#also the blob should have been used
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As much as I like matpat I am dreading when he plays ruin because this is just going to fuel his 'gregory is evil' stich which I HATE.
Like, maybe stop demonizing this 9 year old. I get it, he has committed many crimes, as he should, and destroyed the glamrocks, but they can be FIXED. THEY ARE ROBOTS. THEY CAN BE PUT TOGETHER AGAIN AND ARE EVEN STILL FUNCTIONAL EVEN AFTER BEING SHATTERED.
You know who can't be fixed if he loses an arm or an eye? GREGORY (because he isn't a robot because FUCK THAT) like???
He is a homeless kid, of course he's going to be a brutal little shit and prioritizes survival against morals, he is on the fucking streets, and the animatronics have been trying to kill him for an entire night, making him run all across the PizzaPlex. You know how fucking big that place is!?
Also, him betraying Cassie makes zero sense for multiple reasons,
1: He went through fucking hell for Freddy and he only knew him for 6 hours, like. He was willing to steal a car and live with him on the road in one ending, tries to save him in the Afton ending, carries his head around, and is shown to cry when he's disassembled, something he is only seen to do in the Bad Ending or when Freddy is ok.
HE LITERALLY COMMITS MANSLAUGHTER IN ONE ENDING FOR HIS ROBOT-DAD FOR FUCKS SAKE.
Even when Freddy is possessed by Peepaw William, instead of trying to dismantle him, he tries to save him instead, when if it was any other animatronic he wouldn't have hesitated to destroy them.
Because of what the cutouts in Roxy Raceway tell us, Gregory and Cassie have a close friendship, him being the only one to show up to her birthday and giving her a napkin to clean up her tears. When you see his missing posters, you can see Cassie is crying, and due to him being homeless, she probably made those posters herself.
(which i am sorely disappointed if no one has made an angsty thing yet c'mon guys)
(I HC them as siblings, but I guess steel wool said fuck you entropy)
So why, if he was willing to do all of that for Freddy, where it was a plot point for all of the endings, would he betray Cassie and try to kill her? It doesn't make sense to me, adding onto my other point:
2: At the end, as everyone predicted, the mimic was pretending to be Gregory this entire time. I don't know why exactly it was luring cassie, probably to kill her or something, but the mimic is a whole other rant because it brings the books explicitly and that means GGY could be canon which. Ugh.
Anyways, it's revealed again to everyone's predictions, that Gregory isn't in the PizzaPlex, which I think is a missed opportunity but that's just me. Cassie escapes the Mimic and 'gregory' says that she awakened it (Afton) and then the elevator falls.
I see people saying that Gregory killed her, but my question is how?
If he isn't anywhere in the PizzaPlex, and can only see the layout, how was he able to cut the elevator wires if not physically present? Did he teleport? Did he magically get into the mainframe and somehow break it down? No.
In conclusion, if there's an installment following this it better not have a villain Gregory or I swear to God steel wool I am able to forgive you for hello neighbor I will NOT forgive you for that
EDIT: just some more things I want to add because MatPat is playing ruin and I am fueled with dread and excitement.
I see people bringing up the books and the whole patient 46 or 42 or 420 or whichever the fuck, which is still do not get, but I don't understand most things in this franchise anyways so.
Even if the mimic and GGY are canon, I still firmly believe that gregory's actions (if he did do them) were manipulated by William/Glitchtrap, with him being mind-controlled like Vanessa. If your going to demonize him for that, then you would have to do the same thing for Vanessa, who has canonically killed enough children to fill out a newspaper as seen in the Bad Ending when it's revealed Gregory is homeless.
(I don't know how or when old willy put his hands on my boy's mind, but It is not because he is a robot because he isn't. the only reason Freddy say's he's broken is because of censorship.
(PS, please stop censoring horror franchises unless it's actually depicts idk SA, talking to you Megan Is Missing. The original line was that gregory cut himself while in the vents. you didn't need to censor that idqbnofq)
Also, for people saying that Gregory is sadistic for destroying and harvesting the animatronics....
I see your point, and I raise that he is a homeless child who probably just got out of mind-control and is now being chased around a massive mall bigger than a 10 Walmart's and Targets put together, trying to escape 3 (4 and 5 if you count sun & moon and a hell of a lot more counting the security bots and damn endos) eight to seven foot hunks of heavy metal and sharp teeth capable of and known for destroying security bots because of Pizza and Jealousy Issues (Roxy and Chica) another that's infamous for destroying fences, his own room and is rumored/thought to have destroyed another robot, and a security guard who, (in yet again deleted voice lines that should have been in the game god damnit steel wool) he saw change into a skipping bunny with a kitchen knife all trying to kill him with only one protector for 6-7 hours straight with barely a moment to breathe.
What do you expect? him to be all "I'm so sorry *cries* let's all be friends!!" NO. in a better world and in a better made game maybe we could have that, but in this world no. Maybe he's a little remorseful, but in the way you kill a bug kind of remorseful.
Also, again, homeless children who probably had to raise themselves aren't going to be the most morally aware children, of course he's going to worry about his and the one person/robot who took care of him in a while above the ones who are attempting to murder him.
#i HATE when people and fandom demonize children/protags who are trying to survive I HATE ITTT#also i have no idea what GGY is about#bit from what i know GGY is luring people to the plex and shit while william is controlling it#and vanessa was also being possessed and she isn't being dragged for it so why GREGORY?#DOUBLE STANDARDS#anyway gregory defeneer for life#i don't care how probable the theory is it isn't canon if it demonizes gregory <3#also the blob should have been used#fnaf#ruin dlc#cassie dlc#gregory fnaf#fnaf security breach#can you tell that i hate the books are connected?#as much as i love SB and how it got me into the franchise alongside matpat#it is a fucking mess
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really fucking sick and tired of people who really fucking love the eddie book jumping on people who don't like or are even remotely critical of it's posts and like crusading their opinions around from the top of their high horses and shoving it down our throats.
if you like the book, great! that's awesome! love that for you! i am genuinely glad that you were able to find good in it and enjoy it!!
but not everyone did, and not everyone is going to agree with you. so, instead of going on some grand crusade where you find every single post that includes anything even remotely negative or negative adjacent or even neutrally critical and spending ALL this time and effort trying to provide unwanted rebuttals to every single thing, maybe you should just stay in your lane and find people who DO like the book and chat about it with them.
because i can PROMISE YOU, none of us appreciate it when you come onto our posts and start accusing us of "hating on" the author or "being rude" about her and her work and RIDICULOUS shit like that.
being critical of something and pointing out it's flaws is NOT inherently hating on it. i, frankly, do not know where people got that notion, but it's not fucking true so can we fucking quit assuming it is? and, critiquing something is also NOT the same as saying this is shit and it sucks and the author is a piece of garbage. again, where the fuck that came from is beyond me. you can be critical of something and still enjoy it. as soooo many of you love to point out, it's not perfect, why should it be perfect? so D U H. of course that means criticism can and should arise???
also. hot take (by which i mean ice fucking cold because it's NOT a fucking hot take), but going around toting FALSE facts as part of your "defense" does not make you or your argument look good. you, like the author, should maybe do a basic fact check first. 🙃
tldr, if you like the book, that's genuinely great, but stay in your fucking lane and stop seeking out posts from people who didn't like it to start shit in the notes.
#flight of icarus#stranger things#this has happened to me and to so many of my friends and im fucking SICK of it#i didn't even hate the book either!! i thought it was just okay#and yet i STILL get all these book lovers jumping down my throat about things i say about the book#things that - HONESTLY are not even like that scathing!!!!!#like god damn all im asking for is a little BASIC effort from the author and they all think thats me asking for her head on a platter#its NOT#i have no problem with the author#she's whatever to me honestly just a vessel through which the book was given to us#ALSO she is some nebulous blob way outside my orbit. AS IN any critiques i have of her and her work are NOT direct assaults on her???#like i dont fucking KNOW her#im not saying any of this to her face#she is a published writer she should KNOW the risks she is taking when she publishes her writing#not everyone is going to like it! there are going to be people who are critical of it! there are going to be people who hate it!#critiques and pointing out mistakes and wishing for things to have been different is not a fucking direct attack#those things are actually pretty fucking common responses to ANYTHING#and a lot of times theyre actually meant as useful helpful things geared towards improvement and not something to tear someone down with#some people on the internet need to go touch grass and learn how to CRITICALLY THINK again#the world is not as black and white as you think#n e ways. rant over. if you stuck around through all of that kudos to you. i am just. at the end of my rope with this bullshit.
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Seasons
Copyright Ⓒ 2023 by Moonjxsung
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner. Doing so will result in a legal takedown per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is subject to legal action.
Pairing: Lee Felix x fem reader
W/c: 24.1k
Warnings: mentions of death, mentions of a hospital, alcohol, smoking, erotic photography, use of pet names, clitoral stimulation, breast/nipple play, unprotected sex, creampie, dry humping, sex in a semi-public place (no one is around), oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, cum eating
Synopsis: Seasons come and go like your love for Felix once did- but when he reappears in your life several years later, things are much different.
[this work was based off a request from @crookedt44th - thank you for requesting!]
18+. Mdni!
•
Small town at the edge of the world. 11:30am. A Tuesday in Autumn.
If you told the average person to shut their eyes and think of their favorite city, they’d probably conjure up a lengthy description about the booming skyscrapers, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the fancy restaurants and the well-kept people. Point it out on a map, you’d tell them, and their finger would land in the heart of the amorphous blob of whatever state they’ve chosen.
Now move your finger to the right- keep going, and going, and don’t stop until you’re almost off the map entirely. There will be no major indicators, no colorful dots on this area of the map. You might miss it, in fact, if you shoot too far.
That’s the town of Ember.
A town so insignificant, the only name they could think to give it was based on the fire that plagued it almost 50 years ago, which begged the question to those in neighboring cities- who even lives there?
Famous for absolutely nothing of importance, population who-knows-these-days, nothing to do and nowhere to go.
And the place you call home.
*
“Pieces of a Dream. 1970’s.”
“Yellow,” your manager responds, and you unravel a bulky roll of discount stickers, thumbing one off the adhesive and placing it gently in the corner of the plastic-wrapped vinyl.
“The rest of those should be discounted,” he says, quickly shuffling through the stack and giving them a little slap with the palm of his hand.
He slides the stack over to you, taking his spot on the wooden stool by the register again and flipping through a stack of pages on his clipboard.
Chris, your manager, has been the owner of Ember Records for the better part of a decade now. He succeeds his father’s role as store owner, who succeeded his father’s role, back when the record shop wasn’t mostly lost to the fire. Since its relocation, it’s much smaller, so you’ve heard, only about half the shelf space available to house the generous collection of records his great grandfather used to collect and sell.
This is one of just a handful of shops around here, located in the heart of the tourist attraction that is the town’s square. Thus, you’re well-acquainted with the baristas from the coffee shop across the street, the waiters at the diner, the librarians and even the car mechanics. You’re all familiar with the businesses you run to keep this town on its feet, many of you having chosen to stay here for a simpler life.
“I dig the grays,” you tell Chris, crossing your arms as you lean against the counter and slide him the finished stack of tagged vinyl.
He sighs, cocking his head and uncapping his pen between his teeth. “They creep up on you when you least expect it. You know this shit costs like, hundreds to get dyed?”
“Leave it,” you say to him, giving a small nod as you speak. “It makes you look more mature. I mean, what does Yena think of it?”
“She loves it,” he says, catching a glimpse of his reflection in one of the glass cases and running his hands through his hair. “But she’d also love if I shaved my eyebrows off. She’ll compliment anything.”
“Then shave your eyebrows,” you say, chuckling, as you stuff your phone in the back pocket of your jeans. “You’re lucky to have a wife who’s so supportive of your decisions. I’m taking my lunch!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chris says, laughing as he shakes his head. “Oh, and Yena left you some pie in the back room.”
“Tell her thank you!” You call over your shoulder as you make your way to the back.
The back room is just a glorified storage closet, one dingy table pushed up against the wall, one wooden chair and shelves of records that need to be pushed out to the sales floor, or should’ve just been burned in the fire. You have to duck your head to not hit it on the hanging pendant lamp, its bulb buzzing concerningly loud as you take your seat and pry open the Tupperware container Yena left for you in the fridge- cherry pie, your favorite, from the diner down the street where she works.
As you take generous bites of your first meal of the day, you shuffle through a stack of records neglected on the table from last week’s donation. There are a myriad of genres- old jazz bands, electronic records, synth pop and even a few ambient pieces. As you flip over one of the covers, Chris calls to you from the front, his voice echoing around the dingy little storage closet.
“Y/n! I need you to come help out!”
And you sigh, promptly shutting the Tupperware closed again and making your way out to the front.
That’s the thing about this job- it’s small, but it’s busy, the hundreds of records demanding your very precise attention at any given moment of the day. You live to serve the people here, suggesting records to those seeking new sounds or curiously peering at genres unknown to them. And tourists are drawn to the place, often leaving with armfuls of old vinyl to add to their collections. It’s not a town they’ll likely ever visit again, you’re well aware, but the shop allows people to take a little piece of Ember with them wherever they go. And though the lack of grandiosity might not bring them back, your attentiveness to detail and passion for music sometimes do.
*
“Coffee?” Yena asks you, as you slide into the familiar spot of your favorite booth, next to the window in her diner. She saunters over with the pot anyway, setting a little white mug down in front of you and filling the cup halfway.
“Thanks,” you reply, already tearing open packs of creamer.
At half past 8, the record shop closes in only an hour, Chris taking on the role of closing procedures in your absence. It’s a routine life you lead, tending to the record shop by day and basking in the town’s simple pleasures by nighttime. And with all the people you love in it, you have no reason to leave, no rush to migrate elsewhere.
“How’s work?” Yena asks, sliding into the booth across from you and pulling a notepad out from her apron. She flips through the pages, stopping on a blank one and adding up her tips for the evening.
“Fine,” you say to her, taking a generous sip of coffee. “Just mostly repeat customers for today. But we did have a pretty hefty donation, so that’s a plus.”
“Anything good?” She questions, without looking up from her notepad.
“Negative. A lot of older stuff I used to listen to in high school.”
Yena finishes tallying up her tips, shutting her notepad and finally meeting your gaze.
“Hey, if that’s old, then I’m ancient.”
You both laugh, and she keeps her gaze on you for a moment before speaking again.
“Gosh, I still remember when you moved here. You were so… wide-eyed. And quiet.”
“I was so lost,” you say with a small chuckle. “I don’t even think I knew how to work a record player.”
“And now look at you,” she emphasizes, gesturing to your face. “You just seem… happy these days.”
She smiles for a moment, before gathering the empty cups of creamer off the table and sliding out of the booth.
“I hope you’ll stay here, if it means you’re always going to be this happy.”
You smile to yourself as she begins back toward the kitchen, humming to herself.
“Wasn’t planning on leaving!” You call out, and without turning around, she gives you a thumbs up before disappearing into the kitchen again.
*
Some days, your shifts feel like 5 minutes. Other days, they feel like 5 days. Today is the latter, the clock on the wall above the register ticking away by the second, and yet seemingly no closer to the end of your day. You’re on closing procedures this evening, Chris and Yena having taken the day off to have a much overdue date night. And it’s empty, like it usually is on Wednesday evenings, not a soul in sight as the town tends to their own duties, the tourists all working busy jobs in the city.
You slouch your shoulders over the wooden stool, dusting off a pile of folk records and shuffling through them, admiring the intricate paintings on the covers. It’s one of your favorite things about working here- locating the beautiful paintings and photographs that graze the covers of records, all of them vastly different from one another, but equally as evocative. You trace your fingertips over what appears to be a Polish record, a couple dressed in fancy colorful fabrics as he dips her into a bow. You can’t help but wonder what the atmosphere would be like if they were here in front of you, the whole room teeming with the choral ensemble as they’d tap their fancy shoes along the tile flooring and invite you to dance, too. The thought circles your mind with a smile, and you barely hear the next customer enter when they do.
The little gold bell hanging on the door chimes just once when they enter, indicating the arrival of a man, who promptly rushes to the back shelf without so much as a hello. Welcome, I guess, you want to say, dismissing their curtness with a shake of your head as you go back to organizing records.
You shuffle to the next record, admiring the black and white photo of a man with his guitar, a panama hat atop his curly head of hair as he sings into a microphone. It reminds you of the ones your dad used to collect before he passed.
“Excuse me?” A voice interrupts, and you practically jump, startled at the way he navigates the shop without a sound. He’s right in front of the register now, holding a CD in his hands and setting it down in front of you.
“I’d like to pay,” he continues, his baritone voice sounding painfully uninviting.
Without looking up at him, you take the CD from the counter, flipping it over to scan the barcode on the front. Four Decades of Jazz, the cover simply displaying the title in funky purple block text.
“This one’s actually on clearance,” you say, sliding the CD into a small paper bag. “Just 5.”
He pulls out a brown leather wallet, flipping through crisp bills as he searches for exact change. As he does, you take notice of the collection of silver rings that decorate his shorter fingers, a few of them painted with chipping black nail polish. Your gaze fixates on a thicker silver band, carved with black fleur de lis patterns that circle the band all the way around. You cock your head slightly, mapping out the pattern in your head as his hands move, the ring glistening under a beam of light that shines through the window and sets it aglow.
“It was a gift,” the man says when he notices you staring, and he holds out his index finger, rotating his finger to give you the full view.
You say nothing, your lips parting slightly as he does, transfixed by the way the silver hugs his finger and frames his veiny hands. The man stays silent, his gaze on the ring, too, as he pulls it off with a gentle tug and holds it up for you to see.
“Do you want to see it?” He asks, pinching the band between the pads of his fingers as he rotates it under the same beam of sunlight.
“No, thank you,” you reply, your mind still in a trance. “It just… reminds me of…” and your voice trails off, finally allowing your gaze to look up and meet the stranger’s.
His big brown eyes seem to widen when you finally lock eyes, his plump lips parting open as he scrambles to pull the ring back on.
“Something,” is all you can utter, folding the brown paper bag once in your hands and sliding it across the counter. “It reminds me of somebody I used to know.”
His breath hitches his throat as he finds the words to say, unable to string together a cohesive sentence as memories run rampant in his mind, everything coming back to him like a painful wound being reopened.
“Sorry,” is all he can say, clutching the brown bag in one hand as he gives you a small nod. “And thanks. For the CD. Or for ringing me up, rather. Thank you-”
“You’re welcome,” you reply briskly, pivoting on your heel to organize a stack of already-sorted records on the shelf behind you.
And you can still feel him there for a moment, his gaze boring into the back of your head like he wants to say something. But he doesn’t, instead observing the way your hair, a little shorter than he’d previously remembered it, sways gently in its ponytail as you go about your job.
You listen to the way the brown paper bag crumples in his grasp, before he finally retreats and exits, the little bell above the door indicating his departure.
And when you turn around again, there on the counter, his silver ring sits, glistening in the waning glint of the evening sun.
*
“The lattes are so expensive out there,” Yena says, as she takes a sip from her iced coffee. “I’d drink this gas station coffee any day over that stuff.”
You chuckle lightly, shaking your head as you wipe down the counter with a rag. Chris counts change in the register beside you, muttering counts to himself as he scribbles onto his clipboard and listens to your conversations.
“But hey, we still had a good time,” Yena continues, smiling over at Chris. “Sometimes leaving this town keeps you on your toes.”
“Yeah, well, I’m on my toes enough here as it is,” you respond, the three of you chuckling lightly amongst each other.
The bell atop the door chimes once, signifying the arrival of a new customer, and Chris gestures to the door as you look up.
“All you,” he says, going back to his work.
You fold the rag neatly, setting it on the counter and making your way over to the clearance aisle where the stranger stands. His back is turned toward you, his lanky frame towering over stacks of CDs as he thumbs through them casually.
“Can I help you find anything?” You chime in, your hands behind your back as you watch him. As you speak, he turns to face you, and you breathe a deep sigh of annoyance.
“Seriously?” You say, already retreating back to the counter again and turning away from him.
“Wait,” he calls, rushing after you and standing in front of the counter awkwardly. Chris looks up from his clipboard, furrowing his brows together as Yena shoots him an equally questioning look.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” you respond, unfolding the rag again and wiping down the register.
“Hey, hey,” Chris says, giving you a confused look.
“Don’t worry about it,” you say to Chris through gritted teeth, brushing off the interaction.
“I just wanted to-” the man begins, as he looms behind the counter, fiddling with his fingers nervously.
“Why would you come back?” You question, not looking at him still. “Wasn’t one time awkward enough?”
“I left my ring,” he finally says, dropping his hands at his sides.
Both your gazes fall to your hands, where the silver band rests comfortably on your index finger, almost like it’s always been yours.
“Yeah, whatever,” you reply, pulling it off and sliding it across the counter to him. “Here.”
He doesn’t say anything, not yet reaching for the ring, nor telling you to put it back on. A part of him is fascinated at the prospect you chose to wear it around at all.
The silence that falls over the shop is painfully awkward, Chris and Yena keeping their gazes locked between the two of you as you angrily scrub at a stain on the counter.
“Hey,” Chris says, finally pulling the rag from your grasp. “You’re scratching the wood, kiddo.”
“If no one wants that ring, give it here,” Yena says with a smile.
The ring is slowly lifted from the counter again, slid back onto the finger of its respective owner.
“We’ll give you guys a minute,” Chris says, motioning to the back room with the tilt of his head. And Yena follows him to the back, the till of the register balanced in his arms.
“What do you want?” You ask, finally meeting his gaze again. “I’m working right now.”
His face drops a little, giving you a small shrug before he speaks.
“I was just wondering how you were doing. And I thought-”
“Felix,” you say brazenly, your heartbeat quickening a little at the feeling of his name leaving your lips again after so long. “Cut the small talk. Just tell me why you’re here.”
He sighs as he fiddles with the band around his finger, the metal still warm from the contact against your skin.
“That’s it,” he explains. “I didn’t expect to see you here. And I wondered how you were doing.”
“So leaving your ring here wasn’t an elaborate plan to come back for it?”
“It… was,” he says sheepishly. “I needed an excuse to come see you again.”
“We sell records,” you emphasize. “That’s the only reason you should be here. And if it’s not, then leave.”
“Y/n,” Felix says frustratedly. His eyebrows arch up in an almost pleading manner, his lips quivering as he struggles to find the words to say.
It’s the first time you take notice of his changed appearance, completely opposite to the Felix you last spoke to. His once blonde locks are grown out, grazing over his bony shoulders, a robust shade of ebony that contrasts against his pale skin, tied up into a half ponytail. His plump lips glisten under a glossy coat of peach tint, and his freckles are almost unnoticeable from this distance. You furrow your brows to get a better look, trying to make out the beige constellations you remember so well. But you can’t locate them- not on his nose, or his cheeks or even around his eyes.
He dresses differently, too, a baggy white tank top under a black leather vest, almost too big for him as it swallows his lean figure. And he flaunts a hefty collection of silver jewelry- rings, rows of ear piercings, a chain link bracelet and layered necklaces. If you didn’t know his eyes like the back of your own hand, you might’ve not even recognized him to be Felix.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” You finally ask, your voice softening a little as he toys with the rings on his fingers.
“This is my favorite place for CDs,” he responds, his shoulders relaxing a little as he speaks. “I used to come here every weekend back in high school. I didn’t know you worked here now, I promise I’m not trying to make things weird.”
You sigh a little, shifting your eyes to the shelves and then back at him.
“Well what are you doing here now? Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”
Felix shrugs a little, his expression unchanging. “It’s complicated, I guess.” And then he furrows his brows at you, gesturing to the shop. “I could ask you the same question.”
“It’s complicated,” you reply, echoing his statement back at him. “And I’m not in the mood to indulge you with the story of my life.”
“I have time,” Felix says with a chuckle, and he’s met with your deafening silence.
“Sorry,” he follows, fiddling again with the rings on his fingers.
As you begin to ask him to leave, Chris and Yena enter from the back room again, carefully making their way toward you with hands shoved in their pockets.
“Hey,” Yena says, nudging you gently. “Everything okay, you guys?”
“Yes,” Felix is quick to chime in. “My apologies- I’m Felix,” he says with a beaming smile, holding out his hand to shake Yena and Chris’. They comply, exchanging warm smiles with him, still confused at why you seem so irate.
“I’m sorry to disrupt the peace,” Felix continues, giving them a little bow. “We’re just-”
“Old friends,” you interrupt, rolling your eyes at this act he puts on. “And he was just leaving.”
“Right,” Felix says, his lips pulling into a disheartened expression.
“Y/n doesn’t bring too many friends around here,” Chris chimes in. “What’s the rush to leave?” He chuckles as he finishes, and Yena hits him lightly as if signaling for him to stop.
“Actually,” Felix begins, and you sigh when you realize he’s not done talking yet. “I was wondering if you wanted to grab dinner, or a coffee or something.”
“Felix, I really don’t think-”
“It’s on me if you wanna come to the diner tomorrow,” Yena chimes in. “We still have leftover pie.”
And you pinch the bridge of your nose, sighing deeply as Felix stares at you with a hopeful expression. His eyes are big, gauging your response curiously as you shift your gaze amongst the three of them. Chris watches Yena, who holds her breath as you think. And Felix’s lip seems to quiver when you open your mouth to speak.
“No dinner. Just coffee. And Chris covers my closing shift.”
*
Felix is at the diner much earlier than you are, comfortably reserving a spot for you on a table in the middle of the room and allowing Yena to fill your mugs with hot coffee. He adds three packs of sugar, two cups of creamer and a dollop of whipped cream he requests from Yena. And he waits for you patiently, stacking the spare cups of creamer into an organized pyramid, in between nervous glances out the window.
Yena wants to ask who he is exactly- why you’d seemed so off yesterday, and whether he’s here for a reason, or just to catch up as the old friends you claim to be. But she refrains, knowing to stay out of your business the way you so graciously stay out of hers.
“More coffee?” Yena asks as she approaches Felix, taking note of the near empty mug in front of him now.
“Sure,” Felix replies, shooting her a nervous smile. His hands tremble a little as he shoves the pyramid of creamers away from him, pretending to look occupied with his phone instead.
Yena fills his mug to the brim again, sliding him the mug across the table and giving him an empathetic look.
“I’m sure she’ll be here,” Yena says, nodding affirmatively. “She’s usually a little late getting off work.”
And Felix just nods, keeping his gaze on the giant glass windows. Outside, the sun has already set for the evening, darkened skies casting over the little square of Ember. The streets are sparse at this hour, just a few pedestrians who also flock here after their shifts, and the diner is fairly empty with the exception of a few young couples. Felix scans the atmosphere as he waits, observing the way everybody seems so acquainted with the place. Red vinyl booths line the large glass windows, dimly lit by hanging pendant lamps that give a yellow hue to the wooden tables below them. Each table is neatly paired with a silver napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers, hot sauce and a myriad of syrup flavors. And a bright neon red sign advertising fresh pies flickers over the kitchen, which is hidden behind silver swinging doors. It looks like something straight out of a movie, he thinks to himself, as a table nearby is served steaming plates of omelets and fries. And as Felix turns his attention back toward the glass windows, he finally sees you approaching, earbuds in and a nonchalant expression on your face. Your hair is tucked loosely behind your ears, a simple ensemble of loose fitting jeans and a sweater complementing your worn down sneakers. The bell on the door chimes as you make your way inside, a smile on your face as you talk briefly with Yena upon entering. And she gestures back to Felix, who gives a little wave from where he’s sitting, in time for his third coffee refill of the evening.
“This isn’t my table,” you say to Felix when you approach, gathering your mug of coffee and gesturing to your favorite booth against the window. Felix’s eyes flicker to the booth, a confused expression on his face as you wait for him to relocate.
“Well? Are you coming, or what?”
“Yeah, um, sorry,” Felix responds, clutching his mug in one hand and carefully bringing it across the room to the booth.
You furrow your eyes when you look back at the table, a tall pyramid of creamer cups placed where Felix was sitting.
Felix slides in the booth across from you, gesturing to your mug and meeting your gaze.
“Do you take cream? Or sugar?”
“Just two,” you say, picking your cups from the little bowl at the end of the table and tearing them open.
He nods, stirring his coffee around with a spoon as you prepare yours.
“Let me guess,” you say with a knowing smile. “8 packs sugar, 4 things of creamer and an entire can of whipped cream.”
He chuckles lightly, angling you the contents of his cup, which now contains a mixture of frothy melted cream and coffee the color of chocolate milk.
“You always did have a sweet tooth,” you respond, laughing and shaking your head. “Might as well just have a sundae while you’re at it.”
When you’re finished, you hold your mug in both hands, taking a generous sip of the steamy beverage and setting it back down with a gentle thud. Felix watches you intently, like he’s waiting for you to initiate the conversation, but you don’t, raising your eyebrows at him as you wait for him to speak.
“I’m just visiting for a bit,” Felix finally says, twiddling his thumbs on the table in front of him. “I’m doing my classes remotely this semester.”
You nod, saying nothing, as he searches for more words to say.
“Are your classes remote, too?” He continues.
“There are no classes,” you interrupt quickly, before he can press you for more information about school. “I dropped out of college.”
“You did?” Felix retorts, his eyes widening a little at how easily you admit to it. Not an ounce of shame, like it was planned from the start.
“Why?” He follows, tracing mindless patterns into the wood of the table below him.
“Because I hated it. Anything else you want to know?”
“Why are you all the way out here?”
“Because I love it here.”
“And how are your parents?”
“My dad died. Last spring. Are we done now?”
Felix swallows nervously, averting your gaze as he taps his knee nervously under the table.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
You just nod at him, pursing your lips a little and toying with the handle on your mug.
“Are you going to tell me about yourself, or do I need to play 20 questions, too?” You ask him, rolling your eyes as a smile grows on his face.
Felix chuckles lightly, relieved that you’ve already forgiven his clear overstepping here.
“I’m still in college. I’m just… undecided. I took a semester off a little while ago because I don’t know what I want to do. I haven’t actually been to class physically in… a good while.”
You nod empathetically at his words, the reality of them contradictory to the Felix you once knew. He was a straight A student when you knew him last, quick to join campus clubs and gain popularity wherever he went. People often commented on how different both of you were from each other- Felix, a bright young student who could light up a room with his smile, always so eager to ask questions and familiarize himself with the world around him. And you, a bit more reserved, your world often tainted by the reality of the hardships you’d faced, and the knowledge that life, when not lived for yourself, is often arduous.
“So you’re doing a bit of soul-searching,” you say to Felix, no stranger to the concept of tourists stopping through here to ‘start life anew’ at the sight of run-down coffee shops and bookstores. And when they find what they’re looking for, they’re gone again, like a soul could never thrive here in the town of Ember, even if it’s where it materialized.
“You could say that,” he responds, swirling the remainder of whipped cream around his cup with a spoon. “Things just haven’t been… great.”
You nod in response, averting his gaze as you study the wooden table below him.
“Well good luck,” you finally say, taking a generous gulp of your coffee and scanning the room for Yena before the conversation can go any further than the base-level declarations of your new separate lives.
“Do you remember that night we snuck out of your house?” Felix asks suddenly, just as you begin to get up.
“What?”
“It was raining. I think it was like 3 in the morning.”
You turn to face him again, narrowing your eyes as he speaks.
“I didn’t have a car at the time,” Felix continues. “So you rode on the handles of my bike in the pouring rain. We went to watch the sunrise, only we didn’t realize that of course because we were in the middle of a storm, there was-”
��No visible sunrise,” you interrupt quietly. “We just watched the clouds turn a lighter shade of gray.”
Felix grins a little as you finish, nodding his head.
“Exactly. And when we got home at 5am, your dad was already awake. And he’d never met me before- we swore he’d have it out for me. But he didn’t- he brought us blankets, and he made us tea and laughed his ass off at our stupidity.”
“There’s no sunrise in a fucking storm!” You exclaim, echoing your dad’s lighthearted lecture from so long ago.
Felix laughs with you, the warm memory circling your minds, both of you equally as endeared by the tale you so vividly remember. As your laughter dies down, Felix keeps his gaze on yours, shooting you a half smile as he speaks again.
“Your dad really loved you. And… it’s one of my favorite memories, even today.”
You hold his gaze too, clutching the handle of your mug again and giving him a small nod, your lip quivering a little at the mention of your father.
“Thanks, Felix,” you say in a melancholy tone, taking a deep breath in an attempt to hold back your tears.
When the feeling’s passed, Felix spoons another dollop of whipped cream into his cup and brings it up to his lips.
“Your hair’s shorter,” he says with a chuckle.
“Yours is longer,” you retort. “And black.”
“I’m trying something new.”
“I can tell,” you say, laughing lightly. “And what’s with all the screws and washers in your ears?”
“My piercings?” He replies. “They’re a fashion statement!”
“They look painful.”
“This one was,” Felix says, toying with the silver helix piercing in his lobe.
“And this one,” his fingers trail down to another silver stud, just below the first. “And maybe this one.”
“At what point is this just inflicting pain on yourself for fun?”
“I’m not finished!” Felix says, as you both share amused laughter. He thumbs over another row of silver studs, thinking intently as he speaks. “This one hurt, this one definitely hurt…”
*
“How was your dinner thing last night?” Chris asks in the morning, shooting you a knowing smile as he breaks a new roll of quarters in the till.
“Coffee,” you emphasize.
“Coffee,” he echoes. “How was coffee, with your old friend?”
“It was okay,” you respond, organizing a stack of records on the shelf across the counter. “Just catching up, mostly.”
“Yena said you guys were there for hours.”
“Maybe we were.”
“Hours?” Chris repeats, shaking his head. “What could you have possibly talked about that lasted hours?”
“Friend stuff,” you reply to him. “Maybe if you had some, you’d know.”
“Ouch, kiddo,” he says, clutching his chest in a joking manner as you both laugh.
As you turn to grab another stack of records, the bell over the door chimes, and your heads snap in the direction of the noise. And like you’d accidentally spoken him into existence again, Felix saunters in, a shy smile on his face. He looks a little more casual this time, in just jeans and a black t-shirt, but still different than you remembered him nonetheless.
“Speak of the angel,” Chris mutters, nudging you with his elbow as he waves at Felix.
“Hi,” Felix says cheerfully. “It’s nice and warm in here. Outside’s really cold.”
“Felix, what are you doing here?” You sigh, averting Chris’ shit-eating grin.
“What? I’m buying some CDs.”
“We have a good amount on clearance,” Chris says from where he’s standing. “Back shelf.”
“Thanks!” Felix replies, and you pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance.
“Chris, would you give us a minute?”
And he nods, shooting Felix a thumbs up, before disappearing to the back room with a stack of papers.
“Look,” you begin, turning to Felix. “Last night was fun and all, but I’m still working a job. This doesn’t just make amends or something. It was great catching up, but respectfully, I really don’t want to see you again.”
Felix nods a little, and then he hoists something over his arm. It’s the first time you take notice of it- a black crossbody satchel, draped over one arm, his hand resting casually on the zipper.
“Then I suppose getting help for my project is a no?”
You narrow your eyes at him, gesturing to the bag with a tilt of your head. “What’s in the bag?”
“You don’t get to know if you don’t help me.”
“Just tell me.”
“Promise you’ll help me.”
“Felix-”
He holds the bag a little further away from his body, effectively shielding it from your view and shaking his head. “And it was such a good surprise, too.”
“Just tell me what’s in the stupid bag!”
Felix finally holds the bag out in front of him, unzipping it and carefully pulling out its contents. He reveals a digital camera to you, slinging the strap over his neck and holding it up to squint into the lens. “Smile!”
“What- that’s it?” You question, shielding your face from his view. “How does this pertain to me?”
“I’m photographing the town,” he replies, fidgeting with the lens in his hands. “I need some help.”
“Why would you need my help with that? I’m not a photographer.”
“Yeah but you know this town, and all of its little quirks.”
“There’s a maps app on your phone for a reason, Felix.”
Felix gets quiet again as he fidgets with the lens on his camera, doing nothing particularly useful as he prays you’ll change your answer. And he’s not lying- he does need to photograph this town, and all of its hidden gems for his creative project this semester. But he would be lying if he said having you keep him company wasn’t all he thought about when he went to bed last night, and woke up this morning and inevitably found himself back at your record shop.
“You used to be the best model,” Felix says just above a whisper, letting his camera hang loosely at his waist now. “I still have all my film photos of you.”
The room gets a little quiet as you meet his gaze, not missing the way his eyes seem to soften into a somber expression. He’s always had this way of begging- pleading for what he wants, and you’ve very seldom been able to say no to him. Seeing him stand in front of you now, heavy camera in his small hands and a dream circling his mind, you know the fact still stands true.
“If I do this for you, this is the last favor I run you.”
His lips pull into a toothy smile, his eyes forming little crescents as he nods eagerly.
“I promise. I won’t ask you for anything else.”
When Chris reenters the room, he shoots you a questioning look, which you wave off with a casual roll of your eyes.
“What time are you off today?” Felix asks, and Chris purposely nudges you as he passes by.
“Later. Just come by at closing or something.”
“Yeah, I can do that. Do you want me to bring a coffee or anything-”
“See you at closing, Felix,” you respond with a smile, and you gesture back to the door.
He nods, seeing himself out, camera firmly grasped in his two hands as he waves again through the window.
*
Felix drives the same shitty car he did when you last knew him. Its chipped navy blue exterior clashes horribly with the beige leather seats, the inside tainted by the permanent odor of cigarettes from its previous owner, Felix making futile efforts to mask the smell with pine tree air fresheners. The seatbelts are frayed, the legroom is nearly nonexistent and the live radio is completely busted, with the exception of the CD player.
“All jazz?” You question, shuffling through a neat book of Felix’s CD collection.
“Yeah,” Felix replies, two hands gripping the steering wheel as he adjusts in his seat. “They’re mostly just whatever’s cheapest.”
“I can tell,” you say with a chuckle, reaching the last page, where Four Decades of Jazz now occupies a sleeve of its own. You pop the CD into the player, turning the volume up a few notches and sitting back comfortably as the melodic tune of a saxophone fills the space around you.
“What’s this next place again?” Felix asks, as you shut your eyes and listen to the jazzy beat.
You’ve stopped at three locations already, all spots in Ember you’re particularly fond of. The old bridge that runs over train tracks, a narrow pathway into another world in late evenings. It’s always surrounded by starlings, which flock when the trains pass through and chirp songs that mirror the train’s cacophonous whistle.
The cathedral just north of your record shop, which you don’t attend regularly like the other town-goers do, but always greets you graciously with its towering stained glass windows and crested walls.
And a now abandoned grocery store just a few blocks away, the walls on the back now housing impressive graffiti murals and doodles.
“This last one is a more scenic spot,” you finally respond, opening your eyes as his car passes over a speed bump. “It’s my favorite one.”
Felix just nods as he continues driving, the road narrowing into a one-way route, the area surrounded by wet grassland and barely visible amidst the thick fog.
“What’s the whole premise of this project?” You ask him, realizing you haven’t quite figured out what part you play in this, anyway.
Felix is silent for a moment, his hands rotating over the wheel as he turns into another narrow road.
“It’s just a photography project. About observing your surroundings.”
“Why does it have to be here?”
And he smiles, chuckling lightly to himself, as he reaches a hand out and sprawls his palm over your mouth.
“You ask so many questions! You haven’t changed at all.”
You respond in muffled laughter, prying his hand off your mouth with two hands and shoving it back toward the steering wheel.
“I’m just curious!”
Your shared giddy laughter fills the car for several minutes, exchanging amused glances as he pulls into an open parking lot and circles around to look for a spot. And you let your fingertips graze along your cheek, briefly, remembering the sensation of his hand on you very well.
*
The fourth spot is a spacious grassland just past the hills, not necessarily a hidden gem by the town’s standards, but a place you discovered shortly after you moved out here. It requires hopping a fence to access, jogging down a steep dirt path and then marching back up a grassy hill to make it to your “sweet spot”- or a little dip in the top of the hill, perfect for setting up a picnic blanket and sitting upon for hours.
And of course the best part about it- the view. The whole town is visible from up here, the little buildings and shops you know so intimately an entirely different perspective from this height. Sometimes you imagine what you look like from this view- just a tiny speck of a human in a town not much bigger, crossing back and forth between your apartment, the diner and the record shop.
“You got it?” You ask Felix as he hoists himself up the last stretch of grass, balancing his camera in his hands and dusting off his jeans.
“Yeah,” he replies, coming around to occupy the spot next to you on the grass. You sit back on your hands, your legs crossed at the ankles as you take in the view you know so well. Felix sits cross-legged, toying with the lens of his camera as he prepares to snap a few photos.
“It’s nice up here,” he comments, filling the silence with the clicking noises of his camera.
“Yeah,” you respond shortly, your gaze fixed on the record shop. “It’s a pretty special place.”
He turns the lens, bringing his camera up and snapping a series of photos as you watch him out of your peripheral vision.
“How’d you find it?” Felix asks, scanning the photos and going to take another set.
“I get around,” you reply with a smile, keeping your answer short.
He takes one last set of photos, angling his camera at different sides, and when he’s done, he carefully places the camera in his carrier bag and leans back on his hands, too.
“You really have things figured out here,” Felix says a little quietly, turning to look at you while you keep your gaze straight ahead.
“I didn’t have a choice. It was up to me to keep things going.”
“And… how’s your mom?” He replies quietly.
You shake your head, adjusting your position so that you’re sitting cross-legged, too.
“I don’t know. Last I heard she was out west. New boyfriend or something.”
Felix nods reluctantly, not wanting to press the issue further.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he chimes in suddenly. “I hope you didn’t leave thinking that.”
“It’s fine,” you reply, brushing him off.
“No, listen to me,” Felix continues, turning to face you. “I know you hate talking about it. And I won’t bring it up again. But none of this was your fault. And that summer I wanted so badly to fix everything and take away your pain, and I just… I couldn’t. And I’m sorry.”
You don’t say anything to him, fidgeting with a blade of grass on the ground below you and reminding yourself to keep it together. Don’t cry. Don’t feel.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Felix says bluntly, like he can read your thoughts.
“What thing-”
“That thing. Where you don’t let yourself feel.”
“I feel a lot of things, Felix.”
“Then why haven’t we talked about it yet?”
“Talked about about what?”
“Why you left,” he finally finishes, huffing frustratedly. “Why are we not addressing it? Am I supposed to just act like it didn’t happen?”
“Felix, I really think-”
“You said you would stay and fight for what was ahead of us. And then you disappeared on me. You know how hard it was to go on with my life like you weren’t a missing person for all I knew? You didn’t even call.”
“I changed my number,” you say quietly.
“Yeah, I figured that much after three years.”
Felix gets quiet again, shaking his head as he turns his gaze back to the view. You don’t say anything for a moment, his words swirling in your mind as your heart beats erratically. There’s so much to say- so much you want to explain to him. But the words are caught in the back of your throat, dissipating with every passing second you fail to vocalize them. He glances at you again, hoping you’ll come around- but you don’t, your gaze now transfixed on the blade of grass that rolls between the pads of your fingers.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it,” Felix finally says. “And… I’m sorry.”
A copper sunset falls over the buildings below you, casting shadows around you that dance along the blades of grass and disappear over the rolling hills. They shift from massive charcoal forms into smaller shapes that sway with the setting sun, quick to get away from you and disappear when they graze over your seated figures.
“You know there was a fire here, like, 50 years ago,” you say to Felix, still averting eye contact.
“There was?”
“Mhm. See there?” You question, pointing out a vast, empty field and gesturing to the buildings across from it.
“It started east, and it traveled west. And everything there burned, and a few people even died.”
“Wow,” Felix responds. “I didn’t know that. That’s terrible.”
“A lot of the neighboring cities didn’t know this place existed. But when they heard about the fire, many of them came out here, just to donate and help build things back up. Even the record shop burned. The one we have now is a lot smaller.”
He nods as he listens to your story, glancing back at the town as he pictures the blazing flames that ate away most of its structure back then.
“I always think about it,” you continue. “Everyday I imagine how hard it must’ve been to pick up and build things from the ground up again. Chris’ grandfather did it, with the record shop. And the diner did it. And they’re still doing it, keeping things running the way they are.”
Felix nods again, turning to look at you as you watch the town.
“No one could’ve prevented the fire. They could pick up and move on, but things still burned before they did, and people still died.”
Felix begins to say something, his lips parting, but his breath hitches in the back of his throat, and he settles in silence as you finish.
“I’m somewhere there,” you say to him after a silent pause. “I’m somewhere between the fire and the mending.”
And he doesn’t have to say anything else, understanding that this is your way of explaining things.
As darkness begins to fall over you both, you think back to the last time you sat with him like this, on the old hill in your hometown, waiting for a sunrise that never came around. You had passed the time kissing and touching each other so desperately, speaking visions of a new life into existence and making hushed promises to embrace the end together. An end that came to fruition without him, one you ran from before could look it in its face and brave it with Felix by your side.
But here on the familiarity of your hill, looking over a town that burned like the flames inside of you do now, you know there’s good, there are people who will make the journey to help you rebuild no matter what their reservations previously were. But it also takes time, and patience, and the strength to admit things have turned to ash in the first place.
And sometimes, like this town, things and people turn to Ember, a dim glowing reminder of what happened always present still.
*
Soul-searching capital of the world. 6:00pm. On the cusp of winter.
“Think you’re ready?” You query at Felix, pulling the straw out from your vanilla milkshake to lick the other end.
“I think so,” he responds, sorting through a stack of photos on the table.
“Felix, your whipped cream,” Yena says as she turns the corner and sets a small bowl down in front of him.
“Thank you,” Felix replies with a small smile, already spooning a generous amount into his coffee.
The last two weeks have been cordial between the two of you, a sense of normalcy finally present during your time together as Felix wrapped up his photography shots and developed them at the convenience store in town. The pictures are beautiful, little precious neutral-toned glimpses into your everyday life and the town you love so much. It feels like Felix finally understands you, neither pressing you for answers anymore, nor trying to initiate anything more between the two of you like you’d feared. And although the photography sessions have spanned a little more time than you’d originally anticipated they would, you’re well aware this will all be over soon, and then you can get back to the normal, simple life you lead, without having to look introspectively at the state of things. You’re fine, and Felix doesn’t force you to think about it anymore.
“I just have to submit these, and then I’ll be done for the semester,” Felix explains.
“Are you staying in town for the holidays?” You ask suddenly, realizing you’ve never even inquired what his plans are for after this photography project is finished.
“I don’t know,” Felix responds, glancing at the stack of photos. “I don’t really have any solid plans.”
You don’t miss the way he fidgets with the ring on his finger, averting your gaze and swallowing nervously. It’s another habit Felix possesses, getting you to drag him along practically anywhere, but it’s hard to say no when he makes every effort to be so polite and forgiving.
You sigh deeply, praying you won’t regret the words before they leave your mouth.
“Look, a couple friends I have throw a party every year around the holidays. We just get together to smoke and talk. You can come, if you want.”
Felix’s expression brightens almost instantly, meeting your gaze again with big hopeful eyes and a beaming smile.
“Really?”
“Don’t make it weird,” you say, chuckling softly. “It’s just a small thing to unwind.”
“I’ll be there,” Felix responds with a nod. “And I won’t make it weird, I promise.”
“So…” Yena teases, sliding into the booth across from you and raising her eyebrows. “What’s… going on between you two?”
“Who?” You question, cocking your head slightly.
“Oh come on,” she emphasizes. “You guys are attached at the hip. We barely get girl time together anymore. He can’t just be an old friend.”
“He is,” you voice back. “We just go way back, that’s all.”
“He’s cute,” she says, glancing out the window at Felix’s lanky figure making his way back to his car. You both watch as he struggles to get his car open, yanking on the door handle a little hard and stumbling back.
“Well he’s single,” you retort with a soft chuckle. “So if you ever get tired of Chris, he’s your guy.”
“I see the way he looks at you,” Yena explains, as she pulls out her notepad and adds her tips for the evening. “Like he has stars in his eyes or something. I remember when Chris and I met, he was a lot like that.”
“Yena, we’re really not-”
“I know,” she says, shaking her head with a smile. “Feelings, feelings. Yuck. I’m just saying.”
You turn your gaze toward the window again, watching as Felix starts his car and backs out of the parking lot, strands of his ebony hair falling into his eyes as he checks behind him.
And Yena smiles, taking notice out of her peripheral vision at the stars in your eyes, too.
*
Seungmin’s annual holiday party is a tradition you joined in on the first year you moved out here. Working at the record shop your first year, you had no friends, no family and you were completely isolated from the town when you weren’t picking up shifts. He was a regular customer with a knack for old rock records, and he pitied the shifts you worked while the rest of the town mingled at their annual holiday events you’d hear so much about. An invitation to his holiday party was a big feat for you, not only because it was one of the first events you attended here, but because it allowed you to spend the holidays alongside people again, something you hadn’t done since your father’s passing. And thus, Seungmin invites you back every year, never missing a chance to talk records with you and challenge you to eggnog shots.
“I just want to pop these in the trunk really quick,” you say as you open the car door on the passenger side and gesture for the key from Felix. “I usually lend Seungmin a few spare records we have-”
Felix hasn’t registered a word you’ve said, completely entranced by the way your short skirt hugs your hips, a black leather coat thrown over your shoulders and a different pair of sneakers than he’s used to seeing. It’s much different than how he’s normally seen you, dressed down in sweaters and baggy jeans.
And Felix looks particularly dashing, too, his ebony hair tied up again to display his impressive collection of ear piercings, a fitted leather jacket hugging his slim figure and black jeans that elongate his legs. You give him a once-over as he cranes his neck from the driver’s seat and tosses you the keys, unable to verbalize his regard for your outfit. But as you make your way around the car to the trunk, popping it open and placing Seungmin’s stack of records inside, he can’t help but stare in the interior view mirror at the way your skirt rides up when you bend over, exposing a little more of your thighs and leaving little to the imagination.
The drive to Seungmin’s is only a few blocks down from Ember Records, one which Felix completes while stealing very obvious glances at you and making every attempt to calm his erratically beating heart. You pretend the glances go unnoticed, keeping your gaze on the darkened road ahead and making small talk about the party. But you don’t miss the way Felix’s voice hitches in the back of his throat when he speaks, his trembling hands turning the wheel as he pulls into the cul-de-sac and puts the car in park.
And he wants nothing more than to stay here, with you, to sit in his dingy little car and talk with you about everything that happened, to assure you that you’re not alone in your process of mending- he’ll love you through it, regardless. But as Seungmin makes his way out the front door with a red solo cup in hand, calling loudly for you, Felix knows that’s not a possibility.
“Y/n!” Seungmin exclaims, a big toothy grin plastered on his face at the sight of you. He’s a bit taller than Felix is, long legs that frame his slim torso, and a chiseled jawline that makes Felix a little jealous. His voluminous chocolate tresses fall into his eyes as he speaks, and he uses a slender hand to push them away again, shooting you another flashy smile as he chuckles lightly.
“What’d you bring me this time?” He asks, balancing the presumed cup of alcohol in one hand as he watches you retreat to the trunk of the car.
“Couple rock, some alternative and that one artist you liked last time?”
“Hell yeah,” Seungmin replies, as he takes the records from your grasp and shuffles through them eagerly.
Felix clears his throat as he stands beside you, his hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of his leather jacket as he waits for an introduction.
“Sorry,” you voice, stepping aside and gesturing to Felix.
“This is Felix. He’s an old friend of mine.”
Seungmin hardly looks up from his stack of records, just briefly glancing at Felix and giving him a small nod.
“Hey man. Cool to meet you.”
And Felix’s lips pull into a thin-lipped smile, averting his gaze, too, as he nods.
“Yeah. Same.”
Your eyes dart between Seungmin and Felix, both of them painfully awkward as they stand beside you, avoiding eye contact like some unspoken challenge and looming over you like you’re meant to be the host.
“Should we get inside?” You finally ask, wrapping your arms around yourself and gesturing to the house with a tilt of your head.
“Yeah, sorry,” Seungmin says with a soft chuckle, still averting Felix’s gaze and pivoting on his heel to begin toward the house. Felix gestures for you to follow, trailing behind you and doing his best to steady his nerves as the three of you finally make your way inside.
The house is already crowded for the evening, people standing just about everywhere, red cups in hand and joints pinched between their fingers. They exhale white clouds of smoke as they converse amongst themselves, their eyes all tainted red, as they let all the weed and alcohol consume their consciousness and instill a calm demeanor in themselves. Felix finds himself standing a little closer to you as you approach the sofa everyone’s sitting around, their bodies lazily slung over one another as they chat and drink.
“Y/n’s here,” Seungmin says, as he passes the sofa and heads into what Felix presumes to be his bedroom, with the stack of records in hand.
“Hey!” They call in misarticulated voices. You make your rounds, greeting each of them and exchanging brief anecdotes with them, while Felix remains standing with his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the way you smile cheerfully and acquaint yourself with everyone in the room.
You look so relaxed, so well-adjusted to your new life in this little town. As stories are thrown back and forth between yourself and the guests, Felix wonders how long you’ve known them to be able to converse with them to such an intimate extent. They share stories of your shifts at work, stories of previous parties, tales of past lovers they’ve had and late nights all of you spent up in this exact household. Felix can’t help but wonder what he was doing during those moments- probably studying for a test at university, or hooking up with someone he didn’t exactly care for. And by nighttime, he was likely up thinking of you- pondering where you’d gone, what you were up to. If you thought about him just as much as he thought about you.
Part of him wants to be angry, listening in on your stories like this- you’re laughing about parties, exchanging tales of difficult customers- moments that occurred while he was up waiting for you, hoping one day you’d change your mind about everything and return. Felix swore every sunset began to look the same without you there to watch them alongside him, every sunrise much bleaker than the last- even the stars he’d gaze at through his window seemed to lose their meaning.
But watching you like this, a smile that hasn’t left your face once since entering the house and the familiar sound of your harmonious laughter, he knows maybe you did the right thing, after all. Maybe Felix wasn’t a part of this plan life had for you- and perhaps, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that he never will be.
“Felix?” You question, effectively snapping him out of the trance he’s fallen into just by watching you.
“Huh?” He responds, aware that the row of guests on the couch appear to be waiting for him to say something.
“How long are you here for?” One of them repeats, his stare a little cold as he raises his eyebrows and prompts an answer out of Felix.
“Oh, uh… I’m not sure yet. Just for the holidays, I guess.”
They nod in collective unison, no one saying a word as they gauge how nervous he seems to be. And you shoot them an apologetic smile, also clocking Felix’s awkward demeanor as he remains silent and avoids carrying on with the conversation.
“Anyone got a light?” You finally break the silence, and everyone chimes in to answer, offering you joints from between their fingers and fishing colorful lighters out from their pockets. You take a seat on the rug, patting the space next to you, and Felix follows your lead, crossing his legs in the spot beside you and taking a hit from the joint you offer him.
Felix feels himself calm a little as the mellow sensation begins to wash over him, his worries dissipating as he listens to you begin to share another story with the group of people. And his mind wanders back to the past, contemplating your actions and mirroring them with the current state of things.
Three hours into the party, you’re both a little buzzed, feeling much more mellow than you had upon entering, despite taking only one hit from a joint. The room is heavy with thick clouds of smoke, the pungent smell of weed and alcohol present at every corner of the room. Just sitting here and talking gets you high, and you find yourself enjoying the company alongside Felix.
It reminds you of back then, when you and Felix used to attend parties together and run off to random bedrooms for a quick fuck. You’d often find yourself leaving early to spend time just between the two of you, hitting all your signature spots to catch sunrises or binge greasy food. And Felix feels much more relaxed around you now, making small talk with the guests and observing the way you try your hardest to include him in the conversations. As Seungmin takes another hit from his joint, he slouches back in the concave leather of the couch, his gaze darting over the two of you as Felix eyes you curiously.
“So what’s the deal between you two?” He asks, narrowing his eyes as he awaits a response.
“We’re just old friends-” Felix begins to say, but you interrupt him before Seungmin can catch the answer.
“He’s my best friend.”
Felix’s head snaps in your direction, unsure if maybe he heard you incorrectly, or if you’re genuinely claiming that Felix, whose guts you’ve hated for the better part of three years now, is your best friend.
“Best friends?” Seungmin repeats in slurred speech, and you give him a nod.
“Yeah,” you say again confidently. “He’s my best friend.”
And Felix’s lips pull into an involuntary smile, the tips of his ears turning a bright shade of red as he reaffirms your words.
When you turn to smile at him, he pats the space in front of him, extending his legs so that he’s created a spot for you to settle in. And in your buzzed, mellowed out state, you comply, scooting back and slotting yourself between his long legs, letting yourself lean back against his chest and shutting your eyes briefly. Felix reluctantly brings two hands around you, holding you a little closer to him, but you don’t protest the action, the familiar sensation of his arms around you feeling comfortable and safe like it always used to.
“I’d think you guys were fucking if I didn’t know any better,” Seungmin voices, joining a chorus of laughter as he brings the joint up to his lips again.
“So what if we were?” You retort casually, feeling the way Felix’s embrace gets a little tighter around you.
“Nothing wrong with it. It’s just easy to see through you guys. Especially the way this Danny from Grease wannabe looks at you.”
And Felix’s eyes furrow at the statement, well aware of the fact that Seungmin’s begun to get a little aggressive, but not wanting to incite anything that might jeopardize your friendships.
“I should probably go,” Felix says just above a whisper, his mouth hovering just over your shoulder so that you can hear him over all the noise.
“What? No,” you reply, turning your head to meet his gaze. His eyes are wide, his lip trembling a little as he speaks. Felix isn’t confrontational- a fact you’re very aware of.
“I don’t want to start anything-” he begins to say, and you place a hand on his forearm comfortingly.
“Then let’s both get out of here. I’m kinda bored, anyway.”
He’s surprised at the offer- and undoubtedly moved by the prospect that you’ve chosen to stick with him instead of stay here at the party with all your friends. And because he wants to spend the time with you, he doesn’t protest when you turn to voice your decisions to the crowd.
“Well Danny from Grease and I are getting out of here. So you can let your imaginations run wild since you’re so obsessed with us.”
Seungmin chuckles lightly, too stoned to ask you to stay, and candidly, to care about any of it.
“My old records are on the kitchen table,” Seungmin says, as he shuts his eyes and exhales a generous cloud of smoke. “Catch you guys later.”
*
“Where are we going?” Felix asks, as he puts the car into park and watches you unbuckle your seatbelt.
“I have to put the records I lent to Seungmin back in the shop. It’ll only take like two minutes.”
He nods in response, his gaze fixed on the darkened record shop, not used to seeing it at this hour.
“You coming?” You ask him, gesturing to the door, and Felix snaps out of his tranced state, unbuckling his seatbelt, too.
As you twist your keys and push the door open, Felix feels a bit unsettled seeing the shop at this hour. The shelves are pitch dark at the hour, the usually colorful vinyl all looking indistinguishable as they sit in stacks against each other and gather dust. The neon sign above the CD wall is shut off, not even the gentle hum of the bulb present amongst the silence. And the doorway to the back room looks like something out of a horror movie, seeming as though someone- or something, could pop out at any given moment. It feels wrong being here- and he knows he probably shouldn’t be, but he’s not in the place to leave your side just yet.
“Don’t turn on the lights,” you say to Felix when you enter, him following closely behind you. “I don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”
You begin toward the back room, glancing over your shoulder to ensure Felix is following. And he is, albeit reluctantly.
The back room is much smaller than Felix had originally anticipated it to be. It smells of paint, looking far more run-down than the rest of the store, and he’s not sure how anyone can take a lunch break back here considering the lack of table space and seating options.
“This is the break room?” Felix asks, squinting his eyes when you pull the chain beside the medallion lamp and illuminate the room with a dim, orange glow.
“Yeah,” you reply, now shuffling through Seungmin’s old records and putting them in their respective genres. “This is where I eat my sandwiches.”
He chuckles softly, running his hands over the series of music posters pinned to the cork walls, taking in the view you see everyday at noon.
“There’s a record player in here!” Felix exclaims, bending down to examine the 6200 marantz wood turntable on a little cart, just to the left of the dining table.
“Well this is a record shop, you reply with a chuckle, slotting the last few of Seungmin’s vinyl into the shelf. “It wouldn’t make sense if we didn’t have one.”
“Does it work?” Felix asks, tracing the silicone grooves of the platter with his fingers.
“Of course,” you respond, finally turning around to meet his gaze. “Pick something.”
Felix scans the shelves at the neat rows of vinyl, all packed together and indistinguishable from their thin colorful spines alone. He pulls one out, examining illustrations of flowers on the cover, and then slots it back into its respective home. Another flaunts an abstract pattern of cool-toned hues, which Felix observes briefly, and places it back where it belongs, too.
“I can’t decide,” he voices plainly, his eyes scanning over the rows that span the entire length of the room, some of them visibly much older than the rest.
Your fingers graze the spines, too; letting the cracked ridges serve as indication of their age, and then you pinch one between the pads of your fingers, pulling it out to examine the cover. It’s painted sky blue, with images of autumnal trees that stand tall and contrast the gentle hues nicely. In bold red cursive text, the title is scrawled at the top, followed by a brief list of credits and arrangements.
“The Seasons, by Tchaikovsky,” you read aloud.
You recall putting this one on the shelf after a donation a few weeks prior, never having listened to it yourself.
“Will you play it?” Felix asks, and you nod your head in response, already pulling out the black disc and placing it neatly on the record platter. You flip it on, and then bring the tonearm to a random spot, letting the cue lever lower it into place and begin playing. After a few seconds of fidgeting with the volume, the soft sounds of piano begin to fill the room, a somber arrangement that slows into gentler, discoordinate notes.
“This one’s probably winter,” you say to Felix, hoisting yourself up on the table and sitting on your hands. “It sounds sad.”
“Yeah,” he responds, his eyes fixated on the slow turn of the disc, a soft crackling noise emitting as the tonearm runs over the grooves.
Felix suddenly reaches for the bag slung over his shoulder, unzipping the pouch and pulling out his camera.
“What are you doing?” You ask with a soft chuckle, amused at the way he so quickly rushes to adjust the settings.
“I want to take a picture. It’s a nice record player.”
And with the rhythmic click of the lens, he snaps a series of photos, angling himself a bit higher to capture every moving part of the old thing. When he’s finished, he examines the photos himself, a small smile tugging at his lips as he looks over the moment in time captured so perfectly on the little screen of his device. Without warning you, Felix then holds the camera up once more, snapping a quick photo of you and chuckling softly to himself.
“Stop!” You say through laughter, holding a hand up to shield your face as he snaps a few more. “Felix, I’m serious!”
“It’s just for me!” Felix exclaims, bringing his camera down again and scrolling through the candid photos.
As he examines them, you notice how close he is to you now, standing in between your legs that hang lazily off the edge of the table, his frame towering over yours.
He meets your gaze again after a moment, taking notice of the proximity, too, and swallowing nervously.
“You used to let me take pictures of you,” Felix says after a moment of silence.
“That was so long ago,” you reply with a smile. “Things are different now.”
His eyes dart over your bare face, your eyes a little hooded from exhaustion and the mellowed state that overtake your body. It’s a sight familiar to him, still, the way you keep your words short when you’re not asking him questions, nothing except a small knowing smile on your face. But it’s one he’s thought about for so long, painting pictures of you in his head and scanning old photos, like your physical state would somehow come to fruition the more he studied it.
“Please let me take a few more,” Felix says, his voice dropping an octave as his eyes flicker between your lips and your gaze. He knows you’re going to say no, go away, or some other version of it.
But this time, you don’t, taking careful note of the way he so politely asks for what he wants. Memories of him have plagued your mind all night, the feeling of his hands around you still lingering on your body, recalling the way he used to ask so politely to fuck you in the bathroom of house parties like you wouldn’t say yes every single time.
And in the absence of your words, you slide your coat off, discarding it on the table behind you and keeping your gaze locked on his, in just a tight-fitting t-shirt and skirt.
Felix brings his camera up immediately, lest you change your mind like he knows you probably will, and adjusts his lens again, before snapping a single photo of you, sitting so innocently on the table in the back room of the record shop. Your expression remains unchallenged, your eyes softening a little as he pulls away to look at you again. And this time, you let two hands cross over your torso, pulling up the corners of your shirt and letting it ride up until it’s nearly off of you. Felix doesn’t waste any time, bringing his camera to eye-level again and snapping a photo eagerly, his eyes wide as he observes the sight of your hardened nipples through the lens.
The discoordinate piano music still plays from behind him, its tempo increasing gradually as you let one hand position itself over the mound of your breast, kneading gently as Felix positions his camera to zoom in. He snaps another set of photos, bringing his camera even closer to capture you at every erotic angle, and then he pauses briefly, as your hands move to your skirt.
You tug gently, not yet pulling it off, and his photos capture the moment you finally undo the small zipper on the side, revealing the hem of your lace panties to him and looping a finger through them. He feels his breath hitch in his throat, wanting to clarify that he’s not forcing you to do any of this, but too mesmerized to ask you to stop.
And then before he can verbalize his thoughts, you’re tugging the skirt down, too, pulling it off over your sneakers to discard it on the floor below you. Felix can’t look away from the sight, your body hugged so delicately in lace lingerie, your legs parted a little for his photos and practically begging him to come touch you. And yet you say nothing, amused at the sight of Felix gasping over your sitting figure, letting him take the reins and do whatever it is he pleases, even if the implications are clouded by your past.
Felix’s slender hands snap a few more photos, focusing meticulously on your clothed core and your hardened nipples for his own personal use. And then he sets his camera down at his waist again, pulling the camera strap off his body and shoving it back into his satchel. When he turns to say something, he can’t, still entranced by the familiar feeling in his stomach at the body he’s bore witness to so many times.
“Felix,” you say softly, coaxing him to come a little closer.
He obliges, lips parted nervously, as he takes another step forward and allows your legs to rest casually on his.
“I meant to ask you,” you say, cocking your head slightly, bringing one hand up to caress his cheek with your thumb.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice just barely above a whisper. “Anything.”
“Where have all your freckles gone?” You finally ask, observing the way his skin still runs completely clear around his cheeks and eyes, not a hint of a galaxy visible to you, even at this proximity to him.
“Makeup,” Felix responds with a soft chuckle. “They didn’t match my new look.”
And you bring your other hand to his other cheek, grazing your thumbs over his soft skin, before pressing down a little harder and wiping the foundation off of him. He’s right- the beige stars you’d remembered so well begin to appear once again, scattered generously across his button nose and his big eyes. He lets you rub it off of him, not taking his eyes off of yours as you rid him clean of the stuff and then graze your thumbs over him again, in much gentler motions.
“That’s better,” you reply, your eyes darting between his now visible freckles and his plump, parted lips. “They’re my favorite part about you.”
And Felix doesn’t respond, his mind running rampant with thoughts and intentions, as he brings his lips a little closer to yours and finally kisses you, like he’s been dreaming of doing all winter.
You reciprocate instantly, your hands cupping the back of his neck as his lips work against yours, desperately leaning into you and letting his hands snake down the sides of your waist. His kisses are familiar, so reminiscent of years past when he’d kiss you exactly like this, in the proximity of whatever house party bathroom you could run off to and let him have his way with you. And Felix remembers the sensation all too well, this mutual pining of silently yearning for each other in the presence of other strangers until he could confess his love to you through whispered love making sessions when you were finally alone. Felix whimpers softly between kisses, as your hands snake up his t-shirt and graze along the toned flesh of his abdomen. You hum in response, letting your hands tangle in his hair now as he presses further into you and works gentle kisses down your neck. Both your hands find his silky ponytail, pulling off his hair tie in one swift motion and tossing it aside so that his long tresses hang loosely in front of his face, and you tangle your fingers in his ebony roots, tugging slightly as you pull him into your embrace and feel him trail back up to your lips. He pulls away momentarily to gauge your expression, worried you might ask him to stop, but your eyes are wide with anticipation, your breaths labored as you pull him into you again and arch your back into him. You can feel Felix smile into the kiss, satisfied with the turn of events from tonight's party- he’d been so certain you would leave with Seungmin, or shut him out again. But here in the dimly lit room of the record shop, your lips on his as your hands trail lower to unbuckle his belt, there’s no denying you want this just as badly as he does.
And Felix can’t help but wonder how long have things been this way- had something changed at the party? Something that would’ve led you to call him a “best friend” rather than an old one, leave the party with him and even drag him to the record shop after hours, knowing very well you could’ve come alone? Something that instilled an equal sense of desperation in you, to want his lips on yours as badly as he does right now, your bodies yearning for each other like you once did, as you undo his belt buckle and snake it out from his belt loops to discard it on the floor?
He’s not entirely sure- but he also can’t think straight when your hands are tugging at the hem of his jeans, begging him to take them off and mirror the same level of undress you are now. What he can think about are your lips working against his, the gasps that escape you when he grazes his fingers down your sides between kisses and the forte echo of Tchaicovsky’s piano record filling the room with sultry harmonies.
As Felix unbuttons his jeans, you help him tug them down so that they’re pooled around his ankles, the two of you now equal parts undressed and grabbing desperately at the now exposed flesh. You let your hand find Felix’s, wrapping your fingers around his slender wrist, and then bringing it to your panties, where you rest his hand against your clothed core and allow him to graze over your growing wetness.
“Jesus,” Felix exhales, pressing his middle and ring finger down against your core and rubbing in slow, back and forth motions. “I forgot how horny you get when you smoke.”
And you chuckle lightly, not breaking eye contact as he continues to rub you over your lace panties, the wetness against your thin fabric increasing with every gentle movement of his fingers.
“Will you do something about it?” You ask sweetly, one hand reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.
Felix cocks his head slightly, a smug expression pulling on his lips as he works you a little faster now.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
You chuckle in response, growing impatient as he teases your aching clit over the fabric of your panties and keeps his gaze on yours. He’s calculated with his movements, rubbing in gentle motions, pressing down firmly with every other stroke to watch the way your legs squirm desperately around him and ache for more.
“Don’t make me ask,” you say shyly, your hips rutting toward him to chase the friction of his fingers.
Felix’s gaze drops to your core, his lips parted with curiosity at the sight of you now rocking gently toward him, letting your movements do the pleasing as he almost entirely stops rubbing you.
“What if I wanted you to ask for it?” Felix says briskly, a serious expression on his face as he pulls his hand away from you momentarily.
“Felix, you already know what I-”
“Ask for it,” Felix interrupts, keeping his gaze locked on yours now. His eyes are hooded with lust, his eyebrows slanted in a challenging expression as he waits for you to say something. And he knows he’s never been one to make you ask for it- in fact, he was usually the one doing all the begging, whining when you’d take too long to touch him or begging you to let him finish. But coupled with the recent development of his new look, you can’t help but wonder if it’s not the only thing that’s changed about him.
“Ask for it,” Felix states again. “Or I’ll get dressed again.”
And you can’t bring yourself to, still riddled with questions at the peculiar phenomenon of Felix making you ask for sex, desperate to ask if this is a one-time occurrence, or if he’s intent on getting you to beg for his cock from here on out. Does he make all his hookups beg for it like this? Do they oblige without question, or are they just as taken aback with it as you are?
When Felix takes note of your silence, he doesn’t waste another second, pulling up his jeans again and beginning to work the buttons once more. And you feel your heartbeat quicken at the sight, disheartened at the action and still desperate for him to touch you, to fuck you, like your body’s been craving the past hour you’ve been back here.
In a desperate attempt to stop him, your hands reach out, grasping his wrists in yours and watching the way his cock remains tented under the denim fabric of his jeans.
“Please,” you say shortly, a sheepish pout on your face.
“Please what?” He responds, cocking his head to gauge your reaction.
“Please would you fuck me?” You finally say, exhaling frustratedly and flickering your gaze away from him, almost embarrassed to be asking him like this. But Felix’s lips pull into a toothy grin, leaning back into you for a kiss and beginning to work his jeans off of him again.
“Was that so hard?” He mumbles against your lips teasingly.
“Mhm,” you murmur back against him, hearing his jeans pool around his ankles once again as his hands cup around the small of your back.
“It was?” Felix queries, one hand looping through the hem of your panties and grazing along the elastic. “If I remember correctly, we used to play this little game all the time.”
You gasp a little as he pulls the elastic between the pads of his fingers, letting it snap against your delicate skin again and rest against your reddened skin momentarily. Felix observes the way you say nothing, waiting for him to undress you, touch you- anything, without so much as a plea for him to do so. And he’s undeniably roused seeing you this desperate for him, adjusting your position on the table to calm your pulsating core, your hands searching for him and your lips trying so hard to keep purchase on his. Felix feels his cock swell at the confirmation that perhaps you have been thinking of this just as much as he has, and that maybe leaving was the hardest thing you ever did, the way he always hoped it was.
“Are you sure about this?” Felix asks before he can ponder the words.
And in painfully slow movements, you find the hem of your elastic waistband yourself, tugging it down and breaking away from the kiss to snake it off your ankles and discard it onto the floor. The sight alone is confirmation enough for him- your pussy is glistening with wetness, your folds coated generously in your own arousal and your aching clit a robust shade of pink as you wait for him to finish his little game of neglect. Felix can’t even respond at the sight of your cunt on display for him, too engrossed in the familiarity of what it looked like all those past years, exactly like this, begging for him and only him. On the counters of bathroom sinks, in empty fields, in the back of your car and even when his fingers were shoved in it under blankets in a room full of people. Always taking him so wholly and effortlessly, like your cunt was made to have him fill it, squirming around him with hushed moans and whimpers, your bodies intertwining into one tangled mess of pleasure and pure, unadulterated love for one another.
“Felix, please fuck me,” You repeat, a small smirk on your face as you watch Felix stumble over his words, his cock fully erect in the fabric of his boxers.
And Felix can’t answer you, already attaching his lips to yours again and letting his hands come around your back to unclasp your bra. His motions are much quicker now, no lingering intention to make you ask for it or confirm your stance- but every intention to fuck you, fill you, like he knows you deserve.
When your bra is unfastened, he tosses it aside, letting his hands find the mounds of your breasts and kneading them with steady motions. You moan into his mouth as he works you, your legs wrapping around his hips to press his clothed cock into your wetness and grind softly against you. Felix winces at the sensation, doing his best to stave off a premature orgasm while you rut your hips gently against him and let your head fall back in pleasure. And mirroring the pleasurable sensation of his thumbs rubbing circular motions over your nipples, he brings his mouth down to your chest, taking a breast in his mouth and sucking with little whimpers. Your head comes forward to meet his gaze again, his big, innocent eyes locked on yours as he takes the flesh between his lips and swirls his tongue around your nipple. His plump lips remain locked around your mound, alternating between gentle kisses and then back to sucking on your nipple, like he might coax fluids out of it if he tries enough. And he looks so guiltless, so incorrupt as he lets his eyelids flutter shut and your nipple graze his teeth. His actions almost don’t match this darkened, grunge appearance he now sports- and you swear you can still see the blonde locks that once framed his wide eyes and his bright appearance.
As Felix moves to your other nipple, you wrap your legs tighter around him, swaying your hips in gentle rocking motions to stimulate his clothed erection against your wetness and provide some relief to both of you. And he arches his eyebrows up in pleasure, stifled moans escaping his lips as he finally releases your breast from his mouth, a string of saliva connecting you still, as his gaze drops to his boxers.
Hard- he’s unbearably hard underneath his boxers, the tip of his cock kissing the constraining fabric of his boxers that ruts against your exposed clit and sends waves of pleasure through both your listless bodies. And Felix knows if he doesn’t fuck you now, he might finish at the sight of you alone, your cheeks flushed a dark shade of pink and your cunt arching desperately into him as you wait for him to undress. So he does- one hand finds the elastic waistband of his black boxers, pulling them over his cock and wincing as it grazes against the precum dribbling down his tip. You run your hands over his toned abs, letting your eyes meet his cock as it protrudes so eagerly for you, and it looks almost painful how hard he is for you, reddening at the tip and dripping with beads of his preemptive arousal.
Felix leans in to kiss you again, and as he does, the bare flesh of his cock finally grazes your clit, running smoothly over your arousal and making you clench around nothing. You gasp at the sensation, scooting closer to him as your clit finally gets some attention from him, and Felix smiles as he trails his kisses down to your neck. While he sucks little bruises along the flesh there, he brings a slender hand around the base of his cock, guiding his tip back to your clit and rubbing his length along your flesh with more pressure now, a fervent moan escaping your lips as he does. He glides so effortlessly along you, your arousal allowing him to move so freely against you, still eager for him to fill you up. And when his lips move back up to yours, his hand guides his tip back and forth again, now rubbing against your clit in steady motions. He mimics the way his fingers stimulate you, only it’s better like this, your cunt contracting as you prepare to take his length.
“Felix,” you whine, as his cock rubs back and forth over your wettened entrance.
“What is it?” He coos gently, smiling into you as saliva dribbles between your hungry mouths.
“Put it in,” you order plainly, parting your legs a little further to signify what it is you want so badly. And Felix already knows, pressing his tip into you just a mere centimeter to gauge your reaction, satisfied at the way you whimper and push yourself against him even further.
“Is this what you want?” Felix muses, holding his base to keep from sliding into you involuntarily.
“Yes,” you whine again, tangling your hands in his hair. “Just fuck me like you used to.”
And Felix feels his heartbeat quicken as the filthy memories grace his mind again, images of you exactly like this.
He says nothing, opting to end his teasing streak, as he finally steadies his hands on the sides of your waist and pushes into you, your sopping pussy taking him with complete ease. You let out a fervent moan at the feeling, your cunt clenching desperately around him as he works to bottom out inside of you and find his footing. His girth takes little to adjust to, but he’s long, taking a good minute or two until the base of his cock is disappearing inside of you and being coated in your arousal. Before even moving, his tip is grazing your cervix, the familiar feeling making your stomach turn with anticipation as you remember what it feels like.
Felix’s lips part in pleasure, his eyebrows arched up as he pulls out again and then thrusts just once, relishing in the way your pussy contracts around him again and takes him so perfectly. Your hands find purchase in his hair again, tangling in his ebony roots, as he pulls out a little, and then begins to move. His cock fills every inch of you so well, grazing every corner of your dripping cunt with such fullness, as his wet kisses work against your lips and coat your mouth in his needy saliva. Felix has always been a particularly vocal lover, you remember, as the room fills with his deep grunts and moans at every thrust. His fingers dig into your flesh, holding onto you with strength as your legs wrap around him to steady yourself and push him into you fully. Your bodies one again, your limbs tangled until it's discernible who is who atop the table like this. But when he slows his movements and kisses you tenderly, you don’t care about the implications, about the past or what this will mean for your future. All you care about is Felix inside of you like he used to be for most of your relationship, making up for all this wasted time as he fucks you and breathes heavy grunts into the shell of your ear.
“God, I missed this,” Felix breathes, his voice shaky as he continues to pump into you.
“Me too,” you moan back, lining his jaw with kisses as he moves a little faster.
“You used to let me take pictures of you,” Felix repeats for the second time this evening. “You remember? Used to touch yourself while I’d snap photos of you. God, the way your fingers would disappear into your tight little pussy. Had me begging to fuck you at the end of every session, baby.”
“I remember,” you voice back in labored breaths. “You’d fuck me so well. All you had to do was adjust that stupid lens and you had me dripping for you.”
“Fuck, baby,” Felix groans, shutting his eyes as he thrusts a little harder. “Gonna make me cum for you.”
“Yeah?” You echo, wrapping your legs a little tighter around him and crossing them at the ankles. “Will you fill me up like you used to?”
Felix nods as his eyes remain squeezed shut, the room teeming with the squelching sounds of his cock thrusting in and out of your cunt.
“Come on, baby,” you plead, one hand angling his face toward you to press repeated, chaste kisses to his lips. “Fill me up. I know you want to.”
“I do want to-”
“Cum for me,” you order, grazing your free hand over his abdomen and tracing little circles over his v-line.
And Felix’s cock twitches inside of you twice, signaling his nearing finish as he quickens his pace again, now fucking you with even more force and hitting your sensitive cervix with every thrust.
“I’ll let you take whatever pictures you want,” you say to him as you pull him close and nibble the lobe of his ear. “As long as you fuck me like this every time you’re finished.”
And the promise is all it takes for Felix to reach his orgasm, his cock twitching inside you once more before he spurts ropes of his warm cum inside of you, filling your cunt with copious amounts of his arousal for you and fucking every last drop back into you. Your pussy contracts at the sensation of his warm cum grazing your insides, reaching your finish, too, as he brings a hand to rub your clit through your release. The table below you is sticky with your juices as you steady your breathing, Felix bringing a hand around the base of his cock to pull out of you and rest limply against your pulsing, sore entrance.
The room around you is quiet again, the gentle buzz of the pendant lamp replacing your moans as you let your hands wrap around him and hold him in your embrace. Felix presses a series of tender kisses to your forehead as you remain, his slender hands moving strands of sweaty hair out of your forehead to replace them with his loving kisses.
And the record has run through all its seasons now, having ended several minutes ago, as the needle runs over the last groove in repetitive clicking sounds, an indication to flip it over.
*
A precious town once set ablaze. 4:00pm. Spring on the horizon.
“To have hysteria or mania. 7 letters.”
Felix thinks for a moment, his eyes darting up to the ceiling and then back to where Yena is sat across from him.
“Madness?”
She glances over the crossword puzzle once, counting empty little boxes, and then begins to pen in his answer.
“How are you so good at this?” Yena asks, shaking her head. “You could be on a crossword puzzle reality show. If that exists.”
He chuckles lightly, observing as Yena checks her watch, and then shuts the book in front of her.
“My break is almost done,” she says as you chew on a French fry. “I’m gonna catch the bathroom really quick. You guys need anything?”
“I’m good,” you chime in, and Felix shakes his head from across you.
“Thank you,” he says politely, shooting her a little smile as she slides out of the booth and back toward the kitchen.
Felix’s gaze turns back to you now, a smile on his face as you nibble the remainder of the french fry, cocking your head at his curious gaze. He doesn’t say anything, but you feel his sneaker glide gently up your ankle, grazing your bare skin with the sole of his shoe and shooting you a knowing smile.
“Felix, not here,” you say, pushing him away gently with your own shoe and letting your soles rest atop his laces.
“That’s not what you said this morning,” Felix says, swirling half-melted cubes of ice around in his glass of water.
“Harder Felix, harder!” He mimics quietly in a high-pitched voice, as he brings his glass up to his lips and takes a generous sip.
You stomp on his laces as he chuckles between sips of water, dribbling a stream from his lips when you kick him lightly in his ankles.
Don’t fuck your exes.
Advice that anyone with half a brain would give you- and advice you really should’ve taken to heart. But you can’t help it, finding yourself between the sheets with Felix nearly every night for the past two weeks, his lips all over yours and pleasuring you better than you’d ever remembered it. You tell yourself you’re just making up for lost time, both of you still young and naive, all of this over once he actually leaves for college again. He stayed for Christmas, gifting you a new pair of canvas sneakers and fucking you while reruns of Christmas rom-coms played in the background of your apartment. He was your New Year’s kiss at Seungmin’s party, where you swore again that the two of you weren’t dating, forcing you to press your lips to his only when you were sure the others weren’t paying attention at the drop of the ball. And when you’re not picking up shifts at the record shop, you’re with him every waking second of the day, keeping Yena company during her shifts as you feign your giddy attraction to him while she’s not looking.
We’re not dating, you’ve emphasized to Felix several times, and he doesn’t fight it, giving you a knowing nod as he utters a repetitive yeah, yeah. But it’s mostly because he knows you can’t say no to him, not when he’s bringing you slices of pie at work and burning CDs with all his favorite songs for you, slipping them into your bag without you even noticing until you’re home again. Of course there’s the physical factor, too- Felix is undoubtedly your best sexual partner, and he always has been. He’s quick to recognize when you’re aroused, slipping away with you in the backseat of his car to pleasure you, without any protest from you. He’s also understanding of all your intimate moments together, not fighting it when you remind him this is just temporary, all while he’s thrusting into you on the back room table of the record shop at late hours of the night. He just smiles against your bruised skin, reminding you that you have yet to push him away yet. And when he’s holding you in the gentle embrace of your afterglow, pressing kisses to your skin and reminding you how beautiful he’s always thought you are, he’s right- you don’t push him away from any of it. Maybe it’s the physical factor, maybe it’s little acts of service he performs to win you over. And perhaps it’s also because you don’t feel so lonely for once- the last time he was beside you like this, you still had a family, one that loved Felix like their own and encouraged this shared life with him. You still had dreams of being something bigger, aspirations while you were in school and visions of a life with Felix, because back then, he was always a part of your plan. And though things are different now, his beaming smile and lighthearted jokes serve as a reminder of a simpler time, and it feels right. So you don’t push him away- it’s a secret kept between the two of you, but he’s here with you, regardless.
“Will you let me take some photos of you today? ” Felix inquires, flipping through the book of crossword puzzles left on the table by Yena. You watch as he adjusts the familiar fleur de lis ring on his finger before uncapping a pen and filling in one of the words.
“I have an early shift tomorrow,” you reply, toying with the crumpled straw wrapper in front of you.
“I won’t be long,” Felix retorts.
“I know, Felix, but I have to get up really early tomorrow and I-”
“Let me take you out,” Felix says, not looking up from the crossword puzzle in front of him. “Just tell me where.”
You sigh, scanning the empty tables around the diner. There are only a handful of guests at this hour, most of them elderly folk chatting quietly amongst themselves. A slow jazz tune plays overhead, and sunlight beams through the large window beside you as Felix finishes penning in an answer, shutting the book again and folding his hands in front of him to meet your gaze.
“I have something for you,” Felix adds.
“You don’t have to buy me gifts, Felix.”
“I’m aware. But this one’s special for me, too.”
“What is it?”’you ask, a growing curiosity at his words.
“I don’t have it with me. You’ll have to let me give it to you later today.”
You sigh, crossing your arms in front of you and rolling your eyes sarcastically. He’s always known how to get exactly what he wants.
“Just this one time,” you reply, knowing you sound like a broken record at how many times you’ve sworn it to be just one more time.
“Just this one time,” Felix echoes, toying again with the ring on his finger.
And you nod reluctantly, agreeing to whatever he’s planned, for the purpose of pleasing him and because you’re unable to decline.
As he flips open the book again, he uncaps the pen once more, picking up where he left off and reading the question aloud to you.
“A discussion aimed at reaching an agreement,” he voices, nibbling the cap of his pen again.
“Negotiation,” you say, observing the way a smile grows on his face as he pens in your answer.
“That’s it,” he says, gripping the pen enthusiastically as he crosses out the question.
And the sole of his shoe grazes your ankle again, trailing up your flesh teasingly as he moves onto the next.
*
“Where’s she going?” Felix queries, reaching into the bowl of popcorn in his lap to grab another mouthful.
“I don’t know,” you respond, chuckling at the way he shoves a generous portion into his mouth and chews loudly.
“Is she leaving him?” He says, pausing his chewing as the main lead in the movie makes a dramatic exit on screen.
“Felix, I’ve never seen this movie either,” you state, chuckling as he finally resumes his chewing and brushes stray kernels off his shirt.
He reaches into the bucket again, gathering a generous handful of popcorn, and then he sprawls his hand over your mouth, pushing the popcorn into your still-laughing mouth as he moves a little closer to you.
“You argue too much!” He says between giggles, throwing his head back as he watches you try to down the handful, failing as loose kernels find purchase on your shirt, too.
You reach out to shove him playfully, and Felix intertwines his hands with yours, pulling you onto his lap as the bucket of popcorn is promptly set aside and neglected.
He doesn’t even give you time to finish chewing before his lips are on yours, kissing you with such tenderness and warmth. It’s moments like these you find yourself glad he’s here with you, grateful for his unwavering persistence to account for lost time and make amends. Of course you also know he’ll be gone soon, back to university to proceed with his education while you tend to the record shop. And you’re undoubtedly a little sad about it- but you also know it’s the way things have panned out to be. Felix has blossomed into the bright young soul you always knew he was, filling the shoes of a generation of good-natured people that came before him. He’s generous, and unselfish in his ways, and a part of you knows that leaving him was the best thing that could’ve happened to both of you.
Was sleeping with him a mistake after all this time? You would’ve answered yes in a heartbeat, at the first instance it happened, feeling you might accidentally led Felix on and ruined things between the two of you. But the more it happened, the more it affirmed the beautiful notion that he’s just a fleeting part in this process of mending- your souls intertwining to relive memories of simpler times, connecting like they had when you once belonged together. He gives himself to you as a way of saying I’m still here, if you need me. And you give yourself to him to respond I know, and I’m still healing.
“You want your gift?” Felix asks as he pulls away, his hands grazing the small of your back.
“Depends,” you say with a small smile. “If it’s anything like your gift this morning, then yes.”
He chuckles softly, caressing the dimples in your lower back as he sits up and nods in the direction of the kitchen counter.
“I’ll go get it. Be right back.”
And you slide off of him, crossing your hands between your thighs as he exits the room, the soft-spoken dialogue of the movie still playing as he shuffles about in your apartment kitchen. When he returns, his hands are behind his back, a smile plastered on his face and his eyes forming little crescents as he approaches you.
“You have to close your eyes,” he says, kneeling down and sitting cross-legged in front of you. “And put out your hands.”
You oblige with an equally endeared smile, closing your eyes and cupping your hands in front of you. Felix seems to get something situated in front of you, and then you feel him place something small in the palm of your hand. It’s cold to the touch, no bigger than an inch, and he positions it so that it’s centered perfectly in your hand.
“Now open,” Felix finally says, pulling his hands back and folding them in his lap.
You do as you’re told, your eyes fluttering open again and your gaze falling into the palm of your hand. And your heart melts instantly at the sight-
It’s a ring- his ring, the silver fleur de lis one he always catches you staring at.
“I can’t take your ring,” you say, your wide eyes meeting the crescents of his eyes that remain as he grins.
He holds his hand up, flashing you his own fleur de lis, and wiggles his fingers to show it off.
“It’s not mine,” Felix says. “I got you your own.”
And you feel tears prick the corners of your eyes, doing your very best to pull back and avoid crying in front of him. But Felix takes notice at the way your face contorts sadly, scooting closer to you and taking your hands in his.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, his face full of concern as you examine the ring.
“Nothing,” you’re quick to respond, sniffling and rotating it between the pads of your fingers. “I just…”
Felix waits for you to answer, giving your hand a little squeeze as you struggle to find your words. He knows that verbalizing your feelings isn’t exactly your forte, giving you time to think over the action and speak when it feels right to you.
“Your ring,” you say with a soft chuckle. “It was a gift from my dad.”
His expression turns serious, holding up his index finger to rotate it around in front of you. “This one?” He inquires.
“Yeah,” you respond with a smile. “The one I gave you before we broke up. I know I’m not the best with my words, but I never got to say thank you. You stayed up with me the night they told us he was nearing the end. And again when my mom left. And somehow you found me in this shitty little town, and I like to think it’s so that I can properly thank you for everything. That’s why I wanted you to have the ring.”
Felix can’t properly reciprocate with a kiss while he’s sat below you like this, but he brings his lips forward to kiss your knee tenderly, staring up at you through innocent eyes and humming against your flesh.
“You were not alone,” he says, pressing another kiss. “You’re never alone. I would do it all over again.”
And you smile down at him, as he takes the ring from the palm of your hand and slides it onto your ring finger, an unspoken promise that he’s always going to be here to help build you up again, regardless of your reservations or your conditions. That just like this town lost itself so many years ago, there’s always a way to build things back up again, you just have to hold onto the hope that it’s possible.
“I love it,” you say, examining the way it sits around your fingers just like his does. And Felix doesn’t answer, pressing more kisses on the pads of your knees and using a hand to part your knees slightly. You take note of the way he keeps his eyes shut as he trails kisses, relishing in the way you give into his actions, laying back to part your knees and observing his eager state.
“Can I take a picture of you?” Felix asks shyly, his eyes darting over your visible crotch as your skirt rides up. You shoot him a little nod in response, gesturing for him to go get his camera, which he wastes no time doing, pulling it out of his black carrier bag and slinging it over his neck. Felix sits cross-legged in front of you again, watching intently as you flip your skirt up and let your fingers graze over your soaking panties. Your new ring glints in the dim glow of the overhead lamp, glistening as you rub your clit over the thin fabric of your underwear and stare into the lens of his camera.
Felix clicks a set of photos, his breath hitching in the back of his throat at the sight of you tugging on your panties and spreading even further for him. You make a big show of staring innocently into his lens, your eyebrows arched in curiosity as you toy with your waistband and tug it down a little further, your hips swaying a little as you struggle to pull it off entirely. And Felix takes note of your struggle, snapping one more photo of your desperate state and slinging the camera back off.
“Let me help you,” he says with an amused smile, placing the camera on the bag beside him and scooting closer to you. His hands loop themselves in the hem of your panties, keeping his gaze locked on your core as he pulls them down, being met instantly with the sweet aroma of your arousal and your glistening folds.
“Fuck,” Felix breathes, swallowing in anticipation at you spread for him.
You let yourself slouch back into the dip of the couch cushion, propping a leg up to give him a better view, and your hands graze over your breasts as you watch him struggle to comprehend the sight.
“Go on,” you order simply, biting your lip as his eyes widen when you knead your breast gently.
And Felix doesn’t spare another second, his hands finding purchase on your inner thighs, as he brings his face forward and licks a long stripe up your folds. His tongue is instantly coated in your arousal when he does, moaning at the taste of you as you writhe in pleasure below him and clamp your knees around his pretty face. He holds them open again, letting his tongue graze over your pulsing clit, before licking another stripe and then latching his lips around your bundle of nerves, pressing a chaste kiss before sucking harshly.
The room fills with your high-pitched moans, gasping for air and clutching desperately onto the fabric of the couch as he works you, alternating between sucking your clit between his teeth and grazing his tongue over your entrance. He darts his tongue into your sopping entrance to gather more of your arousal, spitting harshly onto your cunt and grazing it around your folds using his tongue. And the more you writhe desperately below him, the more his movements become ravenous, working you like a starved animal as he eats you out and pries your legs open.
“Felix,” you groan, reaching a hand out to push his face further into you. “Feels so fucking good.”
He smiles against you, responding with little kisses peppered on your inner thighs, before moving back to your clit and licking in harsh back and forth motions. Your cunt clenches around nothing, desperate for him to fill you, but not wanting him to halt the motion of pleasuring you with his tongue. And as his fingers graze along your thigh to pry you open again, you gasp when he brings the same hand to your clit and rubs vigorously.
Your body is shaking now, trembling with anticipation as you approach your orgasm. But Felix doesn’t stop to gauge your reactions at all- in fact, if you were to cum right now, he’d keep going at this pace regardless. He’s too fixated on the taste of your arousal in his mouth, the melodious moans you let out for him and the way you reach for nothing tangible as he works you.
As your head throws back in pure ecstasy, you feel his fingers move lower, and lower, until he’s grazing your entrance with his knuckles in a teasing motion. And before you can ask him to fuck you with them, he’s already inserting two fingers, increasing the pace of his tongue as he begins to thrust in and out of you. Your cunt contracts eagerly around his fingers, desperate for release now as he matches the rhythm of his tongue with his fingers, the room teeming with the sounds of your squelching pussy. As he pushes deeper into you, you feel his ring- the cold, stiff metal of your now matching rings, graze your entrance, sending a wave of pleasure over your trembling body. His fingers work in and out of you, the cold metal pressing itself on your clit as he bottoms out inside of you and moves his fingertips in quick come hither motions to stimulate you. Your abdomen contracts harshly with every thrust now, your clit throbbing as he traces it with his tongue and peppers it in hot, wet kisses.
“Felix, fuck, I’m- gonna cum for you,” you warn, your voice shaky as he moves even faster, showing no mercy with his movements as he groans against your exposed flush.
“Let go for me,” he commands plainly, his deep voice vibrating against your clit as he holds his tongue there. “Always give me such a fucking show, baby. Make a mess for me.” He speaks between kisses on your glistening folds, alternating between pouting his lips to make out with your cunt and let his tongue wag over your sensitive core.
As you feel his fingers thrust into you one last time, the cold metal of his ring gliding over your folds in its coat of arousal, your abdomen contracts over him, your cunt clenching in syncopation with your fervent moans as you finally let go and dribble your juices all over his freckled face. He wastes no time cleaning you up, lapping at your core to swallow your release and pepper your dampened flesh with tender kisses.
“Stay there,” Felix orders, reaching beside him as your eyes flutter shut in overstimulation. You lie completely listless, your limbs languid and heartbeat pulsing at a now slowing rate throughout your body.
Felix brings his camera up to you again, sitting up on his knees and snapping a photo of your wearied state, his eyes wide with lust as he admires the way your legs hang loosely at your sides. His lens adjusts to capture your parted lips and flushed cheeks, your hands tugging your skirt down again and the smile on your breathless lips when you open your eyes again.
Felix stands up now, approaching you with the camera and letting his slender fingers graze your lips.
“Suck,” he orders, inserting the same two fingers down your throat as his other hand positions the lens in front of you. And you oblige eagerly, your lips wrapping around his digits to suck your own arousal off of him, your tongue swirling around the salty metal of his ring to rid him of your juices.
His photos capture exactly that- your lips wrapped around his knuckles, the kisses you trail down his fingers and the way your tongue licks the perimeter of your matching jewelry clean.
When you’re finished, you release him with a gentle pop, Felix letting his camera hang loosely at his waist again and using his now free hand to tilt your head up to meet his gaze.
“So beautiful,” he says resolutely, bringing you up for a gentle kiss. “You were always such a good model for me.”
*
When you work an early shift, you make it a point to kick Felix out of your apartment no later than 9, or sometimes 10. You’re not staying the night, you’d explained as a non-negotiable condition, wanting to avoid the awkward antics that come with sleeping alongside each other and waking up in his arms. But tonight, you can’t seem to let go of him, letting his arms wrap you in their warm embrace as he presses kisses to your forehead and tells you stories of college that you weren’t around for.
“It was the worst group I ever had for a project,” Felix says in a chuckle. “I don’t know how I passed that course.”
“You should’ve requested a different group,” you say in a sleepy voice, smiling as you play the humorous tale in your head.
“I did!” He exclaims. “I don’t think the professor liked me enough to let me switch so late in the semester.”
“Well, you got through it,” you reply, letting your hand intertwine with his as your rings rub tenderly against each other. “I can’t say the same.”
Felix chuckles lightly, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand and letting your hands rest against each other. He thinks for a moment, and then rubs his thumb along your hand lovingly as he begins to speak again.
“I want to take so many photos of you in the spring. There’s this new lens I want to try.”
You pause briefly, opening your eyes to look at him, and then you cock your head slightly before responding.
“You won’t be here for the spring, Felix. You’ll be back at school.”
He swallows nervously, pondering your words, and then he exhales deeply before continuing.
“I don’t think college is for me, either.”
The words hit you like a truck the second they escape his lips- you sit up in bed to look at him, releasing his hand from yours and furrowing your brows together.
“What?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I want to stay here, with you.”
“No, you don’t,” you’re quick to say, shaking your head.
“I do,” Felix admits sheepishly. “Everything makes sense here. Being with you, the town, the people- I think I’m meant to be here, too.”
“No, you’re not,” you say, pulling away from him even further as he sits up now, too. “Felix- this isn’t your life. You need to go back to school, and pick a major and live your life.”
“I don’t want those things,” Felix responds frustratedly. “I want you. I want this town. I don’t care if you don’t want to date, I’ll stay by your side regardless. I can’t just leave you.”
“You can, and you will.”
Felix narrows his eyes, anger quickly overtaking him as his face flushes a dark shade of red.
“So you’re allowed to and I’m just not? Who are you to dictate what I do with my life?”
“This is the life I made for myself,” you reply, exasperated. “It’s not some soul-searching pit stop like it is for you.”
“Maybe it’s not for me, either.”
You’re entirely off the bed now, your hands making angry gestures as you try to verbalize your feelings toward him, Felix’s voice growing increasingly irate as you attempt to.
“You know why I left you in the first place?” You question. “Because I was dragging you down. You had everything- a family, a future and a girlfriend who didn’t quite have things made the way you do. No one even understood why we were together, Felix. I’m not gonna drag you down a second time just because we had sex a couple times.”
“Is that all this is to you?” Felix inquires angrily. “Just sex? It doesn’t seem that way when you’re all over me at Seungmin’s parties calling me your ‘best friend’. That doesn’t sound like just sex to me-”
“You are my best friend,” you interrupt frustratedly, tears falling from your eyes now as you try to make him listen.
“You are my best friend, and I don’t want this life for you. The night I left you, my dad was moved to hospice, and my mom decided she wanted nothing to do with it. I knew you’d be wasting the best years of your life taking care of me, staying by my side like the good person you are, but that it would get in the way of college and your life. It wasn’t easy for me to do, Felix, breaking up with you and getting as far away from you as possible before I could change my mind. But you have a life outside of me, and I need you to go be that person still.”
Felix says nothing in response for several minutes, his eyes welling with tears, too, as you wipe your eyes with your inner wrists and avert his gaze. You hate when Felix sees you cry- it’s embarrassing, and it feels shameful. It feels the way it did when Felix skipped classes to be with you, neglected studying for his exams to hold you as you cried, rain checked his own family to be with yours and dragged you to every house party, so that he could fuck your sadness away in an environment that wasn’t a hospital bathroom or your childhood room.
“How dare you imply the time I spent with you was wasted,” he scoffs, his lip quivering as he wipes his own eyes. “You were my life, outside of all of this. And you still are, and you’re so stubborn in doing that thing where you don’t let yourself feel.”
You watch as Felix gathers his camera, stuffing it back into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
“You said you’re somewhere between the fire and the mending. But you don’t talk about the fire. You just shut it out like you do with everything else.”
He pivots on his heel, making his way toward the door and walking with loud, purposeful strides. You begin to say something, quickly swallowing your words again as he reaches for the doorknob and turns it slowly. Felix pauses momentarily, hoping you’ll ask him to stay, apologize, forgive- anything, any sort of indication that this is what you want, too. But as the door opens, your silence is answer enough for him.
“No one could have prevented the fire,” Felix says before leaving, echoing the words you told him so long ago. “You can pick up, and move on, but it still happened. And just because things burned, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to thrive again.”
Without another word from you, he’s disappearing out your front door, his camera bag swaying on his side as he marches out the building and back to his car.
And you feel yourself begin to cry, your heart contracting painfully in your chest, a pit forming in your stomach as you witness him walk out of your life again. The flames burn inside of you all over again, turning organ to ash as you wipe your never-ending tears and slam the door behind him. It’s akin to when your mother left, when your dad passed and when you left Felix the first time. It’s overwhelming, it consumes you whole, your entire figure trembling as you fail to extinguish the flames. The phenomenon begs the question- had the fire ever really stopped? Were you ever in the process of mending if not wailing like this, your vulnerability on display for the world to see as your walls are finally let down? Is this what it means to feel?
*
There are few people in this world who have seen you cry. Your mom, one of them, when you begged her to stay. Your dad, another, when you held his hand through his last breath. Felix, the third, several times throughout your relationship with him.
And the folks in this town- never. Not once have they witnessed you wail the way Felix has, tears brimming your eyes as you fail to keep your emotions at bay, mucus trickling down to your lips in an inelegant manner as you cry, and cry and cry.
“You want some coffee?” Chris asks awkwardly, scratching the back of his head as he watches you bury your face in the sleeves of your sweatshirt.
“No.”
“Yena should be here any minute,” he adds, his voice softening as he watches you lift your head to give him a nod.
“Hang in there, kiddo,” Chris finishes, rubbing your back in small circles and giving you a gentle pat.
As you rest your chin in your hands, a pounding headache overtaking your whole being, a knock at the front door catches your attention. It’s Yena, a hood thrown over her head as she balances a tupperware container in her hands and peers through the window. Chris gives her a knowing look, making his way to the door and unlocking it for her.
“Hey,” Yena says softly as she enters, setting down a slice of pie in front of you and taking a seat on the stool beside you. “You okay?”
You sniffle once, shaking your head sorrowfully as she awaits your explanation. But nothing is verbalized yet, and for a good few minutes, all you can do is cry.
Yena wraps you in her loving embrace, letting your tears stain the shoulder of her hoodie, as Chris shrugs from behind you and delivers reassuring pats to your back. They’re just as confused as each other, awaiting a reason or some story, but you can’t bring yourself to vocalize your thoughts, especially when you’re a crying mess like this. Chris finally ushers Yena to say something, and she does, albeit reluctantly.
“You know, just between us, I think he’s a little dorky, anyway. It’s his loss if he can’t see what he’s missing.”
And to their surprise, you chuckle lightly, still wiping tears with the corners of your sweatshirt.
“What?” You question, a soft hiccup escaping your lips as you speak. Yena furrows her brows, together shooting a questioning look to Chris, who shrugs in response.
“Is this… not about Felix?” She queries hesitantly.
“It is,” you emphasize, another giggle escaping your lips. “But it’s not that he’s not interested. We used to date, Yena.”
At this, Yena reaches around to swat Chris’ shoulder, pursing her lips together as she speaks again. “I knew something was up,” she voices, swatting Chris again. “Christopher over here was convinced he was too into you.”
“You guys talked about it?” You add, giggling softly into the sleeve of your sweater.
“It was hard not to,” Yena responded, giving you an empathetic look. “The way you guys light up a room when you’re together, it’s like winter turns to spring or something. I was so certain he was the one.”
At this, more tears escape the corners of your eyes, falling onto the counter below you as you nod slowly in regards to her words.
“I love him,” you finally say, and the room goes silent when you do.
“I love him, and he deserves better than me. Than this,” you finish, gesturing around you to the town. “He wants to drop out of college and stay here. Like that’s a good idea for anyone except me.”
Yena and Chris give each other staggered looks, unsure of what to reply to first. They’ve never heard you speak of your emotions like this, never seen you cry and never would’ve guessed that you would let down your guard to this degree around them. It’s a little frightening, at first, to watch you tear down your own walls so much, like watching a different person than the one they’ve known for all these years. But it’s also reassuring to see that you are capable of letting yourself open up for the right people. It takes a weight off their shoulders to bear witness to the confirmation that they’re the people you can go to when you need help, the same way they don’t hesitate to lean on you. And it especially gives solace to know that you feel so deeply at all, a trait Yena and Chris have always pushed you to familiarize yourself with.
“Well what’s stopping you?” Yena asks, threading her fingers in your hair and combing it back like your mother used to.
“Exactly that,” you respond. “I don’t want to confine him to this life of mine.”
“Let me ask you something,” Yena states, taking your hands in hers and bringing your gaze up to meet hers. “Are you happy?”
And the question throws you off guard, requiring a moment to think before you can say anything in response. It’s a fair question, too- one you should’ve asked yourself when you agreed to move here years ago. But it’s not a difficult one to crack, either, when you take in your surroundings. The diner across the street is packed with patrons, happily sipping away at milkshakes and glass bottles of soda. This old record shop, with its dingy back room and rows of genres you make an effort to learn about whenever you get a chance. The starlings that flock when the train travels through, the holiday parties you find a home in and your favorite spot on the hill, overlooking all of Ember. They’re all working parts of one larger phenomenon- that of happiness.
“Yeah,” you reply, nodding to affirm your answer. “I love it here. And I love you guys, and I’m still healing most days, but I wouldn’t want to be doing it anywhere else.”
A smile grows on Yena’s face as she glances back between you and Chris, and he shoots her a little nod.
“Then do something about it,” she finally says, giving your hands a little squeeze. “The first step is letting yourself feel. The rest is up to you to run with.”
And when you meet her gaze, and Chris’ gaze, their loving expressions looking down at you like you’re one of their own, you can’t help but pull them into a hug, letting yourself cry a little harder at the prospect of your found family, these tears ones of happiness.
“I love you guys,” you voice confidently. “And I’m sorry if I’ve never said it out loud.”
Chris’ hand pats your back, Yena’s combing through your hair tenderly, as they hug you with equal enthusiasm and allow you to cry as long as you need.
“We love you, kid,” Chris answers.
And when you pull away again, the three of you laugh, your tears staining your reddened faces as you bask in this unconditional appreciation for one another.
“Eat your pie,” Yena says, shoving a fork toward you. “And Chris, play some music, will you?”
Chris salutes her, pulling a random record off the shelf and scanning its contents.
“Polish folk?” He questions, and you glance at the familiar cover of the record, the same couple dipping into a bow as they dance in their colorful fabrics.
“This one’s really good,” you chime in, taking a bite of cherry pie as you nod toward the record player. “We should dance to this one.”
And as Chris starts the upbeat music, pulling Yena in for a comedic waltz, you can’t help but laugh through your tears, at the home this town’s given you in all your mending.
*
Felix hasn’t been at the record shop since your fight. He hasn’t been at your apartment, nor the diner, or even Seungmin’s place (and yes, you did ask). There’s only one place you know Felix would flock to after a night like the one you shared, and if you’re lucky, you should still be able to catch him on his supposed last night here.
The grassy hill is a little slippery at this hour, caked mud enwreathing your sneakers as you trudge your way up the hill and into the familiar dip of the land. And as the horizon becomes visible to you, spanning the length of the town and showcasing all the bright lights the nighttime flaunts, so does Felix, sitting with his back to you in a plain white t-shirt and jeans. He looks more casual tonight, less dressed with the intention to look a specific way, and you can’t help but smile at the sight of his slim frame taking in the view you led him to. He leans back on his hands, eyes scanning the sight of the town, before picking up his camera and snapping a series of photos.
When you occupy the spot next to him, he glances over at you briefly, before turning his attention back to the camera and waiting for you to speak.
“It’s prettier at night, isn’t it?,” you finally say, breaking the silence, and Felix fixes his gaze on the blurry lights of the record shop.
“Yeah,” he responds curtly, swallowing nervously as he ponders what to say.
And you know if you let him facilitate this conversation, it’d be over much sooner rather than later, but you also know that it’s up to you to make amends now.
“Your photography is still so beautiful,” you state, gesturing to the camera in his hands. “It’s always been so artistic.”
Felix remains quiet, toying with the strap on his camera as you speak.
“You’re artistic,” you continue. “And that’s why I want you to finish college. Don’t throw all this away for me.”
He turns his face to meet your gaze, his eyes trembling a little as you give him an empathetic look and shrug.
“I don’t want to go where you won’t follow,” Felix says, his voice coming out a little shaky.
“But I’ll always be here,” you retort, tears beginning to prick the corners of your eyes again. “Don’t put your life on hold for something that already lives in your past. You are an incredible person, Felix, and I’m not gonna drag you down a second time.”
Felix thinks for a moment, swallowing a lump in his throat as he thinks over your words. And he knows that there’s a possibility this isn’t what he wants, either- to stay in this little town with your friends he’s not even sure like him very much. But he does know he wants you, and that staying here would mean sacrificing his old life.
“I want you to know it wasn’t your fault,” Felix says after a brief pause of silence. “Nobody who walked out deserved you. And your dad loved you- a lot. I think about that moment watching the sunrise with you every day. He’s there too, part of that memory tucked away in my mind. I’m sorry it happened so suddenly and disrupted things. I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Felix,” you tell him, chuckling lightly as you respond. “I have a whole family here. I don’t spend my holidays alone, I meet new people working at the shop everyday. There’s so many people I haven’t introduced you to. There are coffee shops, and parades on weekends, and I’m happy. I’m still healing, but I’ve also realized that being healed doesn’t equate my happiness. I can be one without the other, and still get by just fine.”
Felix’s gaze is fixed on yours for a moment, not saying anything as he lets your words circle his mind. And there’s so much he wants to say in response, so many questions about what the future means for you both, but he also knows very well that the rest is up to him to figure out, just the way you did when you moved out here. Maybe you’re still healing- and maybe Felix is still figuring out the rest for himself, too. And though the past may be clouded by a story much more complex than either of you can even begin to comprehend, the happiness you seek is attainable, whether or not you’re together to see it through to the end. That although sometimes things may burn and decay like this town once did, there are people who will make the journey to help in the process of rebuilding, and you can thrive again. You can always thrive again.
“You’re right,” Felix says, as he looks over the horizon again. “It is prettier at night.”
The dim glow of the streetlights contrasts the flashy signs of the diner and the record shop, painting the blackened town with vivid color and bringing life to the small town of Ember.
And with a half smile, Felix pulls you in for a tender kiss, the two of you letting your apologies flow through each other in the gentle embrace of your lips and your hands intertwining atop the grassy hill.
Felix pulls you close, letting your head rest comfortably against his chest, as he caresses your hand softly in the grasp of his. And his index finger rubs lovingly against your ring finger, your matching rings grazing against each other as if to say I’ve always loved you.
*
Small town at the edge of the world. No particular time of day. A blossoming summer.
If you told the average person to shut their eyes and think of their favorite city, they’d probably conjure up a lengthy description about the booming skyscrapers, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the fancy restaurants and the well-kept people. Point it out on a map, you’d tell them, and their finger would land in the heart of the amorphous blob of whatever state they’ve chosen.
Now move your finger to the right- keep going, and going, and don’t stop until you’re almost off the map entirely. There will be no major indicators, no colorful dots on this area of the map. You might miss it, in fact, if you shoot too far.
That’s the small town of Ember. A town Felix holds very close to his heart. And one you call home.
The cicadas buzz with high-pitched melodies of summer as you slip your sneakers on, the piercing blue sky around you almost too bright to look directly in its face. The clouds seem to shift with the summer breeze, drifting along the canvas sky like a painting in motion as you take in the sight around you
“Let’s go!” Yena calls, honking her horn twice to signify her arrival.
“I’m coming!” You call back, making your way down the stairs of her porch, balancing trays of food in hand as you account for everything you’ve agreed to bring. Drinks, plates, pie, napkins- your signature arrangement for the town’s summer festival you attend alongside Chris and Yena every year.
“Slow down, kiddo,” Chris says with a chuckle, as you rush to place everything in the backseat. “Oh, and there’s a letter for you on the porch table,” he adds, shooting you a small wink.
“I’ll be right back!” you call to Yena, jogging back up the stairs to collect the little beige envelope that rests atop the wooden surface.
It’s addressed to you, the handwriting in neat swirly black cursive letters, the envelope feeling sturdy between your fingers. You tear it open with no real aim, a giant gash working down the envelope as you rush you pull out the contents and examine them.
It’s a stack of photos, you quickly realize, sorting through them to make out the glossy digital prints.
There’s a photo of you in the back of the record shop, your hands brought up to your face and your legs hanging lazily off the table. Another showcases you in the familiar beige interior of the passenger’s seat, laughing cheerfully and staring out the window. There are photos of the town’s horizon, photos of the record player at your work, Yena’s famous pie, Seungmin’s holiday party and even the matching rings, intertwined hands that rest on the car console. As you shuffle to the last photo, you recognize it to be much more recent than the others, even the quality looking clearer, perhaps a new camera or a different roll of film.
It’s a still photo of Felix, from the waist up, holding a peace sign up to the lens with a small smile. He’s dressed brightly in a white vest and layered jewelry, the background showcasing a blue harbor with rows of boats, the location indistinguishable to you. He’s blonde again, his now shorter golden tresses framing the myriad of freckles that scatter his face once more. And he looks happy, much like himself again.
You wonder briefly who took the photo of him, the angle being of very close proximity. And you can’t make out which hand usually houses the ring you both wear, the only hand visible to you covering his ring finger, regardless. You scan the photo for a moment, running your fingertips over his figure, before turning it over and reading the neatly scribbled text on the back:
Sydney, last fall. I think I’m the only photography major who doesn’t drink my coffee without sugar. And you were right, the freckles do suit me better.
All my love,
Felix.
#Lee Felix#lee felix smut#stray kids#skz smut#skz felix#felix yongbok#felix smut#stray kids felix#felix#skz#stray kids hard hours#skz scenarios#request#fanfic#felix fic#Lee Felix fanfic#ask#felix fluff#Spotify
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DPxDC : The Phantom ARG
I have been watching a lot of ARG’s and conspiracy theory on youtube lately and decided to combine the two so here we go.
The ghosts in this au will be like Deadman, you can’t see him unless you have magic, a magic artifact, or highly contaminated by ectoplasm. meaning only danny and his friends Sam and Tucker who were near the portal when it activated can see the ghosts in this au, they are invisible to everyone else in Amity Park.
In the beginning, after his accident Danny believed that he was merely hallucinating the small ghost blobs and ghost animals that initially made it through the portal thinking it was only an after effect from getting an extreme shock, and it isn’t until the first ‘incident’ the mystery meat that attacked the shool cafeteria that he realizes that what he is seeing is real.
So like any self respecting teen he tells his best friends Sam and Tucker. They both reveal that they too have been seeing strange things since the accident although not as clearly as Danny, they could still see them like watching youtube in 240p. They gather after the mystery meat incident, which they have named INCIDENT-1 or IN-1 for short as they later name it, in Danny’s room afterwards to discuss what happened. They find out that other than the three of them no one seemed to see the floating lunch lady or even head her when she talked , they only reacted after the meat started gathering and taking the shape of a monster.
Sam says that they should document what they see and what is happening in amity park and the boys agree with her. Danny become the main cameraman and investigator being the only one strong enough to get close without major injury or harm and also being able to see, hear, and feel the ghosts clearest. Sam is the main documenter and researcher she’s the one that writes down their findings and goes over the videos they have to discover new findings to note down. Tucker is the main hacker and editor he hacker the cameras in the streets and school to get footage and other information that might be needed while also making sure that they can’t be tracked. Despite having their main area of expertise they all pitch in to help each other.
While documenting they start figuring out a few key details about documenting ghosts. 1 being that unless you are using an ecto-camera the less technologically adavanced the devices you use are the better results you get. 2 the stronger the ghost is the more visible they are, the stronger they are the more dangerous they are ( danny in ghost form is by far the most visible on camera, and in real life extremely clear to his friends). and finally 3 as time goes on certain objects/ places around town have started to become strange or gain peculiar features.
Jazz ,still not believing in ghosts because they are not visible ,becomes suspicious of what the Trio are doing, so they lie to her and tell her that they are making a sort of anolog horror based on their town to cope with the stress of the recent events happening.
realizing that ‘hey this actually a really nice way to destress from our problems’ and with that one lie that they told jazz the Trio became fully committed to making a full on ARG , with hidden messages, pictures and code. so with Tucker’s coding and editing skills and knowledge of ciphers and wordplay, Sam’s organizing skills and eye for hints and details, and Danny’s obsession with stars and everything space and his way with emotions, along the very much real ghosts and they were all set to make the best ARG.
They named it THE PHANTOM ARG, finishing up the last details they finally post their first video on youtube titled ‘IN-1 : Mystery Meat’. Later on once they get the hang of it they post about ‘how to deal with the ghosts’ ‘evacuation procedures’ ‘cooking with ectoplasm’ and artwork depicting the ghosts and short presentations explaining their characteristics. They even make a fully functional website thats called ‘welcom to Amity Park’ where there are hidden messages, codes and information.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
In Gotham
Bernard Dowd is watching youtube when a video thumbnail catches his eye, it looks like a strange meat monster, he was intrigued. having nothing better to do, he decides to watch it. he looks at what the chanel is about and is instantly hooked, theory’s are exploding from his mind.
he can’t wait to tell Tim about this he would absolutely love this type of mystery solving.
random ideas for this au
The GIW are a big thing in this au, they can’t take down what the trio are posting because Tucker is a hacking god.
Danny is only called to as phantom when he is a ghost never as a human ( because of this no one knows that danny is a halfa)
the trio could go by code names, polaris(danny),pharaoh(tucker),gaia(sam). or any other name you think is sutable.
all codes, ciphers, and hints are based on either science and technology(tucker), plants and animals(sam), or space and ghosts(danny).
the ghost portal accident and opening is unkown to the public and is only referd to as the Accident and people are never told what this accident is only ‘since the accident’ or ‘after the accident’.
there is an extremely hidden video that requires you to solve an impossible amount of hints and clues, that is of the portal opening. it’s called IN-0:The Accident.
(the video shows two people a man and a woman jack and maddie in hazmat suits standing in front a large metal tunnel, two kids jazz and danny siting in front of them, the scientists plug the machine but it fails, they disappointedly leave,*fast foward*, three kids, the trio are standing in front of the portal, they talk, danny puts on a hazmat and walks into the tunnel, it whirls on, the doors shut, the video glitchs as the sound of the machine starting up get louder, the screen turns black but the sound of danny screaming are loud and clear, the screaming goes on for a few minutes before suddenly cutting off, the screan clears up but its still a bit glitchy, the portal is open swirling green with sam and tucker standing in front of it, danny is nowhere to be seen)
danny may or may not be ghost king
This is my attempt at drawing the LUNCH LADY.
DANGER: ⭐️⭐️
( rating may change)
please add, use, change as much as you like. i’d love to see what you come up with and how this idea could expand.
just make sure to tag me or tag it as The Phantom ARG.
#dp idea#dp x dc#dp x dc crossover#dp x dc au#dp x dc prompt#dp x dc fanfic#dpxdc#dp dc crossover#dp x dc fic#dc x dp#dp crossover#danny phantom crossover#dc x dp fic#dcxdp#DcxDp#dpxdc au#dc crossover#danny phantom#dc x dp prompt#dc x dp crossover#dc x dp au#dc x dp fanfiction#The Phantom ARG#ARG#Phantom ARG#bernard dowd#sam manson#tucker foley#could be a crossover with any fandom#or multipule other dimensions at once
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Persimmon Problems
jaemin x reader
summary: fantasy crushes are all fun and games until it stops being a fantasy and he’s really talking to you. but what are you supposed to do when he invades every part of your life?
genre: fluff, angst, university au, non idol au, he’s not a frat boy but he’s basically a frat boy, inaccurate depictions of student council, I don’t actually know what this is
warnings: swearing, drinking, implied sex (it’s pg-13), lmk if I missed any
wc: 18.3k (oops)
a/n: ahahaha remember that jaemin dream… yeah. anyways so I’ve looked at this for so long that I don’t even know what this is anymore, all I know is that I can’t keep working on it. also I still don't know what a persimmon tastes like so.. yeah. I really wanted to try one but if this stays in my drafts any longer I will go insane. I hope you all enjoy!!!! as always I'd love to hear what you think :)
You’ve never had persimmon before but you think maybe it’s the best word to describe Na Jaemin. He is a persimmon in your palm, an unknown flavor to be discovered if you dare to bite. It doesn’t help that he chose to wear orange today, the sweater a shade away from pink.
There’s a pinch at your side. “You’re staring again.”
You glare at Renjun, who doesn’t bother to look up from his laptop, working on the graphic for the student council. “Was not.”
“Whatever,” he says. “Just don’t let the pretty boy distract you from paying attention because I needed to finish this yesterday.”
“The only one distracting me is you, and you aren’t pretty.” You pretend his silence is agreement instead of him trying to force you to take notes as Professor Bae closes up the lecture.
It’s not that you can’t focus around Na Jaemin–your perfect notes at the end of class prove just the opposite. Jaemin simply exists in another world. There is your corner, mostly filled with student council responsibilities and never ending university work, and there is Na Jaemin, honorary member of every frat on campus. Not that you’ve been thinking that much about him, but his Instagram shows up in your recommended often enough for you to know that he goes to parties nearly every weekend. The sliver of overlap in the Venn diagram of your world and his only includes Microbiology on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 4, and that’s enough for you. To fantasize about him from here, a fruit you’ll never have the opportunity to try.
Jaemin starts to turn around and you quickly turn to Renjun, resisting the urge to peek at him out of the corner of your eye. You look at the shapes on Renjun’s computer instead.
“That looks like shit.”
“Trust the process,” he says.
“You spent the entire lecture working on this, you are aware we have a lab where you actually have to do things right?”
“You don’t think you can handle it on your own?”
“Stop trying to bait me into doing all the work.” You close your laptop, standing and stretching. You see Jaemin out of the corner of your eye, a blob of black hair shuffling down the aisle toward the door to the classroom. The orange-pink sweater is actually a cardigan, large cream colored buttons keeping it together. That’s when you realize you’re staring again. Shit.
“Are we eating before lab or do you seriously think you’ll finish that thing in the next thirty minutes?” You ask Renjun, who still hasn’t moved.
“You want to be president when you aren’t even pressuring me into posting the election announcements that were supposed to go out yesterday?”
“I want to eat something before we have to stare into microscopes, so what do you want?” You wonder if he’s focused enough to miss you grabbing his wallet out of his bag.
“Whatever you want is fine and if you use my card it will literally decline.” You curse and toss his wallet back into his backpack.
“Should have taken that class with Chenle, his card never declines.”
“That’s because it’s his parents’ black card.” He finally looks up from his laptop at you. “Are you getting the food or not?”
You open your mouth to say something extremely witty and/or smart, but your stomach rumbles. “I’m going to fire you when I’m president.”
“And who else will put up with your bullshit?” he calls as you walk down the aisle. You prepare a mature response (sticking your tongue out at him), walking backwards. Directly into someone—bouncing off their chest, more specifically.
Hands grab your shoulders before you can react, straightening you before you have a chance to fall. “Woah there.”
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry,” you say as you turn around and find Na Jaemin staring at you. Apologies spill out, even as he smiles at you, a true, knees-to-jelly, threat-to-sunshine smile.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“Sorry,” you repeat. Your brain struggles to diversify its vocabulary with him looking at you, smiling with his eyes in full focus. His eyes are so dark it’s difficult to distinguish between his pupils and his irises. Staring, again, the third time in an hour. Why can’t you be normal around him?
“I was blocking your way out anyway, so it wasn’t all your fault.” He steps back, letting you out of the aisle. At least, giving you the space to do it, since your feet decide not to work. He tilts his head at you, sending your brain into a spiral of predictions, ranging from he’s going to ask you out (rather fantastical) to he’s going to tell you that you have something stuck between your teeth (horribly realistic).
Instead, he says, “You’re YN, right?”
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
His smile widens when you say yes. “Student council vice president, right?”
You don’t trust your voice so you nod.
“I’m Jaemin,” he says, extending his hand for a moment like he wants to shake hands but he pulls away at the last second. “Your picture is on the website.”
“Nice to meet you,” you say, mouth going through the motions on its own since your brain’s whiteboard has been wiped completely clean. The only thing left is NA JAEMIN in giant bold letters, bright red marker and all.
“Yes, it is,” he says. Does he know the effect his smile has on people? Legally it could be considered a weapon. He pauses a moment longer, like he wants to say something else but instead he turns away, walking back to his seat, waving at half the class because of course he does.
You don’t have to turn around to feel Renjun staring at you. You don’t feel like hearing his judgy comments, even when they’re only passed on through his eyes. Whoever said eyes are the window to the soul was right—Renjun’s give you a clear view of the most judgmental person you have ever met. You leave the class without looking back.
Very few places nearby campus sell edible food, and even fewer are ever empty enough to be able to grab food and eat before the three hour lab starts. Today is even worse than normal, as if everyone has chosen to be hungry at the same time as you. You end up at a 7/11, grabbing Takis since they’re the only chips Renjun will eat. You grab an iced tea, tapping your finger in line as you wait. Getting the food was enough of a distraction to keep you from thinking about Jaemin but as you wait for the person in front of you try to get a discount using a coupon that expired three months ago, you go over every millisecond of the interaction–and god, you were so awkward. All you really did was apologize to him, you couldn’t even move. You have got to grow up, stop acting like a middle schooler with a crush.
The cashier finally gives up, giving the person a discount and waving them out. You set your food down and smile at her. She does her best to put a customer service smile back on her face, though you can see the exhaustion. You thank her as profusely as you can.
By the time you make it back to the lecture room, there’s barely five minutes left of break.
“Thank god, I’m starving,” Renjun says, grabbing the bag out of your hands. You keep your iced tea on the side farthest from him, glaring at him until he tilts the bag so that you can reach it too. “We are going to make Donghyuck cook tonight, I need real food.”
“Agreed,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand so you don’t spew hot chip dust everywhere.
“And I took pictures of you embarrassing yourself in front of Jaemin, so please try to replace me as your social media correspondent.” He smiles at you over the purple bag.
“You’re horrible, has anyone ever told you that?”
“Music to my ears, sweetheart.”
.
.
Unfortunately, Renjun’s graphic does look good, though still not good enough to warrant how much time he spent on it. The messy shapes don’t look half as bad when they’re the right color, and all the information is listed (not in Comic Sans, though it’s only a matter of time before he tries to use it again. You have yet to find out if he actually likes the font or just wants to be annoying). He posts it an hour after the lab, which wasn’t half bad. Your percent error was under 50% for once.
It’s a Friday morning, no classes since your university actually listened to the student requests for a three day weekend, which the student council (you) takes full credit for. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you are responsibility free. Instead you sit in cheap plastic chairs rented from the events and planning committee and under a tent that’s in serious danger of blowing away.
You cling to your ball cap, NCIT STUDENT COUNCIL embroidered on the front. The papers in front of you whip around, the weights on top of them holding steady. At least it isn’t raining, though the thick clouds overhead get darker every minute.
Realistically, there’s no reason for you to be here. All the information about running for student council is posted online and with over 30,000 students, only a small portion of the student body actually care—none of whom are walking around campus at 11 in the morning on a Friday. You pull the blanket tighter over your shoulders. Just another fifteen minutes and then Jisung will relieve you. Mark should be the one freezing his ass off since he’s the one that insists on upholding tradition, but as president he takes advantage of avoiding work whenever he can.
Only two and a half months before that privilege is yours. Assuming you are elected, of course, but there’s no real danger in losing that. You’ve been a part of the council since freshman year, appointed as vice president as a sophomore. Few people have more qualifications, and fewer are actually interested in the position. Usually the competition comes from within the cabinet, but none of the rest of the guys have said anything about the running, though that might be because you haven’t shut up about the position since freshman year. Either way, the position is all but yours, and there is absolutely no reason you need to sit here when you could be studying for midterms.
A strong gust of wind blows from in front of you instead of behind and this time you are too slow. Your cap flies off your head, tumbling across the empty quad. You shuffle after it, keeping the blanket wrapped tightly over your shoulders, which helps protect you from the cold winds. Unfortunately, said cold winds don’t stop blowing, and your hat blows faster than you can shuffle. It reaches to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the squad by the time it finally stops.
Moving as fast as you can wrapped up one dry day away from mummification, you try to snatch the cap before it gets blown away again. You bend down to reach for it but a pair of sneakers appear in front of you and a mitten-clad hand grabs it before you can. You stand up and find Jaemin, wearing bright red earmuffs that have a green headband to make it look like a pair of cherries. He holds your hat out, smiling when he sees you (when he recognizes you?).
“What’s wrong? Hat got your tongue?” He waits, with an expectant smile. The boy next to him, wearing more layers than you, shakes his head. “Sorry,” Jaemin says, “bad joke, I know, but I couldn’t help it.”
Even the most lovesick part of you can’t defend him on that one. You take your hat from his outstretched hand, sticking it back on your head when you realize what your hair must look like after crossing the quad with all the wind.
“It’s Jaemin, from microbio,” he says, as if there’s actually a chance you don’t know him.
“Thanks, Jaemin from microbio.”
He flashes a smile that warms you better than any sun. “My pleasure, Vice President.”
“You can just call me YN,” you mumble.
“Where’s the fun in that?” You swear he winks, though maybe it’s the wind blowing in his eyes.
The boy next to him nudges Jaemin with his shoulder, keeping his hands tucked safely in the pockets of his jacket. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Jaemin rolls his eyes. “This is Jeno, he’s–God, I guess he’s my best friend.” He glances at Jeno, unimpressed. “The position is temporary.”
“Thanks!” Jeno says brightly.
“Jeno, this is the vice president of the student council,” he says.
“YN,” you say, “I’d shake your hand but…” You show your hands, stuck keeping the blanket wrapped around you.
“It’s alright, I lost my gloves, so my hands are stuck here.” Jeno lifts his jacket with his hands in the pockets, just to prove his point.
“Hey, I didn’t get a handshake,” Jaemin says.
“Did you need a handshake?”
He tilts his head, showing off his jawline, not that you’re paying attention to that at all. It simply calls attention to itself, and who are you to ignore a jawline that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo (not the ninja turtle). He must be cold with so much skin exposed.
“I’ll settle for some advice,” Jaemin says. Right, maybe you shouldn’t be comparing his face to famous works of art mid-conversation (save it for the Instagram stalking like everyone else).
“Advice?”
“I was actually looking for you anyway.” Jaemin glances at Jeno before meeting your eyes again. “The student council election is open to anyone, right?”
“The presidency is open to seniors that are enrolled here, but yeah,” you say. “Why?”
He shrugs. “I’m going to apply.”
You blink at him. “For president? Of student council?”
“Yeah,” he says. Jeno shuffles beside him, stuffing his hands impossibly deeper into his pockets.
President… but that’s your position. If it wasn’t for the senior-only rule, you’d already be president. You rose through the ranks, suffered through a vice presidency with Mark to get here–it’s your position.
“Do I apply there?” He asks, pointing at the table you’re supposed to be sitting at.
“The application is online,” you find yourself saying, “you have to submit a resume and go through a qualifying process, and submit your proposals for campaign policies and a whole bunch of other stuff, it’s all on the application information.” You’re about halfway through your own application, though it’s mostly copying and pasting from the document you’ve been working on since you joined student council.
“You can scan the QR code on this blanket, it’ll take you to the application.” You hold it straight, cursing Renjun in your head for being so creative with marketing. You look like an idiot, waiting for him to scan your shoulder.
“Cool,” Jaemin says, pulling out his phone, but instead of scanning the code, he hands it to you, a new contact profile with your name already in it. You glance between the phone and the smiling boy. “Can I ask you if I have any questions?”
Jaemin is asking you for his phone number. To help with his campaign, against you. Your brain works in overdrive, trying to determine how you are supposed to feel. Your heart doesn’t hesitate to take advantage of the internal turmoil. You put your number into his phone and hand it back to him.
“Sure,” you say, even as your brain screams at you not to. “Whatever I can do to help.”
He grins and your brain fully malfunctions, gears popping, cartoon sparks flying. “Thank you, YN.”
“No problem,” you mumble, knowing that’s not true at all even without a functioning brain cell. You should have let him call you vice president when you had the chance–this is so much worse.
“I should go back,” you say, taking a step backward, a gamble considering your history of walking backwards around him. Trying not to linger in Jaemin’s presence is like a planet resisting the pull of gravity to the sun–no matter how hard you try, you can’t beat physics.
But maybe he isn’t the sun because when you take another step, Jaemin takes a step to follow you. Are there stars that revolve around planets? But Jaemin doesn’t revolve around you, he doesn’t even exist in your solar system. Maybe a black hole is a better metaphor, sucking you in from a galaxy over. You should stop making metaphors based on middle school astronomy.
You peer at Jaemin as he continues across the quad, walking leisurely beside you as you shuffle. Jeno trails behind slightly, risking the cold to pull out a phone.
“Are you following me?”
Jaemin looks at you over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows. “You think you’re that special already?” Before you can answer, he laughs. “But, yeah, I am. I can’t leave you all by yourself out here, anything could happen.”
“As opposed to by myself at the table?”
He shrugs. “There’s two chairs. I could sit with you.”
It’s your turn to raise your eyebrows, looking him up and down. He’s got a puffy jacket (bright red, probably to match with the earmuffs) and jeans. “You’d freeze in five minutes.”
“You could–”
“Are we going to Doyoung’s or not?” Jeno calls from behind you.
“Right,” Jaemin says, “I definitely did not forget about that.” He glances at you. “Rain check?”
“I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for you to keep me company freezing my ass off,” you say, “but seriously, I wouldn’t let you stay anyway.” You reach the table, turning to face him.
Jaemin pouts. “Why not?”
“For starters, I don’t want to be responsible for the hypothermia you’re bound to catch,” you say, “and it’s a student council thing. You’re not a part of the student council.”
“Not yet.”
Right. The standard, crush-threatening-the-dream-you’ve-spent-three-years-working-toward-situation. “Also, no offense, but I barely know you.”
“Offense taken,” Jaemin says, holding a hand over his chest. “We’ve taken half a class together!”
“We’ve spoken twice if you count today!” You say. Does he really not get it? “At the very least it would be awkward.”
“I take full offense to the idea that I could ever be awkward,” Jaemin says. He folds his arms over his chest, eyeing you. “I’ll prove it to you.” Your gut twists, sending off the warning bells, but there’s no way Jaemin is actually flirting with you. He probably hates the idea that someone doesn’t immediately trust him with their heart and soul. He doesn’t need to know that you already do. That’s why there’s simply no way he’s flirting with you–it simply doesn’t make sense.
“Dude, we seriously need to go,” Jeno says. “Doyoung is spam texting.”
Jaemin wiggles his eyebrows at you. “I’ll see you in class.”
“Bye Jaemin,” you say. You watch him walk away with Jeno, throwing his arm over his friend’s shoulders. He doesn’t look back at you.
What just happened?
Jisung approaches so quietly you jump when you turn around and he stands in front of you. “Was that Na Jaemin?”
“Yes–wait, how do you know him?”
Jisung avoids your eyes, turning to watch the pair of boys trudge away. “Renjun talks.”
You’re going to kill him. But first you need to defrost, so you hand the blanket over to Jisung and jump a few times to warm yourself up, trying in vain to make up for the loss.
“What was he doing here?” Jisung asks, wrapping himself so tightly his feet are bound together. One strong push would send him tumbling over, probably unable to get up. If only it was Renjun.
“He wants to be president.”
“Of student council?”
“Apparently.”
“Huh.” Jisung sits back. “Aren’t you supposed to be president?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.” Jisung stares at you.
“Have fun!” You say. The air without Jaemin is so much colder. Maybe your toes have frostbite. “It’s cold!”
Jisung grunts, huddling down and you don’t spare a second look at him. There’s a solid chance he’s texting Renjun already, since your best friend has decided to be a dirty gossip. You walk along the sidewalk and try to tell your heart that no matter how pretty his smile is, Na Jaemin is bad for you. Your heart reminds you that he saved your hat.
Your phone vibrates in your pocket. You pull it out, fully expecting to see a message from Renjun but instead a string of numbers show up. you better save my number :). You stare at your phone until it fades to black, which is why you know the exact moment it starts to snow. Though it’s March and the groundhog didn’t see its shadow, a snowflake falls on your phone, melting quickly. You walk home in the snow, thoughts of Jaemin piling up a snowbank that no plow can clear.
.
.
For breakfast on Tuesday morning, you have an untoasted bagel with a side of impending doom. You woke up with the feeling, a knot in your gut that usually only appears before exams or after you drink too much coffee, but today has chosen to warn you of unknown horrors yet to come. It has to be the dream you had, only you forgot it the moment you woke up.
[Bitch #1] You’re just trying to avoid jaemin.
You don’t know why you expected Renjun to support you. Unsurprisingly, he found out about Jaemin’s intent to run for president before you made it back to your apartment, and dedicated an hour to lecturing you over FaceTime, then spent the entire pregame on Saturday side eyeing you.
Jaemin’s message sits at the bottom of your recent texts. He hasn’t sent anything since Friday, though neither have you. You close your phone and try not to think about him, an impossible task. In the end you can’t think of a valid excuse, and go to your morning lecture. It’s one of your favorite classes (world history of medicinal developments 1200-1600) but today your mind drifts, still trying to figure out why today feels so off. Are you forgetting an assignment? You’ve checked the syllabus for all of your classes and the reminders your professors sent out but nothing has slipped past your the list on your planner. You check your outfit after class to see if you put something on backwards but you look fine. By the time you head toward microbio, you’ve resigned yourself to a day of inexplicable anxiety.
You should have trusted your gut.
You take one step into the room and the knot in your gut twists itself into a mess that spells out leave now while you still have the chance.
In your normal spot at the back of the classroom, sitting beside Renjun, sits Jaemin, grinning and waving at you like he’s been sitting there the entire semester.
You walk carefully down the aisle of desks, stopping in front of him. “You’re in my seat.”
Jaemin doesn’t seem to notice Renjun’s snort, opting to smile at you. “Hello YN, it’s nice to see you.”
“Hi Jaemin,” you say, “you’re in my seat.”
He rolls his eyes, sliding his backpack to the side and slipping into the next seat over. “I was just getting to know Renjun.”
You glare at your best friend, sitting beside him. “I’m sure he’s been lovely.” Renjun smiles innocently, turning back to photoshopping a graphic of the student council.
Jaemin pulls out his laptop, sitting leaning back into the chair. Is he planning on sitting here for the whole class?
“What are you doing?” You ask softly. Renjun continues to click around, not even pretending not to eavesdrop.
“I told you, I could never be awkward,” Jaemin says.
“Speak for yourself,” you mutter, shrinking in your seat. Does he really not notice the class staring at you? Okay, maybe staring is an exaggeration, and it’s not the whole class, but the people he normally sits with keep glancing back at you and whispering to each other.
Professor Bae walks in and they turn back to the front, saving you from (more) embarrassment. From the corner of your eye, you watch the boys at your sides—Renjun doesn’t bother to open the notes doc he shares with you, opting for continuing the edit, which you can’t really complain about because it’s the series of posts you asked him to make. Jaemin pulls up a cartoon series, Teen Titans, volume off with the subtitles on.
“Is this what you do every class?” You whisper.
Jaemin looks away from his fake typing for a moment. “She grades for attendance, not participation.”
“Are you even passing this class?”
Jaemin grins. “Sweetheart, I skew the curve.” Just to prove his point, he pauses the bickering superheroes and pulls up the grade review for the class. True to his word, his scores are well above average, rivaling your own. With the exception of Renjun, you haven’t met anyone who’s gotten similar grades.
Jaemin smiles, switching back to the show. He exudes confidence, and why wouldn’t he? Not only hot and popular, he’s smart too, smarter than you—it takes you hours of studying, exam cram sessions, paying attention in class—he doesn’t even hide that he isn’t paying attention, and from his reputation alone, you know he doesn’t spend as much time studying as you. Does he know what he’s getting into with student council? Even the laziest of presidents put in several hours of work a week.
Jaemin laughs at the show. Renjun finally glances at you, raising his eyebrows at Jaemin in a silent question. You shrug, mouthing, I don’t know either. He purses his lips and turns back to photoshop. You’re sure the second Jaemin steps away he’s going to be on your ass again.
Belatedly, you realize you’ve spent far too much of the class thinking about Jaemin. Professor Bae has already moved on from weekly announcements to new topics, meaning you have a date with YouTube review videos tonight. Thank god Professor Bae actually cares about her students and has recorded lectures. You just have to hope you didn’t miss one of the exam hints she only drops during class.
Jaemin and Renjun stay quiet for the rest of the class period, though it does little to help you actually focus. Between Jaemin existing next to you and the inevitability of Renjun’s judgment, it’s hard to stay focused on virus identification. You take half the notes you usually do.
But can you really blame it on them? It’s you that loses focus, you that is distracted by Jaemin beside you when he doesn’t actively try to pull your attention. He may have disrupted the balance of the universe by sitting beside you, but that doesn’t mean you have to fall off the scale.
Professor Bae announces the end of lecture a couple minutes early. You swear you see her raise her eyebrows at you and glance at Jaemin before disappearing into her office for the half hour break before lab. Is it too self-absorbed to wonder if she’s taking things the wrong way? But what is the wrong way? None of it makes any sense except that maybe Jaemin is too stubborn for his own good. Funny how a week ago he didn’t know your name and now you can say he’s ‘too’ something.
“So what do you normally do during break?” Jaemin asks. “Other than bounce off the chest of your roguishly handsome classmates.”
You roll your eyes to keep him from noticing how flustered his comment actually makes you. “Go over the prelab in case someone forgets to do it–”
“I always do it!” Renjun says.
“–but usually get snacks and do homework. Lately Renjun has been doing a lot of student council work during class, but that’s because he doesn’t know how to manage his time.”
“Says the one who asked me to design a scheduler for them.”
“Just because you’re good at Canva doesn’t mean you’re on top of your work.”
Renjun shakes his head. You can tease him all you want, at the end of the day, you know that it doesn’t really matter. The truth is, he just doesn’t need to study as much as you. Sort of like Jaemin, and absolutely nothing like you.
“What do you normally do during break?” You ask.
Jaemin purses his lips. “Well, my lab partner rarely does the prelab, so usually I let him look at mine.” From the row where Jaemin normally sits, a guy in a striped yellow polo glares back at you.
You glance between him and Jaemin, who turns away from his partner to look at you. “Should you go over there?”
“Probably.” He doesn’t make a move to get up, instead tilting his head and smiling at you a little. “You’re very interesting, YN.”
You cough, breaking eye contact to fiddle with the A key on your laptop which is in serious danger of falling off. “Well, your lab partner is probably going to try and inject you with a virus during lab if you don’t go over there.”
Jaemin laughs. “You’re probably right. I’ll talk to you later.” He stands up and glances at Renjun, who finally looks away from his laptop. Jaemin nods at him and flashes a smile at you, showing perfect rows of white teeth, and finally turns around, backpack half open in his hand.
You tear your eyes away from him, turning back to Renjun, who sits with his elbow on the armrest, chin in hand. He softens his eyes and looks up at you. “You’re very interesting, YN.”
“Shut up,” you say, pushing his elbow out from under him, though he doesn’t fall like you wish he would.
He shakes his head. “I do not like that guy.”
“Really?” You frown. “Why?”
“The fact that you’re even asking me that.” He sighs. “He’s just not my favorite type of guy.” He glares at you before you can tease him. “You seem to exclusively be attracted to shitty men, and then I become associated with them through proximity and it’s overall not a fun time for me.”
“Okay first of all, you barely know Jaemin,” you say, “and second of all, nothing’s ever going to happen with him.”
Renjun raises his eyebrows.
“Seriously,” you insist, “he’s literally Jaemin, and I’m… not his type. You can hate him all you want but don’t do it on my behalf.”
Renjun stares at you a little longer. He doesn’t believe you, and he’s probably right not to. But he turns back to his computer and doesn’t argue back.
“I didn’t do the pre lab, though,” Renjun says, “that was a lie.”
“I’m going to kill you and make it look like an accident.”
.
.
Jaemin doesn’t show up to class on Thursday. You stare at your phone, the single message in your conversation with him. Curiosity and something bitter boil together, making it impossible to think logically. He acts so friendly around you it would be easy to mistake him for a friend, but it’s not like you don’t have friends. You wouldn’t have a second thought about sending a text like this to Renjun or Donghyuck–but you’ve never felt butterflies when either of them looked at you.
So when your phone dies, you slip it into the pocket of your sweatshirt instead of trying to fight Mark for a charger (ever since “someone” stole one, he’s been overprotective of the cords). It’s movie night anyways, it’s not like you need your phone.
“Wait,” you say, “since when are we watching Endgame?”
“We literally just voted,” Donghyuck says, “You could have tied it for Lilo and Stitch but you weren’t paying attention.” He glares at you.
Mark throws an arm over your shoulders. “It’s all good, YN can just make the popcorn.”
“It’s hitting buttons on a microwave.”
“Oh, would you look at that, the movie’s starting!” Mark says, pushing you off the couch and towards the kitchen of his apartment. You glare at him, but the guys have made you watch Marvel movies enough times that you are glad for the excuse to escape any part of it. It’s bad enough you can hear it from the kitchen.
The shelves in Mark’s apartment are tall enough that he keeps a stool in the kitchen so that he can reach the highest of them. Of course that’s where he keeps his popcorn, so you jump as high as you can, snatching the box. Except you pull a little too hard and the box flies clean out of your hand, your feet slipping out from under you. You tumble to the ground, narrowly avoiding banging your head on the faux marble countertop.
A moment later, Donghyuck appears standing over you, box of popcorn in one hand. “You could have just used the stool.”
“That’s so much work.”
“And yet it keeps you off the floor.” He holds out his free hand and helps you stand. Your tailbone hurts a little but otherwise it seems you dodged major damage.
“You okay?” Chenle shouts.
“Fine,” you shout back. You wonder what the odds are that they’d let you bleed out to finish the movie—probably higher than what you want to calculate. At least Donghyuck is as anti-Endgame as you.
He sets the box on the counter, pulling the plastic off a bag and putting it in the microwave for five minutes. You would’ve just used the popcorn button but Donghyuck insists it tastes better this way. He turns around, leaning against the counter and studying you.
“So,” he says.
You raise your eyebrows. “‘So’ what?”
“So, Jaemin.” Donghyuck stares at you, eyes unreadable. He’s been like this ever since you met him—pulling people apart with his eyes and extracting the most important bits, all with a smile on his face. He knew Shotaro was going to drop out before Shotaro did.
“He’s…” A friend? A crush? The guy you wish would stay out of your life so you could keep daydreaming about him?
“He’s sort of famous,” Donghyuck says. “Or infamous, depending on who you ask.”
“And if I ask you?”
Donghyuck smiles like this is going according to his script. “He’s lots of fun to party with. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like him.”
“But?” You jump when the first piece of popcorn pops.
Donghyuck pins you down with his eyes. “But he isn’t the boyfriend type. I mean, I’m not best friends with the guy, but it’s pretty obvious, and I talked to—”
“Stop.” You hold a hand up. “I know exactly what kind of guy he is, I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m not saying you’re an idiot, I just—”
“Donghyuck, I get it.” You stare back at him. “I really do, but I promise I know what I’m doing.” Okay, maybe that last part is a lie, but you know what you aren’t doing. You don’t expect a single thing from Na Jaemin.
“I heard he’s running for president.”
“Come on,” you say, “you think he can beat me?” Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. He won’t call you out on it, but he doesn’t have to. Your lie doesn’t even convince yourself. Jaemin has it all—grades, good looks, and, most importantly, popularity. Yes, he can beat you. Easily.
“Why are you helping him?”
“Jisung can’t keep his mouth shut, huh?”
“Renjun was actually the one that told me, but that’s not the point,” Donghyuck says.
“He hasn’t even asked for help,” you say, “and it’s not like I’m going to give up. I just…”
“You like him,” Donghyuck says. He raises his eyebrows, waiting for you to try to deny it but you won’t fight a battle that’s already lost. But you won’t admit it either.
“I know what I’m doing.”
Donghyuck chews on his lip for a moment. “Just be careful,” he says, “I do care about you. A little. Just a tiny bit. And from what I know, Jaemin is a good guy, but I don’t want you to get hurt because he isn’t what you want him to be.”
“Gross, stop acting like we’re friends,” you say.
“Never mind, I take it all back,” he says, “and I won’t be your vice president.”
“Too late.” You shrug. “You already signed a contract.”
“Fine, I’ll veto everything you propose.”
“You don’t have the power to do that.”
He tossed his hands up. “What is the point of being vice president?”
You beam at him. “Doing the shit I don’t want to do!”
Donghyuck opens his mouth to argue back but he pauses, sniffing at the air, and that’s when you realize the popcorn has long since stopped popping. Behind Donghyuck, smoke rises.
He curses, pressing the button to open the door only to take a wave of smoke straight in the face. At least the bag isn’t on fire. You laugh as he waved his hand in front of his face, coughing.
“Dude, what is that smell?” Mark shouts from the living room.
You spend half the movie bickering with Donghyuck while trying to get the sharp smoky scent out of Mark’s kitchen. By the time the Avengers have all the infinity stones again and are in the final battle, you are curled up on the floor with a blanket, the popcorn bowl confiscated by Chenle when he realized how much you and Donghyuck ate while making it (it sort of tastes like smoke anyways). Two Marvel movies later, Mark shakes you awake and sends you and the rest of the guys out.
You’re so tired by the time you get home, you plug your phone in and fall asleep. That’s why you don’t see the message until your alarm goes off the next morning.
[Na Jaemin] you busy?
.
.
For the past three weeks, you’ve tried meditation. Renjun swears by it, but you’ve seen him lose it over half a quesadilla, so it doesn’t exactly instill confidence in you. Still, you set aside ten minutes every morning to listen to the podcast he sent you. It’s meant to be calming, to connect you with yourself, and usually you do feel better, at least for a few minutes.
You peek at your phone, checking how much time in the lesson is left (3 and a half minutes). No new notifications.
Jaemin’s message gave you a heart attack when you woke up. He sent it at 8:12pm, probably right after your phone died. So seeing his message first thing in the morning woke you up pretty fast. You sent an apology that you definitely didn’t rewrite fifteen times, and now you wait.
But no, you’re meditating right now. Clearing your mind, not thinking about a single thing except the air that floods your lungs, letting your heart beat twice before releasing the air again. You peek your right eye open. No new notifications.
The narration ends and you sigh, laying back on your bed and checking your schedule for the day even though you’ve memorized it. In half an hour you need to be in the library to meet with your study group, then a council meeting, some space for lunch (which will undoubtedly end up crashed by Chenle or Donghyuck), then more homework in the afternoon. Tonight you’re supposed to go to a party thrown by one of Mark’s friends from grad school—depending on whether Renjun can find out if he’s a poli-sci major or not.
You jump when your calendar disappears and the incoming call screen pops up. You stare at Jaemin’s name for a couple seconds before your brain begins to function again, and you slide the button at the bottom of your phone to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“YN,” Jaemin says. His voice is a little deeper than normal, raspy like he just woke up. “I was starting to think you’d blocked me.”
“Sorry, my phone died last night and Mark doesn’t let anyone use his chargers.”
Jaemin laughs, the phone distorting the quality, sounding choppy and un-Jaemin. “Damn, does the student body know he treats his council like this?”
You laugh a little but can’t think of anything else to say. The silence stretches longer as Jaemin doesn’t speak either. The ceiling of your apartment has a constellation of holes, evidence of the former tenant’s antics. You have yet to figure out exactly what it could be—stabbing the ceiling with a broomstick? What does Jaemin’s ceiling look like? He’s so hard to pin down, like the more you get to know him the less he makes sense. He’s the type to have a messy room with clothes tossed everywhere and a bed that’s never made, yet he’s also the type to keep it neat, put up diagrams to match the college aesthetic of studying even if Jaemin himself is allergic to it.
“So,” Jaemin says, apparently realizing you aren’t going to say anything else. “I actually texted last night because I wanted to see you.”
You shove down the butterflies that spring up. “For what?”
“First of all, it’s cruel that you don’t think I’d want to see you just to see you. But also I was gonna ask to go over microbio together because I heard a rumor that Professor Bae talked about the final.”
“Don’t you have a lab partner?”
“Yeah, he’s who told me she talked about it. Unfortunately he’s worse at taking notes than me.” He pauses. “Besides, you’re much cuter.”
“Oh.” The butterflies breach containment, digging like madmen trying to escape your stomach.
“So are you free?”
Despite just checking your schedule, your mind goes blank. You frown, trying to remember what you’d just seen, and thank every deity that might exist that Jaemin can’t see your face right now.
“I’m free after the council meeting. How is 12:30?”
“Damn, council meetings on Fridays,” Jaemin says, “that works though. Meet you in the library?”
“We can use the council room on the third floor,” you say, “no one else will be there.”
“Okay,” Jaemin says, “see you soon, YN.”
“Bye, Jaemin.”
The butterflies have turned into zombies, rotting in your stomach and spoiling the leftover popcorn from last night. It’s just sharing notes. It’s just Jaemin. He’s just a boy from another world. The butterflies groan and demand chocolate.
.
.
Council meetings feel a little bit like the Magic School Bus series. The tagline plays in your head: A normal council meeting? With this group? No way!
Some of the blame can be directed towards having such an eclectic group of majors, Mark as the only true political science major. The rest of the group has been adamant about keeping the council safe from political science majors (how Mark doesn’t see the horrors of his classmates you truly don’t know). Another point towards Jaemin, being biochem and pre-med.
Though being a non-poli-sci major doesn’t mean he can handle the presidency. Mark can barely do that. Not that he’s a bad president. Though it sometimes feels like you do all the heavy lifting for him to take credit for, he does work hard. No, Mark’s problem isn’t his leadership—it’s that he doesn’t know when to give up.
The council meeting is long done but he continues to bicker with Donghyuck, who holds the entire student council hostage.
“It’s a proven fact,” Mark says. “How are you arguing with science?”
“Can science tell me what I feel?” Donghyuck folds his arms over his chest. His laptop has faded to black, the meeting notes long forgotten. “This isn’t about facts, it’s about my experience!”
You check your phone. The meeting has already gone over fifteen minutes. Any longer and Jaemin could walk in on a very not-empty room with Mark committing a crime against Donghyuck for saying that Froot Loops have individual flavors. Maybe it’s time to intervene.
“You’re just gaslighting yourself,” Mark says, “it’s not physically possible!”
“Well, you’re not physically possible!”
“That makes negative sense. I’m getting dumber listening to your attempts to argue.”
“Okay,” you say, standing up so quickly your chair falls back. “This isn’t council business anymore. All in favor of concluding the meeting?” According to the official rules, Mark is the only one that can conclude the meeting, but Jisung’s hand flies up, followed quickly by Renjun and Chenle.
“Cool, majority rule,” you say, ignoring the outrage on Mark’s face. Donghyuck pretends to be mad too, but he was only arguing with Mark to piss him off. He’ll probably follow the older boy around just to ruin his day. The two always have some fight going on—you’re convinced the reason Donghyuck agreed to be your vice president (if you win) is just because Mark would hate it.
Jisung leaves first, eager to escape from Donghyuck and Mark. Donghyuck pauses long enough to write a few more summarizing notes on the meeting but catches up to Mark before he can vanish, continuing to pester him about Froot Loops.
“Going home,” Renjun says, “we’re going out tonight, by the way. Turns out Taeyong is an econ major, and also a former frat president.”
“Huh,” Chenle says, “I can’t believe neither Donghyuck or me know him.”
Renjun shrugs. “I need to finish a couple projects since nothing will get done tomorrow.” He grins. “See you guys later.”
“Bye Renjun,” you say, tapping your phone screen to check the notifications.
[Na Jaemin] in the library
[Na Jaemin] lost in the library
[Na Jaemin] nvm found the stairs
[yn] need me to come find you?
[Na Jaemin] nah i don’t get lost (yes please)
“You’re texting with Jaemin?” Chenle breathes over your shoulder, making you drop your phone. Unfortunately it’s still open, your messages easy to read and Chenle doesn't hesitate to snatch it. At least the rest of the guys left, only Chenle is nosy enough to wonder who you’re texting.
“This is painful,” he announces. He hands the phone back to you. “You could at least add an emoji. Or, like, send more than one sad message.”
“Why?”
Chenle shakes his head. “You are texting the Jaemin, right? Na Jaemin?”
“Is there any other?”
“You’ve got a chance here,” Chenle continues, ignoring your question. “Not many people—well, I’ve actually heard he’s quite experienced but that’s beside the point, because you have a chance and that’s rare.”
“Genuinely, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You glance at the door, just in case Jaemin appears. Somehow you don’t think you want him overhearing this conversation.
“Okay, look,” Chenle says, “you’re you. Student council, 4.0 GPA, plans to be the next director of the WHO or whatever—”
“That’s not at all what I want.”
“—never a second you aren’t working, and then there’s Jaemin, and sure he’s a STEM major too, but the he’s type that strolls through life, who has things fall into his lap because he’s hot and lucky but you can’t really be mad about it because he’s Jaemin.” He pauses, like that explains everything. But you already know that Jaemin exists in a realm outside your own. Chenle waits a moment longer then shakes his head. “You know what, you’ll figure it out eventually.” He glances at you with a frown. “Maybe.”
“Good bye, Chenle,” you say pointedly.
He moves extra slow, closing his laptop only after spamming the save button. He once forgot to save a spreadsheet after a two hour budgeting session and you think he’s still traumatized. Still, spending a full thirty seconds hitting CTRL + S is excessive even for him—he’s stalling, trying to be as nosy as ever.
“I’m meeting him at the elevator so you can stop stalling,” you say. You hover over the send button, Chenle’s “advice” infecting your brain. You hit send before you can overthink it any more.
[yn] on the way now 👍
Chenle sighs, returning to peeking over your shoulder. “You’re hopeless.”
You grin and give him a thumbs up. “Thanks buddy. If you hurry you can run into him in the elevators.”
Chenle perks up, grabbing his still-open bag and sprinting out the door. You feel a little bad for lying to him, but he was the one that didn’t read Jaemin’s messages closely enough—evident from missing the fact that he’s on his way up the stairs and how Chenle thinks he might actually be flirting with you. You shake your head at the thought.
Just when you reach the doorway to the stairs and wonder if you should meet him in the stairwell, the door flies open. Despite climbing three flights of stairs, Jaemin breathes normally. A different backpack than usual is sling over his back, bright orange, like… well, an orange. (Persimmon, your brain unhelpfully supplies).
“Hi,” he says. “Sorry I’m late.” You wonder how anyone is immune to his smiles. A smile like that robs you of everything irreplaceable and leaves you missing it as soon as it’s gone.
“You’re not late,” you say, showing him the time on your phone as you walk to the council room. “Exactly on time.”
“Oh.” He glances at you, and when you turn your phone back to face you, you understand the awkwardness.
[Chenle] good luck 🤪🤪🤪
[Chenle] have fun with the hottie 🔥🔥🔥
[Chenle] but not too much fun 😼😼
You clear your throat, praying he didn’t get a chance to read all of the messages. “Chenle’s just making fun of my emoji use. Or lack of emoji use.”
Jaemin nods. “I hate to take the side of someone I’ve never met over you, but he might be right.”
“I use a perfectly respectable amount of emojis,” you say. “Besides, I’ve never seen you use any.”
“You’re just going to have to text me more to find out.”
You’ve never been so happy to see the doors to the council room. It’s nothing more than a glorified study room, with a rectangular table that stretches in the middle of the room, eight wooden seats set around it. A giant whiteboard stretches the majority of the back wall. The only truly special part of the room is the projector that hangs from the ceiling, with a screen that needs a button to come down. The walls that line the hallway are glass, along with the doors, so that anyone can see the council discussions, though tucked away in the back corner of the third floor, only the occasional passerby is subject to the bickering.
Jaemin raises his eyebrows and whistles. “This is nice.”
“Don’t lie,” you say. “The only nice thing about it is that we have full access to it whenever we want.” You point to the sign that reads Student Council Members Only. Truthfully, the six of you use it more as a private study room than for actual council work.
“It is nice,” Jaemin says, holding the door open for you. He pauses in front of the whiteboard. Chenle had been sitting closest to it, apparently spending the final thirty minutes of the meeting drawing out different game plans for the basketball club he somehow has time for.
“Chenle,” you explain, “he thinks he’s a part of the Golden State Warriors.”
“How much council work actually gets done in these meetings,” he says teasingly.
“You catch on fast,” you say. “It took me the full first year to realize how incompetent we are.”
“How come?”
“The president just wanted resume padding. He was incredible at sucking up to faculty and making the right people think he was a great leader, but he would send us fresh-terns to pick up condoms and sent Donghyuck with a fake to get drinks once.”
“Fresh-tern?”
“The freshman interns,” you explain, “since the president is the only elected position and the rest of the council is appointed, the only way to get known is through the ‘internship,’ which technically is open to anyone but only freshman are dumb enough to dedicate that much time to a job that does absolutely nothing—like, it doesn’t pay or even guarantee you a spot on the council in the future. It’s all based on whether the president likes you or not.
“Anyway, our president last year was marginally better, and he tried to abolish the seniors-only president rule but couldn’t get it to pass in time, so we ended up with Mark. Not that Mark is a bad president, though council meetings could be half as long if he wouldn’t go on tangents every two minutes.” You stop, realizing how much you’re talking. You’ve come dangerously close to telling him the truth about the presidency. Jaemin says nothing, probably bored. “Anyways, we’ve got a few new initiatives this year but mostly we try to maintain the annual events and keep Mark’s head on his shoulders until he graduates.”
“Sounds like fun,” Jaemin says.
“Sometimes.” You pause. “How’s your application going, by the way?”
He glances at you, smile fading a little. He turns back to the whiteboard, this time studying the fading drawing Renjun made a month ago of a goat fighting Donghyuck. “Still figuring things out. Mostly working on my campaign goals.”
You nod. A part of you wants to press further, learn more about his plans—but because you want to beat him or because it’s Jaemin? Why is it so difficult to think clearly around him?
You sit at the table and open your laptop, pulling out your notes. He sits beside you, scraping the chair against the tile floors until his knee is an inch away from yours. He must not notice the way your breath catches in your throat when he leans closer. A moment later and your brain is invaded by his scent, a clean smell like laundry detergent or body wash.
“It’s organized by subject,” you explain. “Usually I take notes in class and then Renjun reviews and organizes it with keywords and highlighting and this coding system that I don’t really get but he swears by. Either way it works for us.” You show him the keyword that Renjun uses to signify exam hints, combining it with the past class’s date to cross reference the relevant information.
Jaemin lets out a low whistle. “This is crazy.”
“Yeah,” you say, “Renjun puts a lot of time into it. But when we study for exams, it’s worth it.”
“You know Renjun from student council?” He asks, beginning to type a few notes.
“I guess that’s where I met him first,” you say. “But he’s pretty much my best friend. The whole student council is pretty close, way closer than the group Mark came into. He tells us horror stories about how they made the fresh-terms compete just to turn them against each other, though that’s back when it was filled with poli-sci majors.”
“None of you are poli-sci?”
“I’m public health,” you say, “and Mark is poli-sci, but the rest of the guys avoided it. We swore that the next council would be free of the plague of poli-sci majors.”
“You really hate them?”
“They deserve it,” you say. “But also it’s because I made the mistake of dating one last year.” You shudder at the memory.
“Really?” Jaemin looks away from his laptop, staring at you instead.
“Don’t make fun of me,” you whine. “It was a moment of weakness and he confessed to me with cookies.”
“Not making fun,” Jaemin says. “Were the cookies at least homemade?”
“Well, yes.” You shake your head, trying to stop the next bit from coming out. But Jaemin raises his eyebrows and you can’t help it. “He had his ex make them, actually.”
“No!”
“Yeah, and then dumped me for them after, like, two weeks, and the guys are all convinced that he cheated on me with them,” you say. “So, no, I don’t really like poli-sci majors.”
“A good observation,” Jaemin says. His approval makes your cells glow—scientists could discover a new form of bioluminescence from within you.
Jaemin continues to stare at you, eyes full of warmth. It’s so easy to get lost in them, glancing between the pure dark chocolate and fond smile on his lips. The change in light when your laptop screen fades snaps you out of it.
You eye him. “Do you even need these?”
“Nope,” Jaemin says. He grins at you. “Just an excuse to see you.” He turns back to the laptop and continues to copy your notes into his document. You turn around, giving him no chance to see the smile that creeps onto your face. You seriously need to get a grip. Jaemin needs to get a grip and realize that he can’t flirt with you like this, not without completely upsetting the balance of the universe. But even as the world slides sideways, you smile.
.
.
“Nothing special.” That’s what Renjun said when you asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday. But March 23rd falls on a Friday this year, and everything snowballed from there.
That’s how you find yourself wearing an outfit even the most lenient parents would dub inappropriate, wearing more body glitter than exists in the state of Utah, taking your fifth shot.
“Sixteen more to go,” Renjun says, patting your back. Why you promised to match him shot for shot, you aren’t quite sure. You had reasoning, at some point. Definitely before the shots.
At least you aren’t alone—Donghyuck curls his lip after his shot, lime slice snatched out of his hand by Mark before he can take it as a chaser. Mark laughs as he grimaces.
“What’s our motto?” Donghyuck shouts.
“Two and three to infinity!” Mark shouts.
“Nobody goes to the hospital!” You shout.
“To the grave!” Renjun shouts.
“Huh, I guess we should have coordinated that,” Donghyuck says. “I was thinking something more like ‘happy birthday Renjun.’”
“Shoulda said something,” you say. You take a step to the couch, the world tilting to the side, though maybe it’s actually you because you stumble into the wall. It holds you up until you make it to the couch, sighing as you reach solid ground. A couple people sit next to you, friends of friends of Renjun whose names you don’t know regardless of the alcohol.
“You’re YN, right?” The girl closer to you says, making you feel a little guilty for having no idea who they are. She beams when you nod. “I live in Apollo Hall, Karina is my RA, she says you aced biochem.”
“Oh, yeah,” you say. “Who do you have?”
“Professor Ahn,” she says.
“He’s good,” you say, “I had him for a different class and he talks off topic all the time but if you visit him in his office hours once, he’ll remember and be more lenient on the research report. I can send you my notes, too, if you want.”
She smiles even wider. “Really?”
You nod, your brain sliding around your skull with the movement—not a good sign, only five shots into the challenge.
The music changes, a Britney Spears song that Donghyuck must have slipped into the rotation. The girl’s friend drags her up to dance before you get the chance to ask for her name.
Dancing sounds like so much fun, until you stand up and realize that you’ve been hydrated too well. Your bladder announces its need for attention much like the maintenance worker that fixed the leak in your shower—loud and last minute.
You push your way through the people crowded at the edge of the room, making your way to the hallway where the bedrooms and, more importantly, bathroom are. You pass by a semi-familiar face flirting with a girl from Renjun’s study group, but your bladder gives no time for your brain to make connections of recognition, let alone time to wave.
Finally, you break the crowd, ignoring the couple making out concerningly close to Donghyuck’s bedroom door (something you like to call “not my problem”). All your focus is on the door to the bathroom, a piece of lined notebook paper taped on with RESTROOM scribbled in marker. Just as you reach for the handle, the door swings inwards.
You might have caught yourself, two or three shots ago. Instead you tumble forward, the floor coming to meet you fast. And then you aren’t.
“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Jaemin says, laughing. He caught you by the elbows, your face pressed into his chest. He helps you straighten up, though he doesn’t let go of your arms.
“Jaemin.” You grin at him.
He tilts his head. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re pretty,” you say. Jaemin tilts his head and smiles at you. Endearing. Endearing, that Jaemin has an amused expression on his face. Like he is endeared by you. How funny.
But he really is pretty. He must be hot in the leather jacket, loose over his broad shoulders. Yes, those broad shoulders. He’s hot too. But first, he’s pretty. His black hair falls just above his eyes, loosely split down the middle, framing the perfect angles of his face–the perfect line of his nose, gentle curve of his cheekbones, that jawline–and of course those lips. Perfect lips.
Jaemin leans closer. “You’re prettier.”
You burst into laughter, stopping only when you snort. “You almost sound serious.”
Jaemin doesn’t say anything else, still smiling at you, only a couple inches of space between you. Ignoring those lips this close is impossible. They’re the prettiest shade of pink, and he must have put on lip balm–or maybe it’s the lighting–because they glow. What do they feel like? They have to be soft—you’d bet everything in your pocket (if these pants had pockets) he tastes sweet. Like a fruit, a yummy, juicy fruit, dripping with juice, which reminds you—pee.
You push past Jaemin, into the bathroom. “Need to pee.”
He catches his hand on the door before you can close it, frowning a little. “You’re not going to slip and crack your head open?”
“Nope,” you say. “Really need to pee.” He lets go of the door and you slam it shut, using one hand on the counter to steady yourself while you fumble with the lock. After an eternity, you finally get to the toilet, which, despite the number of people crowded in a house of two college guys, isn’t totally disgusting.
Two minutes, an empty bladder, and clean hands later, you push the door open. Your balance has improved just enough for you to feel confident in your ability not to die on the dance floor—and with perfect timing because Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz just started playing. You find Donghyuck in the middle of the room and join him, grinning when he cheers.
Renjun appears halfway through the next song, shots in hand. More of the tequila ends up on the ground than in your stomach by the time you knock it back but Renjun shouts, “Six!” anyways.
Another 2000s hit plays (it’s definitely Chenle’s playlist, which reminds you that you haven’t seen him in a while) and you get Renjun to stay on the dance floor for the full song. It’s hot and sweaty and you wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.
Donghyuck cheers again, hyping up the people that join your little circle. You turn to see Jeno, wearing a piece of fabric that technically could be called a shirt though it really looks like a hole for his head that’s completely open at the sides except for the ties at the bottom. Beside him, and right next to you, Jaemin grins at you. He throws an arm over your shoulder, pulling you against his side.
“And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh!” You shout along with the song, vaguely aware of the rest of the guys singing along—except for Jaemin, who waits for Ludacris’s verse to come in to rap it word for word.
Renjun drags you away before the next song can start. “Number seven,” he shouts in your ear over the bass.
“What about Donghyuck?” You glance behind you where he starts a full performance, an empty water bottle as a microphone.
Renjun shrugs. “He’ll catch up.”
You watch Renjun struggle to pour the tequila, holding the bottle with two hands off the edge of the counter to get the mouth as close to the paper shot cups as possible. You can’t see how much tequila actually makes it into the cups but it burns its way down, sending your stomach spinning. Only a third of the drinks you are supposed to take with him but you’re already questioning the next round.
Renjun gets dragged away from you by some people you aren’t even sure are actually his friends, but you lose track of him when someone tugs on your hand. Jaemin, again. He lost his jacket at some point, wearing a shirt that matches Jeno’s, showing off his considerable arms. Even in the poor lighting from the strobe lights Donghyuck set up, you can see the definition in his biceps.
Yeah, you’re definitely staring.
Jaemin asks something but you can’t hear him over the music. You step closer, stumbling a little on your own feet. As always, he catches you, arm sliding around your waist.
“How are you doing?” He shouts over the music.
You grab his other forearm to keep yourself from falling over. “I’m so hungry.”
Jaemin leans closer, lips brushing against your ear. “Wanna get out of here?” You raise your eyebrows at him and he grins. “The McDonald’s, across the street?”
“I need French fries,” you say, letting go of his arm and spinning out of his embrace to face the door. He catches you before you can go too far (and fall on your face), looping his elbow through yours.
As soon as the door closes behind you, everything falls silent. Not everything, because you can still hear the bass from inside the house, and cicadas sing, and the highway is close enough to hear the rumbling of engines passing by. But quiet falls in the space between you and Jaemin, a breath waiting to fall free.
He doesn’t let go over your arm, using his other hand to brace the three steps in front of Donghyuck and Renjun’s place. He leans on you as much as you lean on him, magnets stuck to each other, except magnets don’t struggle to stay upright crossing an empty street. Maybe if they could get drunk.
The street light flickers above you, crackling electricity. You can feel Jaemin’s bare arm against yours, firm muscle held taut. You peek at the boy beside you, his head tilted to the sky. Pretty. You won’t say it again for fear of being repetitive, but it’s the right word for this moment. Not just Jaemin, but the chilly night air, the faulty light above you fighting with the neon lights to illuminate your breath. You’ll blame the alcohol in the morning, but tonight it’s all pretty.
Jaemin swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and he turns to meet your eyes. It’s definitely the alcohol but you don’t look away.
The crosswalk changes to the white man, beeping at you to cross the street. You tear your eyes away from him, settling for clinging to his arm to make it past the striped crosswalk illuminated by headlights.
You’re hardly the only drunk couple at McDonald’s. Jaemin notices you limping a little and drops you off in a booth, stumbling on his own to order. You must have done something dancing, though you don’t remember anything hurting. Your ankle hurts now, so you lean your head into your elbow and watch Jaemin’s back.
The fluorescent lights can’t make him look sickly. They show his arms in their full glory, open sides revealing enough of his body to make you self-conscious. The hint of a farmer’s tan dusts his arms, shoulders just a shade lighter than his forearms. Where did he get that from?
So many questions about him. So much to know. So little you do know but you like him so much it gets so hard to tell. What matters.
Jaemin puts his wallet into his back pocket, turning around and smiling when he meets your gaze. He slides into the seat across from you. “Potatoes are incoming.”
“Do you know what persimmons taste like?”
“What?” His brow furrows, a cute frown that makes you forget what you’d asked.
“Never mind,” you mumble. Opening your mouth any more around him is a dangerous game—you aren’t quite sure what will spill out.
He reaches out to tap his finger on your arm. Like the sun, being in his atmosphere makes everything warmer, his touch boiling your skin. The heat flows through your body, each cell vibrating with the need for something.
“You feeling okay?”
It takes considerable concentration to work past his finger, which has graduated to drawing shapes, and answer him. “Renjun wanted to do twenty-one shots for his birthday but seven is beyond enough.”
Jaemin whistles. “Is Renjun going to survive tonight?”
“Probably not,” you mumble. “That opens up a council position. You could be a good social media person. Your face is pretty enough.”
“Is that the only requirement for student council?” Jaemin asks. “Being pretty?”
“You can’t be a poli-sci major either,” you say, “which you pass. It helps that you’re smart, and kind. I like people that are smart and kind.”
“That’s a low bar,” Jaemin says. “What else do you like?”
“Hm…” Your voice rumbles, a funny feeling in the back of your throat. You hum for a little longer before you remember Jaemin asked you a question. What do you like?
“Sharks. They’re much cooler than dolphins. And potatoes, I love potatoes. I like Renjun. And Donghyuck. And Mark, even though he’s a poli-sci major. I like Chenle and Jisung. They might be my favorite people.” And you. I like you so much I don’t know how to say it.
“What about doctors?” Jaemin leans closer, intertwining his fingers with yours. “Do you like doctors?”
You lift your head up, pouting your lips at him. “Doctors have needles. I don’t like needles.”
Jaemin laughs. “Even if the doctor is super rich?”
“Rich? From taking all my money?” You cry.
“Rich from saving people’s lives,” he says. “Like a neurosurgeon.”
You squint at him, the blurriness of your eyelashes mixing with the blurriness of the alcohol and canceling out until his face becomes clear. “Are you actually pre-med because of Grey’s Anatomy?”
Jaemin looks away, running a hand to the back of his neck. “Maybe.” His biceps are almost enough to distract you from his admission. Almost.
“Oh my god.” You can’t hold back the giggles, trying to cover your mouth with your hand. Tears prick at your eyes and you gasp for breath, stomach twisting the alcohol with the giggles and turning over itself until you aren’t sure if you’re starving or need to throw up.
“It’s a perfectly respectable career!” Jaemin says.
“You want to be Patrick Dempsey?” You say between giggles. “Not even McSteamy?”
“Hey, he’s—wait, you watch it too?”
You shrug. “It’s fun.”
“Then how are you making fun of me!” He cries.
“I didn’t go into medicine because of it!”
Before he can say anything else, the workers shout a number. He glances at the receipt and shoots you a glare without a drop of malice in his eyes and leaves.
Jaemin being silly. Jaemin bickering with you. Hard to believe that even two weeks ago, you never would have believed he watched children’s shows in class and chose his profession because of a soap opera. Jaemin who keeps surprising you, who makes you want to believe that maybe he’s from the same planet as you after all.
He brandishes the brown paper bag in front of him like treasure. What does it matter that you’re grinning because of him and not the golden treats inside?
“For you,” he says, setting the bag in front of you and tilting it on its side so you can reach inside for the fries. “I didn’t know what sauce, so I fought… Okay, maybe flirted with the worker, but the important part is that I got one of each.” He pauses glancing at you. “Which apparently you don’t need.”
“So good,” you say, eating them properly: no sauce, just freshly fried golden perfection. You look up to find Jaemin smiling at you… fondly? Is that what’s in his eyes?
“What?”
He shakes his head. “You’re just cute.”
You stare at him, fry halfway to your mouth. He looks down, the tips of his ears tinted red as he grabs a fry and dips it in honey mustard.
The rest of your time at McDonald’s is dedicated to properly enjoying the French fries and not at all sneaking glances at Jaemin sneaking glances at you. You finish the fries long before the swirly feeling in your stomach goes away. The butterflies must be drunk too.
“Back to Renjun’s?” Jaemin asks, standing up and extending a hand for you to take. The most dangerous handhold of your life. You don’t think twice about taking it.
“Mm, I’m pretty tired,” you say, “and Renjun was pretty adamant about the twenty-one shots thing. If we go back, he won’t let me go until one of us is in the hospital.” Walking is easy when Jaemin lets you lean on his shoulder. Standing just outside the McDonald’s, your shadows stretch ten times as tall as you, the lines between you and Jaemin undefined.
Jaemin raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t worried about him?”
“He swore to send Donghyuck to the grave before him, he’ll be fine,” you say, “plus Jisung is there, sober. They’ll be fine.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be fine when I get home.” You tilt your head up from his shoulder only for him to look down at you, his nose brushing against yours. Your breath catches in your throat, heart pounding. But you don’t move away and neither does he.
“Take me home?”
He doesn’t move for a heartbeat, eyes flickering to your lips. Then he turns his head straight, patting your head with his free hand a couple times. “Okay.”
You whisper directions, a ten minute walk from Renjun’s place. The walk home is considerably less stumbly, your balance recovered halfway through the fries. You cling to Jaemin’s arm anyway, more afraid of letting him go than falling.
The building appears far too quickly, Jaemin pushing open the glass doors and walking you to the elevators. You don’t dare say a word to break the silence as the elevator dings to the third floor. He waits until you reach your door to disentangle himself from you, standing with the tips of his sneakers a millimeter away from yours, catching your hands in his.
“Goodnight, YN,” he says.
No. This isn’t the time for goodnight, not when every atom in your body might explode if he takes a step away. You tighten your fingers around his.
“Do you want to come in?” You ask. “See my apartment?”
He tilts his head, a little frown creasing his brow. “Okay.”
You fumble with your keys, hands shaking when you open the door. Emotions swirl around you, making it difficult to tell the difference between excitement and anxiety, if it exists. Calling the place an apartment is a bit of a stretch. Glorified broom closet is your preferred term–a bed shoved against the far wall with a tiny window next to it, desk tucked in next to it like a puzzle piece without enough space for a chair, a door for your bathroom, directly next to the “kitchen” of a stovetop oven and sink, and a closet that barely fits your coats.
Beyond being tiny, you left the place a mess, second, third, and fourth contenders for outfits strewn on your bed, unwashed dishes in the sink. The entryway is the only space for the two of you to stand together comfortably but you lead Jaemin farther in, balling up the clothes and tossing them into your hamper underneath the bed.
“I don’t normally have company,” you explain.
“It’s okay,” he says, “my room’s a mess too.” He picks up the pink teddy bear from your bed and smiles. “A gift?”
You shake your head. “Bought it myself for surviving sophomore year.” You pull the great white shark out from beneath a blanket. “Freshman year.”
“Cute,” Jaemin says, still looking at the bear.
You follow Jaemin as he wanders the tiny room. He pauses at a framed picture of the student council that sits on your desk. It was a gift from last year’s graduating cabinet, the whole group, president, appointed cabinet, unofficial members, and the fresh-terns, fifteen people in total.
“That one’s my ex,” you say, the word still strange in your mouth. “If you count two weeks as even dating.”
“The one in red?”
You nod.
Jaemin snorts. “I’m way hotter than him.” He sets the picture and turns, and suddenly only a couple inches of space separate him from you. This close, you can see exactly how pretty he is, long eyelashes that cannot be natural, even longer when he stares at his toes instead of meeting your eyes. And, this close, you can see the soft pink of his lips, lower lip jutting out just a tiny bit.
Not drunk, not yet sober, it’s easy to lean a little closer, brush your lips softly against his. The kiss is over before you can think about it.
You open your eyes to Jaemin staring at you, eyes wide, somewhere between disbelief and fear. You open your mouth to apologize but he moves faster, hand coming up to cup your face and pulling you closer until you kiss him again, your hand instinctively catching you against his chest. He links his fingers with your free hand, tugging you even closer to him.
He moves slow at first, a gentle kiss that takes your breath away anyway. He pulls away when the stars flood your brain, smile boyish and sweet. His thumb strokes your cheek into the shape of a heart. Then he slides his hands to the back of your neck, letting go over your other hand to wrap around your waist and pull you against his chest.
Jaemin knows how to kiss. He moves like it’s his last chance, desperate lips telling truths words can’t capture. And you might not have as much experience, but you understand the language of desperation. A never ending chain of fireworks explode within you, pushing you to wrap your arms around his neck, kiss him even harder. Your hands move on their own, tugging at the cloth of his shirt until he leans back, breathing heavily.
“How far you want to go?” He asks, chest rising and falling with each breath. “You know consent is so sexy.”
You laugh, giddiness making it difficult to think. “You have a condom?”
Jaemin grins, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. He slips the shiny packet out, tossing his wallet to the floor along with his shirt. He gives you a proper amount of time to ogle his chest before tugging you against him again, your heart pounding so hard against him he must feel it.
He tilts your head towards his until his lips brush against yours, and when he speaks, you feel every word. “Now where were we?”
.
.
[Na Jaemin] sorry I had to go :(
[Na Jaemin] wish I could have been there when you woke up
[Na Jaemin] but! I have a surprise
[Na Jaemin] [image attached]
[Na Jaemin] see you in the morning <3
You blink at the message, a picture of him wearing a fuzzy headband in the middle of his skincare routine. Your head pounds a little, but otherwise your hangover isn’t too bad. Definitely not the worst it’s ever been.
No, the strange feeling in your stomach is something else. Last night is burned into your memory, every move, every touch. Jaemin, who you fell asleep beside, though the timestamp on the texts show he didn’t stay much longer after. Not that you expected him to. It’s Jaemin, you remind your traitorous heart. No matter how much he flirts, no matter what he did drunk, he was never yours.
Your phone rings, but it isn’t Jaemin.
“Hey,” Renjun says.
“You sound awful,” you say, throat aching.
“You’re one to talk,” Renjun says, “and you didn’t even get to double digits. Donghyuck out-drank you.”
“And how’s Donghyuck doing?”
“Throwing up in the shower, it sounds like.”
You laugh, the motion, sending your stomach spinning. “Happy birthday Renjun.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, “I actually did call for a reason.”
“I am not helping with clean up,” you say, “Chenle swore he’d do all of it since he bailed on set up.”
“Not that,” Renjun says. “I’ll be over as soon as I can walk without passing out.” He hangs up, leaving you to frown at the empty screen.
Well, considering how late he got back, Jaemin probably won't be awake any time soon. You need to shower and rehydrate and try to convince your stomach to take something—and with how Renjun sounded over the phone, it seems like you’ll have plenty of time.
An hour later, slightly burnt toast, and post-Advil, the headache is mostly gone. Your stomach still twists at the thought of Jaemin. You jump at the doorbell but find Renjun wearing a mismatched sweatsuit and his bright orange crocs, glasses nearly sliding off the bridge of his nose. He wears the hood of his sweatshirt up but you can see tufts sticking up.
“God, did you shower?” You catch a whiff as he passes by, reeking of tequila.
“I was serious about coming over as soon as possible.” He groans, collapsing on your bed. “I think I maybe came over too early though. Might need to throw up.”
“Do you want toast?” You offer.
He glares at you. “Just sit.” Renjun rarely speaks with patience but today he seems extra short on it. Maybe because of the hangover, but the way he glares at the carpet before turning to look at you makes you wonder if something else is wrong. His eyes soften a little when he meets your eyes, his frown lightening just barely.
“I really wish I didn’t have to tell you this,” he begins. “Did you go out with Jaemin last night?”
“He… took me home,” you say. “What’s wrong Renjun?”
“Last night—well—this morning, I met some guys from Sigma Nu, who are friends with Jeno and Jaemin,” he says, “who were talking about how Jaemin is going to be president. About how he’s messing around with the frontrunner, trying to distract them or fuck around, trying to take the presidency.” He falls quiet, studying your face.
“He wouldn’t.” Your voice feels so small.
He wouldn’t, you said, but you can’t even convince yourself. Your heart flounders, drowning in a lake of its own creation, choking on fantasies. Your brain takes control in the chaos, gears turning despite the crashing waves. Facts don’t need oxygen.
1) Jaemin approached you about the presidency first
2) he pretended not to know you were running
3) he’s known for hooking up with anyone
4) he never belonged in your world
The conclusion is obvious, a conclusion you could have come to much sooner if you weren’t too busy getting swept off your feet by his easy flirting and sweet smile. Though your heart doesn’t want to believe it, it makes too much sense. So much more sense than the hope you were stupid enough to believe in. Jaemin isn’t that type. How many of your friends told you that? How many times did you tell yourself that? But you let him hurt you anyway because he held your hand and called you cute. How quickly a fruit can rot when it sits in the palm of your hand.
Jaemin doesn’t exist a universe away–he lives in your world, worse than a cliche. The type of boy that made you want to believe in him, even when you knew better from the start, and maybe that’s the worst part. He never hid who he was, what he wanted. It’s you that wanted more, that believed he could want something more. How pitiful.
“I’m sorry,” Renjun says softly. “I wanted him to be different.”
“Did you? Because everyone was telling me about how I needed to be careful, protect myself, not get hurt over him. Did any of you consider that I didn’t ever expect anything from him?” You shake your head. “No, you all thought poor little YN, getting their feet swept out from under themself over a boy that doesn’t give a shit about them? A boy that’s actively trying to stop them from achieving a dream they’ve had since they started college? Well, guess what? You all were right. Congratulations.” You bite your lip trying to hold back the tears but it’s too late.
“I’m sorry,” Renjun repeats. He pats your arm, looking away when you swipe at your eyes. He waits for you to take a shaky breath, hand on your arm. You grab the teddy bear, trying not to hear Jaemin calling it cute.
“I slept with him.” The admission burns its way up your throat. “Last night.” You sigh. “You don't have to tell me I’m an idiot.”
“Okay, I wasn’t going to say that,” Renjun throws his arm over your shoulders. “Though I’m kind of regretting sitting on the bed.” He scoots a little forward but squeezes your shoulder. “You’re going to do things you regret, there’s no stopping it.”
“Why do you always have to be right? Why am I exclusively attracted to shitty men?” Your chin digs into the innocent bear, jaw tightening. “Why can’t I just like a boy that likes me?”
“Do you think maybe you liked him too much?” Renjun asks gently. “Like maybe you liked the idea of him more than Jaemin himself.” He pauses, squeezing your arm. “Don’t let a boy that isn’t real hurt you.”
You lean into his touch, resting your head on his shoulder. “But he was real. Sweeter than persimmon. Like a strawberry. Or a mango.”
“Okay, I’m not understanding.”
“I thought he was a persimmon, a magic fruit I could imagine tasting sweet or sour or tart but he’s real and even though his flavor isn’t a mystery, it’s better than what I could have imagined. Like taking a bite of a pineapple and it’s the best pineapple you’ve ever had, juicy and sweet.”
“Okay first of all, that’s a terrible metaphor, please stop talking about how he tastes or I will throw up,” Renjun says. “Also persimmons are real.”
“I know that,” you snap, “but I’ve never had one, so they’re magic to me.” You stare ahead, grateful Renjun knows when you just need a little bit of time to work up the courage to say what you need to say. “I’m saying you are right. I didn’t really like him, not at first. But it’s worse than that because when I did get to know him, it was so much better. He wasn’t a dream, he was a boy who watches Grey’s Anatomy and does skincare even after a night of partying.
“I know it makes more sense, that his flirting wasn’t real, that he was never really interested in me. But nothing real about him makes sense, and I want to believe in him, still.” You purse your lips. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“You really liked him,” Renjun says, “that won’t just go away.”
“That would be too easy,” you mutter.
Renjun laughs. “You’re going to be fine. There are so many better men.”
“That’s what you said last time,” you say.
“And I was right,” Renjun says, “Jaemin is better than last time. Marginally. At least he isn’t a poli-sci major.”
You snort.
“See, you’re already laughing at him.” Renjun pushes you off his shoulder, standing up and groaning. “Now, I’m going to throw up in your bathroom, and then we can watch dumb action movies until your brain rots. The rest of the guys are supposed to come over, though I think Donghyuck is still throwing up.”
You bury your face into the bear. “Does everyone know?”
Renjun pauses. “The guys from this morning were sort of proud to be the ones to tell us.”
You groan. The door to your bathroom closes but you barely hear it. You clutch the bear a little tighter, as if the fluff could break through your chest and fill the spilling hole in your heart.
It would be too easy to blame Jaemin, to pretend like none of the pain is from your own stupidity. But you already told Renjun. You knew it from the start.
Knocking at the door, a knock that means only one person. You wipe the tears from your eyes and take a deep breath that does nothing to steady your heart.
“God, I was afraid I was waking you up.” Jaemin starts talking as soon as you open the door. He holds up a bag, a tray with two iced coffees and a hot cup. He looks unfairly good and, of course, he grins at you. “I wasn’t entirely sure what your hangover cure is, so I got hot and iced coffee, and there’s a breakfast sandwich and a donut and also these potato things, I really wasn’t sure what you’d like, but–”
“Did you know that I was running for president?”
Jaemin freezes, frown slowly curling his brow. “What are you–”
“Just answer the question.” You grip the door handle, knuckles turning white.
He pauses a moment too long. “It’s not like that.”
“Never talk to me again.” You fight the urge to slam the door, but your neighbors don’t have to suffer your wrath. You shake your head, “I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit.”
Jaemin opens his mouth but you close the door, sliding the deadlock as hard as you can. He has the audacity to try to explain himself. If you didn’t want to hear him out so badly, you might laugh. Instead you turn your back on the door, sliding down it until you can rest your head on your knees and sob.
.
.
Jaemin makes it halfway down the aisle of seats on Tuesday before you turn to Renjun, panic and tears in your eyes. He glares at Jaemin so hard he freezes in his tracks and doesn’t try again. He doesn’t look at you in class, not even a peek. On Thursday, he walks straight to his seat.
.
.
Chenle doesn’t bother to throw his packages into the recycling after opening them. He says he’s hanging onto them to make moving out easier, but really he’s just too lazy to break them down. You have to step around them to get into his apartment, since he thought it would be fun to make an obstacle course out of them. Navigating these sober is hard enough, you have no idea how he makes it to bed after a night out.
But today, it’s worth it. It’s been two weeks since you cut off Jaemin, a month since the day you bumped into him in class (a month and three days but who’s counting?). He doesn’t look at you anymore. You haven’t fully escaped him–every once in a while you’ll hear his laugh from the other side of the lecture room. The sound still stabs between your ribs, a wound turned new each time you hear it. But it cuts a little more shallow each time. One day you won’t feel it at all.
And today, Chenle got a puppy.
She cries before you make it over the baby gate in Chenle’s room. A tiny ball of white fluff bounds toward you, tripping over her own feet.
“Hi baby!” Your voice automatically rises three pitches looking at her. “Aren’t you just adorable!” You crouch down, letting her jump on your knees. She won’t sit still long enough to be pet, sprinting around your feet, then back to Chenle sitting on the floor, back resting against his bed.
“Hi to you, too,” Chenle says pointedly.
“Hi Chenle,” you turn back to his puppy. “And hello puppy!”
“Her name is Daegal,” he says. You can hear him rolling his eyes. “‘Cause she’s got a big ass head.”
“Chenle is so mean to you!” You coo at the puppy at your feet. “But that’s okay, I’ll take good care of you. You can come home with me!”
“You hear that baby?” Chenle says. “YN wants to pay me $1000 to take care of you!”
You stare at him. “Did you seriously adopt a $1000 puppy?”
He shrugs. “She’s really cute.”
“You’re insane.” Daegal settles down enough to let you pat her head.
“I invite you into my home for some much needed puppy love and this is how you treat me?” Chenle sighs. “To think that I felt bad for you, that I told you about her before anyone else. This is how I get treated for my kind heart.”
“I don’t need your pity,” you say. Daegal licks your hand.
“It’s not pity.” He pauses. “Well I guess it is pity, but you’re also my friend YN. Believe it or not, watching you live the sad boy lifestyle over some dude, again, is not fun. I’d much rather watch you being happy with my puppy.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” you mutter.
Chenle claps his hands, making Daegal jump. “But that does remind me, everyone has been too much of a coward to ask, but I’ve heard from tertiary sources about his reputation, but I’d love a first hand account.”
“What are you talking about?” You eye him.
“How was the sex?”
“You’re seriously asking me that?”
He shrugs. “Well, yeah.”
You pick up Daegal, staring at her instead of Chenle. She wiggles her tail, then her paws, so you set her back down. “I’m not answering that.”
Chenle narrows his eyes, studying you. “That means it was good.”
“That’s not at all what I said.”
“And yet you’re not denying it.”
“Please shut the fuck up.”
For once he listens. With Renjun, silence means peace–he doesn’t say anything that doesn’t matter. When Chenle doesn’t speak, it means he has something to say and he isn’t sure how to say it. You peek up at him and your suspicions are confirmed. He chews on his lip, frowning at you.
“Just tell me.”
Chenle purses his lips. “He dropped out.”
“Of school?”
He rolls his eyes. “The election.”
You stare at him. “Seriously?”
“He hasn’t touched his application since Renjun’s birthday and Donghyuck said yesterday he emailed and said he wasn’t going forward with it.” He doesn’t say anything about how technically you should be checking the email.
“But it doesn’t make any sense.”
Chenle shrugs. “I’m just telling you what I was told.” He stands up. “Now! How much do you like cleaning up dog pee?”
You glance down at Daegal, who squats in the middle of the room, a dark stain on the carpet beneath her. Chenle tosses you some paper towels and a can of Febreeze.
“Why am I cleaning up after your dog?”
“Because you tried to steal her,” he says, “and I’ve already done this three times today and I’m really sick of it.”
You shake your head but pull off a paper towel and press it into the stain.
“We’re going out tomorrow night, by the way,” Chenle says. “And you’ve passed two weekends in a row so you’ve hit a cap for the month. You have to come with, no ‘buts.’”
Apparently the grace period of pity is over. Whatever, it’ll be nice to do something other than hiding in your room watching Powerpuff Girls. And maybe you will see him. Maybe you’ll get an answer to the giant question mark that’s lodged itself in your heart when Chenle told he dropped out. Maybe the little caterpillar of hope that’s survived these past few weeks can metamorphize.
And maybe he’ll break your heart again. But you won’t get any answers daydreaming.
.
.
How Renjun can still drink Tequila, you truly do not understand. Ever since his birthday, the thought of it makes your stomach flip, and you didn’t even drink that much. But he sips on the margarita, insisting it doesn’t taste like alcohol.
“It’s disgusting,” you say, pushing it closer to him. “I am not drinking this.”
He rolls his eyes. “You do realize the whole gimmick of this place is all their drinks are made with tequila, right?”
“No one told me that!” You glare at Chenle, who showed up at your door at exactly 8:00pm and dragged you to the bar. “For the record, I would have pre-gamed. But I guess I can be the babysitter tonight.”
Chenle cheers. “Donghyuck, you’re back in! YN is babysitting!”
Your drink slides down the table to Donghyuck, interrupting whatever ‘conversation’ he was having with Jisung.
“I thought the whole point of dragging you out was to make you have fun,” he says.
“You better be fun, then,” you say.
Donghyuck raises his eyebrows but eventually take a long sip. “Brain freeze!” He cries, clutching his forehead. You laugh with the rest of the guys. It’s almost normal, except you can’t help but peek at the door whenever somebody walks in.
The night passes and the guys get more drunk. The bar gets more crowded–soon you are squished between Renjun and Chenle, barely able to breathe as the music slowly gets louder. The tequila looks more and more appealing but the guys need at least one person sober to make it back alive: Chenle arm wrestles a stranger while Donghyuck has some poor soul cornered, practicing his pick up lines.
When Chenle loses, you push past him, muttering something about fresh air that they probably can’t hear. You push through the crowd of drunk people, trying not to remember the last time you did this.
You squint at the steps, edges difficult to see with so little light. Who builds a bar on the second floor of a building? You make it to the final step but misjudge how close it is and your foot slips off the edge, sending you tumbling forward. You might have caught yourself, but you don’t have to—strong arms catch you mid fall, wrapping around your waist and swinging you clean off the stairs and onto solid ground. You aren’t surprised at all to look into Jaemin’s eyes as he lets go.
He frowns at you, eyes so dark they look black. Maybe it’s the lack of light, but the twinkle in his eyes, the glint you’ve come to recognize as trouble, is missing.
“Hi,” you say.
He drops his arms, stuffing his hands into his back pockets. “So you’re talking to me now?”
An apology begins on your lips but you can’t push it out. Not when you still don’t understand. “Can we talk?”
He glances at you. “Have you been drinking?”
You shake your head.
“Okay.” He doesn’t walk away, folding his arms over his chest.
When you imagined this conversation, the sun shined so that you could see the warmth in his eyes. He smiled at you, called you silly for ever doubting him. The Jaemin in your head wouldn’t ever do something to hurt you.
But Jaemin doesn’t exist in your head–it’s far past time you learned that.
“I’m sorry,” you say. “I shouldn’t have just cut you off. But I thought… I don’t know what I thought, let alone what I think now.” You force yourself to meet his cold eyes, searching for a hint of warmth. “Chenle told me you dropped out of the presidency.”
He nods slowly.
“But Renjun told me that someone told him that the presidency is the only reason you ever pretended to like me, but if you dropped out then I really don’t get it. Not that I ever got it in the first place, though, because you’re you and I’m me, and everyone kept telling me that, like I didn’t already know that you are supposed to be a persimmon and grow on a tree far far away from my lemon or pomegranate or whatever kind of fruit I am, because the point is we were never meant to be.” You take a deep breath, realizing that you don’t exactly sound sane. “What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t make sense. It made sense when you were trying to cheat me out of the presidency, but you dropped out. And it doesn’t make sense.”
Jaemin blinks slowly at you. “You would rather believe that I was trying to rob your presidency than that I actually like you?”
“Do you?”
He frowns. “Of course I do. I like you so much I think about things I’ve never wanted before, the silly shit–watching horror movies as an excuse to cuddle, having picnics by the river, buying groceries together–I wanted to do all of it with you.
“You talk a lot about how we’re different people—who gives a shit? If I’m the type of person that wants to be with you and you’re the type of person that wants to be with me, why does any of that matter?” He takes a step closer to you, and you can see you were wrong. His eyes aren’t cold, they’re full of emotion, dark waves of hurt. “What do I have to do to prove it to you? Should I tell you how pretty you are? How incredibly smart you are—not fake smart like me, but really smart. And when I’m around you, I like who I am. I know it’s cheesy but you bring out the best in me.
“I know I fucked up. I should have told you how I felt before anything else, and I shouldn’t have left. I regretted it as soon as I was gone but it was terrifying to lay next to you and give you my bare heart, even when I didn’t think you would ever try to hurt me.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if it hurts more thinking that you never wanted a relationship or thinking that I’d ever stoop that low. I mean, everyone tells me about my reputation, but I didn’t think you cared about any of that.”
Tears prick at your eyes. How could you be such an idiot? Listening to all the wrong people, especially yourself. Jaemin doesn’t exist in another world, he isn’t any kind of fruit. He’s a boy that you like that likes you back. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, reaching a tentative hand out to rest against his arm. “I’m so sorry.” He drops his head, sighing. “I was an idiot.”
He sighs, staring at your hand. You start to drop it but he grabs it, squeezing your fingers. “Where do we go from here?”
You study him, eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Jaemin who is not a fruit, not an alien, just a boy.
“Hey.” You reach out and cup his cheek, waiting for him to meet your eyes. “My name is YN. I think you’re really cute.”
For a heartbeat he doesn’t move. Then he smiles, cheek rising underneath your hand. “Hey, my name is Jaemin. I think you’re really cute too.”
“Oh really?” You slide your hand to the back of his neck, wrapping your other arm across it. His arms wrap on your waist, pulling you into a hug. He squeezes you flush against him, head tucked into your shoulder just as yours is tucked into his.
“I know we can’t start over,” he says, “but can we start again?”
“How about this time we just talk to each other?” You say, tapping your fingers on his shoulder. “No more rumors and gossip.”
He nods, chin digging into your neck a little. “I swear, I won’t give you any reason to doubt me ever again. I won’t be the kind of guy your friends call a red flag.”
You loosen your grip and lean back to look him in the eye. “Wait, did they seriously say that to you?”
“I ran into Donghyuck after I dropped out and we had a very… one sided conversation with his side doing all the talking,” Jaemin says, “and Renjun made it obvious from the start that he didn’t like me.”
You laugh a little, then even more when he pouts. “You’ll win them over again.”
“They really don’t like me,” he says.
You cup his cheek again. “You’ll change their minds.” He leans into your touch, closing his eyes. You lean forward, resting your forehead against his. He gasps a little, hands tightening on your waist.
“Now, am I remembering incorrectly, or are you an amazing kisser?” You ask.
He grins, leaning forward and closing the distance without wasting a second. Neither of you can stop smiling, lips and teeth gnashing together but it’s still the best kiss you’ve ever had.
.
.
You stretch an arm out, only to find more bed instead of empty space. You sit up, shivering as the blanket falls away. Right, you fell asleep in Jaemin’s bed. His room is much bigger than yours, sharing an apartment with Jeno. He has enough room for a dresser and a nicer desk, even a chair. It seems he lied to you about being messy, because even when you show up unannounced, like today, his clothes are neatly folded and the biggest mess you’ve found has been three dirty dishes in the sink (which you later found out were Jeno’s).
Jeno, apparently, isn’t all bad–he did let you in even though your boyfriend was still out. He doesn’t fully trust you, but then again, your friends don’t hide their mistrust of Jaemin either. You maintain your earlier stance that time will heal that wound.
You hear a knife against a cutting board coming from the kitchen, so you wrap the blanket around your shoulders and shuffle towards the sound, unable to stop the smile from spreading up your lips when you turn the corner and find Jaemin standing at the counter. He glances behind him and grins at you, and even though you just woke up from a nap and probably have messy hair and marks on your face, he says, “you look sexy.”
“So cheesy,” you say. He laughs and turns back around. You slip behind him and wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his back and closing your eyes. He radiates warmth better than any blanket. It’s too easy to lean against him, take a deep breath of the scent of his laundry detergent and cling to him. Jaemin moves slowly, careful not to hit you by accident.
“What’re you doing?”
“A surprise,” he says, “at least my attempt at one.” He sets down the knife on the counter and taps on your hands, pulling them apart gently and spinning around to face you before setting your hands back on his waist. He tilts his head at you when you purse your lips and frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Still no ass,” you say, patting him a little lower than his waist.
“Hey!” He sticks his lower lip out. “I’m trying.”
“No one’s perfect,” you say, sliding your hands back up and sneaking a kiss to his cheek.
“You are,” he says, cupping your face to kiss you properly. Jaemin still kisses like it’s his last chance, drawing out every moment, lips lingering on yours until your head spins. It’s only when you can’t breathe that he finally pulls away.
“Good answer,” you say.
He smiles. “If you come to the gym with me I’d be more motivated to get an ass you’d be proud of.”
“You send enough pictures for me to know that if I saw you at the gym I would never survive,” you say. “You want me to die?”
He laughs, squishing your face together with his hands. “If anyone’s going to die, it’s going to be me, because you are too cute.”
He presses another kiss to your lips, still squished together in a pout. He laughs at the outrage on your face, letting go of your cheeks and slipping his hands behind your neck, kissing you one more time for real, letting go far too early.
“The surprise,” he says. He lets go of you with one arm, turning to the cutting board and holding up a slice of what he was cutting. It looks a little bit like a tomato, though it’s more orange than red, and about the size of a golf ball.
“A persimmon?”
“I still don’t really get the persimmon thing,” he says, “but I’ve never tried one.”
You blink at him. Jaemin makes it so easy to fall in love. He holds the piece closer to your mouth, waiting for you to open. A persimmon tastes sweet and mild and rich, a little bit like honey. Jaemin eats his own piece, frowning and nodding.
“No more magical mystical fruit,” Jaemin says.
“You’re going to make an amazing trophy husband,” you say. You tap him on the nose. “Maybe we could even be a power couple.”
He grins. “We’ll be so cool. Like Beyoncé and her husband.”
“Jay-Z?”
“Whatever.” Jaemin flips his hand. “The important part is that I am Beyoncé.”
You smack his shoulders softly. “Hell no, Beyoncé would never have a flat ass.”
“It always comes back to the ass.” He sighs. “Be honest: are you embarrassed by me?”
Once you never thought he could be embarrassing. That was before you knew he staked his career on a soap opera and wears jorts to the gym, before he called you drunk just to confess he accidentally stole your pencil, before he spent three hours putting up campaign posters for you (and then another two getting written up by campus police for not having permission). Before you fell in love with him.
“By you? Never.” You pat his cheeks. “Your ass leaves much to be desired, though.”
thank you for reading!
#🌟 stars galaxy#nct#nct dream#nct x reader#nct dream x reader#nct reader#nct fanfic#nct dream fanfic#nct dream fluff#nct dream angst#nct fluff#nct angst#jaemin#na jaemin#nct jaemin#jaemin x reader#jaemin fluff#jaemin angst
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Fictober23 Prompt: 5 - "You're the smartest person I know."
Fandom: DPxDC
Rating: T
Warnings: Mensions of Blood, Injury and Violence
A/N: This is kind of a bad timeline kind of situation that plays into the Gamer Pal Prompt I wrote before but can still be read independently.
Danny gasped as he staggered along the alley wall, with no idea where he was. He leaned with his shoulder against the wall as his left hand pressed against the wound on his stomach that refused to stop bleeding. He was confused, dizzy and pretty sure his father had given him a concussion, so closing his eyes and just sleeping on the side of the street was out of the question.
Tucker had thrown him through a portal Wulf had opened and that portal had spit him out here in… he doesn't recognise anything. But he was pretty sure he wasn't in Amity anymore. His vision was blurry but he was pretty sure that there were skyscrapers or at least buildings way taller than he was used to.
"Fuck." Danny cursed as another wave of pain made his body shudder. If he could just transform than maybe these injuries wouldn't be as bad but next to the pain Danny could also feel electricity surging through his body thanks to whatever Vlad zapped him with that stopped his transformation.
He coughed, squinting his eyes at the red spots that splattered to the ground. Things had gone to shit and real quickly and for a moment Danny thought that maybe they should have listened to their Gaming friend. Listened to his words of caution and advice to find a way to leave or to have at least a couple more of back up plans if things go horribly wrong.
Well it all came back to bite Danny like usually, as he spat out another glob of blood. Maybe Tim hadn't been as paranoid as they had assumed.
"You okay there kid?"
Danny needed to blink a couple of times until the red and brown blob before him finally took the shape of a person. He blinked several times more until his brain also finally caught up with who he was seeing before him.
"You're Red Hood?" Danny somehow managed to say in between coughing again. Tim had told them about Gothams vigilantes and how he could contact them to get them to help with Amity. To get them into contact with the Justice League. They had thanked him but refused the help, citing the fact that even one overshadowed hero could spell even worse trouble than they already had.
Now he felt stupid having refused that kind of help.
"Hey there kid." Don't black out now. Your bleeding pretty heavily we should get you to a doctors and-"
"No hospitals." Danny cut the vigilante off, coughing once more. Even though Tim somehow had managed to get the Justice League started on the removal of the Anti-Ecto Acts they were not yet gone. He couldn't risk that yet.
But meeting Red Hood meant that Danny was in Gotham, which meant he could probably go directly to Tim for help. His Gaming Pal did say that he knew his cities vigilantes personally.
"Okay no hospitals then." Hood confirmed for him as the man reached out to Danny just as he lost his balance falling forward. The last thing Danny remembers was muttering something along the lines of "Tim… I need to find him."
The next thing Danny then became aware of was the soft beeping of a heart monitor and loud arguing not too far from him. He groaned audible and the arguing stopped instantly. A wight rested on his shoulder and Danny blinked through the brightness and blurreyness once more until he vaguely recognised the shape of a person he so far had only seen through video chats.
"Tim?"
"You absolute idiot." Was the response he got and yea that definitely was the voice he had heard so often during all the late night Doomed gaming sessions.
"That checks out. You are the smartest person I know." Danny chuckled lightly until a sharp pain made him gasp. "Shit, I will feel that for weeks."
"The smartest person you know is Sam. Between the four of us she has the best grades, remember? Besides that, do you have any idea what kind of panic you and Tuck send us through?"
Danny peaked at Tim and grimaced at the frustrated glare the other teen was sending him. "Tucker was the one throwing me through a portal."
"You're lucky you landed in Gotham." The other then muttered, shaking his head.
"Again. You are the smartest person I know. You would have figured out some way to track me? Like the time you hacked our phones and tuned in onto Desiree's ectosignature to find her. Works better than the Booomerang that keeps hitting my head."
"That's because that thing is only tuned on you."
"And you somehow got rid of the GIW and I still haven't figured out how you did that."
Danny watched how the other teen shrugged. There was a silence between them. Tim was texting on his phone, probably informing Sam and Tucker. Danny, meanwhile, for the first time took notice that he was in some sort of medical bay, also noting that whoever Tim had argued with had already left. If he could believe Red Hood's words, then even if this looked like a hospital room it was not one.
"Hey Tim?" Danny finally broke the silence and the other teen only hummed. "Is your offer to stay with you in Gotham and to go to school and college here still open? I think I am ready to leave Amity behind now."
Tim looked up from his phone at Danny and gave him a feral grin. "About damn time. I had all the papers ready for you for ages now. It's about time we finally make use of them."
Danny chuckled. "And you still don't believe me when I say, that you are the smartest person I know?"
"Anyone in my family can do at least that, you know? These papers are nothing special."
Danny only raised an eyebrow at the other before both teens started to laugh, with one laugh getting cut short by a groan of pain and the other by fussing over the other right after it.
#fictober23#danny fenton#danny phantom#dpxdc#dp x dc#Tim drake#jason todd#dcxdp#fanfic#Gaming pal#Danny needed saving#shit when down in amity#Danny escaped to Gotham with injuries#Red Hood found him#Tim and Sam were Panicked#they didn't know that tucker and wulf threw danny into a portal#Tim ended up arguing with his brother about how to best keep Danny save#Tim was prepared#Danny just needed to agree with him#unedited#no beta we die like danny#added tags after posting because I forgot some... sorry
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While Your Lips Are Still Red
Summary: You suffer for what's happening in your life and you tried to put an end to it, but Astarion saved you.
Notes/TW: I wrote this fanfiction thinking about my Tav (female), but I wrote it gender-neutral so you can think about your OC (or you!) without any problems. The theme of suicide is the focus of this story, so if you are particularly sensitive to the theme and don't feel okay, please don't read it! I chose this topic because it is particularly dear and close to me. No one deserves to suffer and if you need it don't hesitate to contact a hotline. You are not alone!
There's also a bit of romance.
Please remember that English is not my native language.
Your sight grew darker and blurrier.
The bright stars in the sky, your only companions on nights when nightmares seemed to prevail, now seemed like many small, confused, and meaningless dots — the last, silent judges of your ruthless act.
You had decided to end everything: the story of the tadpoles, the absolute, the emperor... it was too much.
Your life had never been peaceful from the beginning, but the limit to how you could tolerate pain had become increasingly thin. You had tried every loophole possible, including considering joining Shadowheart in her crusade for Shar's honor; but just a few days before, you had convinced her to abandon the Lady of Loss and embrace her loving sister Selune. Because for her, your best friend, there was still hope, a glimmer of divine light ready to welcome her.
But not for you. Each fight had become more exhausting, each rescue mission more violent, soaked in innocent blood. The harpists, the tieflings. Children who would never play again, men and women who would never love again.
You should have rejoiced that you were still alive. To still be able to enjoy that great gift that life was. Yet now, cradled by the cold waters of the lake, not far from your sleeping companions, unaware of everything, your injured wrists let the red blood stain that crystalline liquid.
After making sure everyone was asleep (or in a trance, or on patrol, in Astarion's case), you had pulled your dagger from its sheath and used it on yourself right on the shore. You wanted to stab yourself and get it over with as quickly as possible, but you couldn't.
And now, at the mercy of the sweet waves, you waited for your moment. The moment when it would all end. You had managed to isolate the Emperor thanks to Gale, with the excuse of "I need a spell that silence everything for a few hours, or I won't even sleep tonight". A little suspicious, the wizard of Waterdeep finally granted your request. This way, none of your group would have the slightest signal from the tadpoles.
Your head felt lighter… it was like being drunk. A bitter smile spread across your face as your limbs grew numb, and your body grew colder and colder. The eyelids, however, became extremely heavy, as if there were a stone holding them down, and his heartbeat pounded in the eardrums like a war drum. The body became lighter and lighter but also heavier. The arms wanted only to go down, further down, towards the depths of the lake.
Your vision became almost completely blurred, your heartbeat infinitely slow: it was the end. One last breath and everything would have ended, if it hadn't been the rippling water and the cold hands (but warmer than your skin) that tore you away from the agonized embrace of death.
Thump-sounding words filled your head, but you didn't understand their meaning. A pale blob stood in front of you, squirming like a madman. A gasp came from your mouth as you recognized the figure. It was Astarion, visibly panicking. Perhaps thanks to the adrenaline of seeing him so agitated, you managed to understand his words.
"What the hell did you think?!" he almost screamed, lifting you out of the water to hold you. His gaze fell to your wrists which continued to bleed and you saw him swallow and clench his jaw. "I… one thing at a time. Now I have to think about getting you out of here, damn it." He rolled his eyes so as not to focus too much on your wounds, a temptation for him, especially after his failed hunt earlier. You didn't have the energy to reply, so you just let the elf pick you up, your eyelids too numb to allow you to look at him. You could only see his worried look, his milky white eyebrows furrowed.
Once you reached the shore, you felt Astarion spinning around. “If I take you to camp like this they'll think I bled you dry before you even let me explain,” he whispered. The companions were not within earshot, although relatively close, but it was normal for the vampire to operate in the shadows. You felt your body hit the ground and when you had enough strength to open your eyes, you noticed that he had found shelter in the forest. Your back was leaning against a large log, your legs stretched out on the damp ground.
“A…Astarion?” you whispered. "What…?"
“We'll leave the explanations for later, darling. Give me your wrists,” he ordered. Your tired eyes reflected fear. Did he want to bite you? Finish you there?
Noticing your hesitation, he took them both in his cold hands. "I do not want to hurt. Let me save you." His voice was calm, but his eyes hid a nervousness you had rarely seen. He swallowed, and bringing your wrists to his mouth, he licked them. His red eyes glowed like rubies and his breath trembled against your veins as a short, strangled moan escaped his throat. He seemed to struggle against himself, before placing your wrists on the ground, perhaps with a little too much force. You almost heard him growl as his jaw muscles clenched and his fingers trembled.
The wounds were gone. You blinked several times, lifting your arms with difficulty. It was as if they had never existed!
“I… thank you, Astarion. For saving me. Because of this. It must have been diff…”. Your head was spinning fast, so fast. You felt like the ground was disappearing from underneath your body and you almost fell to the side, if it weren't for the vampire, who grabbed you, preventing your head from hitting a stone.
“Do you want… me to hold you?” he asked with an apprehensive look, his voice a little more serious than usual. Maybe it was the lack of blood that made you see misleading things because he didn't look like Astarion at all. However, by now you didn't care about anything anymore, for all you knew he might as well be a shape-shifting monster ready to make a single morsel of you. You nodded your head and Astarion pulled you into his arms, resting your back against his chest.
"Better?" he asked. His breath tickled your neck.
“Mh hm” you replied. "Listen…"
You felt his arms become firmer around you.
"I am sorry." His voice was a whisper. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Maybe all this wouldn't have happened."
You frowned, tilting your head slightly, which made it spin even more than before, confusing you to the point of making you feel drunk. "What…? What didn't you tell me...?”
The pale elf peered at the now distant black lake through the trunks of the forest. He didn't have the courage to meet your gaze.
“That I love you, my dear. Or rather, I told you that time as a joke, at the camp. Those words that I said to all the victims before taking them to Cazador." His gaze finally found its way to yours, glossy for the tears you were trying to hold back. Your heart, slow at first, began to thunder in your skull like a hammer, your breath became shorter and you tried to move away from him.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn't be. Was he taking advantage of that situation? Was he joking? Was it a demon, perhaps Raphael, ready to extort some contract from you?
"I do not believe you". Your voice trembled with fear and weakness, but even if you wanted to, you couldn't escape. You couldn't feel your legs anymore and the breath burned in your lungs. Even if you wanted to scream no one would have heard you.
Your panic didn't come from the fear of being eaten, but from the fact that Astarion had been the last bastion of salvation for you before you thought about harming yourself. You had feelings for him for a long time now, and your eyes often drifted over his slender frame as you tried to fall asleep in your bedroll as he drifted further into the darkness. When you allowed him to drink your blood, his bites and lips continued to torment you in the night, but far from unpleasant reasons. However, convinced that you were not reciprocated and considering his ambition for power and the constant flirting during missions even with bears, those words looked fake to you. You bit your lip, curling up as much as you could.
“No, no, don't be like that... look at me,” he said while lifting your chin with one hand. You didn't want to, you didn't want to accept the reality and feel terribly stupid for almost throwing your life away when the one you loved maybe actually reciprocated your feelings. When your eyes finally met, you saw him for what he truly was.
A fragile creature. His look was desperate, the mouth curved in an expression of infinite sadness. His other hand caressed your hair... a pleasant contact, which made you relax a little. "Listen to me. I know I don't have the easiest of temperament” he confessed, a bitter laugh, with his typical accent, changed his expression for a moment. “And I want you to know that everything you see of me is not… true. It's that bastard Cazador who turned me into a monster. But you made me feel something that in two hundred years, under his control, I had never felt.”
You rested your face in his hand, now cupping your cheek. You decided to trust. If it was a dream or a near-death hallucination, you wanted to live every minute of it.
"What?"
"Free. I feel free” he murmured, and his lips rested on yours in a sweet, delicate kiss. They were surprisingly soft and tasted vaguely of iron and mulberry, but that contact was enough to feel a new, powerful rush of adrenaline bringing you back to the present.
It was really happening. You were in his arms and he had saved you from certain death. And now he was kissing you in the sweetest way possible, both of his hands cupping your face as if you were in danger of breaking at any moment.
It seemed like an eternal, perfect kiss that you wanted to leave suspended in time. When you opened your eyes again, you found his. So vulnerable, so desperate. He ran a finger over your lip, before being grabbed and hugged like his life depended on it.
"Stay with me. Forever."
#baldur's gate 3#astarion#baldur's gate iii#baldur's gate 3 oc#astarion x tav#astarion x reader#astarion x you
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This is the last of my fnaf backlog stuff for now. I'd need to scour some older sketchbooks for more. Although I've been messing with colors, so that might be something I could share.
So I wanted to try my hand at redesigning some fnaf characters. I just didn't like how hideous they were for something that should be designed to be endearing to kids.
Details under the read more to avoid clutter.
My mom saw me draw Ballora once(not knowing it's fnaf), and asked me to draw more for her. So these are a couple of the ones she requested. I'm not sure why she was so fixated on multiple ballerina pictures. Anyway, I didn't like how...scantily clad... Ballora looked. So I gave her a more family friendly outfit.
I don't quite like the lore surrounding Ennard, so I just gave him his own design, rather than be an amalgamation of other animatronics. Molten Freddy/the Blob/Tangle can fill that role without Ennard. I've been workshopping an idea where each member of the Afton family has an animatronic that is meant to replace them in some twisted fantasy William concocted, via some type of soul stealing/remnant/haunting situation. Ennard is basically hunting for Mike specifically.
The puppet was a hard one to pin down. I liked multiple different design option. Until I just went with multiple. There's the Marionette, the Mannequin, and Poppet. All variations of the puppet. They gave me pierrot clown vibes, due to the black/white color scheme.
Ballora has four minireenas, each themed after an emotion. Joy, Gloom, Fury, and Awe. I figured it would give them more personality than they have in-game.
I've changed Circus Baby's name to Circee, because I don't like her canon name. She also seemed underdressed, so I gave her a more harlequin inspired look. I repurposed Balloon Boy, DD, and JJ to be her bidy babs for the sake of streamlining. It's a more efficient use of resources. I figured it was only fair that they all got actual names too.
Trying to keep marketing in mind, I figured it would make sense for BB to be "the boy", DD to be "the girl", and didn't want JJ to upset that balance and left JJ ambiguous. Not necessarily even nonbinary. Just whatever gender any individual deems fit. Poppet is actually the same way. They're just robots. FazEnt isn't committing to anything.
#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#fnaf redesign#ballora#ennard#minireena#circus baby#circee#bidybab#balloon boy#fnaf dd#fnaf jj#balloon boy billy#darling dolly#jolly jackie#security puppet#fnaf marionette#fnaf puppet#fanart#a3 art#traditional art#sketch
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may i ask how you do the black comic-like shading? i've been trying to do it for myself and i can never get it down (+ your art is awessssome)
I’m not the best teacher but I’ll try to break it down.
The basics:
Comic-like shading from what I started picking up is the mixture of understanding light, shadows, and folds.
Once you’re comfortable with hatching and able to identify shadows, that’s where the next part comes in.
Instead of a vague blob of approximation of light and shadow, try to match the areas of the shadows from the photograph to your drawing using your eyes. You can do more detailed than this if you want to
Then you can do a lot of simplifying, since in comics, most people aren’t doing full render. If you know how the shadow works in folds, you can start simplifying the approximate areas where you should be shading.. sort of like this?
A lot of the comic shading you see in art is just people understanding light/shadow and going: how do I make this less annoying for myself?
Once you start practicing, you might find drawing every single detail incredibly annoying. Find an artist with a similar style to yours and see how they shade, or another artist who’s shading you like and see if you can apply it to your own style.
Another example:
Light = green
Shadow = Red
Try using in black and white to shade extreme highlights and shadows with no colors.
Try drawing people in leather with strong light in the references, it’ll force your brain to think of a way to make it look good. At first, you might not understand how to transfer it but over time you will be able to so don’t give up if you think it looks ugly :p
A lot of people draw things that look unsatisfactory & then just don’t post it
Also, I think a simpler shading style might be better for your art since yours relies a lot on color. There’s also beauty in simplicity like chris samnee.
If you have a specific drawing you’d like me to explain why I shaded the way I did, let me know!
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stencils
ah i did the stencils on tuesday and i forgot to post about it! i have been Out Of Sorts lately and also i remembered how to post on instagram so i put it there and then forgot i had not put it here.
BEHOLD
[image description: a teal wall with yellow-orange trim, stenciled with a tiled pattern of metallic gold stars over the entire surface]
I bought this stencil and some metallic gold "stencil creme" paint, and a stencil brush, and just spent an entire day doing it.
Yeah I should've started at the top left and worked over, but I started at the middle right and worked out instead. i might go back and add points to the top border and circles to the left border. Not sure. Not urgent either way.
The directions they give you on the website mention that a dry brush is critical to stenciling success, and this is a thing I did already know; i have stenciled mostly t-shirts in my time, with dumb bullshit stencils I cut out of manila folders. But they tell you to load up the brush and then take most of the paint off the brush with paper towels, and let me tell you my stencil creme pot barely covered this wall and would not have if I'd put most of the paint onto perfectly good paper towels. So what I did instead is, I went to the grocery store and I got a cannoli, and then I washed out the container it came in, and then I cut the container at the hinges and made myself two paint trays, and one of them I used as a pallette to mix the paints for the outlet covers, and the other half I used as a roller tray to paint the windowsill, then rinsed and used for this. I had that plastic tray nice and dry and I loaded up the brush and then worked that brush around on the plastic, and it was good and dry and then when I came back I could pick up the paint I'd offloaded onto that plastic, and use almost all of it. And later in the process I added a few drops of water to that pallette, and I was able to thin the paint just a tiny bit, just enough to get it to flow a little better but not so much it went under the edges of the stencil.
[image description: a white-stained clear plastic tray with a pot of gold paint sitting in it, a stencil brush propped on the edge, faint traces and blobs of gold paint swirled around it.] when I added a few drops of water they'd collect in the fluted bits around the edges, so if I wanted them I could go swipe the brush there, and if I didn't they stayed out of the way.
I could have been more exacting and precise in my stencil placement, but I knew I had to just do it, so I just did it. Used a level, discovered that the level disagreed with the ceiling and the floor, remembered that this house like all houses is in fact handmade, and so my imperfections would just have to harmonize with the imperfections built in by the builders and the 75 years of settling and whatnot. So I was Zen about it and it worked out.
[image description: a wide shot of the kitchen showing gray cabinets and unadorned blue wall: the stencil is spotless, taped up with blue painter's tape, a stepladder beneath it with a yellow level sitting on it.]
I used painter's tape. The tutorials say you can spray the back of the stencil with spray adhesive to keep it tight against the wall and reduce bleed at the edges. I own spray adhesive, and I know it's sticky as hell and gets on everything. No thanks, I figured I didn't need it, and I don't regret that, I had no problems. I have, as it happens, stenciled a lot of things in my life.
I should make some more stupid stenciled t-shirts, they've been fun.
[image source: two repeats of the stencil have been applied to the wall, and now the plastic stencil template is taped sideways at the bottom of the wall.]
It's a well-designed stencil, and the way you lined it up is that some of the elements are designed to repeat so you just plop them over the previous version. I hadn't premeditated or measured this, but it turned out the last repeat, I could just turn it sideways and it tiled beautifully that way too. No problems. Worked great. The stencil creme paint dried fast enough that there was no problem overlaying it like this either, though I did make a point of doing the ones I was going to overlap first so they'd have the longest to dry. I doubt that mattered.
[image description: the stencil template laid over the edge of a previous repeat, showing a blue edge where the previous repeat doesn't quite align with the new placement.]
This is where me not doing math was maybe a problem. I was not perfectionist about this, I just sometimes accepted that the template had shifted slightly on the previous repeat, and while it lined up perfectly in one spot, it would not quite line up in another. I gambled that this would not matter, and in fact took this photo to check. After I removed the template this time, I went back to photograph this spot to see how the misalignment looked, and... couldn't find it. Could not tell, even though I knew where it had been. So obviously it did not matter. (In these cases, I did not touch up the edges of the misaligned bits, I left them as they'd originally been stenciled. The other elements were not far enough off the anticipated alignment for it to be noticeable. A touch-up would have been more noticeable, an element becoming oversized or slightly misshapen or having a visible edge of layered pigment in it.)
[image description: the stencil template crammed against the edge of the wall, bent and roughly taped in place, and the light switch, plate removed, poking through one of the holes at the right.]
This was the trickiest bit. I just held one hand against wherever I was working, flattening that bit of the stencil to the wall as I worked, and then I'd let go and put my hand on the next bit, and maybe they weren't perfectly in alignment with the previous bits but as long as the stencil was touching the wall well right where I was working, it was a good enough result. The light switch was a bit of a problem and i should properly have removed it but I wasn't about to do that so I didn't. I did the inward-facing points of the leftmost stars, and then did not try to do the upward-downward points or the circles, because it was too hard to get the stencil flat right there. I could go back and add them now, and I might yet, using the very edge of the template, We'll see if I do. It looks fine as it is.
[image description: a plain blue wall with a double outlet plate in it, and the points of the eight-pointed star are around it, protruding from behind the lightswitch plate.]
I had always intended to stencil an element behind the light switch plates on the plain walls, because I felt they don't stand out enough against the teal. I did one, and then realized it was impossible to center it and hard not to get paint on other bits of the walls, since the stencil template is so huge and was covered in paint from doing the whole wall. I realized then that it's just points and I could freehand those. So I did, this is me freehand faux-stenciling the star around this outlet plate, LOL.
[image description: the darkened kitchen early in the morning, under-cabinet lights on but the room dim, and in the distance the wall is shining]
anyway so the next morning i went out and was sitting at the window and turned around and was like "this looks amazing" so I am well pleased with how it turned out, really and truly.
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Hi I'm the Anon who asked for Newt briefcase hcs I just wanted to say thank you for doing that probably confusing request lmao
How about Anemo boys + aether and neuvillet with gn darling who has SCP 999 as a pet
It wasn't that confusing don't worry!! Im just glad you enjoyed it and I hope you like this one too! Sorry it took so long...but thank you for your request! <3
─⊰⊹ฺ🍂𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤⊰⊹ฺ🍂
{༻~SCP 999~༺}
CW: Mostly fluffy, descriptions of living blobs! GN! Reader! Cursing!
Also in case you don't know what it is, SCP 999 is a friendly orange blob type of SCP and one quick google search of it will show you just how adorable it is!
(Includes: Xiao, Wanderer, Kazuha, Heizou, Venti, Aether, and Neuvillette!)
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
𑁍༄Xiao:
Xiao sighed, trying desperately not to giggle or give in to your blobs attempts to make him laugh...no matter how much it tried to tickle him and use it's aroma to drug him with happiness he wouldn't let it work. "Where did you find this... thing again?"
"Just wandering around outside this guarded place...come on Xiao you know you want to smile! Give into the laughter!!"
"Absolutely not....wait what? A guarded place? Are you sure they weren't being kept in there? What if they are dangerous?"
"Xiao, they have been cuddling you for ten minutes...pretty sure it isn't dangerous. I think they like you!"
𑁍༄Wanderer:
"What the fuck is that..." Wanderer stared at the blobby orange pile of goop next to you, his face twisted into a almost disgusted look as it watched him with large round eyes and a cute smile, you could tell the little one just wanted to be friends with him...but convincing him to agree would be difficult.
"They are my friend, I found them outside of a security building...lost and sad, all alone. I had to help them! Come on, you know they are cute!" You patted the blobs head, making it jiggle while it's smile grew, truthfully the cutest little thing you'd ever seen.
"Did you just say you found it...near a SECURITY BUILDING???"
𑁍༄Kazuha:
"Do you think they feel emotions? Such as agony, happiness...loneliness? Do you think they have family?" Kazuha threw a stick a couple feet away, watching with a distant look in his eyes as the blob hurried after it like a puppy playing fetch. In truth you'd wondered the same thing for awhile now...did your little friend have a family? Had you taken them away from it...or had you saved them from something that had made their family non existent?
"I know they can feel emotions. Right now they are clearly happy and when I first found them they seemed sad, but for all I know I read it wrong...what if I took them away from their home?"
"I think the more accurate wording...is you gave them a home. You tend to do that...for more than just new creatures."
𑁍༄Heizou:
"From a secure building you say? Perhaps we should investigate it further? There could be more entities like your friend..." Heizou stared at the orange blob, truthfully less concerned with finding more of them and far more concerned with finding out if their occurrence was due to illegal experiments. It could be a big bust if his intuition was correct...and it almost always was.
"Yeah but Heizou it was incredibly guarded, like people with guns..."
"Guns hmm? I'll call in back up then, I have a feeling what you saw was more than just a secure base."
𑁍༄Venti:
"Oh wow...that's a interesting creature...um what is it?" Ventis words showed his confusion, in all his years of living he'd never really seen anything like your little friend, sure slimes could bare resemblance but...something was off about this particular blob. Something in its eyes...like it had seen unbearable things..
"I'm not really sure what they are, I found them by accident while I was adventuring. They were wandering around the forest and looked hungry, so I gave them a bunch of fruits. You should see it Venti! They just dissolve!" You reached into your bag, digging around for a apple you knew you had in there.
"It...dissolves things???"
𑁍༄Aether:
"Awwe they are kinda cute..." Aether said, smiling sweetly as he kneeled in front of the orange glob, "Hi there little buddy, you want some food?"
You felt your heart swell at the sight...everyone else had said you'd made the wrong choice saving the little blob, but Aether was different...he saw them the same as any other creature, something who deserved to be treated with kindness. "Aren't they adorable? I've never seen anything like it before so I was a little scared they might be harmful, but I don't think they'd hurt a fly."
"I don't see them hurting anyone either, here you go little buddy." Aether tossed a sunsettia into the air, chuckling sweetly as the blob caught it and dissolved it with a happy smile.
𑁍༄Neuvillette:
"Ahem,...you say it has special properties?" Neuvillette looked down at the orange blob, wondering how such a being could exist...if it really was a natural occurrence and if it's friendly nature was only mere show and deep down it held a much more nefarious purpose.
"Yep!! If you hug them, they release these yummy scents and it makes you feel happy! They can also tickle you and they loovvee to play fetch!"
"You say it produces different scents? Does that mean it could possibly release toxins as well?"
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚~Have a nice day~*.✧
#genshin impact#genshin headcanons#genshin fanfic#genshin x reader#genshin x you#xiao x reader#xiao x you#xiao headcanons#wanderer headcanons#wanderer x reader#wanderer x you#kazuha x reader#kazuha x you#kazuha headcanons#heizou headcanons#heizou x you#heizou x reader#venti headcanons#venti x you#venti x reader#aether x you#aether x reader#aether headcanons#neuvillette headcanons#neuvillette x reader#neuvillette x you
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diner shenanigans ˚ ༘ ⋆
- random oneshot i wrote at 3am :’)
A/N : 1.9k words, fluff, mother lowkey evil, mitsuya and y/n being sewing buddies, y/n is used a lot, not checked through cba sorry :), tbh i dont really like this that much but wtv
Mikey x F! Reader
-i love the blob blob blob
The diner was slower than the usual rush of people. It was a Saturday and past noon, and the diner was emptier than any other Saturday! To you, this was bliss. It saved you from constantly running around the building to collect and receive orders from customers, but also to serve the meals that were ordered.
However, now you were bored. You were still scootering around the diner for small check-ins and cleaning, but nothing was really keeping you occupied as usual.
If you had a choice, you would be at the arcade down the road with your friends. But since your parents owned the diner, you were basically forced into labour! Although you didn’t mind since the diner mainly revolved around sweet treats and desserts, meaning lots of snacks in case your appetite appeared.
Right now though, nothing was satisfying your tastebuds or boredom.
“Y/n!” Your mother shouted, pinching your cheek to grab your attention.
“ouch- ma, that hurts!”
“It should do! You’re slacking on the job again.”
“Is it really a job if I’m not getting paid? Ya know, this could be considered as forced child labour-!” At your attempt at being witty, your mother, grinned.
"Well, you eat half of the food we make for the customers, so you don’t need to be paid.”
You gasp, offended, while she laughs.
"Ma, I don’t eat that much!”
“Sure Y/n.” She took your hand and put your notepad and pan in your grip. “Some customers came in a few minutes ago at table 18. Go get their orders, and after that, I need you to clean up table 3 when they leave.”
“They haven’t even finished eating, ma?”
“Just trust me!”
At her words, you promptly walked over to table 18. As you approached, you realised that it was a group of boys dressed in black gang uniform!?! You debated turning back, however, it was too late; you were already at the table.
“Hi, are you guys ready to order?” You ask, holding your notepad up, prepared to jot down some squiggles of code. While you waited, you looked at the faces of the boys.
“I’ll have a-“ A boy with long black hair started before you cut him off.
“Takashj?” You asked impulsively, and in turn, the lavender-haired boy looked up at you.
“Hey-!?” The boy got cut off again as Takashj spoke.
“You work here, Y/n?” He smiled, ignoring his friend, who was flaming up in anger.
“Yea! My parents own the place; it’s nice to see you.” You smiled. Takashj was the club president of the sewing club! You had been in there since the start of the club, wanting to try to make an apron for the diner. You talked to Takashi and the boys about his sewing club, completely forgetting about your job until the table went quiet.
“Y/n!” Your mother shouts from the counter, and you flinch in fear. When you look back at her, she is irritatedly staring you down as you enjoy your job for a moment. How could she tell?!
Embarrassed, you clear your throat.
“Sorry about that. What would you guys like to order?” You completely switch to work mode, taking everyone’s orders.
“So, two lemonades, an apple juice, one strawberry shortcake, one coffee jelly, two cokes, and the banana shake special?”
You look at everyone as they approvingly nod before a blonde speaks up.
“Add five dorayaki to that, please!”
“Mikey, I told you five is too much!” Another blonde hisses from across the table.
"Well, I want five!”
The bickering carries on for a few minutes as you stand blankly, unsure of what to do.
“Y/n can you just add five dorayaki to the order?” Takashj whispers to you, watching as the two go back and forth in a game of rock-paper-scissors, best out of twenty.
“Are you sure?” You whisper back, not wanting to interfere.
“Yes, I just want this to be over.” He chuckles, and you smile in response.
“It’ll be on the house then.” You give him a thumbs up.
You clear your throat again, catching the two’s attention. “I’ll add five dorayaki on the house.” You smiled, and the two settled down; however, the blonde who ordered in the first place is beaming with joy.
“I’ll come back to you guys in a bit!” You cheerfully say, going to the counter and preparing the order. As you make the banana shake, you make sure to add more whipped cream for the blonde boy and give him two cherries on top and-
“Y/n, don’t waste ingredients!”
“sorry ma!”
You stop at the two cherries on top.
And as you prepare their bill, you make sure not to include the five dorayaki. You already eat that amount when working - what harm would it do if you gave your lunch to the particularly cute boy at Table 18?
Nervously, you started bringing their order over to the table. You hoped he wouldn’t notice the excess toppings you added on top of his banana shake or the fact that you only gave him the fresh dorayaki right from the oven.
As you neared, you noticed the boys go strangely quiet.
Ignoring the forbading feeling, you asked for each order, placing it in front of the person who ordered. When it came to the blonde boy, your face slightly heated up as you placed his banana shake and dorayaki in front of him without a word.
“Very cool, Y/n.” Takashi commented, to which you narrowed your eyes at him.
“What? I just gave him his order.” You said, acting clueless as the lavender boy gave you a sly grin.
“Anyway, here’s your bill; enjoy the meal!” You bow your head slightly in embarrassment before going off to the table, which your mother had told you to do. They did end up leaving after you served the boys, and thankfully, the table was on the other side of the diner.
Once you finished wiping the table, you dropped the dirty dishes off in the kitchen, and your mother was swift to tell you that the boys had left and you needed to clean again.
However, your mother never mentioned the pale blonde who still sat at the table.
“oh, can I take these?” You ask, leaning to get a glance at his face as he looks out the window. Quietly, he nods, and you take that as a sign to get out - ASAP! You were not in the mood to mess with a gang member right now, and by reading the embroidery on his jacket, he was the president of his gang!
After collecting the tableware, you counted up the abundance of pennies and notes left behind. With a few hundred yen tip, you smiled. What nice delinquents!
Finally, you collected up the tray and the money left behind. “Have a good day.” You muttered, catching the boys attention as you turned on your heel to leave.
“Wait, Y/n was it?” He stood up from his seat, seeming to be urgent.
“Yes, do you need something?” You smiled, feeling your cheeks burn up as you noticed his happy grin.
“Thank you for the extra cherry and whipped cream.”
“How did you notice?” You ask obliviously, smiling as you were caught red-handed.
“The other booth ordered a banana shake special, and theirs was much less full than mine.”
“Crap! Really? I might get sacked.” You joke to yourself, yet the boy laughs.
“and the five dorayaki as well.” He adds on, and you sigh. "Well, that was my lunch, so I won’t really get sacked for that.” You laugh, feeling your stomach grueling with hunger.
“You can still eat more, though, right?” He asks, a guilty smile on his face, and you give him a nod. You usually ate lots of snacks during work hours anyways..
“You really wanna work here on your days off from school?” He asks, noticing you drifting off in your thoughts.
“I mean, I did wanna go to the arcade today..” You mutter, wondering why you were still talking to the pretty boy that was making your palms get sweaty.
“I’m going there now! Wanna join?” He smiled at you, his head tilted like a puppy, as he offered.
“I don’t think my mother would approve.” You whisper before you both laugh.
“Y/n! Stop slacking!” Your mother calls out on cue, and you can only smile awkwardly at the boy. You look back at her, mouthing ‘one sec!’ before turning back to the boy, who is patiently waiting for you to finish.
“I’ve gotta get back to work, have a nice time at the arcade..?”
“Mikey.” His eyes turn to crescents as he smiles again. “See you, Mikey.” You spin on your heel, quickly going into the kitchen and geeking out to your friend, who was washing the dishes, about the boy you had just met.
“And then he asked me to go to the arcade with him!” You sulked, imagining what could’ve happened if you were able to go to the arcade.
“What about a lunch break? Maybe you could join him?” Yumi asked, wiping her hands as she finished washing up.
“ 'already took one, since I figured it was a slow day and I wouldn’t need another break.”
“So you can’t eat lunch with me?” Your friend pouted, taking off her apron, sewn by you.
“I mean, I could ask for a fifteen-minute pee break?”
Yumi laughs at your idea as you try to come up with excuses for why you could get out of work.
“Y/n!” Your mother suddenly shouts from the counter, and you immediately appear, worried you were about to be lectured for trying to skip work.
“Yes ma?”
“This boy wants to take you out.”
...
“What-?” You stutter as your mother nods her head, smiling at you teasingly.
“Who? Where is he?” You eagerly walk up to the counter, looking around for Mikey.
“Outside on his motorcycle. Another nut head.”
She comments, and you gasp.
"Ma, you can’t just say that!”
"Well, he’s crazy for wanting to take you out.” She laughs at her own joke, and you hear your friend and father both laugh along in the kitchen. "Ma, that’s just rude!”
“Y/n, are you going to keep the boy waiting?” Your mother asks, watching as you rock on the heels of your shoes in anxiety.
"Wait, I can go with him?” You don’t even wait for an answer as you take off your apron and slip on your jacket.
“Wait Y/n-!” Your mother tries to call for you, but you’re already out the door and talking to the delinquent she just badmouthed.
She sighs to herself as she looks at Yumi.
“Can you take her shift?”
“Well… it’s kind of my lunch break right now!” Yumi smiles at your mother, taking a strawberry shortcake from the display and heading over to one of the booths.
Your mother groans as she slips on an apron and aggressively grabs your notepad that you had left behind.
“stupid teenage love.” She mutters before heading to a table to collect their orders.
“I heard you talking about me in the kitchen! It gave me the courage to ask for your mother’s blessing!”
“ARE YOU CRAZY?!?”
“just kidding! I only asked if you were free.”
#mikey x reader#manjiro x reader#manjiro#mikey manjiro sano#manjiro sano x reader#manjirou x reader#tokyo revengers sano manjiro#tokyo revengers#sano manjiro x reader#manjirou sano
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WE NEED MORE BLACK CAT READER AND TASM PETER THE TENSIONNNNN
you try to take off Spider-Man's mask on a rooftop at night — tasm!peter parker x blackcat!reader
warnings: none :)
words: 0.4k
a/n: okok im finally writing from my requests and I love that I'm getting back into writing Peter Parker oneshots again! Thanks so much to the anon who sent this in and gave me the idea!
“Oh, come on, Bug Boy.” You whined teasingly. “I just want to try it on. And I’ll give you mine in exchange.”
“Can’t do that, Kitty Cat.” He used the nickname he knows you hate. It’s fine when you do it and call him Bug Boy or Web-Head, but Kitty Cat is just stupid.
Teasing Spider-Man is probably your favourite thing to do on a boring night, and tonight was no exception. You’ve been trying to get him to take off his mask all night, with no luck yet.
“I also wanna see you. Come on, why not at least part of your face? It’s not fair that you basically get to see my whole face and you’re just a spandex silhouette to me.”
He let out a small laugh. “Well, maybe that just means you should get a new mask.”
“Maybe you should get a new mask.” Yikes. That wasn’t your best, and he knew it too.
“Oh, you’re losing it now, aren’t you?”
You huffed and turned around so he couldn’t see your pout. One foot straight in front of the other, you walked carefully on top of the roof’s bannister while you thought of more ways to tease him.
“How about you close your eyes and I try to sneak up and take it off of you?” You proposed, your arm mimicking a predator snatching its prey.
Spider-Man shook his head at your idea. “Even with my eyes closed, you couldn’t do it. Spidey senses have me one step ahead of you at all times.”
You scoffed. For him to think he was so much better than you? Rude. He was probably right, but you were still going to dramatise your offence. With a hand on your heart, you gasped exaggeratedly. “Excuse you, Web-Head, I’ve been practising. Just let me try. I bet I could get your mask off on the first try.”
He shot one of his webs against the wall, making a stringy blob against the brick. “You’re persistent, you know?”
“I’m curious, and you love it.”
“And what makes you so sure about that?”
“Because you’re still here.” You stated confidently. “Out of all the rooftops in the city, you’re choosing to stay here with me.”
There was a pause, and you wondered if maybe you were wrong. Maybe you had been cocky and totally out of left field. Your worry was only relieved when he looked back at you and spoke up.
“Seems like you’re onto me, Kitty Cat.”
#peter parker#tasm peter#tasm peter parker#tasm!peter x reader#tasm!peter one shot#peter parker x reader#peter parker fluff#peter parker x y/n#tasm!peter imagine#tasm peter fluff#tasm#marvel#marvel oneshot
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SO. i was able to figure out the general structure of the script JLH leaked.
[explanation under the cut]
in order for all this to make sense, the first thing you need to know is that in north america all screenplays (scripts) are written in the same format
knowing this, we can deduce the general structure of the scene and even the length of some of the words
first we need to address the big question everyone's been asking:
are they talking about Bobby or Eddie?
screenplays are always typed in courier font, and in courier the capital letters B and E are identical at their left sides.
so while i enjoy people trying to figure out if the blurry letter in line 24 is a B or an E, the answer is it could honestly be either
where we really need to look is line one. the screengrab is blurry so i've outlined the word "going" and circled the area we should pay attention to
at first, the last letter of the prior word looks like an undistinguishable blob, but there is actually one key thing we can discern from it: the letter can't be y, it doesn't hang low enough
there is a chance that the word is not a name and is "he" which would not rule out Bobby or Eddie. however, that would mean the conversation goes on for at least 14 lines without mentioning "him" by name which is (heavily) frowned against in screenwriting. so chances are they're talking about Eddie
also, with what we know about the characters it's most likely Eddie. can you really see Bobby not talking to Buck because of... well, anything? and we already know that Eddie has a difficult time communicating. so i've decided to go with him for this script but haven't 100 per cent ruled Bobby out
moving on to the actual script itself, anything not highlighted in red is something i'm confident is either the exact wording or something similar. the red sections are the parts that i'm less confident in or know are incorrect somehow
Maddie's first dialogue block is the part i had the most trouble with. with context from the following conversation i figured that she probably asked something along the lines of when [Eddie] will be back at work. the main issue with this section is that the top line is actually six letters shorter than what i have written. this also means that the word that follows "going" has to be at least eight letters long. i tried messing around with the dialogue a bit but couldn't come up with something that would fit the appropriate letter count so for now i just wrote a line similar to what i think the actual line probably is
line six has to be either 12 or 13 spaces long and the first word has to be at least four letters long so i used "really soon" as a place holder, but i'm not completely confident in it
for line eight i initially had "Oh, that's good." but the line was one space short so i changed the "Oh" to "Hey" instead. i don't feel too poorly about this one but it still doesn't feel right to me. if the actual script says "Hey" i wouldn't be surprised if JLH changes it to something else or forgoes the exclamation completely
the final line is just a rough guess of what it could be. i'm not sure how formal the 911 writers are with action lines so i just took a random guess. some writers are extremely formal with action lines while others are more comedic with it (Neil Gaiman is a great example of this). i'm guessing the 911 writers are more the former but i honestly have no clue
#should i be working on my own screenplay rn instead of analyzing someone else's?#probably but i'm doing this anyway#if anyone wants any explanation on the other lines let me know#it's honestly just a lot of knowing how screenplays are written and knowing the 'rules' of script writing#911 abc#911 fox#s7#911 speculation#911 spoilers#spec#maddie buckley#evan buckley#eddie diaz#bobby nash#OH and before anyone mentions it yes it is “on THE basketball court” not “a”#it has to be a three letter word#so my guess is they were talking about the bball court/game prior to talking about whoever buck assaulted lmao#since “the” is a more personal/less generalized word#also no americans come after me for spelling it per cent#i realized when checking it over that some of y'all might be little shits (affectionate) about it#long post
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NURSE STEEB BEING EXTRA DOTING AND PROTECTIVE OF PREGNANT READER AHHH
AN | Okay, but yes, Steve would just be the doing The Most 🥺 This can be read as a companion piece to the below but also as a stand alone!
Warnings | Language, Pregnant!Reader
Pairing | Nurse!Steve x Fem!Reader
Word Count | 3.2k
Masterlist | Steve, Main, Nurse Steve
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
“Come on,” you were standing on your tippy toes, trying to reach the jar of the sugar that was just out of reach. You could have just grabbed the footstool and been done with it, but you were too stubborn to give in. Why take the easy way out when you could struggle for much longer and get frustrated? You felt the glass canister with the tips of your fingers finally, “just a little more…”
“What are you doing?!” you startled at the sudden, worried tone of his voice. You clutched at your racing heart and turned to your husband with a confused expression, pointing innocently at the sugar jar.
“Ummm, making cookies?” you shrugged lightly, “is that…not allowed?”
“You should be more careful,” he insisted and you immediately knew where this was going. Raising an eyebrow you crossed your arms over your chest, “you could have gotten hurt or something could have fallen on you. You should have asked for help, honey.”
“Steve.”
“You should be careful with your condition-”
“My condition?” you cut him off with a giggle, shaking your head fondly. You adored your overly cautious, loving, dramatic nurse of a husband. He raised his eyebrows and gestured to you dramatically, “I’m pregnant. Barely. It’s fine, Stevie. I can still do things on my own…let me do things on my own, while I still can, yeah?”
“Almost fours months is not barely pregnant-”
“You can barely tell I’m pregnant. Blob is still only a small bump-”
“But still-”
“I was just grabbing the sugar-”
“I don’t want anything to happen to the baby,” he huffed softly, affection lacing his tone despite his exasperation, “or to you. If I can do anything to help that, I’m willing to do it.”
“Hey my love,” you closed the little bit of distance remaining between the two of you, reaching over to turn his face back to you. He turned around, a shyness to him as he had confessed his worries and fears. You gave a sweet smile as his cheeks turned a pretty pink, “I know it’s only because you care; Blob and I both love you so, so much. But nothing is going to happen to either of us. And the moment I need help, I will ask. I promise, okay?”
“Okay,” he nodded softly, taking your hand in his and pressing a soft, reverent kiss to your knuckles, “I know, I’m just being…too much.”
“Stevie,” you leaned and pressed a kiss to his soft, plush lips, “you are not too much. I mean, you work in the ER, I can’t even fathom the horrible things you have to see. And I know that worry only comes from a place of love. Please don’t ever change, please always be my sweet, wonderful, amazing husband. ‘Cause you’re the best husband ever, and you’re going to be the best father ever too.”
“I hope so,” a soft smile tugged up the corner of his mouth as he nodded. You took his hand and brought it to rest on your stomach, where you see and feel the small bump. You watched as a huge grin stretched across his face, and his golden honey eyes softened. He loved getting to watch your bump grow, watching your body change with your pregnancy; to him it was like a thing of magic. You’d agree for the most part, but days it was rough.
“Well, I know so,” you rested your hand on top of his and gave it a gentle squeeze, “Stevie?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you be a love and grab the sugar from the cabinet?” you asked softly and he sighed in fondness, shaking his head at you, “I want to make cookies - do you want to help me?”
“I’d love nothing more.”
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
“Seriously,” you groaned before flopping back on the bed and sighing in defeat. The day had come, and far sooner than you had anticipated - but you could no longer see your feet. You lifted up your legs and studied your socked feet sadly, “seriously?”
Your bump, still affectionately known as Blob, had been growing steady, but you swore that it had popped out overnight. You ran a hand over your belly, tutting softly. Six months in and you were slowly having to let go of being able to do certain things for yourself. At first it had been frustrating, but Steve had sweetly reminded you that it wasn’t forever. That however wasn’t much reassurance at the moment.
“I can do this,” maybe giving yourself a pep talk would help you to accomplish your goal. It was just put on some shoes, surely you could handle that. And they weren’t even laced or anything, just some flats. At this point in your pregnancy you definitely were not opting for heels - and to be honest, rarely did ever since you’d broken your ankle. You might have gotten a husband out of that experience, but you’d rather not go through that again. You padded over to the closet and tried to reach down to grab your shoes.
You were too optimistic, too enthusiastic, or something, but you misjudged how far you needed to bend down to reach and before you knew it you fell and landed on your butt. Luckily it was a very short fall, that was probably even a dramatic way of putting it, and you knew nothing was wrong. It took a moment to fully process what happened before you broke into a fit of giggles. Of course, of course - that was just your luck, wasn’t it?
You shouldn’t have been surprised when you heard Steve’s footsteps coming quickly down the hall before he burst into the bedroom. His eyes were wide with worry, a pout on his pretty features.
“Oh no, sweetheart,” he came over to help you up, trying to calm himself down. Clearly nothing was wrong, but he couldn’t help the little bit of worry in his bones, “what happened? Are you okay? Did you…the baby?”
“I’m alright,” you promised softly, reaching to take his outstretched hand in yours, “baby’s alright. I just landed on my butt. More importantly, I continue to be the clumsy fool I’ve always been.”
“Oh my clumsy girl,” he took your hand and slowly - and delicately - helped you to your feet. When you were back on your feet, his hands found purchase on your waist as he looked you over. He’d never admit it, but he was still going to give a little look over just to make sure things seemed okay. Husband and medical professional duties, he would always claim, “how did you manage to do that?”
“I, ummm, well,” you paused before pointing to your belly, “Blob here appears to have popped out suddenly…and they’re making it very hard to see my feet. Hard meaning I can’t see my feet.”
“Wow,” his entire being visibly relaxed and softened as he looked down, “you’re getting so big.”
“Mmm, not entirely sure that’s the best way of putting it,” you teased, watching as his mouth opened in surprise and he seemed to fumble over his thoughts, “I’m kidding, my love. I know what you meant. But your kid is starting to make it hard to do things…like putting on my shoes.”
“My kid, huh?” there was that lovely, playful smirk on his face. You gave him a firm nod and he snorted in amusement, “last time I checked this was a team effort. Didn’t exactly hear you complaining, sweetheart.”
“Shhh,” you put your arms around your belly and angled your body away from his, “the Blob can hear you! We can’t give them the birds and the bees talk already!”
The two of you looked at each other for a moment, before breaking into a fight of laughter. Yeah. You really loved the fact that you could be goofy with him. Among, you know, everything else. You appreciated the fact that he always knew how to make you laugh, no matter if you were feeling at your worst and lowest point, in the middle of sex, having a great day, or just wanting to cuddle with him.
He slowly sank down to his knees in front of you, tenderly pushing up your sweater before placing a kiss to your belly. Alright, besides making daily things a little harder, your little blob was also continuing to make you incredibly emotional. There was that familiar stinging at the back of your eyes, causing you to blink back your tears as you looked at your husband.
"Hey kid," he spoke softly and yeah, you were about to fall into a pool of emotions, "your mama and I are very excited to meet you, but for right, take it easy on her, huh? She's already missing her feet, but we know you'll be worth it. We love you so much."
"Steve," your voice as he looked with a soft smile, unaware of the fact that a few tears had already pearled up and ran down your cheeks. His hand found your face and he gently brushed them away, “I'm sensitive and you’re not helping! Stop being such a wonderful man.”
“Sweetheart. It’s alright, I’m just making sure Blob knows to be good to you,” you sniffled at him and he cast a quick look into the closet before noticing the dismissal expression on your face, “what shoes do we want today, honey?”
“I just wanted the black velvet flats,” you pointed pathetically at the shoe rack, disheartened by the fact that you couldn’t even manage to grab them on your own. But it was okay, you kept reminding yourself, this was temporary and you’d get Blob out of it, “the ones with the pretty bow.”
“Excellent choice my love,” he praised, grabbing the shoes in question. You nodded through a few more tears, watching him closely as he took each foot and slipped on your shoes, “there we go, all done.”
“Thank you,” he stood back up, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into his warm, strong frame as best as he could considering the current state of your bump. You couldn’t stop yourself from taking his face in yours hands, touch as soft as silk and tender with reverence.You kissed him slowly, letting him overwhelm your senses as you lost yourself in him. But it was then that you remembered, “shit! I’m late for work.”
“Oh baby, baby, baby,” an affectionate lilt colored his tone as he looked between your bump and your face, “come on, let me take you today - I’ve still got a while before I need to head in.”
“But then you’d have to pick me and take me home,” you hated the idea that he would have to go out of his way for you. He had, however, reminded you from the day he’d met you in the ER several years ago that it was okay to rely on others and ask for help when you needed it. This just happened to be one of those times.
“What a horrible thing that would be,” he ran his knuckles across your cheek before kissing your forehead, “to see you. But I’m willing to take that on. C’mon, let’s get going.”
“I love you, Stevie.”
“I love you more, angel.”
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
You were eight months pregnant. And feeling extremely pregnant. But you still kept going and tried to do things for yourself as much as you could, knowing that soon enough that you wouldn’t be able to just go out and do things you wanted or needed to do. The reality that in a few short weeks your daughter - still affectionately known as Blob - would be here was both thrilling and terrifying. You’d go from being responsible for yourself but also a whole other human being. One that wouldn’t be able to take care of herself and would depend on you for everything. Oh boy.
“Everything alright, sweetheart?” you felt his warm hand at the lower part of your back as he came back to put a few things in the shopping cart. There you were again, zoning out in the middle of the grocery store. To be fair, there was a lot going on in your head these days. You turned to him and nodded your head with a small smile; you knew he could tell that you were having a moment. He pressed a kiss to your temple, giving you a small squeeze, “almost done and then we can get out of here and get onto the next stop. Hanging in there okay?”
“Mhmm,” you promised, subconsciously rubbing a hand over your belly, “just had a moment and realized that Blob is gonna be here soon. I guess, realistically, any day now.”
“If it’s any consolation, first babies tend to be born close to their due date or even a little after,” of course he would try to reassure you, despite the fact that he was just as nervous as you, “and whatever happens, we’ll manage and it’ll all be fine, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you knew that you were lucky to have a husband like Steve, and you knew that you were even luckier that he was able to take over a month off once the baby was born, “I know, Stevie. It’s just getting more real and real every day. Sometimes it still doesn’t feel real. But then I realize I’m huge and waddling and then yeah…feels very real.”
“Well, you’re the prettiest and lovelist waddler ever,” there was a cheeky little smile on his face as you playfully rolled your eyes at him, “I gotta grab a few more things, but I’ll be right back if you wanna wait here, okay?”
“I’ll gladly wait here,” you gave him a small salute, leaning on the cart for some added support, “won’t even move a muscle.”
You heard him laughing as he walked away, shaking his head in amusement. You let out a long sigh as you tried to take as much weight off your feet as possible. You looked around and studied some of the baking mixes - of course Steve would leave in the baking aisle. Maybe you could make something sweet later tonight to satisfy your and Blob’s need for dessert.
You weren’t sure how long you’d been standing there and going over different recipes in your head until you heard a loud throat clear behind.
“You gonna move or what?” oh. So that’s the type of interaction you were going to have. The man was large, angry looking, and had a deep scowl on his face. You swallowed the lump in your throat as you tried to find something to say, “you been standin’ there for at least ten minutes. You wanna let someone else have a turn, bitch?”
Okay. Someone definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Your heart beat wildly as you opened and closed your mouth a few times, “I-I-I’m sorry.”
“Y-y-you’re sorry,” he mocked and you were ready to dissolve into a mess of tears, “then move before I-”
“Back the fuck off man,” Steve picked the perfect time to come back, a furious look on his face to make sure you were unharmed, “she was waiting for me.”
“She coulda moved-”
“She’s eight months pregnant,” he jumped in between the two of you. You’d seen a hundred different sides and moods of Steve, but you’d never seen him quick this…protective. He looked like he was ready to fully cause some damage to this man. Of course he was - no one talked to his angel, or the little blob like that, “just calm down wait a moment.”
“Doesn’t mean she had to take up the whole aisle,” you could see the man was trying to decide if he should push Steve further or just leave. You also knew that if it came down to it, Steve wasn’t afraid to throw a punch (you’d never seen that side of him, but he’d told you all about his youth and younger years). He threw up his hands before turning on his heel and walking away, muttering under his breath.
Steve’s chest was rising and falling rapidly as he turned back to you with a frown on his face. He could see that you were protectively cradling your belly as your lip trembled with effort not to cry, “are you alright, angel? He didn’t touch you for anything did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” you shook your head before throwing your arms around him and letting him pull you into his body, “he was just being mean. You got here before he did anything.”
“I’m so sorry,” he took your face in his hands and studied you for a few moments before pressing kisses to your forehead and cheeks before stopping at your lips, “I shouldn’t have left you. I don't know what I’d do if anything happened…”
“It’s okay - you weren’t even gone that long,” you murmured, already feeling better in his presence, “that guy was just a jerk. But don’t worry, we’re okay. I know you’d always protect me.”
“Of course,” he insisted, “I've always got you, angel.”
“I love you, Stevie,” you buried your face in his chest, “so much.”
“I love you,” he closed his eyes and let out a small sigh of relief as he kissed the crown of your head, “how about we stop by the diner you like and get a milkshake, huh? I think we could use a little break.”
“That sounds perfect,” you nodded eagerly, “Blob and I really like the sound of that. We both love you so much.”
“I feel like we’re just going to name her Blob at this point,” Steve snorted, “Blob Harrington.”
“Tell me your daughter does not look like a blob on the screen during ultrasounds,” you teased as he tried to contradict what you were saying but realized you were right, “besides it can be her middle name. Maybe like Camila Blob Harrington. Or Emilia. Aurora? Hmmm…I still like Camila.”
“Camila,” he mulled over the name as you nodded; you’d talked about names during plenty of sleepless nights but had yet to settle on the perfect one. You still had some time so you hadn’t been too worried about it. But now, seeing the look on Steve’s face, you might have been onto something, “Camila.”
“Yeah?” you looked at him with wide eyes as he nodded excitedly, kissing you before you could say anything else, “Camila Harrington. I love it.”
“I love it too. I love you, I love her,” he looked at you as though you had hung all the stars, “you’re everything to me.”
“You’re everything to me too, my love,” you promised, “to me and soon to Camila as well.”
#steve harrington#steve harrington x you#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington x fem!reader#steve harrington imagine#steve harrington one shot#joe keery#joe keery x you#joe keery x reader#dropped a little surprise into this one!
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Part 1
It’s been a month and half since you and Kunikuzushi met. He was cautious of you at first (because duh you just abducted him) but started warming up slowly. Heck you two aren’t even stuck together. He could have walked away anytime but for some reason, he stayed. Maybe he really believes you are his “guardian friend”?
But yeah, using your in game powers you teleported yourselves out of Inazuma and into Mondstadt because Inazuma was anything but safe.
So now, here you two are, residing in a temporary home in Springvale. Both of you accompanying each other in your daily shenanigans. You however, keep an eye on Kunikuzushi because he is as innocent and naïve as a small child.
___________________
“Hey Kuni, could you go and fetch some berries from the garden?”, Kunikuzushi heard your voice call out from the kitchen. It was a sunny morning. The sky was a beautiful blue sheet with the perfect amount of clouds floating around the sun. A perfect weather to relax in your backyard, exactly what Kuni was doing.
“Sure!”, he answered back and got up. The backyard had a small yet sweet garden with a few fruits and veggies patches. There was of course a thick berry bush.
Kunikuzushi picked up a nearby basket and began picking some berries, carefully picking the ripe ones. Once he was done, he turned around to leave and-
*SQUEAK*
???
It came from the bushes….Kunikuzushi stopped and listened.
….
*SQUEAK*
Is there a rodent in the bushes? That can’t be good. Y/n said that they are bad for crops…
Carefully setting his basket aside, he approached the bush. Hesitantly, he stretched his hand and inspected inside-
!!!
Inside the bush, was a small electro slime, stuck between thorny branches. The poor thing was shaking. It looked pleadingly at Kunikuzushi. Begging him for help with his “teary” eyes.
Usually Kunikuzushi has seen how dangerous slimes can be. But this one was so small…so vulnerable…he wanted to help it…
He carefully grabbed the smooth part of the thorny branches and began removing them away from the slime. He was slow during the whole process in order to not startle the slime because if he did then I’ll get hurt by the other branches around it.
After what felt like an hour, he finally managed to free the slime. It jumped out of the bush happily and stared at him with sparkly eyes that said “my hero”.
“There, you are free now. I think you should go home, come on shoo!” Kunikuzushi tried to shoo the slime away but it continued staring at him.
He awkwardly gazed around until he decided to get up and go. As he was walking towards the door he felt something bump his leg. He stopped.
…..
The slime was still there and it was lovingly nuzzling itself against his leg. Kunikuzushi has never felt so confused in his life.
__________________
“Hey Kuni, why were you out for so long? Did you get the b- OH MY GOD!”
Here we see, a wild Kunikuzushi with a wild electro slime in his arms standing awkwardly next to the kitchen table. The sight reminded you of a child with a stray puppy about to ask if “we can keep it”.
“Listen, don’t panic, I can expl-“
“It’s so cute!” You cooed at the little blob who tilted it’s “head” at you mildly confused. The slime wasn’t the only one as Kunikuzushi also had the matching expression.
“Where did you find it?”, you asked as you gently took the little slime in your arms, cradling and stroking it. It purred in delight.
“O-oh it was stuck in the berry bush. I freed it but now it won’t leave me alone…” Kunikuzushi looked away and rubbed his neck.
“So can we keep it?” He looked at you with small puppy eyes.
“Only if it wants to stay with us”, you stated.
Kunikuzushi stared while processing what you just said. Then, he gently took the slime back in his arms and-
“Do you want to stay with us little slime?” He asked while looking into it’s eyes.
The slime had no definite face, only two round eyes. But one could still tell the overloading happiness emitting from it. The slime squeaked in joy and buried itself into Kunikuzushi’s chest so hard he stumbled.
“Woah- haha I guess you do!”
“Aw look at you! You just became a slime daddy!”, you cooed at him.
“A what now-“
“A slime daddy!”
“I…am a parenteral figure to this slime?” Oh my god he was so cute.
“Haha no no, it’s pretty normal to adopt different creature and claim to be their parent.” You pat his head.
“Oh, I guess then I’m your slime daddy then?” He held the slime up in air as it squeaked what seemed to be a “yes”.
He smiled…that smile then turned into a fit of giggles, and those giggles turned into hearty laughs as he hugged the slime. It was beautiful seeing him laugh like that…it was so contagious that you started laughing as well. The slime only snuggled into his embrace, enjoying the sweet atmosphere.
________________
“So…watcha planning to name it?”, the slime had no name. You wondered for possible names as you, Kunikuzushi and the slime cuddled together on the couch while reading a book and enjoying the berry ice cream you made.
“Hmm…any ideas?” He also pondered.
“Well I think you should name it since you found it.”
“Uh…I have no idea…”
“No idea huh? Well how about Kuni jr?” You grinned at him as he flushed in embarrassment.
“Wha-“
“Or…kuni-kuni?” He turned even redder.
“S-stop!”
“Or, how ab-“
“Bu!”
“???”
“I’m gonna name them Bu…” he declared, his cheeks still red.
“Oh…watcha think Bu?” You asked the slime. Bu seemed to be approving of that name.
“Well then, welcome to our family Bu.”
_____________________
Here part 3
Taglist:
@angryhope @hana-chie @twst-123 @depressed-bitchy-demon @milza12 @inlovewithwaffles @shizunxie @koi-chairowo
#genshin impact#genshin x reader#genshin x y/n#genshin x you#kunikuzushi#scaramouche#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche x y/n#scaramouche x you#genshin fluff#genshin fanfic#genshin scara#scaramouche fluff#scaramouche fanfic#genshin isekai#isekai#genshin slimes#bu the slime
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