when their actions were so drastically different when you're added to the equation? How could you possibly try to fit without compromising their love for each other? 

You slouched further into your chair, hand over your face as you stayed in the office for the rest of the day, even when the whole office left. Maybe it was because you were stubborn, wanting to defy Hoseok's wishes or maybe it was because you wanted a distraction, an escape from reality so you could lie to yourself for a bit longer. You were fine. You were just fine...

The eighth cup of coffee went down your system, numbing your body. Could you even feel the caffeine anymore? You diligently worked for a few more hours but decided once your eyes started to strain that being locked in was foolish despite how you felt. By 3 am, you packed up your things, shutting the light off in your cubicle and heading down the elevators. 

A date, huh? 

You couldn't help but wonder as you descended down each floor, your mind drifting back to the pair. A date… Have you ever gone on a date with either of them? 

Reaching the exit of the double doors, you stepped outside, the street lights illuminating the dark night as you began your trip home. You walked on the sidewalk at a slow pace, dragging your feet as you stared at the dirty ground. 

Regret started pooling up in your stomach as you put the pieces together in your mind even though you didn’t want to: did you truly know anything about them? 

Even after several months of staying together, how come you couldn't recall a personal detail about their life before you? Before they met. Did you really ride out the honeymoon phase without knowing anything? You knew where they came from, but their dynamic outside of your relationship with them was shrouded in unknowns. 

You groaned shaking your head. Why did you try to tell yourself that you could make this relationship work? How were you ever going to fit into an already established relationship? 

It was then that a droplet landed on your face as you stared up at the sky, cloudy and pitch black as the rain slowly descended down on the city. 

Of course, it just had to rain when you finally stepped outside.

You continued to walk through it, unaware that your own tears were spilling just like the rain that poured over your figure. The people that were outside scurried to find cover and protection, quickly running into buildings and shops. You joined a few passersby as you huddled for cover and warmth.

I wonder if the two of them are huddled together inside a store, watching the rain fall, safe and warm just with each other. 

Pulling out your phone, it had been ten minutes since the downpour of rain, you grunted unhappily, quickly purchasing an umbrella from the convenience store and making a run for it. You didn’t understand how you didn’t trip at this point with one-inch heels, but you also weren’t complaining. The rain still got on your legs and shoulders, the puddles splattering your shoes, hair slowly getting wet at the tips. You continued to huff, your fingertips wet as your tired body supporting itself up on the railing of your apartment. 

“Fuck-” You gasped, shaking the droplets off your umbrella as you stepped inside your home, wishing one of the men were here to throw you a towel and dry you down like they did after a long bath together, whispering how much they loved you and how they cared-

“Why…” You sniffed, unable to hide and blame the rain for your tears. Throwing the umbrella onto the ground near the door of your cold and dead home, you balled yourself up, sniffling and burying your head into your filthy and grimy body. “Why… Why do they act like they care so much? It hurts… My- chest...” 

Why did you continue to bury yourself and sulk? 

“I know. You don't have to tell me.” 

Why do you assume things so easily?

“Because that’s who I am.” 

Be more confident in yourself.

“I can’t… because…" you scoffed sadly. "Look where that got me.”

»»————- ♡ ————-««

“Are you sure?” Hoseok asked, skeptically looking at the silver band with examining eyes. 

“I am very sure Hoseok.” Yoongi insisted, placing it back onto the glass counter in front of the jeweler. 

“I think it’s a bit too small.” Hoseok refuted, crossing his arms as Yoongi only sighed. 

“Fine, how about we just get three sizes just in case?” Yoongi suggested, only for Hoseok to shake his head, continuing to think. Yoongi just sighed. "Remember when the ring didn't even fit on my finger because you never consulted me first?"

"I told you that's not how proposals worked! I can’t just measure your finger out of the blue." Hoseok whined which was met with a small chuckle from Yoongi. But then, a lightbulb went off in Hoseok’s head as he did an 'aha'. 

“Which one do we show out first?” 

“Babe…” Yoongi sighed.

“Right… Sorry.” Hoseok smiled sheepishly, only for a smile to form on Yoongi’s face as he handed over his card to the jeweler. Hoseok looked outside the shop, staring at the rain that poured down heavily over the city. There was a hopeful look on his face and as Yoongi caught the look from the corner of his eyes, he also noticed the bad weather, biting his lip. 

“I bet she’s alright.” 

“Yeah…” 

The two men both seemed to look at the floor, knowing the tension that had slowly grown over the weeks. Yet, although they wanted to fix it, you seemed to avoid both of them, giving forced smiles and completely avoiding Yoongi at all costs. It was as if everything was back at the beginning, as if you only desperately clung onto Hoseok, insecurities building up in Yoongi as he only stood and watched. 

You had been so kind to both of them; at first, they had expected you to take advantage of them. That’s what they experienced in the end when they first trusted people, their desire to silently split them up. But it was as if you were the one that was breaking off first, as they didn’t understand why. You were the only person who hadn’t used them, a huge relief and slowly rebuilding the bonds of their trust in others. 

Yoongi shuddered as he leaned closer to Hoseok, the younger wrapping his arm around him as they walked back to their car, an umbrella covering their heads. When they shut the doors closed, they looked glumly at the sky, both remembering the memories of the past. What else was there to think about? 

The world was crying along with them and even if they didn't show it, their insides were hiding it for all the see. Hoseok started the engine, looking at the older who only buried himself closer his legs, his eyes filled with worry. 

Yoongi seemed to be the one tossed aside when they first wanted to trust others, the third often set their sights on Hoseok and hoping that he would leave the older. It had happened a few times and Yoongi expected it to happen again, to have his heart broken after spilling everything he had out for another person. 

Hoseok would have a fit of extreme rage, Yoongi sobbing by himself as Hoseok threw the third out of their life, only to snuggle up to the older and comfort him. 

Yoongi felt terrible, eyes red as Hoseok tried to hide his own tears, his head leaning on Yoongi’s shoulder as his body quivered. Despite everything Hoseok did for him, Yoongi could never cheer him up. It pained him inside, knowing his partner could never be comforted by him. How useless it made him feel to watch Hoseok cry and cry, struggling to breathe and his voice muffled, curses leaving his lips.

“Hoseok, let’s just go home,” Yoongi called, the trance over between the two of them as he nodded, driving off with the case in their bags. 

“... It’s not home without her there either…” Hoseok murmured, only for Yoongi to sadly agree. 

»»————- ♡ ————-««

“Angel… Where are you going...?” 

You snapped your head up, bag thrown over your shoulder as you looked behind yourself, only to find Hoseok’s eyes drooping and smile gone from his face. He watched as you waited for the elevator, as you tried to escape away from them again. 

“I’m going h-home, Hoseok… Why?” You asked, obvious guilt filling your voice. 

“You always come home with us on Fridays though…” Hoseok whispered, voice trembling as most of the office had clocked out, giving the two of you more privacy. He took several confident steps towards you, tugging at your arm like a lost child begging for something. “Is something… wrong? Are you, avoiding me?... Why?” 

“I-I…” You stammered, avoiding all eye contact as Hoseok seemed to press his body closer to yours. “I just thought I would give you two more time together… since… I’m always there.”

“Nonsense, y/n.” He chided, pulling you away from the set of elevators and into the director’s office, pushing the door open with his foot. “Min.” 

The director’s head shot up, the use of his last name very rarely used by the other, only for times of importance. 

“Watch her. I’m going back to get my stuff.” 

Yoongi cocked his head to the side, staring at you as you lowered your head down in shame, Yoongi quickly realizing what had happened. He sighed, closing his laptop and throwing his bag over his shoulder as he walked over to you, patting the top of your head. 

“He’s not angry at you. He’s just nervous.”

“He looks angry though…” You mumbled, turning away from him to which Yoongi locked his hand in yours. 

“Trust me, he’s not. I’ve known him for years.” He insisted, pulling you along and meeting up with Hoseok by the elevators. 

You were hit with deja vu as you followed the two men back to the car like you did the first time they invited you to their house, stringing you along and honestly, it looked like you were being dragged against your will. It made you giggle to yourself, earning a curious glance from Yoongi as he watched the corners of your lips pull up. His eyes softened, his heart beating faster before having to let you go, climbing into the passenger seat. 

You loved watching them together in the front of the car, and unlike the first time you were with them, Hoseok was driving this time. It was so enjoyable to watch as each time the car stopped at a red light, the pair of lovers would fiddle their hands with each other, their eyes studying the other’s delicate features.

As the three of you walked into their home, you had expected them to fall onto the comfortable couches, but instead, they stood in the hallway, muttering under their breaths as you solely walked in by yourself. 

“Hoseok? Yoongi?” You called out loudly, taking a seat on the soft cushions, only for the two men to take a seat beside you, their mouths taped shut, pure silence. 

“Y-y/n…” Yoongi whispered from your left, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. You looked confusingly at them, the incredibly close proximity making you nervous, eyes darting around the room. 

“Y/n,” Hoseok started, pulling something out from his pocket, your eyes widening as you harshly gasped. “We… the two of us decided we want… we want our relationship to be official with you. We don’t want to get married, we just… want to show you how much we love you.” 

With each strike of the second hand of the clock that sat on the wall, Hoseok grew nervous, forcing his hands to not twitch and eyes to not leave your figure. Yoongi grabbed both of your hands, his eyes focused on you and lips mustering up a determined smile. 

“I… I really… really… love you.” 

“Wait… I-” Your voice wavered, their hearts breaking as their faces began to crumble, Hoseok’s hands shaking and barely holding onto his confidence. “No, I just- Wait… Wait!” 

Hoseok halted backing out, looking at your tear-filled eyes and quickly rushing to you, your knees giving out and colliding with the wooden floors beneath you. 

“W-what’s wrong? Angel, did we make you cry? I’m so sorry-” Hoseok blabbed out, brushing away your tears as you were pulled into his warm chest, his arms coming around to wrap you. Yoongi kneeled behind you, rubbing your back, the ring long forgotten and case on the floor. 

“I just-” You choked harshly, struggling for air as they both rubbed your back. “I’m just overw-whelmed… That’s all…” 

“We’re sorry, did we come off too forceful?” Yoongi murmured, only for you to shake your head. 

“No, it’s not that. I just- I don’t… I don’t really know a lot about you two and- I mean, I know- I understand that you two wouldn’t have the same feelings for me like you have with each other, so I’m.... scared.” 

….

Pure, deafening silence. That was all you were met with… Silence, a cold dead void of nothingness that suffocated the room, your head lowered, staring down at your wet tears on the ground. 

It was until, Yoongi’s broken and cracked voice spoke, that you realized he was crying. 

“W-why… why would you say that…?” He breathed out harshly, his voice shattering to pieces like his heart as tears angrily streamed from his eyes and down his chin. “Did- did our confessions of love- did we not mean anything to you?” 

“No, it’s not like that!” You cried out, this time hugging the oldest as Hoseok watched sadly. “Of course you guys are important. I thought I was the problem… Whenever I see the intimate touches between the two of you and compared it to the pure awkwardness between the three of us, and since I don’t know much about you two when I really should, I couldn’t help myself for overthinking everything. I couldn’t help my gut telling me what I was seeing and believing was true…” You rambled on, desperately trying to sort out the situation, the thought of losing them when they were right in front of you, a painful feeling overcoming your mind. 

“I’m sorry…” You whispered. “Can we- can we take it slow? L-let’s not rush things... I still don’t know much about the two of you. And I want to get better at this. All of what we are.” You smiled sadly, Yoongi giving a small nod and Hoseok forming a hug between the three of you. 

“Yeah… let’s do that.” Yoongi murmured, standing up as you all took small steps down the hallway. Hoseok still had a glum look on his face, as the three of you walked to the bedroom, falling down on the bed with a large thump. 

“Hoseok, are you alright?” You asked worriedly, unsure of how he truly felt. Maybe he wanted to end the relationship. Did you ever take his feelings into account? “What’s wrong?” 

“I feel so happy… I want to cry, but-” Hoseok muttered, sniffling hard as slow tears poured down his face as he continued to gasp, wiping away his tears. “Yoongi… He always gets thrown away and pretends to act strong… He always does that and when he talks to me, he acts like everything’s normal and I’m just so, so, so happy- it’s finally... someone finally...” 

“Y/n…” Hoseok placed his hand over his chest, eyes closing as more tears streamed down his face. “Thank you… You’re the angel we needed…” 

“Hoseok… I’m not that amazing… Really…” You urged, patting his back as you watched Hoseok cry for the first time. There was a slight feeling of warmth as you watched him release all the emotions he had bottled up, a freedom that you seemed to understand. 

As Hoseok stabilized his breathing, he smiled brightly, pulling the three of you down onto the bed again, laughing and returning to his vibrant personality.

“Okay, but why am I in the middle?" Yoongi grumbled, tugging at the blankets and complaining, wanting you to be in the middle.

“Me and y/n aren’t awkward. So, logic…!” Hoseok responded firmly, steadying the other in the middle. “You’re going to sleep here until we see improvements with you and y/n, yeah? No more awkwardness! Or else…”

“Or else…?” 

“No coffee!” Hoseok shouted proudly. 

“Unfair…” Yoongi grumbled, turning away from Hoseok only to be met with your doe eyes and sharp cuteness that hurt his heart, as he wanted to turn around again. 

“Yoongi…” Hoseok warned, the older violently blushing, an obvious shade of red on his cheeks. “Don’t you dare think turning around from y/n.” 

“Fuck…” 

“Hehe, you’ll be saying that a lot later…” He smirked, earning a loud smack on his chest at an even furious Yoongi who buried his head into his pillow. You smiled softly, your nose and eyes no longer red, and instead, filled with the reassurance that everything would be okay. As long as you had these two men, you were going to be okay...

»»————- ♡ ————-««

Cold and freezing snow, the low temperature remedied by three warm bodies. 

December 1st circled in a bold red marker.

"Hnnn."

Hoseok groaned, his eyes fluttering open as he sleepily squirmed in bed. His hair sprawled over his pillow and to his right lay Yoongi who quietly slept, his eyes closed and his eyelashes prominent. 

As Hoseok peered down at his hands, Yoongi's hand lay softly on top of his, head tilted toward him. Hoseok couldn't contain the overflowing warmth in his heart, planting a kiss on top of the older's head. Yoongi groaned, rustling the blankets and turning the other way. 

As Hoseok lay on the left side of the bed, his legs were intertwined in a mix with his lovers. Yoongi laid perfectly in the middle of the bed, his t-shirt covering the skin of his back. Hoseok hummed watching as you and Yoongi faced each other, breaths softly humming together. 

Yet, unlike the innocence scene, Hoseok's hand crept towards the waistband of Yoongi's shorts. He gave a small squeeze of the older's soft skin causing him to stir and slowly awaken.

"Hm…?"

Yoongi slowly turned around, the blankets shuffling and stirring you for a moment, only for your breathing to relax again. With half-lidded eyes, Yoongi looked up to Hoseok before laying his head on the chest of the younger.

"Good morning, beautiful." 

Hoseok sighed, his arms coming up to wrap the older in a warm embrace. Yoongi melted into his hold, cheeks slowly adorning a warm peach color as he softly closed his eyes. 

"M..orning…"

Hoseok's hand once again traveled to Yoongi's shorts, this time laying at the center of his butt, causing the older to grumble in embarrassment. 

"So pretty." Hoseok cooed, planting a kiss on his forehead. He laid more kisses over his skin, from the forehead to neck to pushing down the clothing off to reveal his shoulder. 

"A-ah…" Yoongi whined, burying his head further into Hoseok's chest. A smirk slowly graced Hoseok’s lips as he forced intense eye contact with the older, foreheads touching, voice low. 

“You’re hard already?” 

“Nn, I’m not…” Yoongi whined, turning around, his back once again facing Hoseok. Before Yoongi could close his eyes and slowly drift back to sleep, a small yelped erupted from his lips. “Hoseok…!” He scolded, his face blazing as Hoseok’s erection pressed into his ass. 

“Can I?” Hoseok whispered, his fingers at the tip of Yoongi’s waistband, ready to rip the fabric off. 

“B-but…” Yoongi murmured shyly. “Y/n’s still sleeping and we… shouldn’t wake her up.” 

Hoseok smiled, a kiss planted on the older’s neck. “Then you’ll have to be quiet for me, right?” 

Yoongi’s eyes widened, his teeth grazing and biting his lips before he gave a small nod. He rose his hands in the air, undressing his light and thin t-shirt as Hoseok worked on his bottom, throwing the clothing to the floor. 

Yoongi shuddered as he listened to Hoseok spit into his hand, rubbing the messy saliva between his fingers before moving towards his lover. A wide smile decorated Hoseok’s face as Yoongi writhed under his touch, Yoongi’s fingers fisting and clenching the crisp bed sheets. Hoseok retracted his hand once again, building up saliva and spitting it onto his palm, this time gliding it along his exposed length. 

A tsk escaped Hoseok’s mouth as he leaned over the edge of the bed, slowly opening the nightstand drawer, his hand searching for the plastic bottle. When his fingers recognized the familiar cap, ignoring the boxes of condoms and other various items, he shut it, moving back to Yoongi. 

“It wasn’t wet enough,” Hoseok commented, squeezing the bottle and glopping a very considerate amount onto his hand. Yoongi laid still, the cold morning air tickling his skin as he watched your sleeping expressions and the way your lips pout, oblivious to the two men’s shenanigans.

“Ah-!” Yoongi yelped, hands slapping over his mouth as he watched your expression carefully as if he might have woken you up. Meanwhile, Hoseok slowly pushed in, slow grunts leaving his lips.

“Keep quiet or else y/n might wake up… We don’t want that now do we?” He whispered playfully. “We don't want to ruin her beauty sleep now do we?” 

“N-no we don’t,” Yoongi replied, slowly submerging every inch of Hoseok’s dick. 

“I love this ass” Hoseok purred, grabbing onto the flesh and roughly pulling it, leaving red fingerprint marks. "So fucking good." 

Hoseok started slow, dragging his cock in and out at a sluggish pace. It wasn't until Hoseok's thrusts began to pick up speed and intensity that Yoongi bit back several moans, his grip tightening on the sheets to steady himself. Each pump was slimy and wet, pushing through his tight walls which brought pleasure flowing through his body. 

The slight sounds of skin slapping echoed in the room, yet soft enough to not be heard and disrupt your sleeping state. Squeezing his eyes shut, Hoseok's hand moved from the older's hips to his cock, pumping it several times with a snappy pace as he connected with each of his thrusts. 

"Nnnh!... Ah-hh… Ahh…! Ahh! AH! H-Hos-seok!" Yoongi cried, sobbing loudly as the pleasure became too much. "C-cum… I'm-! AHH-" 

"You better not fucking cum yet," Hoseok warned, ramming continuously into Yoongi's tight hole. He shuffled a bit, hoping to get a better angle and make his lover feel it even more. To destroy him with stimulation and pleasure. 

"Hoseok! Please...please...! Can't-" Yoongi sobbed, eyes slowly tearing up from the stimulation. 

"I said, don't." Hoseok voiced out sternly, a loud smack on Yoongi's lustrous ass ringing out. 

Yoongi's eyes widened as you visibly stirred, the commotion having finally woken you up. You peaked an eye out, only to find Yoongi's face completely red and sweaty, the bed shaking with each thrust Hoseok delivered. 

"Good morning, love." Hoseok cooed to you, a particularly hard thrust causing Yoongi to buckle and let out a loud moan. 

"Ah…! D-dont loo-ok-" Yoongi cried in embarrassment, his body completely obedient to Hoseok's ministrations. When you slowly awoke from your dazed and confused state, you realized the scene that was playing out: Yoongi was taking it. Hard.

"Y/n, don't- Ah-h- Don't look…!" Yoongi repeated again, moans slipping through his lip as his head fell. "I-I- Ahh- Hoseok… Ple-ease- I c-can’t..."

"Cum." 

On Hoseok's command, Yoongi panted out harshly and you flinched, feeling something land on your face, pajamas, and hand. You looked at your fingers, only to find white cum dripping down and falling onto the bedsheets. 

"Such a messy baby." Hoseok purred, laying kisses on the older's back as he slowly slipped out, not having come. 

"Nooo…" Yoongi whined, shaking his ass in desperation. "Don't slip out…please?"

"Fuck…" Hoseok gasped. "You're so hot." Hoseok lined up his cock against the older's wet entrance, slowly pushing in and laying there in bliss as Yoongi grunted, moving around to get comfortable. 

"So warm…" Hoseok sighed. 

"I feel so full…" Yoongi mewed, burying his face into the soft pillows. 

You watched as the pair laid still for several minutes, Hoseok continuing his kisses on Yoongi as the latter calmed down from his high, eyes closed and breathing steadying. A slight arousal grew in you as you looked at the intimate pair, hopeful. Hoseok rubbed Yoongi's leg soothingly, whispering sweet nothings filled with praise, calming him down.

It wasn't until Yoongi brought his lips up to kiss you that you realized cum had also landed on your chin and cheeks, Yoongi's tongue lapping up his own fluid. 

"Who told you that you could watch?" Yoongi complained and pouted, yet cheeks red. Even though he spoke in a low voice, he was clearly flustered, hair disheveled and all. Despite his words, his hands roamed down your body, sending shivers from his mere fingertips. 

"I'm sorry…" you whispered almost inaudibly, catching Hoseok's smirk as he sat behind Yoongi, leaning his head on top of the older's shoulder. Your eyes drifted lower and lower, gazing at Yoongi's body until you blushed intensely. "Oh my go- are you still hard…? You ju- mmph"

Yoongi crashed his lips against yours, nails digging into each arm as he violently sucked your lips. While his lips had his way with you, his hand retracted away from your arms, reaching down to the waistband of your pajama pants and tugging on it.

When your lips parted, his eyes scanned your face, an obvious question lingering despite no words coming from his lips. You knew what he wanted and you whispered it out.

"Yes." 

Yoongi immediately pulled down the cotton fabric to your knees, fingers pushing aside your softened panties that slowly grew wet as he pushed in a digit. 

You muffled your voice into the crook of Yoongi's neck as he pumped in and out, only to add another digit and stretching your soft walls out. Yoongi smirked to himself, loving how you were already wet for him, for them.

"Yoongi… Ahhhnn-" you moaned, desperately hanging onto his shirt. There was something about the way Yoongi could move his fingers and tongue, smooth and skillful as if he mastered his motions. He could hit every right spot in your body if he really wanted to, but there was no fun in that. After all, he had shown you personally during a late and frustrating night at his office. 

It was only a brief second yet Yoongi lifted you up, quickly throwing you onto your stomach as his left hand fondled your ass. His right-hand fingers slowly slipped out, wet and juices dripping onto his thigh. 

Yoongi left a trail of kisses down your back, hands steady on your hips as he slowly lined himself up at your entrance. He teasingly rubbed against it, the wetness sticking and sliding with every movement of his body. 

"Mmpf… ah…" you kneaded into the pillows, hips buckling as his strong hands supported them up. 

"Fuckk…" Yoongi groaned, his breathing uneven as he fully submerged his length. Everything was warm and so filthy wet, a thrill of excitement trickled up his spine in anticipation. "H-hoseok, here."

You squirmed in his hold, Yoongi not moving as you tried it turn around and catch the scene between the two men, but to no avail. Yoongi had a tight grip, and despite his breathlessness, it remained unbudging and strong.

A bottle was thrown and securely landed in the younger's hands. He squeezed the plastic until a considerable amount of lube squirted out into his hand, the wet substance applied to his aching length. 

"Hoseok…" Yoongi moaned, a slow rock of his hips providing pleasure and easing your impatience. "She's so tight still… It's like no matter how many times we made love to her, she's still the same."

Your face turned a slight tint of red, completely humiliated by his words. The worst part was his words held no lie. A grin graced the younger's lips as he tilted his head in cockiness. 

"I already knew that though." 

"Hmm?" Yoongi hummed, confused at his statement. 

"I'm pretty sure I told you before." Hoseok started, his hand still spreading out the lube evenly. "Maybe we were too drunk.” He laughed but continued. 

“But one day she came up to me, needy...so damn needy. She told me she wanted me to fuck her until she couldn’t stand up anymore.”

“She did what?” 

You whined as you covered your head with your arms, burying your face into the pillow. 

"Stop… Hoseok… Don't-"

“Aww, baby wants me to stop talking about it... Even though she was so dirty." 

“Is that why she was bed-ridden?" Yoongi cut in, dick still inside of you as if it was nothing unusual. "I thought she got sick... That was the week the flu was floating around the office.” 

"Hoseok!" You complained, however not getting far in your attempt to grab him as Yoongi teasingly gave a thrust. Caught off guard, your throat hitched, fingers tightly squeezing the pillow for leverage, ring digging into your skin.

"Yoongi, switch positions so you're on your back," Hoseok commanded. Yoongi obediently flipped you once again as you found yourself straddling his thighs. "Now, lay flat. Both of you." 

Yoongi let his head fall down, hands gliding you once against onto his length as you let out a hoarse cry, the sudden intrusion creating a mild burn. His hands then moved to your back, pushing onto your skin as if orders to lay down on his stomach. 

On the other hand, you found yourself laying your fingers on Yoongi face, delicately caressing his soft features as his eyes stared up at you. Yoongi broke into a gummy smile, grabbing hold of your hand and giving a delicate kiss on the back. 

Hoseok meanwhile prepped himself for you, glopping on squirt after squirt of lube. So as you felt his length rub against your outside walls as Yoongi was already inside of you, you panicked. 

"W-wait… What's happ-pening?" You asked, Yoongi absentmindedly rubbing his hand on your skin in soothing motions. 

"Baby," Hoseok started, scooching up as he kissed the back of your head. "We want to feel you together. Can we…? Please?" 

Yoongi interlocked his hands with yours, getting your attention as you looked at him, only to find his eyes gleaming with excitement. You hadn't noticed you had been lost in thought as Yoongi gave your hands three squeezes, rings touching. 

"...Okay. Just... Be kind. Please?" you murmured, blushing and embarrassed. Yoongi's face glinted with happiness, attacking you with his signature gummy smile. 

You leaned down, meeting Yoongi's plump lips in a soft kiss as Hoseok took that time to push in. It made you sputter and almost choke on your saliva as you ripped yourself away from Yoongi. 

“A-ah… H-hose-eok…” You gasped, hands supporting your body as you tightly gripped onto Yoongi's shoulders. Yoongi groaned as Hoseok slid in with him, another gasp eliciting from your throat. You felt so full, barely able to take the two men with Hoseok laying on top of you, his chest to your back. 

“And I used to think she was so innocent, but look at her.” Hoseok sneered, his dominant personality slowly emerging as he shifted away from his softer side and pushed in the limited space. Yoongi grunted, his body shaking as he pushed along. "But...She's taking us so well." 

"Nnmn…" you moaned, Yoongi's lips meeting your own as they both began to move, stretching your walls out. Your voice was muffled by his insistence on kissing you, his tongue pushing into the cavern of your mouth as he explored it like many of the other times before. 

A small and thin strand of saliva formed as you two separated lips, cheeks flushed and both completely out of breath. Yoongi brought his hands to your hips, holding you still as you began to squirm on top of him from both of their harsh thrusts. With each pump they did together, a searing heat burned each stroke, pleasure flooding your brain, fingers turning numb.

"Ahhh!" You cried, clawing at Yoongi's chest, hoping for any leverage that would ease the harsh burn from their thrusts. The stimulation was so much more than you thought it could ever be and the pain that was there initially completely evaporated into thin air as both men also visibly struggled from the pleasure.

"Babygirl, stay still." Hoseok purred, increasing the pace of his thrusts as well, pushing far ahead with his greater length. 

"Fuck, Hoseok…" Yoongi grunted, feeling the younger rub against his dick. "Shit…ughh-"

"Yoongi… Hoseok…" you moaned out, moving your hips in unison to meet their thrusts. "Feels good…I like it...like you." 

"Feels good?" Yoongi smirked, his pride swelling up and dominant persona appearing, very reminiscent of work as a director. Yoongi only continued to get rougher, overtaken by his need for release. "Fuck... I want to fill you up… Want to fuck you in every corner of my office. Lay you down on the table... I want to take you from the back as I shove you against the wall and have your legs spread on my desk."

You nodded like a deranged woman, completely lost from your senses as the animalistic part took over you. All you cared about was chasing your high and feeling good. And at that moment, you felt more than good.  

"You want that?" Yoongi sneered. "You want me to just take you and fuck you whenever I want, don't you? You love it when I'm in charge of you. Isn't that right?"

"Yes! Yes!" You gushed, Yoongi's dick rubbing against your g-spot while Hoseok hit it at the center with each pump of his delicious cock. 

"When you’re a good girl, I’ll give you whatever you want." Yoongi continued, his breathing erratic and thrusts losing their precision. “I love it when you look at me with your soft eyes, wanting more and more. You love it when we’re together-" Yoongi gasped suddenly, your body quivering around him. "Fuck! Shit! You're tighteni-" 

You let out several loud moans, pussy tightening as you quickly came, legs and body shaking. Still experiencing the euphoric high, you incoherently mewled both of your partner's names, voice dripping in ecstasy. Hoseok shut his eyes in bliss as he was threatened by the squeeze you gave, almost pushed to the edge. On the other hand, Yoongi succumbed. 

"Fuck!" Yoongi grit, unable to take the intense tightness and lack of space. He spilled inside of you, cum splattering against your walls and slowly dripping and leaking as he pulled out. Hoseok remained inside, having halted his motions for Yoongi to slip out, barely keeping his impatience in check. 

Hoseok let out a small laugh at how quickly Yoongi came, aware of his bad stamina. On the other hand, that was his specialty. 

"I know you just came, baby girl, but guess who hasn't yet?"

"H-hoseok…" you whispered embarrassingly, feeling the cum continue to slip out. "Give me a minute…" 

"Baby, what if I can't…?" Hoseok whispered near your ear, sending a shiver of excitement down your spine. What made things worse was Hoseok's touch, his fingertips sliding down your sides causing goosebumps. 

He gave a teasing thrust, a cry slipping from your lips as your legs continued to shake. 

"I said-" You gasped. 

“Sorry~” Hoseok laughed, kissing the side of your temple as he sat on the bed, knees digging into the plush cushions. He let you rest, preferring to nibble at your skin, from your shoulder to your sensitive earlobe, yet remaining his hands all over you. 

“Okay…” You whispered, mustering up the courage after a few minutes of rest. “I’m okay now… Just a bit tired.” 

“Relax,” Hoseok spoke from behind, chin on your shoulder. “I’ll do all the work. Just stay still.” 

You nodded, moving and laying on your back next to Yoongi as he continued to breathe heavily, hand covering his face. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, his lips puf-

“Argh-” Your breath hitched, concentration destroyed as Hoseok sunk back in with ease, a mild pace already set that no longer burned. 

“I love you…” Hoseok whispered, leaning down and connecting your lips together as he pumped in and out of you, his hands searching for yours and linking together. He strongly squeezed the palm of your hand, grunting and biting your bottom lip as he finally chased his high. “Shit- Urgh…” 

Warm spurts of cum spilled inside of you as Hoseok fell down next to you, cradling you into his strong arms, a warm smile on his face as he stared at you like the most precious person on Earth. He nudged his head together with yours, laughing like he always did, even if it was at nothing in particular. 

The three of you laid in silence, heavy pants and breaths filling up the room. You groaned, legs feeling numb and powerless, unable to lift your body up. 

“Y/n…” Yoongi mumbled from the other side as you realized you were in the middle of the bed, like the first time you had found yourself in bed with them. 

“Yes?” You whispered under your breath, scared to look at either of them. But, you rose your head up to meet Yoongi’s gaze, his face soft and smile wide, giving him three squeezes on his palm. 

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together with you, the three of us… Whenever I’m with you, I can’t help but smile inside.” Yoongi confessed softly. 

A bright smile lit up on Hoseok's face as he enthusiastically nodded, cradling you from behind and rubbing his hand over your leg. They were so close to you, chests touching from the front and your back as Yoongi smiled sweetly, his eyes gleaming. 

“Whenever I wake up, I realize it’s going to be another day with two people who I love so much." He murmured softly, a soft kiss planted on your lips.  "You’re everything to me, y/n, to us.” 

[shinyquagsire23]

Tying It All Together - Pwning To Own on LG phones

Last year I detailed a secure EL3 vulnerability which affected (and still affects, for devices with discontinued updates) LG Android devices. However, this vulnerability alone isn't actually all that useful for a number of reasons, the more immediate being that many phones simply do not allow writing to eMMC without root or a custom recovery. Additionally, gaining full control over all privilege levels requires draining the battery to below 0%, which while it would be possible to create a modchip that facilitated this, is impractical. To finish off my exploit chain, I would like to detail two additional vulnerabilities that I have found and utilized in my coldboot process. It's worth noting though that these vulnerabilities were reported to LG and may be patched on updated units.

Live, LAF, Love

The first exploit is an obvious necessity: In order to write the rle888 payload into the eMMC's boot graphics, I need to be able to achieve an arbitrary partition write. While exploiting Android *is* an option for this (as are hardware methods), I instead opted to attack LAF, LG's recovery/flashing component. While many Android phones in the past have used fastboot in order to flash radios and other system components to eMMC, fastboot has been completely removed on the Q710/Q720. Some phones such as the Nexus 5 actually maintain both fastboot methods and LAF, but for maximum spread, LAF is the clear target.

LAF is designed to work with LGUP, a frequently-leaked LG-internal flashing tool that allows flashing KDZ update files. While LAF in the past was able to read and write eMMC partitions without any restriction, in recent years LG has opted to sign all of their KDZ files in order to make it more difficult for things like cross-carrier flashing, version mixing/matching between partitions and other modifications to occur. Flashing is done via USB, and most of the protocol has been documented at https://github.com/Lekensteyn/lglaf.

The LAF update process largely consists of an ioctl-over-USB shim: The OPEN command is able to open a partition block device, and READ/WRTE will seek into the file and write contents. However, reading and writing are explicitly blocked until a list of partitions, their eMMC offsets, their KDZ content offsets, and their content hashes is sent via the SIGN command, all of which is hashed and signed by LG. If the contents of the partitions in the KDZ are modified, the partition list hashes will fail to verify, and modifying the hashes in the partition list will make the SIGN check fail. The private key is not stored in LGUP; KDZs are downloaded from LG's servers, signed presumably by their build servers.

So, how can we manage to activate WRTE commands, with valid partition content hashes of our arbitrary contents, if we cannot sign our own? To start, I investigated how the WRTE commands actually handled hash checking--if the partition list is sent with SIGN, then at some point the WRTE command must be able to figure out which partition the current write is for, and the current partition's contents must be buffered in RAM somewhere along with an updating SHA context, because if the SHA check fails, then it shouldn't write at all. As it turns out, most of the checks in this area were fairly solid (the write must be in the range of a partition in the list, the entire transaction is one bulk packet of the hashed size, etc). However, this led me to realize: The partition list signature is only checked once, and there is nothing stopping me from, say, sending another SIGN command.

The SIGN verification process works as follows:

The partition information is sent along with a signature in one bulk transaction.

The partition information is copied into a global .bss array from the USB buffer with a fixed size.

The partition information hash buffer is prepared: An allocation is made for N partitions and an optional string, the string being the device model (to prevent cross-flashing). The number of partitions is determined by a signed portion of the header. If the allocation fails, an error is returned.

The partition information is copied again into this allocation along with the string, and the contents are hashed. The signature is crypted with the public key and the signature hash is verified against the partition info hash. If the check fails, the global .bss array is cleared and an error is returned. If the check passes, some write threads and structs are initialized and a success value is returned.

The .bss buffer storing partition info (used by other functions) is copied to before the packet is verified

The .bss buffer is cleared when the signature mismatches, but not with this malloc fail...?

The flaw here is subtle, but not terribly difficult to notice: The number of partitions is user-controlled even though it is signed, and the partition info was copied into a global variable before verification. In all other error conditions, LAF will memset the partition information before returning an error code, however if the hashing allocation fails (ie by setting the number of partitions to -1), then the allocation will fail and an error is returned without clearing the partition information. Thus, we can fakesign our own update KDZs by

Sending a valid SIGN command, which will start the write threads

Sending a fakesigned SIGN command with the number of partitions set to -1, and all partition information set however we want. The partition information in .bss is now set without a signature being checked.

While this fakesign has the potential to hang WRTE commands while due to the number of partitions being set much larger than the global partition array, all loops when WRTE checks the partition list hashes will break once a valid partition is found. So, as long as the hash contents of the WRTE command are existent in the first few entries, it will not hang, however any writes sent that do not match will hang lafd.

Another S-EL3 vuln to wrap it all up

This might seem a bit pointless given that the former vulnerability paired with 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 at aboot is more than enough to unlock bootloaders, since aboot is usually the code that handles bootloader unlocking/wiping/boot image signature verification, but the downside to unlocking your bootloader is that you lose SafetyNet. To most effectively mitigate SafetyNet issues you basically need an S-EL3 exploit in order to patch Qualcomm's TrustZone to spoof a locked bootloader. While 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 has a vector for S-EL3 code execution via SBL1 and its charging graphic, it only triggers at extremely low battery voltages and it would be more convenient to find an alternative means to gaining S-EL3 code execution via aboot, which runs at EL2/EL1.

One of the first things I noticed when I began to look for SBL vulnerabilities, and actually the reason I looked at SBL in the first place is its crash handler. Since at least the Nexus 5, LG has shipped its "Demigod Crash Handler" which can print registers and stack information and RAM console logs from EL1 kernel, S-EL3 SBL, TrustZone, etc. I first discovered it while trying to exploit a kernel stack overflow. It also allows the user to dump memory contents over USB via its Sahara protocol which also gets used in PBL for Firehose bootstrapping.

Naturally, SBL cannot know the exact details of every execution environment it displays stack dumps for, it requires the faulting environment to store that information before warm-resetting into SBL. Consequently, this means there are portions of RAM writable by EL1 which will be later parsed at an S-EL3 execution level, and of course to make matters worse it also expects EL1 to handle the memory allocation for both the RAM console as well as for the framebuffer. These structures are also plainly visible in LG's kernel sources available in their Android OSS zips.

Above roughly shows the arbitrary write which is possible with this ramconsole parsing. The ramconsole offset is not bounds checked, so we are able to achieve an arbitrary write to a limited set of addresses based on ramconsole_offs, the limit being that the offset factors both into what you write and where you write it. However, I found that since DRAM takes up such a significant portion of the address space, it was more than enough to specifically write a function pointer to the stack. To keep the exploit as simple as possible, I chose to force console_init_maybe to return to the missing battery graphic draw routine, which then triggered 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 without the need to drain the battery below 1% and made loading additional payloads significantly easier.

As an interesting sidenote, this vulnerability is extremely similar to hexkyz's Wii U boot1 exploit, which also abuses warmboot behavior to take over the secondary bootloader of the Wii U's ARM boot processor. In that case, however, the Wii U encrypted its PRSH/PRST structure in RAM, and rather than displaying syslogs, it uses the structure to store boot timings and other info between IOS reboots.

For most practical usecases, this vulnerability is a bit difficult to exploit, due to SBL's text and stack differing between devices. However, S-EL3 vulnerabilities aren't all that frequently documented on Android, so I hope that it will at least be useful for anyone interested in examining Qualcomm's TrustZone components or avoiding weird SafetyNet junk.

Code for both of these exploits can be seen at https://github.com/shinyquagsire23/Q710-SIGNhax-EL3-Warmboot

[rangerreadyimagines]

Imagine : The Ranger Bots Confessing their Feelings

( Excluding Roger, Rover, and Friendship ) Data Bot - He's already annoyed about the fact that his 'Brilliant' pick-up lines didn't give the perfect segway into getting his crush to ask him, it's ever more so embarrassing that he had to ask for advice from Tool Bot. ' Just go for it '?! What kind of advice is that? Regardless, he does end up thinking about it, before he ends up going for it. " Excuse me, (y/n)? Do you have a minute? " He needs an answer, he never likes being unsure of anything. " So as of late, you've might have noticed that I have had my eye on you. You see, I believe I hav...- " It's very difficult for Data to muster the courage to say it without feeling like it's an attack on his pride " ...Feelings...for you. And I need to know, if you like me in the same way. I'd understand if you couldn't feel such a way for someone like me- " He'd say ( you know, like a liar. He takes rejection poorly .

Liqui Bot - She's very excited about the idea of forming a relationship, the problem is she doesn't know where to start. She tried to bounce ideas with Big Bot and Tidy Bot, but their fairly different views on how to take it made it a tad difficult. So it was up to her, and every romantic comedy she'd ever watched to determine the best way to confess. After spending the time watching her sources of romance and the supplies needed for putting together a gift, she'd go out of her way to find the one she admires . " Hey! (Y/n)! " She'd be zipping over with glee, carrying a brightly colored box before presenting it to her crush. " Here, for you! " Afterwards, she'd immediately zip off, hoping this plan works and wait eagerly about her crush's thoughts. ( The gift she would have made would most likely be a colorful collage of things she would've learned what you liked with a little love note confessing her feelings-  

Tidy Bot - He's... hesitant to say the least, to confess something so difficult to explain. Especially coming from him, who's not exactly known for being very expressive about these sorts of issues. He'd initially be talking to Build Bot at first, but due to the lack of experiences ( or recent ones ) between the two when it came to the scene, he'd turn to Liqui Bot, who ends up way too excited about it and ends up leaving Tidy Bot with too many thoughts, but no clear ideas. He'd try to avoid his crush for a while until ending up somewhat guilty without some sort of clear conscience, to which talking to Tool Bot who would surprisingly end up being helpful in the regards of narrowing it down... albeit fairly bluntly. " Excuse me... (Y/n)? May I, speak with you for a moment? If you would please hear me out? " He probably would've ended up being somewhat quieter than he meant to when approaching the one in question. " I wanted to apologize for not talking to you this entire time.  You see, I... " He'd end up fiddling his fingers while trying to admit his troubles, wondering if it's really such a good idea. Well, there' not much that can be done now. " I have become quite... fond of your company, and was hoping we could possibly... become... closer? " He's not exactly sure of both the outcome and how to continue from either or, but he'll do his best he can from his own comfort level. 

Tool Bot - No need for practice, no worries. He believes that he has got this, and it doesn't work out, he'll be fine, right? It would take long for him to eventually bump into his crush before speaking up about his feeling after chatting, " 'Ey, uh, (Y/n). Before you go, there's something I need to ask you about. " He'd pause for a moment before pushing back last-second minor fears of rejection. " Do you like me? " Would probably end up with the casual 'sure' but not be able to understand that part. " Wait is that a 'I would totally date you sure' or a 'you're a pretty good friend kinda way'? " ( This is why you should've rehearsed )

Garbage Bot - He didn't realize it was a special type of love, he appreciates all of his friends! But what made someone so important to him? After Build Bot built up the theory for him, it actually clicked that's what he felt. After getting a quick pep talk from Tool Bot, and getting what he needed, he'd be ready. He'd go up to the target of his affections, fairly excited to admit his feelings ( ,in his own way ) . When stopping by, he'd try to fix his hat really quickly before getting their attention, " GARBAGE ! " Which may or may not surprise them, but at least give him the attention he needed to present the recycle-crafted heart statue(-figure?) he had made with love, his eyes lit up without doubt. He never thought about what rejection would be like, or what it was.

Build Bot - Ooh! There is a lot to work with! But he is on it, like a comet, 'as they say!' And has so many big plans on how to confess... so many in fact he ends up with more than he knows what to do with and realizes that he doesn't know *what* he is doing. He's been out of it for so long, he's not...exactly sure quite how to go about it.  He had to ask for some help from Tool Bot, to narrow it down, since his other companions have either not experience or way too many ideas, just as he. ' Just some flowers? I can do that! ' After a bit of a warm-up, with some thought about his crush's favorite flowers in mind, he creates a wondrous bouquet ' Well not real flowers, but that's the improved part! Because they will never die! Like my love for - ... maybe I should give them these flowers first. '  He'd approach his crush, conveniently able to hide the flowers enough to be able to pull them out for a bit of flair for his confession. "Ah, (Y/N)! I've finally found you! " He speak with high energy, to a point where any sort of nervous feelings would not have come up quite yet. " I've brought you some flowers ! " He'd eagerly pull out the flowers, before presenting them to his crush. His high energy may mistaken the intent for a new experiment, but the flowers would make the motives... unusual ? Although, they are pretty nice... Seeing the target of his affections inspecting the flowers, would start to make him nervous, just a tad. Under the idea this may not be the right type of proposal. " Because, I... like you a lot, (Y/n). "

Big Bot - ...He can't do it. How is he supposed to say how he feels ' (Y/n), I love you? ' That's way too much, he's already tried talking to Build Bot and Liqui Bot, but their high energy and over abundance of ideas made things even more confusing. Tool Bot, being fairly blunt and straight to the point... for the most part, advised him more-so with spend a day with them, and offer what you can, propose with gestures of kindness. Big Bot wouldn't really get it 100%, but he'd understand enough for what he'd do for his confession.  He would act the same, occasionally being distracted while helping his crush out with various things... At some point, possibly causing them to be concerned for him, likely almost bumping into things or walls while carrying heavy things. When being asked what's been going on, he'd most definitely be nervous. Over the idea that, his crush is concerned, and the fact that they're concerned for him wouldn't make him any-less so. " I- Hm... " He can't lie to (Y/N) He's most definitely's got his finger pressed together, in gesture of his nervousness. " (Y.../n)? ... I... love you... " He'd get quiet if it didn't go well, muttering a quiet 'Sorry' before leaving them alone.

[we-kpoppin]

Memories of You - Chapter 2: Chance Encounters

Monsta X Fanfic - Shownu x Gender Neutral Character

Word Count: 4200

Genre: Mafia AU, angst

Warnings: Blood, Knife, Injuries, Knife Injuries

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It was early hours the next morning when Ansoo finally cleared the woodland, their clothes and dried but they had an uncomfortable stiffness to them. Worn out from trudging through the underbrush all night, once they got to a pathway they plodded along, following it as it curved simply hoping it’d lead them to somewhere that’d allow them to get their bearings.

The few people who were up and about at this hour started at Ansoo before hurrying along, Ansoo had no doubt that they looked unkempt. They ran through a forest just after a thunderstorm had passed. Their hair was tatted, pants and shoes muddy, and no doubt had blood on them. If it was an adult who was in this state, they’d be reported to the police, but given Ansoo was still a child people just ignored them.

The fact no one offered to help Ansoo made them sour, they would have rejected it anyway, but it just confirmed to them that the world wasn’t as kind as they thought it was before last night's events.

As a convenience store entered Ansoo's line of sight, they increased their pace, wanting nothing more than to get some substance and clean themselves up. Dad would be ashamed if they showed up at the Son family home, looking like, well like this.

As they entered the small store, kept their head down to avoid making any eye contact, in hopes that no one would be able to get a good luck at their face. Ansoo didn’t want anyone to be able to recognise them, they felt it was best to lay low until they were safe. They grabbed some toiletries off the shelf before making their way to the food, taking a couple of snacks and a drink. They silently paid, then made their way to the toilet that they could thankfully use.

Only once they were in the stall was Ansoo able to see just how rough they looked. Bruises littered what areas of their limbs that was visible, and there were small nicks covering the entirety of their revealed skin from the shattered glass. There was a cut along their leg from when they stumbled in the forest and a large gash on their upper right arm that’d no doubt leave a scar eventually.

Ansoo peered into the mirror, starting at a face they didn’t recognise.

Their right eye was partially swollen shut, the purple and blue spreading across and along their cheekbone. Their bottom lip was split, dried blood sealing it temporarily shut. A cut ran through their left eyebrow, another ran along their nose, and just above their lip. Ansoo couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact it looked like they had been scratched by a wolf.

They washed their hands and arms doing their best to scrub away the dirt without aggravating any of the injuries, whilst still cleaning the wounds, once satisfied moved onto wash their face.

Ansoo couldn’t help but wince as they rubbed their face, the injuries clearly being more sensitive than the ones on their lower arms. They then brushed their teeth once they were done with washing their face.

Ansoo took their jacket out the bag, silently greatly for putting it away once they were in the car instead of wearing it. They put it on, zipping it up to the top, hiding the dirty shirt that was underneath. At least they looked a little more presentable, right?

They left the toilet now a little more pleased with their appearance, as they were headed to the exit they heard a new announcement coming from the T.V near the till. Ansoo didn’t bother to stop until they heard their name.

“The Dongbang family was found dead in their car, which was toppled over-” Ansoo's ears started to ring.

Should they go to the police, explain about the people that were at the scene before they arrived? Maybe they could help Ansoo get to the Son family. In a spur of emotion, they made off in the direction they hoped the police station would be.

Ansoo just wanted to go home. They wanted to be held and told they were safe. They wanted to wake up and for this nightmare to be over. Tears started to roll down their face for the first time since the accident, there was no adrenaline left and they’d finally processed what had happened.

Their family was dead.

Their dad and little sister Minsoo were gone. Taken from this world, taken from them. Why? Why were they the only one to survive? Why did they deserve to be saved? Or we’re they being punished?

Questions and cries of anguish ran through their mind. Ansoo shook their head trying to ignore all the thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand. They needed to find a police station, tell them that they survived the crash.

Ansoo halted. “No, I can’t”, they muttered to no one, “If those men find out, they might come back for me.”

Finally clear on what they were to do next, Ansoo carried on walking, looking out for something that could indicate where about they were. Eventually coming across a bus stop, students were huddled around waiting for the bus that would take them to school, as much as Ansoo disliked going they wished that at this moment they were going like their typical weekday.

Ansoo diverted their course, knowing they’d draw attention because of the fact they weren’t on their morning commute like the other kids their age. Well, that and the fact they were very clearly scuffed up.

Eventually, Ansoo managed to find the train station through wandering around the town, as they walked into the station they noticed that it seemed as if the early morning rush had just passed. A wave of relief washed over Ansoo, the fewer people that saw them the better. They didn’t want people's prying eyes all over them, it would be easier that way.

It felt like the day had passed with how long they stared at the map of the rail network. Trying to figure out where exactly they were and which line they needed to take to get as close as possible to their destination.

Their house was out of the way, so Ansoo knew they’d have to go the last part of the journey on foot, even if they got a bus after the train it would only take them to the outskirts. Ansoo got their ticket from the machine, just scraping together enough money for the journey. ‘Since when did it cost so much to get a train' Ansoo thought, a slight pout forming on their face knowing they had to savour the snacks they bought earlier that morning.

Having a while till the train departed, Ansoo went and posted the letter they’d written to the oldest son of Mr Son.

Knowing that they were soon to be on their way to him, a fuzzy feeling flooded Ansoo's heart and stomach. Ansoo was a quiet child and often liked to spend their time on their own, so it could be overwhelming at times when they visited the Son family. Mr Son had 7 children, all boys and all older than Ansoo. They could get a bit much at times but the oldest always watched over Ansoo, making sure his brothers weren’t being too rough.

Ansoo found a lot of comfort in him, especially after the Christmas they spent with the family. They just wanted to hurry and get to the few other people that they could trust.

Dawdling back to the train station, Ansoo enjoyed the warmth of the sun on their skin, a stark contrast to last night’s weather. The calm after the storm, or as they’d later come to find out they were simply passing through the eye of the storm.

They made their way to the ticket gate, presenting the ticket to the machine, just for it to beep and spit the ticket back out. Ansoo fed the ticket through again, just for the same to happen. A few more times they tried, hoping that holding the ticket in a different way would help and that the gate would finally open, but to no avail.

The guard that had been watching Ansoo this whole time made his way over to the child.

“Can I see your ticket please?” Ansoo froze, unsure if it was them that the worker was talking to, eyes flitted around hoping there would be another person in the proximity. There wasn’t. Slowly turning towards the man, Ansoo handed over the ticket, refusing to look up at the board man that towered above them.

Ansoo was used to going up against people much bigger than them, being one of the higher belts in the martial art dojo they attended along with Minsoo.

But that was on the mat, it was completely different in actual confrontation. It was something that Ansoo's father had drilled into them, just because you can fight there doesn’t mean you would be able to on the street, so he’d made it a point to regularly spar with them outside of their classes. Yet they knew their dad would never hurt them, he always pulled if they couldn’t keep up, so it just felt like a game.

Facing this man now, Ansoo finally understood what their father meant. Tension coursed through their body, making their limbs stiff.

The gruff voice pulled Ansoo back to reality, “This ticket is for in two days time,” oh... “May I ask why you're travelling so far on your own?” the guard questioned, suspicion evident in his voice as he handed the ticket back over to the child holding onto it as they waited for an answer.

Ansoo sucked in, the air getting stuck in their throat. “I’m going to visit my father, ” the guard adjusted the communication device on his hip, leaning down and tilting his hand trying to get a proper look at the kid in front of him. Ansoo turned away, taking a few steps before muttering, “I’ll just go back home to my mother for now, it’s fine.”

“Oi, kid” the man called out, voice now soft, pity coating his words.

Ansoo clenched their jaw, they didn’t need pity, they didn’t need people to look down on them. They were fine on their own until they got to the Sons. In the corner of their eyes, Ansoo noticed the man reaching out for them, quickening the pace of their steps to get out of the guard's arm span. They didn’t slow down till they were a few blocks away from the station.

For the next few days, Ansoo did their best to stay out of site, generally frequenting the more hidden places in the town.

Sleeping in the tunnel that occupied the playground, getting food from vending machines by saying the contraption had eaten their money without giving anything in return. They even managed to find some dropped money. Freshening up in the public toilets in the park, but that did nothing to help the way their clothes looked and smelled.

They arrived at the train station way earlier than they needed, but the wind was frigid and the tunnel that they’d been camping out in was only amplifying its bite. Ansoo pulled out some of the letter paper they had, doodling the people that they watched to pass the time.

A little later an older girl sat on the bench with Ansoo, leaving a gap between them. Placing a few things on the space on the bench, including some food that Ansoo figured was meant to be her breakfast. She grabbed some books that were tattered around the edges from the rough treatment, then proceeded to scribble across the pages rushing to do what looked like homework.

She was still scrawling down answers when another girl called out to her causing her to gather her things, practically skipping over to her friend before going through the gates to start her morning commute.

Ansoo peered around to notice she'd left her food, they waited for her to come back, watched the big hand go halfway around the clock face. She’d left it, right? Ansoo could feel the residual heat warming up their fingers as they picked up the sandwich, ohh it’s sausage and egg, grateful for something other than the snacks from the vending machines. Carefully they placed the food in their bag, deciding to save it for later, but took a sip of the water now finally parching their thirst.

Once the time came Ansoo approached the gates, anxious that the ticket would be rejected again, instead it just pinged as the gate opened, returning the ticket on the other side.

Finding an empty window seat away from everyone else, Ansoo settled down on the train. Propping up their bag as a makeshift pillow and pulling the hood up and cuddling into the jacket, trying to rid of the chill that was still clinging to their body.

After the train began its journey, they peered out the window, watching as the scenery passed by. As the train entered a tunnel, Ansoo stared at their reflection. Eyes were puffy and dark from lack of sleep rather than the black eye, though that was still present, the scratches on their face scanned over and beginning to heal. Ansoo couldn’t help but notice how dull their skin looked, they didn’t understand how someone could look dull till seeing themself like this.

World experience really did make people wise. Maybe that’s why their Dad and Mr Son always had an answer for everything, whether Ansoo thought it made sense or not.

The gentle rocking motion of the train lulled Ansoo to a light sleep, finally able to relax knowing they’d soon be with their friends.

The rest of the ride after they wake is uneventful, content with just watching the world pass by them. As the train rolled into Ansoo's stop, they begrudgingly stood from the seat, just wanting to sit there for a while longer.

Ansoo left the train, went through the turnstile and exited the empty train stop. Beginning their walk, the last part of the trip that Ansoo had to take, they took the sandwich from their satchel. It was cold now, but Ansoo still enjoyed the parcel of food that they'd managed to acquire. The path was quiet, only the occasional sound of birds in the trees and their own light footsteps.

A couple of times Ansoo questioned if they���d gone the right way, feeling as if they were walking without getting any closer to the place they knew. They knew it was far out but was it really this far?

A large tree came into Ansoo's line of sight, it stood proudly at the peak of the steep hill. Suddenly Ansoo started running, their legs carrying them as fast as they could to the place that brought so many memories.

The tree held a hideout amidst its mighty branches. On days that their parents left for work, all the children would gather in the treehouse at it neared the time they’d arrive back, and watch the road winding up to the house. During the Christmas Ansoo and their family stayed with the Son family, the children ambushed their dads with snowballs as they neared the gates. It led to a full-blown war with snow being the weapon of choice. It’s one of Ansoo's favourite memories, one of their most joyous moments of life.

Arriving at the gate, Ansoo located the keypad and rung the bell a few times with no answer before typing in the security code. Beep.

“It’s wrong? Should have figured, it’s been years since we last visited.” Ansoo grumbled, letting their thoughts become physical words, “Hyunwoo said they had a special security system so that people can’t climb over, so that idea is out the window.”

They paced around in front of the gate for a while, hoping someone would come home or spot them on the camera, but in the meanwhile tried to remember the override code. Hyunwoo taught it to them, made Ansoo swear not to tell anyone.

They scrunched up their face in frustration, struggling to remember the correct order of the numbers. 1,5,0,4. 1,5,4,0... Ansoo ran through the combinations still one rung true.

0,5,1,4.

They ran back to the keypad, poking the keys in that order. DING! Ansoo couldn’t help but jump and do a little dance in excitement.

“If you ever have to use that code remember that there is a timer on it. You have to get through the gate, up to the house and type in the code again, otherwise, the security system will react. It’s just a failsafe my dad put into place.”

“What happens if I don’t get there in time?” Ansoo pondered, eyes wide looking up at the older boy

“you die.” Hyunwoo answered monotonously, staring back at Ansoo, no mischievous glint in his eyes to suggest he was joking. He watched as Ansoo face began to contort. He quickly let out a chuckle, ruffling the littlun's hair.

“I’m teasing, I'm teasing. But there is a timer and if you don’t get there in time the police will come chase after you” Hyunwoo joked, crouching slightest waiting for Ansoo to run so he could chase them.

Their breath caught in their throat. Ansoo rushed over to the fence sliding over the deadbolt that was no longer locked in place, sliding it back in place. Then sprinting up to the house. Their lungs burned and knees felt weak but something about that made them feel exhilarated.

Getting to the front door they couldn’t find a keypad, He never told them where the other one was. Ansoo fumbled around, searching feverishly for the other one. It’s nowhere on the porch. They retraced their steps in a panic, they must have missed it on their way up, right? A short way from the house was the post box, a small black box attached to the side of the post.

Ansoo bolted towards it. “YES!” Quickly thumbing in the code. DING! Then another sound they could only describe as something shutting down.

Sighing in relief they made their way back to the house, although what Hyunwoo told them was only a joke, there was something about it that they could never shake off. The way his voice was so deadpan and his eyes stone-cold, Ansoo couldn’t help but feel that his words somehow spoke the truth. Maybe it was just the fact they were only 5 at the time and so incredibly gullible, but even now they can’t help but react as if what Hyunwoo told them was the reality of the situation.

Once Ansoo got back to the house they sat down and leaned on the door only to fall back.

“why is the door unlocked? Have they just watched me run around like a damn headless chicken?”

Ansoo got up with a huff and entered the house, leaving their shoes by the door. Hanging their satchel on the coat rack as they called out that they were home, to alert the others of their presence.

Walking through the house, they searched for anyone who might be home but came up short.

‘Are they outback? It would explain why they couldn’t hear the doorbell’ Ansoo thought as they made their way to the garden behind the house. They peaked their head out the door, calling out to them, but once again received no answer. Slowly, Ansoo emerged from the house, expecting the older boys to jump out at them at any moment.

“Hyunwoo, Hoseok, Changkyun? Are you guys out here? Please don’t jump out at me if you are, I'm really tired.” Ansoo shouted into the empty garden, “Ooh, it's Ansoo by the way, in case you don’t recognise me.”

They waited on the porch for a long period but no one came. Maybe they had extracurricular activities or are studying Ansoo tried to reason.

Plodding back inside deciding it’d be better to wait for them away from the nippy wind that was starting to pick up. “I should probably change out of these clothes too” they grumbled to themselves as they sniffed at themself, “I really stink.” Ansoo went and started a bath before heading toward their rooms. They wouldn’t mind if I borrowed some of their clothes right? Changkyun’s should fit, He’s only a bit older plus he’s kinda short.” They grabbed some clothes that looked comfortable, then headed to get washed up, afterwards finally being able to properly treat their wounds from the car crash.

Patiently they waited for the return of the Son family, but as the time ticked on Ansoo hopes depleted. In the end, they never returned home. Not the day after that, or the next day.

It had been a week alone in the house before Ansoo left the premises, going to see if anyone knew where the family had gone, it turned out they moved away the day before Ansoo arrived. Eventually, word of a lone child living in the house made its way to the authorities and Ansoo ended up in a foster home.

Ansoo refused to talk to any of the social workers, being completely mute for the first 6 months, after that it was only ever curt replies if otherwise unavoidable.

“You’ve been here for over a week now and you've still not said a word, can you at least tell us your name” The woman pleaded.

No answer.

“just your first name even”

Silence.

She sighed adjusting in her seat, resting her elbows on the table, staring at the child in front of her. Narrowing her eyes when that didn’t even cause Ansoo to look her way.

“Okay, how about I just list a bunch of names…” Ansoo just toned her out, it wasn’t until Ansoo heard the signal to know dinner was ready that they became aware of the woman's voice.

“-oo” Ansoo eyes snapped towards her, thinking for a second she said their name.

“Jiwoo? Is that it?” Ansoo just scrunched their face, irritated at themselves for allowing her to elicit a response. The woman took that as a confirmation to her question, “Ahh, I’m glad we finally know what to call you.”

That became Ansoo's name for the years to come, Jiwoo. They got a whole new identity, in a way it was better this way. But Jiwoo was someone Ansoo didn’t know, they were ashamed of the person they'd become. They were angry and bitter, rarely spoke and was brash when they did, reacting to every jab about them being an orphan with violence.

Jiwoo was the dictionary definition of a problem child. Their grades were fine and they didn’t cause a ruckus in class, but outside of that room, a trail of destruction followed them.

The only thing that Jiwoo remotely thought was good was the fact they'd watch over the younger kids from the foster home and others that they happened to see getting bullied, yet that didn’t mean Jiwoo dealt with it in an appropriate manner. Jiwoo knew though, that it was just an excuse to let out their anger.

Even after leaving school, and getting a job, Jiwoo's aptitude for finding fights never ceased, it was surprising they ended up seeing the inside of a cell.

One thing that never changed was writing letters, whenever they felt really lost they’d write a letter to their old friend Hyunwoo. It was the only time that Jisoo became Ansoo again. Over the years, they’d forgotten the importance of who this person was, all they knew is they found comfort in them. The last thing stopping Ansoo from completely losing themself, even if they no longer remembered who Hyunwoo was, Ansoo would be forever grateful for having this person in their life.

Jiwoo now lived in a rough area, not being able to afford anywhere else with their minimum wage convenience store job. Jiwoo didn’t mind too much since they could do late hours when there were few customers and most of the ones that came in were people stopping in on their way home from drinking.

It looked like this was what it was going be like tonight.

Jiwoo was on their way home after a long shift, in the wee hours of the morning, too tired to take notice in the ongoings around them. Too absorbed in their thought to realise an especially shady looking person follow them into the alleyway that they often took as a shortcut.

There was a sudden shock of something cold on their neck and a sharp pain as it pushed into the skin of Jiwoo's neck.

Fuck. It's a knife, this is a first.

“Empty your pockets! The assailant demanded, Jiwoo held up their hands “I don’t have anything.”

“I’ll slit your fucking throat, empty your pockets!” They spat, pressing the blade further into Jiwoo's throat, it was dangerously close to the carotid artery.

Slowly Jiwoo started to pull the cheap years old phone out of their pants pockets, “Place it on the floor”, they leant down the pressure on their neck alleviating. Cleaning their neck slightly to see the person, quickly snapping their leg out behind them, it landing flatly on the person's stomach.

Jiwoo swivelled so they were now facing the perpetrator, watching as they stumbled back. Jiwoo readying themself in a deep fighting stance. The person lunged.

The knife slicing in the space between them erratically. Dodge. Parry. Punch. Stinging. Jiwoo fumbled back. They stabbed Jiwoo in the gut. Slash. There was a searing heat. Then the ground was coming up to met Jiwoo, and fast. They crash into the floor, barely able to protect their head from the fall. It was cold. Everywhere but the wounds on Jiwoo’s torso felt freezing. There was so much blood, it was drenching their clothes, creating a puddle around them.

Their eyesight was being fuzzy, their senses numb other than the heat and pain.

There was a large shadow cast over Jiwoo, struggling to look up at what was plunging Jiwoo into the ever faster approaching darkness. They saw a large figure approaching them, both tall and broad. There was no energy or power left, Jiwoo couldn’t react, left completely defenceless as they lost consciousness.