#and since i know for a fucking fact i reblogged those posts!!!! i will continue;;;;
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day 200 of asking misha to put his hands around my neck and choke me lightly
#hi#hello#i decided to start a new thread because i CANNOT in GOOD CONSCIOUSNESS LET THIS GO#i worked SO hard#197 days!!!!! on getting this post#and i will NOT let myself be stopped by a tumblr glitch#EVER#sjonnie.text#the beginning of a new era!!!!!#today would've been day 200#TWO#HUNDRED#and since i know for a fucking fact i reblogged those posts!!!! i will continue;;;;#anyway#i am actually hurt that this happened :( but we're gonna keep going#momma didn't raise no fucking quitter#misha daily post
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Feb.7th WHB Update!!!
Since I already reblogged the screenshots of the recent updates, I won't clog your feed with them once again ^^; It seems they post updates now when I'm like never awake lmao
So how are we feelin' about the new card skills and chibis? I love the fact that they are censored and that Beel is literally pantless just walking around with his willy and booty out. Idk it's cute on the little chibi <3
ALSO ALSO ALSO the fucking skill names LMAO
Heavy on the "Don't Disturb Me" because if we're being honest he's not the only one you have to worry about if you're interrupting. I'd be like "AYO IM GETTING DICKED DOWN GO AWAYYYYYY"
Now on to Levi's
Ah so he attacks fiercely when doing the nasty with you :p I see you, Levi. ALSO heyyyyy everyone gets stronger after Levi has had his nut congrats he's happy, everyone happy.
I have a feeling these cards are gonna be super powerful, even Satan and Mammon's. Though...I'm interested in those stories so if any of you happen to unlock them before I get the card...lay those spoilers on me I WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL.
Also, it's going to be Solomon Seal's up for grabs first then being moved to the Lesser Key banner after the two weeks. I'll honestly just wait for them to be moved so I can save up some more seals (because I've calculated that it's actually really 400 seals we can farm without buying for f2p peeps so take that as you will)
Also, I'm not really here to downplay anyone's fun time, but I am so burnt out on dominant scenarios lmao. Like tbh I would have rather us top the devils and the angels top us ya know? .-. where's the submissive stuff at? Like are you all allergic to that?
Maybe EYE wanna breed someone. Maybe EYE wanna milk someone's dick until they cry, like hello??? (also no the bloodshed and bath cards don't count for me, they were clearly under the influence of being injured/vulnerable under said circumstances. I want them full power, full horny, but still submissive. HECK even give me some power bottom content ;.; am I making sense or no?)
But that's just me <3 Please continue to love your dominant kings it's all good.
-your lovely, yet crazy ass admin ♥( ˆ⌣ ˆԅ)
#whb#what in hell is bad#whb update#whb leviathan#whb beelzebub#new gacha#don't mind my random ass mini rant in there i'm feeling silly
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the random antisemitism on my dash from you fucking blew, that post literally has someone saying death to jews in the notes
Im guessing this is the post ur talking about and that this is the comment u mean
(if not, and someone somewhere in the tags said word for word "death to jews", then i didnt spot it. But more importantly, you understand that i am not responsible for that person writing those words, right? and that i may have reblogged that post not because of what some rando said in the tags that i didnt check beforehand, but because of what the post is actually about? which is the state of Isr*el's continued atrocities against palestinians, and more specifically the morbid humor in some random isr*elian on the internet being blind to the real extent of their nations descent into despotism and violence? Just so we're clear about the subject matter of the post)
Anyway. so if that is indeed the comment ur saying meant to say death to jews, then it would seem ur confused about something. Namely zionism *isn't* the same thing as judaism. let's start with the fucking dictionary:
So merriam-webster agrees with me that being a zionist is not the same as being jewish. And quite frankly, it can't be, since unless if we want to posit that gentiles have an inherent and innate opposition to the jewish people having a nation of their own, then it must be possible and true that gentiles can also support a nation of Isr*el, and therefore, can be zionists. And I don't personally believe that not being jewish inherently makes you hateful of jews and opposed to a peaceful existence alongside and together with them. I doubt you do either, considering.
So, we've basically already established that being a zionist does not automatically make one jewish, which means that calling for the death of all zionists does not mean you are calling for the death of all jews.
On the other hand, it would make sense for a lot of zionists to *be* jewish, thus meaning that you are calling for the death of, if not all, then at a least a lot of jews. Now i hate pedophiles. IF we were to imagine a world where 60% of pedophiles were jewish, and i said i think pedophiles should die, i do not believe it would be antisemitic, because i would arguing for the death of pedophiles *regardless* of a majority of them being jewish. Similiarly, the person calling for the death of all zionists is probably doing so independantly of a lot of zionists being jews (maybe, i didnt check to see if there are any statistics on that and im not about to, because this is mostly hypothetical anyway).
"But 'zionist' is just a dogwhistle for jewish, so they do mean death to all jews!"
Then let's take a look at the first part of their comment: "death to the illegal settler colonial state of Isr*el"
now im no expert. but i do believe they may be referring to the aforementioned atrocities and the current apartheid that palestinians endure under the rule of Isr*el. Personally i find it reasonable and to some degree expected of people to condemn these acts. Maybe calling for the death of living people is extreme, but either way, i dont think this person is calling for the death of jews, specifically.
Or maybe they are. Maybe the person in the notes is a big antisemite. I dont know. I dont feel like digging through their blog to check. What I do feel more strongly about is the fact that you worded your ask in a way that suggests you know me, since you expect better from me. Whether ur a follower or a mutual, it makes me incredibly sad that you felt the need to send this through anon instead of a dm. maybe its intimidating or something, but getting this ask doesnt feel like a dialogue, it just feels rude. u didnt even greet me first
i'll make it clear: i have no ill will towards jews. at all. i very much want for all jews across the world and especially in my country to be able to live their lives free from the prejudice, hatred and trauma that they may suffer as a result of antisemitism at the hands of people like myself. i dont know how to make this clearer
i do not support the nation of isr*el. i dont like its actions, i dont like its leaders. i am a firm believer in the fact that until the nakba ends, there will never be a worthy argument for the nation's continued existence. and i do not like how people intentionally misconstrue criticisms of it as antisemitic to condemn the critic, such as what you are doing.
The fact that you seem to be familiar with me annoys me. i despise letting people down. i always do my best not to do so, and always wish to be reliable. but you're annoying. so either dm me if you want to have a real discussion, or block me. read this before you go though, its somewhat interesting. now fuck off
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I've learned just how much I appreciate "Decentralization"
Not the shitty fucking crypto bro "Yooo dude if we just do the fetishization of capital harder it'll surely be decentralized, surely we just need to do it harder bro" kinda shit
But the idea that like, even if the systems that maintain the standards that maintain social power/value of certain things we care about goes under (Whether through bankruptcy, lack of resources, lack of userbase, etc) I will still be able to maintain the personal value I find or have already found through relying on those systems. So it would be better if those systems were more easily able to be opted out of to make that transition smoother if/when it happens and so I can maintain my own personal standards!! (Not fetishizing individualism, just saying that I am an individual person who wants to be able to force my own standards to be applicable to my own life. This very much is in support of giving power to the workers forced to use these systems the power to more easily destroy the systems they work within if they need to and force their own social standards to become the new system. All my posts are attempts at corrupting your mind with commie brain washing, you must understand this because once you do you might begin to accept this as well)
I've been thinking about swapping from Discord over to Matrix for a little while now for this exact reason but didn't know just how far reaching it applied.
It contextualizes why I wanted to swap over to firefox much more aptly rather than just doing it because I simply hated chromium. I wanted more.
It also makes be better appreciate tumblr, and why I felt so able to actually commit to a social meda for once. It's because the blog is my own and I always have the export button right in front of me. If I don't like my blog, I can make a new one. If I don't like tumblr I can leave tumblr and still have my blog (just without the value of being able to reach a wider audience... which I didn't even want to begin with!!! I just wanted an audience and I already have that with my friends and current mutuals!!! I don't care about audience growth, I'd rather deeper entrench the social investments I already have made in the social entities I enjoy). And since I'm no longer worried about this being my entire being (No longer fetishizing social media), I am no longer worried about this being my own shot at having a blog, I can take more risks!!
I can see posts my wife sends me where she's like "I don't know if I can reblog this or not" and say "No you totally can if you want, in fact I want to so I'm going to reblog it right now" and it pushes both me and her to be more honestly depraved with each other, which is lovely!! It lets me show off that honest depravity with people who are okay with seeing it more easily too!! It's just super liberating and I would only be able to feel this way if escape was possible and I have a safety net insuring I can make sure that net continues to exist and continues to widen. Sure, it requires a certain amount of tech literacy, a certain amount of economic literacy, a metric shit ton of political and class literacy, and at least one other person willing to help me, but hey I have all those things so I know my net will work for me!!
Anyway, this was just more agency-posting. If you are empathizing, sympathizing, or are envious I'd recommend starting by figuring out what you want your safety net to capture, why you want that to be able to be captured, what happens if you're wrong (not if you're wrong, just what would happen first), and then whether or not your current net actually does or doesn't already capture what you want it to so you know where to put your focus into!!
And if you want advice for where to start on that I highly recommend at least skimming Das Kapital (Or just Capital or Capital: A Critique of Political Economy or whatever you know it as, labels are meaningless beyond the meaning we want them to have, as long as you know that I'm talking about Marx's economic analysis book that's fine) and coming to an understanding of what value is and what money is and how they are not linked. That's what allowed me to get this far, and I think if more people were able to not only unlink their personal value from money but also take steps to limit their own desires and pursuing of capital to better focus on their "real" value more and more people would be able to be "this far" as well!
#pretentious wannabe art student posting#long fucking post#yippie peace through tyranny!!#for my wife#Not all these tags fit but they *kind of* fit so I want to use them as what tags are actually for (Sorting and fetching later)#rather than using tags to shy away from making posts!!#Fuck you!! This entire website is for me!!! HAhaAA!!!
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You know what, I got time today.
They just don't fucking get it. What's the old saying, if you're sitting at a table and 9 people announce that they're Nazis, and you don't get up and leave, then there are 10 Nazis at the table. Joe Biden funding this every step of the way isn't just him having a teenage "in with the wrong crowd" moment.
No, this is who he is, and their continued attempts to coddle him and the Democrats like children who just accidentally funded and aided a genocide is infuriating and disingenuous at this point.
The past 10 years, since Ferguson for me personally, has been America showing you exactly what it is, and what it stands for. This continued focus on Trump and Republicans being the black hole that's going to destroy the country, and not another symptom of the overall rot that's overtaking the empire is laughable.
This is an abusive relationship. In DM's I've been referring to the election as choosing the best slave master.
I don't like master Trump because he beats me, but you're still not free under Biden. Just because he's "nicer"doesn't mean you're free.
At this point, I think most people truly understand this.
They just vote blue as a coping mechanism.
I will say it once again. White liberals HATE Trump because he makes them feel like niggers in America. Those laws you thought protected you, nope, not anymore. Those freedoms you thought you had, nope, not anymore. But here's the thing, that happened under Biden too.
I said on here in 2020 that if Biden won the election, most of the white liberals at the George Floyd protests would evaporate immediately. Why, because they only see Trump and the Republicans as a problem.
They had no problem electing their racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, warmongering president. As long as it's their guy being those things it's okay!
This willful ignorance will be the death of this country.
I want to go back and reblog every post from 2020 pointing out every issue people of color, queer and especially trans women had with Biden and Harris. Shame on y'all for acting surprised now.
They're projecting the horrors Trump might bring while actively ignoring the horrors Biden is currently enabling.
They cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance of the fact that the horrors overlap.
That tweet, Israel was already all of those things before last October.
Now your country supporting it affects you.
There is no fracture in the Democratic party. They are simply ignoring the will of the voters. Isn't that what y'all are so afraid Trump will do?
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Alright, incoming rant about ESC, you've been warned. See this as a continuation of the reblog I posted earlier by the way.
I feel like ever since 2018, ESC has just really taken a nose dive. This might be personal bias since 2018 was the last year Germany made it into the top ten with Michael Schulte on fourth place and ever since, we've consistently scored only last place at best, negative last at worst like it sometimes felt but I digress - my point still stands. Of course, I absolutely loved last year's ESC, especially the entries from Finland, Norway, Germany, Australia, Czechia and Slovenia, but it doesn't change the fact that Eurovision quite recently just lost its usual flair and charme to me that it had all these other years. Might be because it's getting too political, might be because songs make it into the competition that most people don't want to have there aka rigging and such, might just be a mix of both - choose whatever fits you most.
And quite honestly, I may have lied a bit when I said in the hashtags that, due to my lack of connection to this year's ESC already, I don't have as much of a hard time boycotting it because truthfully, my heart does break in various places when I know I want to watch, eat or do something that I usually enjoy, but I can't because otherwise, I'd just show my silent support and approval for something that's happening or just generally going on that I don't agree with because, well, my personal morals would like to have a word there. Think of it as me being a queer American eating at Chick-fil-A - I'd actively go against my own community by supporting this company, as it's known that they regularly donate rather large sums of money to openly homophobic and transphobic organizations. It's something along those lines.
Key words here: The Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestinian genocide. Especially the latter however.
And I wanna use this opportunity and say: If you support Isr*hell and you follow my page, please unfollow me. Block me if you must, but at least unfollow me - because I do not support genocide in any way, shape or form. And you cannot argue with me that what Isr*hell is doing isn't genocide, because going from the word's definition, it quite literally is.
Just today, I learned through that post I reposted onto my feed here that Isr*hell is still allowed to participate in ESC, despite its atrocious deeds against Palestine. Just today, I also learned through a trusted friend that the Palestinian flag isn't allowed in the venue in Malmö during the contest, whereas the Isr*helli flag is still allowed. All while Russia is still banned from said contest for reasons quite similar to what Isr*hell is currently committing. It's called ethnic cleansing, by the way, there's no use in dancing around the topic and trying to talk it prettier - "schön reden", as we Germans say.
Once I heard of these things, my decision was clear as day - and I openly admit that I didn't have a broken heart at first. That only set in later, once the realization of the actual gravity of this whole situation completely hit me, as if I just got smacked by a brick straight in the face and my glasses shattered into my opened eyes. That's what it felt like to me once everything finally set in - once I knew "Yeah, a country has fucked up again yet is still allowed to do its thing so I'll have to boycott it because I have a conscience, unlike those people".
Now think about what the EBU decided to do. When Russia first started attacking Ukraine so mercilessly, Russia was kicked from Eurovision. Unrelated to the Slavic war but when Belarus pretty much abolished freedom of speech, they were kicked as well. But now that Isr*hell is actively lynching thousands of people day by day, it's suddenly alright and they're still allowed to participate? Where does the hypocrisy stem from? The absolutely blatant double-standard? The utter definition of "Rules for thee, not for me"? My guess lies in what happened during the 40's - which might also very well be the reason why my country's government vehemently defends this straight-up murderous country whilst claiming the country these individuals (to stay at least somewhat respectful although I don't really believe they deserve it) are currently actively demolishing, pulverizing and erasing from the maps never existed in the first place and thus, it doesn't really matter. Because Isr*hell is the place where Jews were from, where they started spreading from - not like a disease of course, just generally speaking - and where their roots have always lied. Because of what happened to them back then, they're now all scared to openly say "Ayo, guys, that ain't exactly right, don'tcha think?" since it's pretty clear - at least to me - that then, these people would pull the N*zi card almost immediately and scream discrimination based on just that.
A religion's basis being somewhere specific and having had to watch that religion be almost wiped out completely due to absolute lunatics back then isn't a reason to abuse that power though and play victim whenever it feels right to them. If anything, one would think that it'd be more of a reason to look back at what happened during those times and teach the future generations "This is what happened, let's all work together and make sure we never become like them back then". But instead, they abuse their victim status of back then into today's day and age, making many Jews around the world look absolutely horrendous in the process and throwing their own people under the bus by openly doing what had once been done to them. Makes me question if it's a weird form of Stockholm Syndrome, to be honest.
And the EBU allows it. When just a year or two before, they went all strict parent on another aggressor who did quite a similar thing. Make it make sense.
Thanks for coming to my Tumblr TED talk, and sorry for the length of it - I also have no idea if all of this makes sense, I'm just really pissed about this situation at the moment and needed to vent. Feel free to add your own thoughts as well, if you'd like, I'm always open for discussions as long as they're respectful and in a dignified manner.
#esc#eurovision 2024#eurovision song contest#eurovision#free palestine#🍉#ebu#and again just so y'all get it#those of you who follow me who support these murderers can fuck right off#unfollow me block me what have you#just don't fucking interact with me#and don't even *try* to start an argument with me as you *will* be blocked instantly#thanks y'all
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I really loved your recent post about how RT never concerned themselves with Monty's legacy yet were more than ready to weaponise it for their own benefit. Since you said you may not catch wind of reblogs, I just wanted to let you know I reblogged it with thoughts of my own, and to let you know you are not alone in this sentiment.
Heard my phone going off and caught it this time.
This is a sentiment I've had for a long time now. I've always hated the death grip Rooster Teeth has on their fanbase and how they've made it perfectly okay for fans to accost anyone that wants to examine how they treated Monty and his work, and make it out to be some sort of conspiracy beyond rational logic or morality.
Shane outright said that they were stripping control of Monty's work away from him while he was alive and all but said they treated his death as a barrier removed. People who claim to respect "CRWBY" (I seriously hate that term) turned on him the second he spoke up despite him being pretty much the exact sort of person they supposedly wanted to defend. Dismissing him, or hell, even acting like the situation was at all 'could be/might be', wasn't really sound logic back then. How do you explain to those same people now that continuing to do this in the face of every new scandal that comes out just makes it clear they're gagging on boot?
Even in supposed safe spaces, people don't want you to talk about it, or even bring it up. They've made it out to be bad form to talk about Monty or his death or the very strong evidence that he was mistreated and his work mishandled--even though that is something that very much should be talked about. It's not just Monty anymore, it's living breathing people that are being damn near tortured under this company, and the idea that Monty was just the exception to their streak of yoinking projects away from their creators is absurd.
But even if this weren't a current issue, even if it were still only Monty, yes, you should still talk about it. Because Monty's legacy affects quite a few people, and he's no longer around to control or defend his own work. The conversation about how he was treated should very much be had! I would rather a million people erroneously attack a company that somehow, miraculously, against mountains of evidence, actually did intend on fulfilling his vision properly, than one sorry-ass company get away with twisting it for their own cash and egos while everyone looks the other way. Sorry, them's the breaks--that's the line I've drawn. I don't feel any guilt about it.
The fact that even now, people barely remember Shane or the 36 fucking pages' worth of things he said is proof that Rooster Teeth's PR machine is all too effective. They need to go.
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“omg how dare you/this other person reblog an excerpt from this book that said this lesbophobic thing”
Very different to pass around a non-homophobic excerpt from a book that said homophobic things from an author that has literally dozens of books essay and speeches, than to pass around an explicitly homophobic essay from some tumblr user containing slurs and tack-standard rape apologia. Are you really gonna pretend you shouldn't get angry and "zero in" on the homophobia even if some good points were made, especially if the homophobia was stated to be the point by the title of the essay?
Kinda too late, since you already said you agreed that homosexuals have every right to "zero in" on the tiring and homophobic aspect of "don't be cruel to homophobic teenagers". In that situation you understood why there's baggage and it's not something gay people can just sit back and take even if there's a good point in there somewhere. I agree btw. If you can understand that, you have the capacity to understand why bisexual women have every right to zero in on being called degrading sexual language, be told they're just like TIMs, and especially being told their rape is something they weaponize against lesbians. This last statement is absolutely standard rape apologia thinly veiled, in the same vein that rape victims are lying to bring down good men, that they're speaking up for attention, that they're just speaking up for political clout, and all the other "you're weaponizing this!" bullshit that gets thrown at SA victims when they speak up. IMO bi women have every right to be furious about this AND zero in on it to, and definitely to criticize people spreading and endorsing messages that contain this rhetoric.
So no, you didn't seem like you were going "yay! degrade those bi women!" but it sure didn't slow you down from posting it, endorsing it, praising the author, saying she's your Andrea Dworkin (weird cope btw), treating bi women like they're homophobic idiots if they have a problem with you endorsing and defending the post, or telling by bi women that it's frustrating they would "zero in" on their degradation, as if it was something immensely petty and unimportant. Yeah some people did much worse things but why does that mean we can't criticize you for being insensitive and dismissive about how you've treated this and the effect posting rape apologia has on the people it's directed against?
BTW the reason you get message and other people don't isn't because bisexuals are just whiny bullies trying to single you out for no reason. It's because most of the people in that fucking post have already, multiple times, said they view degrading language against bi women as deserved and don't think it's a bad thing. So there's nothing to argue with them, they're just acting on their beliefs. We BELIEVE YOU when you say you don't support that so we're trying to make you see how, in this case, you actually are being insensitive and cruel in how you're treating it! Doesn't mean we don't talk about the other people plenty and much more harshly.
See, the thing is, I agree with you! Just skimming this, there’s nothing I feel the need to argue with you on.
But where you lose me is when you continue to act like I fully endorsed that post without criticism, which I did not. I reblogged it because I supported the fact it was pointing out a very specific type of lesbophobia that comes from bi women. While reblogging it, I explicitly criticised it. My annoyance comes from the fact that I know what’s wrong with it and I made that clear right off the bat…yet I’m still getting anons about it weeks (maybe even months? Idk) after it happened as if I never approached it critically.
Also I never said “she’s my Andrea Dworkin”. It was just an admittedly bad comparison.
I’ve said all I can about it at this point. Stop pretending I was never critical of the post when I made sure to be clear that I was.
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Feeling just a wee bit torn re: attempting to heal the rift in the fandom. For, like, several reasons.
Not the least of which is the matter of theory vs. praxis. Everyone I have personally spoken to in this fandom has seemed to be on the same page. Racism is bad. Pedophilia is bad. Transphobia is bad. Etc.
But we're gonna have a damned hard time getting to the praxis bit if we can't even agree on how the stuff above actually manifests in a harmful way.
Not liking the casting for the new show doesn't automatically make you a racist. It simply doesn't. There are many non-malicious reasons for being hesitant to accept Jacob!Louis ranging from "I don't trust white showrunners to handle his story with the level of care it deserves" to "even from what we've seen of him in the Louis garb, he just looks like Some Guy™️ (I feel this way about Sam personally--I really think the only one ethereal looking enough to be a convincing vampire is Bailey tbh).
Shipping is not pedophilia. Can it squick you personally? Sure. I'd it well within your right to not want to engage in it? Also yes. There are ways to block things tagged for content you don't wish to see. But exploring power dynamics in fantasy is not the same thing as condoning real life abuse. Full stop. I've already reblogged a great break down debunking the notion that fiction negatively affects reality in any meaningful way and while the post is written in the aggressive tone of someone sick of having to have the same tired argument for the umpteenth time, it is worth a read.
And from what I've been able to gather, most of us are aware of and have blocked that one fuckhead TERF. Good on us for immediately agreeing on something and no, that's not sarcasm. Good job team.
And as far as praxis goes. Well. Again we're gonna have to reign it in and be realistic about what the "how" is going to look like.
Which is where I should probably address my own role in all this. Because I know as discussions continue, this post will make it onto the dash of someone I have long since blocked and they will immediately see it and think, "that's rich, coming from you".
And perhaps. We've all seen the callout post I made a while back. And it's hard for me not to continue to stand by everything I said. I still think that a lot of the white folks who were most vocally calling others (on this platform specifically) racist aren't great at allyship work. With the clarity of hindsight, I think that stems from being young, growing up under surveillance culture, and living in an era where slacktivism feels like the only thing available to them. The cause isn't malicious, even if the effects are.
Do I regret some of my phrasing and things I overlooked? Yeah. When going over the "listen to POC bit", I should have delved deeper into the fact that, quelle surprise, POC aren't a hive mind. You'll hear differing opinions. There's a lot of nuance there and you're going to have to cast your opinion net pretty wide, listen to all these different opinions, and extrapolate from there. Because having 1-2 black friends who agree with you means fuck all in a world where Candice Owens exists. People with opinions that are ultimately harmful to themselves exist in every group, sorry to break it to you. Allyship is hard because it requires building a very nuanced lens through which to view the world. It requires you to acknowledge the Candice Owneses of the world while recognizing the pain and fear that led them to having the opinions they do, as well as listening to and engaging in meaningful, educational discussions with people who hold opinions you view as ignorant. It's work. That's what makes it work. Screaming at someone will not change their mind. Trying to rationally 'debate' someone with illogical opinions will not work because they didn't use logic to form those opinions. And that's hard work! But it does work and it's worth it.
And I don't know that I drove all of that home in my original post.
Do I regret dunking so hard on SM at the end of that post? Yes and no. Working on yourself as a person is a continuous journey and while intellectually I know that the "bully the bullies" approach I took in high school (and that post) stems from growing up in a carceral society where punishment is in much higher a regard than harm reduction and education, I also won't lie to you and claim that deep down I don't sometimes feel like a good tongue lashing isn't earned on a 1:1 basis.
Which is another sidebar point, which is we should all be honest about where we may have individually dropped the ball here, and be honest with ourselves about why we did it to prevent such instances in the future.
At the end of the day, if I'm being 💯 honest, the only way in which I feel remorse for the end of that post is the constant wondering I've done since publishing it about how my vitriol may have impacted SM's friend group. Could they have otherwise seen him as being a disingenuous snake before having to ultimately oust him for treating his friends poorly? I may never know.
Yes, I have been told about that. Alexa, play Everybody Talks.
Anyway. Praxis.
Whatever we all decide moving forward, we all need to be on the same page if we're going to make this thing work. But I think before we get to that point, we're all gonna have to bury the hatchet, whatever that's gonna look like for those involved in whatever beef.
🤷♀️
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This is just me airing out a bit of my grievances right now so I’ll put it under a read more. It WILL be long but i will try to keep it short or make a tl;dr at the end of it. Idk honestly.
I WILL NOT delete this AT ALL because i swear I’m not bound by any legal NDA or anything and i’m not even trying to start shit with people. I’m just PISSED OFF and need to share it once and for all.
Edit: I added a tl;dr if you guys don’t want to read my thoughts.
So okay. I had a rant about trying hard to be in a community of any kind in a post I reblogged. I will spare the details of not having the right tools to COPE with my adhd since it made me socially awkward and basically come off as a weirdo and stuff. I have improved lots since but like you know lmaooo
You see. Here’s this thing about my thoughts of my time as a mod on the compass en (fan) discord. I was a mod for this community for years, only because we were severely UNDERSTAFFED for years to the point where I was essentially the ONLY person doing any mod work what so ever. This isn’t to blame other people or mods though. It’s a fan group anyways, people have obligations, people change interests, people hate what the group has become and ETC. I was never mad in these situations.
The issues I’ve had with being a mod was essentially just not knowing what to do and what was okay. Like there was one person who would constantly just act horny 25/7 and it seemed like??? Everyone was okay with that??? Like??? There were minors??? In the server????????? And also those jokes made me uncomfy like it’s a public server not a friend group.
I didn’t want to do too much where it comes off as being on a powertrip or SILENCING people based on a simple dislike/disagreement. The laid back moderation wasn’t a bad thing and not that many people were horrible people (and most of them were good people who stop when told). Essentially, it made it so that a lot of members in the server when confronted with directly would basically NEVER take any mod seriously. On multiple occasions, it pissed me off on a personal level.
But what can I even do? I’m only one person and the server owner was busy most of the time and can’t afford to put any time into dealing with the server anymore. It was truly a time where I was just off on my own and idk what to do.
Anyways, I’ll be skipping ahead of the timeline and to the one time we had to demote a mod entirely for improper mod behavior.
So this guy… I’ll call this guy Allen to avoid dropping names— so Allen here was allegedly DATING a minor. Yeah. So as the “head mod” I did grapple with whether or not I should bring it up with the rest of the other mods and even the server owner. I kept hearing more and more shit from him which was FURTHER backed up by the fact that I was actually griping about it for a long time until the guy finally got his fucking shit together one time after I left cause the bozo basically did nothing anyways.
It made me absolutely livid how this guy saw being a mod as some sort of status for clout. Like this guy flat out was making fun of being a mod for the server and basically just went “I dont have to do anything cause everyone’s asleep when I’m awake and awake when im asleep! So easyyyy lmaoooo”
There is NO actual proof about this, but this was backed up by the fact that he did absolutely nothing and continued to shove everything for me to do. So like, the dude was basically a lazy ass mofo.
I didn’t even know anything about the guy dating a minor until someone told me about it and sent us proof of it. A lot of us were of the mindset that “it didn’t rly matter to us what they did as long as it was sfw so we don’t have to take immediate action” but… we saw both of them chat in the cps server and for sure they were sending nsfw shit to each other based on what they’re saying about hcs (like it had waaay too much sexual energy in there to say they didnt talk about nsfw privately amongst themselves).
I really got bit pissed off at all of this so I took it up to everyone immediately. Like first of all, the server also has minors so it was really a huge red flag for us to keep the guy around as a mod.
This happened when Allen was trying to host his very own tournament (last year around this time), but failed cause he decided to put it off to oblivion and even rushed me to do everything. I volunteered to help but only to stream it and nothing else. When i brought it up to him that I can take over and do everything so he didn’t have to, he declined. Like this guy did nothing at all and expected ME to do it all for him when i made it clear from the get go that I wasn’t going to do that. The dude was clearly irresponsible. Even more so than me and he also has adhd like me. Like dude is just a bitch.
It made the poor guy PARANOID. Like he immediately stopped talking in the server after he was demoted and basically stopped working on the tournament all together. I didn’t want anything to do with him after all of this and the fact that he was unapologetic about dating a minor as long as there’s love. Like no. Bro. Wtf. (I heard this second hand so take that with a grain of salt)
Now here’s the kicker. Out of personal spite, and to not leave my work unused, I decided to host my own tournament after some time has passed. It was a challenge that I enjoyed, but I’m not cut out for stuff like this so I wasn’t going to do it anymore than one time.
But guess what? Allen joined the tournament with his team. And this was the team that gave me SHIT when we (me and my two helpers) had to give them a DQ for basically doing everything wrong. I wasn’t even surprised that something was going to come up with this group. It only sucked because they sure wrapped up a now former friend of mine into their whole schtick and basically started to hate me for something they clearly didn’t do right.
Not only did they think we were powertripping, they deadass thought we did it out of spite for them. Like no. We didn’t even do that. Like it’s a casual tournament but we had rules to abide by and it would be unfair to let them play when everyone else followed directions, read the rules, and was doing as told. That team did NONE of that and said that we, the staff, did it out of favoritism.
Like c’mon that was the SILLIEST reason I have ever heard. Imagine it being favoritism because EVERYONE ELSE FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS.
Granted, I can agree that my attitude wasn’t the best because I was tired and also FED UP with the fact that they didn’t even listen to what I was saying as the organizer. They flat out ignored all I was saying and decided on their own that I was okay with everything. Like no I’m not trying to make a callout post on them so I won’t post any proof of this, but ask anyone who was the staff with me during the tournament and they can give proof.
I will also say that my instructions wasn’t clear half of the time so I can understand that they might’ve been confused aside from not reading it. I will say that I didn’t make it extra clear at all about the timeframe. I had a lot going on the latter half of November and most of December so I know that that was on me. But they deliberately threw everything onto my shoulders and expect me to organize their team for them which is stupid to begin with.
The biggest reason why this did happen was because my former friend didn’t respond to a question I had asked ahead of time about their schedule. I had asked for them to tell me if their schedule in JST, so japan time. She only gave me a weekend schedule and nothing else so I assumed she answered in jst. And this point when I asked again to confirm if this time was okay, her two teammates responded in her stead by saying “yeah it seems like she’s free at this time”, which also meant that we all read her reply the same exact way.
She came out to tell me when I was asleep, that she couldn’t make it and didn’t even TRY to talk it out with my other staff and I only woke about a couple hours before their scheduled time cause I sleep funky hours. Like they expect me to get everything sorted out in 2 hours??? Like??? That’s not enough time??? And we couldnt find anything that worked with the staff and their opposing team, so they HAVE to play at their scheduled time.
Then they said they’ll find a sub, which technically isn’t allowed without prior discussion. They clearly didn’t read the substitution INSTRUCTIONS either. I still had every right to decline them of a sub since they didn’t ask for permission for one and assumed that it was okay.
But like whatever man, I didn’t care by the time we discussed this far. They then basically just…. Didn’t even tell us anything afterwards for an hour and 20 minutes. Like an hour before their match started and 10-15 mins after where they had a short waiting period before we hand them a DQ. We had strict attendance rules and it was their responsibility to let us know they found a sub before their match started… And not AFTER we handed them a DQ.
They tried to argue with us that we have to let them play and that they couldn’t “understand” why they can’t. Like it wasn’t that hard to understand that we couldn’t do that because it was unfair to everyone else who was following the rules. I couldn’t reschedule it to a different time due to everyone’s busy schedules and it would require having to do everything over again. Like granted, it was my first time doing this and I was very stubborn on not asking for too much help because I didn’t want to rely too much on people. It just came at a bad time when everyone was busy too. So I admit to just being an inexperienced first time tournament organizer and knowing that a part of this is also my fault, but not entirely.
Like, again, this really wasn’t done out of personal malice or anything of the sort. But this team also went out of their way to cause problems for everyone involved and basically quit last minute when it was time for their other match (after they got DQ’d for their match in the semis), which pissed the other team off. They led everyone to believe that the staff did something wrong, when really it was their incompetence and miscommunication that led to everything happening. I offered my side of the reasoning for what we did to my former friend who was the only one who tried to at least talk to me, but instead kind of gave me an attitude like I owed her something.
I actually thought she was blaming herself for what happened and I said stuff that said I was sorry and she didn’t deserve that, only to find out that… they thought it was…….. favoritism?? And I was just… “????? Huh????” So like… I don’t know what I can even say when they believed something so comedically foolish. They’ve been watching way too many dramas man like if I wanted to be spiteful, I wouldn’t do something that heinous. I also make it clear when I dislike people so if anything, I would’ve just trashed their application from the get go to be petty. I don’t have the energy to plan it out like that or even be that petty as to not let them play. If that was a concern to begin with, they could’ve just not joined at all. I did so much to work with their schedules and yet they conveniently threw it out the window in favor of a fictional revenge plot they made up. Disrespectful.
I still never gotten an apology or even an admittance that they misunderstood what was going on. I can only apologize for things I have done, which was just sounding crabby and being unclear about stuff. But favoritism was not something I or anyone did. This still hurts me right now. Even if they don’t want to apologize to me, apologize to everyone else.
The only saving grace was that when all of this was happening, all the participants didn’t ask or question us directly too much on what was going on. It, at least, showed to us that they were confused and/or also knew that we (the staff) wouldn’t do something this egregious. Still, it hurt that everyone didn’t even try to defend me and was perhaps skeptical, like maybe I am this irresponsible (I’m not).
However, there is more to my grievances about this.
Aside from feeling like no one respected me at all, even when I’m the one with the MOST POWER in the conersation, someone told me how everyone (in their server) wanted them to host the tournament. Like, it was very hurtful to hear that everyone else wanted this person to do the job. That everyone wanted them to do everything. It really pissed me off. Being a mod IS a damn thankless job, but I have never felt so hurt and betrayed. I was doing so much for everyone and was trying to make things more fun for people, but nah. They really wanted this cool person that everyone loved and babied, and not some boring old guy like me. Well, I’m sorry I made everyone’s times there boring and bland as fuck. I hope you guys are having more fun now that I’m not there ruining it for you all.
No one even tried to actually defend me when all of this WAS happening. Like? They really left me for dead. Not a single person wanted to believe me or support me until I said all that I could share about it in DMs. Then they all realized that the Allen’s team were being petty about it.
I’m ridiculously tired because this wasn’t EVEN drama to begin with. It was just Allen’s team being vengeful (mostly just Allen and his bestie who was in the team). I was just being dragged down simply because they couldn’t take an L.
Had Allen’s team came up with a better rebuttal, I would’ve let them play. Had they said they got a sub before we gave them a DQ, I would’ve let them play. They did not even try to have a discussion with us and tried to be petty because they thought we were being petty. Like please we don’t got time for your kiddy fights, man. I hope you’re all happy that I suffered for whatever the fuck y’all did.
It was just so damn weird how they correlated this as a “power trip” when…….. it really wasn’t that and everyone could probably read the chat log and will still say that it seemed like miscommunication. Like literally no one got in trouble for anything because it was just… wasn’t even the problem they made it out to be. This was something they could’ve tried to talk it out reasonably with us but they chose NOT to. That is ON THEM entirely.
Given how I was also repeatedly just being disregarded even AS a mod, I was completely fed up with it all. When there were issues, no one brought it up to the mods directly??? And told the server owner instead??? LIKE??? He never even told me that’s how everyone actually felt, i only knew because when I used to be in Ann’s server, they all told me what they felt about the changing times of the server (which can’t be helped in most cases) AND the fact that I can tell that’s how people felt based on the vibes.
Was I really THAT untrustworthy as a person and a mod?? Was I really that incompetent to everyone???
I always felt like I was some half rate guy that no one liked. I tried because I knew that without someone there to manage it, it would’ve been so much worse. But it seemed like to me that everyone thought I was useless and a waste of space. They rather have that popular someone everyone loved to do my job for them. It would be so much better and much more fun, right? I agree.
I didn’t become a mod because I wanted clout. I wanted to help. I did it out of the pure love and appreciation of finding this community at one of the worst times of my life. And I still do want to help, but after all of this? Good luck on that. You all have to beg for me to come back to help. None of you guys deserve me at all.
Anyways, yeah, this is the extent to my side of the story WITH my personal thoughts and opinions on it. I don’t have the energy to make a tl;dr right now after saying all of this. So i’ll make an edit for it later.
This is why I personally left the server and cut off most of the people who I met there if they didn’t try to contact me again or get back in touch with me… And assuming I didn’t contact them first.
There’s just too much bad feelings in it for me to want to stay around. The thing with Ann and some couple others before her and this whole thing, all were as a result of being in this community, made me realize that they don’t want me around anymore. I figured it was time to me to step down or take more of a backseat, but now? Early retirement. Fuck this shit man.
Tl;dr: This is a rant of one of my MANY grievances about being a mod in the compass server. I am not blaming anyone for any of this as I understand that this was just the result of the circumstances that happened with everyone at the time.
The key points being:
Understaffed mod team and a busy server owner, which led me to struggle with modding as I wasn’t sure what was okay and what wasn’t, and overall a lot of work on me being the only person modding a whole server of people. I didn’t mention it before but it stressed me out constantly for years.
Having to demote a mod for misconduct. His list of crimes goes from bad work ethics, bad display of behavior on multiple occasions as a mod, irresponsible with organization (tried to host his own tournament but failed and had me doing most of the heavy lifting before it was ultimately “canceled”), and the worst of all: dating a minor (5 years younger than he was). This point later comes back as this former mod (whom I called Allen for the sake of using a name, it isn’t his name/online handle) joined my tournament with his team.
The team being the one that caused me a lot of trouble because they firmly believed that we were abusing our power and said we deliberately sabotaged them on purpose. None of which was true and I’m sure a lot of people have noticed this, but I refrained from dropping too much details as I’m not here to start shit or make it a callout post. Talk to the two helpers and they can probably explain it better. I listed various reasons for this happening and debunking some potential misunderstandings. The issue was largely miscommunication and I am aware of the issues it caused.
Most of this from that point onward was just my personal thoughts about feeling unappreciated, even under-appreciated, for all the stuff I have done. This extends from members not respecting what I had to say to feeling as if people didn’t want to listen to me or want me around because they thought I was useless, irresponsible, incompetent, and boring. “Clearly”, they don’t want someone like me as a mod so I left as a result of that. There is a lot more it but this is but a summary, so read it all if you want more details.
Overall, I’ve been disrespected and disregarded heavily before, but it felt somewhat clear to me that the community had a bias and very much wanted me to leave despite all that I was doing to make the server a better place to be in. I left after determining that they do not deserve me and if they want me back, they are all going to have to BEG for me to come back.
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@thebusylilbee (For some reason I couldn't reblog that reply of yours with this post. Pity)
A following of this beautiful, reflexive reblog:
Wow, you were so expressive, so passionate, so full of rage back there. I would've feel intimidated if you have added a deep, complex explanation of your point between all that messy spit of words..
As much as I would love to give you a full and detailed explanation of why your reasoning is fucking WRONG, I know by the way you wrote your thoughts you're not the type to willingly hear arguments that go against your beliefs and you're firmly set on your own interpretation of reality, so I'll be quick with this and leave you to keep swimming in your ignorance.
From all that load of bullshit and rage filled nonsense you spit out, there was one thing you're absolutely right about it:
"Hamas WOULD not need to exist"
Damn right they don't, their mere existence is a crime. I don't know how many palestinians outside Gaza you've spoken to but I can quote what the ones I came across have said about Hamas, here some examples:
"They're the real monsters. They do nothing to protect us and just keep making everything worse"
"We weren't allowed to leave because they shoot down anyone that tried to flew the country. They don't care about our lives, just our usefulness to them"
"We can't complain, we can't speak up, if they so much sniff someone's dislike towards them...."
It's hard to translate some of them, but you get the picture. Hamas are terrorists, that much is known. They've been also opressing, humiliating, torturing, raping, displacing, robbing and imprisoning people since their creation, but they've done it in a way that only those lucky enough to escape can confess their crimes. The rest are dead. But foolish, uncultured idiots like you don't want to hear that because it's much easier to pin Israel's government as the SOLE villains of this story and buy the propaganda western media is feeding you.
"if ZIONISTS hadn't created a fascist apartheid state called Israel"
Honey, I don't know what the fuck they taught you in History class, but the "fascist apartheid" state you speak of doesn't exist. Israel was created by the United Nations as part of a plan to give both the arabs and the jews their own territory and cease the continued conflicts.
(Fun fact: The Arab League refused this idea because they didn't want the jews to have their own land, and so shortly after proclamation, five Arabs countries joined forces to attack the freshly created Israel state and invade them. Or, using that term some people in this site love, colonize them. Israel fought back, won for some dumb stroke of luck and, as a solemn "fuck you", they also took a 25% more of the territory that have been accorded)
Now, the Israel's government has clearly changed a LOT (speaking in euphemisms ofc) back from the original days where they genuinely just focused on the Israelis and right now there's really nothing good left in that corrupt, self-centred circle of men.
"zionist ideology wasn't RACIST GENOCIDAL AND INHUMANE."
The origin of the Zionism movement was born as a response to the growing anti-semitism, an actual racist genocidal and inhuman movement, that was happening all around the world. So using those particular adjectives to describe it it's ironic and fucking dumb, because they go against the very reason of its existence.
Now there are various ramifications of Zionism, such as political Zionism, liberal Zionism, religious Zionism, etc. Not all of them good obviously, but the main core of this movement was focused ONLY in protecting the Jews and their culture. I'll never understand how a government that knows the tragedy their fellows suffered even dared to inflict it on other people, but well, guess some humans don't learn from the past.
And last one, the very jewel of your whole commentary:
"You are so fucking stupid, it's incredible that you would fuckign DARE tag your braindead bullshit with a pro-palestine tag when you quite obviously know and understand NOTHING"
I dare to tag "pro palestine" because I'm with them and I'm actually defending their lives, their cause and know where they come from, unlike people like you that speak up all proudly against others and use big words you don't even know the meaning of. If you actually cared about these people, you would have done your research and find out everything about this topic. But you don't, you simply want to show your deep anger for their pain in the same way all influencers and fake activists have been doing since this started. You want to be "part of the trend".
The only one who obviously knows and understand NOTHING about this conflict is YOU, fucking uncultured and ignorant asshole. Everytime I see people like you speak up on this conflict makes my blood boil, because all of you have been blisfully blind while all the atrocities were happening but now the biased social media and tv shows and all these radical anti-semitist political figures are telling you how bad it is, you think it's time to "stand up against the unjustice".
People like you only see the surface of it plus the propaganda they shove in your throats, and not the centuries of dark history and events that have consequently lead up to this. So how about you shut the fuck and let the grown people speak about this matter?
#now i know you won't even read the whole thing and will keep insulting me instead#i learnt to never expect solid arguments from people like you#so if you can't talk like a decent person and show your own point of view in a reasonable manner don't even interact with me#i know it's much more comfortable repeat what other people say and claim it's your personal opinion instead of investigating the matter#but don't you dare to come here and spit out nonsensical shit#oh and#pro palestine#pro israel#free palestine#free palestine from hamas#anti hamas#anti israel's government#anti genocide#genocide#racism#jews#Israel#Palestine#zionism#anti zionism#protect the jews#muslim#israel palestine conflict#gaza
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To the "Anon" who is clearly incredibly butthurt. How about I just make this public so everyone can see everything because I'm not the one having to hide that im harrassing people here.
#1 since it's shorter let's start with Codot. I made ONE post. One. Saying it was bullshit to publically bash on a small-time creator who can see what you're saying, especially when put up against a corporate conglomerate.
That was literally it. That was ALL that was said or done. And it wasn't even a stand alone post it was attached to a reblog, just the same as their comment was. Super psychotic, I'm sure. If he feels the need to block me over that he is MORE that welcome to, I will be disappointed but I will continue to support he and Dee's work.
#2 as far as Caesaria having to leave because of me, that's funny. Last I checked I wouldn't have had the need to defend her or say anything in the first place if shit already wasn't being done.
Or do you want to casually skip that part?
The fact that you can't see things that are right in front of your face is absolutely ridiculous. I can't provide proof good enough for you, clearly, because you're in denial and anything I say or show isn't good enough for you as you've already decided. That's fine. But don't put that on me. I haven't posted things because those posts were PUBLIC. THEIR post, not mine. I didn't write that shit, they did. Your refusal to call a horse a horse really isn't my problem,
But suggesting that Caesaria had to leave BECAUSE I STOOD UP for her, or for her standing up for herself, OR that she could stay IF SHE'D JUST ACCEPT being fucked relentlessly and kept her mouth shut IS ABSOLUTELY ludicrous. Who the fuck do you think you are that gives you that right?
You think this is some goddamned aristocracy that people need to bow and kiss your fucking feet? What, the pesants don't get to complain, right? They should be grateful to be noticed by your highness? Get off the fucking high horse.
You're fucked. She's fucked. Your whole circle jerking group is fucked.
But of course you aren't going to acknowledge that she's done something wrong
Because you're CLEARLY the same kind of person.
I mean, that's a perfect Segway to finish this with
#3. Thanks, by the way, for publically admitting you bullied ME out of the server, particularly for issues unrelated in the first place, but I digress.
Since you clearly don't know I'll tell You, I'd actually offered to leave on my own accord before any of you said anything because I didn't want drama accidentally crossing over into someone I actually respect's personal space, so good job, you accomplished so much.
That being said, you did certainly admit that you tried.
But.
Your group would NEVER BULLY ANYONE, right? That's what I keep hearing.
Ironic since you all keep blatantly publically doing it.
But maybe if you like about hers it will justify yours.
Right dear?
Bless your heart.
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I posted 1,318 times in 2022
That's 137 more posts than 2021!
87 posts created (7%)
1,231 posts reblogged (93%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@phoenixyfriend
@bunjywunjy
@dingdongyouarewrong
@outlaw-unicorn
@chipper-smol
I tagged 1,312 of my posts in 2022
#video - 181 posts
#ace attorney - 129 posts
#art - 101 posts
#tumblr - 91 posts
#pokemon - 79 posts
#xenoposting - 75 posts
#cats - 58 posts
#music - 35 posts
#xenoblade chronicles 3 - 33 posts
#queued - 31 posts
Longest Tag: 139 characters
#sometimes you get murdered in your office. sometimes the god pokemon kidnaps you out of your office and throws you through time and space t
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Chapter 5 finale. what the fresh fuck. Back to bullet points because there's a lot to cover here!
LANZ. SENA. ARE WE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE SUICIDE PLOY. I never thought I'd be thankful for X to appear and yet here we are.
When Mio vanished at the Homecoming I was like "damn they actually killed her" and then when N "killed" Noah I was like "OH SHIT THEY'RE KILLING THEM?!"
When I heard the disembodied voice say "we only need three more months" my immediate first thought was that the party was going to reincarnate at the start of the game, they'd jack a Levnis and/or save Guernica, and we'd resume from there. Tying in to some previous thoughts I had about how the Consuls never really seemed to take the party seriously, making me wonder if all of this has happened before and the reason they aren't worried about the party freeing colonies and stuff is because they already know they'll be defeated
The flashback sequence in the cloudy area (Memory Space lite?) had me well and truly baffled for a while lmao
When Noah pulled out the sword of origin or whatever they're calling it out of the chest of the Ouroboros I literally shrieked "THAT'S A MONADO!!" because it totally is. Look me in the eyes and tell me that's not the exact shape of the Monado II
Also M's ploy with Mio has an extremely Meyneth and Fiora feel to it, at least to me
So Z. I feel like he's...probably not actually Zanza? I don't see how he could be, though I know that 2 already did some retconning to 1 so it's not unthinkable they could do more. But the fact that he's the "creator of this world" and his real name starts with a Z and the fact that Moebius feeds on human souls much like Zanza fed on the Homs as the Bionis makes me extremely suspicious
5 notes - Posted August 17, 2022
#4
There's a lot of things I could say about all of the that that just happened but also there's a bunch of new sidequests that I want to do so instead I'll just say that seeing Eunie say "I'll never understand Moebius even if I live to one hundred" and knowing that the full High Entia lifespan is far longer than that is just...ow
5 notes - Posted August 31, 2022
#3
I was writing up my thoughts on Xenoblade 3 as a whole when I realized that I'd written a mini-essay on why I like the ending and why letting the nations stay together from the start would've been narratively and emotionally unsatisfying. Instead of trying to cram that in with the rest of my thoughts on the game, I figured I'd make it its own post (since this is much more of a meta piece than the rest of my opinions). Spoilers below the cut for the ending!
3 is a heavily thematic game. One of those themes is that even if the future is uncertain, it’s worth fighting for anyways. Noah and the party make that choice, and there are two options for what the narrative can do from there: it can reward them narratively for fighting a fight with an uncertain outcome (making the right choice), or it won’t. They make the right choice, but the narrative doesn’t reward them for it. I hesitate to call the ending of 3 a “punishment” in any sense, but narratively it somewhat is. They make the difficult choice to continue fighting against Z, the Moebius, and the endless now, and the consequence of that is that the worlds separate and they have to leave behind the friends they’ve made form opposite nations. Why would the narrative punish them for making the right choice?
For a second, I’m going to take a tangent here. In her Trope Talk on magical otherworlds, OSP Red discusses some of the pitfalls of escapist stories, one being that a “happy ending” in a portal fantasy where the hero is allowed to leave their boring life in the real world forever can actually depress the audience, because we will never get that same opportunity to literally leave the dissatisfying parts of our lives behind. It’s the same principle here. The narrative could have rewarded the party for making the right choice by giving them a no strings attached happy ending, but that’s not how real life works. In real life, we also don’t know if the future we are moving towards will be better than what we’re living in right now. But unlike in Xenoblade 3, we don’t have the option of grinding to max level and beating the superbosses before moving to the future–that is, we can’t live in the endless now. In a constructed narrative, we expect heroes to be rewarded for their good deeds because that’s a convention of storytelling: good is rewarded, evil is punished. Good people win, and bad people lose. But real life doesn’t work like that, and I believe the impact of the ending on the audience would have been diminished significantly if the uncertain future the Ouroboros were fighting so hard for turned out to be unequivocally good.
The other main theme of the game is about grief, loss, and accepting those things into your life, which is another message the ending conveys supremely well. Just because everything goes back to the moment the world stopped in the beginning doesn’t mean that anything that happened on Aionios doesn’t matter. It all mattered! Just because something ends doesn’t mean it doesn’t have meaning while it’s occurring. That goes for lives, events, relationships, and even worlds. Nothing in this world is permanent, not even the world itself, and to pretend that none of it matters because it doesn’t last–to say that nothing we did on Aionios meant anything just because it’s all been erased and it’s remembered by no one–is to say that the only things that do matter are those that last forever, and that is a road that leads to nothing but grief and regret.
And besides, the game is very clear that they’ll all meet again at some point in the future. Even if Monosoft never elaborates or tells us about the reunion from on high, that does nothing to stop us all from imagining it and writing it ourselves–giving the characters a lifetime of joy, and giving ourselves a path to hope.
6 notes - Posted September 12, 2022
#2
There's still nothing funnier to me than the victim of 3-1 being Doug Swallow, who died with a bottle of poisoned pills in his hand
Died of poison? No, he was electrocuted, why would you think he was poisoned?
6 notes - Posted January 23, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Sometimes I remember that during all of the final battle with Volo, the "BATTLE DECIDED" splash screen never appears: not after beating his team, and not after either form of Giratina
20 notes - Posted May 11, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review#it is. so funny to me that 'video' is one of my top tags#why do I even do that actually. I think there was a reason once but I forgot#anyway! to another year of hellsite living!
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good for me
pairing: jung jaehyun x fem!reader
genre: smut, humor
warnings: hickeys, groping, thigh grinding, oral (male receiving), hair pulling, dom/sub themes, slight exhibitionism, dirty talk, degradation, pet names, praise kink, profanity
word count: 2,354
a/n: w korea jaehyun haunts me to this day so here's a little something i wrote. hello, it's been a while! hopefully my next fic won't take me months to upload. being an adult is hard. also i think this is my first? smut fic on this blog? i don't think smut is something i will write often but it's still something i want to practice so lmk what you think!
MINORS DNI WITH THIS POST, THIS IS STRICTLY 18+ CONTENT. IF I SEE THAT YOU HAVE LIKED AND/OR REBLOGGED THIS POST AND ARE A MINOR, YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.
“We’re going to get caught!” you hiss as your boyfriend tugs you towards a supply closet far away from the rest of the crew.
“Not if you’re quiet,” Jaehyun winks while giving your hand a squeeze. He chuckles when you narrow your eyes at him, not at all amused by his teasing. You really were not in the mood to get scolded by not only the SM staff but the W Korea staff as well today, especially because you’re there as your boyfriend’s guest. His hand rests on the door knob as he turns to look at you. “Come on, babe, we’re not going to do anything too bad. I just want to kiss you a bit!”
“In a closet?” you scoff.
“In privacy,” he corrects you.
While the logical part of you is not at all swayed by his barely-there argument, the part of you that couldn’t keep your eyes off of Jaehyun during the first half of the photoshoot is screaming at you to run your hands all over him. And who could blame you, really? With his shirt left unbuttoned and toned body oiled up and on display, it took every ounce of self-control that you had to not jump his bones as soon as the photographer called for a break. You want to remain professional and maintain a good first impression for these people, but it seems that Jaehyun, ever observant over the slightest change in your behavior, knew exactly what you were thinking.
A huff leaves your lips. You really need to learn how to say no to him. “Kissing only.”
You barely have time to blink before Jaehyun is pulling you into the supply closet, the cramped space forcing you to press your body up against his. That and the fact that Jaehyun himself is pushing you up against the wall, his hands already beginning to roam. “Make sure you remind yourself of that too, yeah babe?” he smirks as a hand reaches up to trail lightly along your jaw. “I’m not the only one that gets carried away. It takes two to tango.”
He firmly presses his lips against yours and you have to stop the moan that you can feel crawling up your throat. You can feel your lust for your boyfriend growing but you just run your fingers through his hair and continue kissing him, determined to not be the one that gives in this time. Your bottom lip is caught between his teeth before he pulls away to look into your eyes while a soft whine leaves your mouth. Jaehyun’s hold on you tightens and you feel the way his hips slightly jolt against you from the sound you make.
“Fuck baby, don’t do this to me,” he whispers as he leans forward to trail kisses down your neck. “I saw the way you were looking at me before, you want me just as bad as I want you right now.”
“Jae…” you sigh, head tilting to the side to make it easier for him to lick and bite at your neck. Your hands slide down his shoulders to grip his biceps, squeezing when he makes it down to your collar bones. The room is starting to feel quite warm and you know that Jaehyun’s got you right where he wants you, he knows exactly how to make your resolve crumble in seconds. “I said kissing only.”
Jaehyun chuckles darkly against your skin, a hand coming down on your ass to give you a light slap at your weak argument and the tremble in your voice that even you could hear. “I am kissing you. You should’ve been more specific.”
“You’re so annoying,” you hiss, fingers bunching up the fabric of his silk shirt. We should stop, we’re going to get caught. We shouldn’t be doing this, Jaehyun will- Another moan escapes your lips when your boyfriend’s thigh nudges your own legs apart to press up against you, the pressure causing pleasure to course through your veins. It’s like your body has a mind of its own as your hips jolt and begin to grind down on Jaehyun, your hands pressed up against his bare torso while your nails leave faint red lines on his skin. Every sensible thought disappears from your brain as you let your lust take over, Jaehyun’s tight grip on your body and teeth on your skin making you fall apart even faster.
“That’s a good girl,” he hums and you can feel the smirk against your throat. His tone is so cocky that in any other situation, it would make you scoff but now, it just causes your heart to beat faster. “You like that, right? You like grinding that pretty pussy on my thigh?”
“Feels so good, Jae,” you sigh, the back of your head hitting the wall particularly hard when you lean back and making you flinch. Jaehyun bursts out laughing as you clutch the back of your head and you have to slap your hands over his mouth to get him to stop, the two of you holding your breaths when you hear some of the staff shuffling around outside of the closet. Their voices eventually fade, along with their footsteps, and you count to 30 before finally giving Jaehyun a pointed look. “Dumbass, we’re supposed to be quiet, remember?”
“Remember those words when I make you cum, sweetheart.” Jaehyun’s hands slide down to your hips to get you to start moving against him again, whimpers leaving your mouth as he flexes the muscles of his leg beneath you. “Fuck baby, you’re making me so fucking hard. I want you so bad right now.”
“Want your cock, Jae.” Your breaths are coming out in pants while you grind against him and you can already feel that your underwear is soaked through with your desire for him. A hand reaches out to stroke his cock through his pants and the corners of your lips turn up when he chokes at your touch. “Want it in my mouth, wanna taste you. Please?”
Jaehyun’s lips press against yours as he lowers his leg down. But just as you wrap your arms around his neck when he deepens the kiss, you feel a hand slide down your front and you have to hold back a yelp when you feel him begin to rub at your clit through your pants. You pinch his side when he teasingly bites your lower lip and when he pulls away, you can see the mischievous glint in his eyes even in the dark.
He hums as if he’s really debating on whether or not he’ll let you suck his dick and you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes. If he saw that, he would probably say no just to punish you. “Since you asked so nicely,” he concedes with a sweet smile.
Your hands trail down his thighs as you sink down to your knees, Jaehyun’s teeth biting down on his lower lip as you unbutton his pants. Or at least attempt to. The darkness paired with what feels like a billion buttons and zippers on your boyfriend’s pants almost makes you give up. You let out a huff as your hands go back to your boyfriend’s thighs and you look up at him with a pleading look on your face that you hope he can see.
“Stupid,” Jaehyun chuckles as his fingers brush against yours, undoing his pants and even pulling them down his thighs for you. “Think you can handle taking off my boxers or do I need to do that for you too?”
You snort in response as you smack his bare thigh. “Back in my day, pants had one button and a zipper. Modern fashion is too complicated for me now.”
Your hands ghost over Jaehyun’s covered cock and you have to hold back a smirk when he shudders at the light touch. You kiss him through the fabric, even sticking your tongue out to kitten lick at him, before his boxers make their way down his thighs as well. He feels warm and heavy in your hand and when you take the tip into your mouth, the taste of his pre-cum is enough to drive you insane. You force him deeper into your mouth, inhaling deeply through your nose as you continue until he hits the back of your throat. His hand tangles in your hair when it happens, fingers pulling at the strands as he groans. Pulling back with gasp, you begin to pump him with one hand while your mouth travels down to his balls, humming and sucking while Jaehyun whimpers and whines above you. You wouldn’t be surprised if you soaked through your panties enough to get even your pants wet, Jaehyun’s whispered cursing and groaning going straight to your pussy.
Jaehyun’s hips buck and you have to fight back the gag that you feel coming on, the sudden brush of his tip against the back of your throat surprising you. Looking up at him, you place your hands on his thighs and keep your head still, allowing him to do whatever he wanted with you. There’s a wicked gleam in his eyes that you can see even in the darkness as he begins to shallowly thrust, one of his thumbs coming up to wipe away the tears that are already falling down your face.
“You’re just my perfect little cockslut, aren’t you, baby?” he coos as he strokes the side of your face. “My pretty girl, always so good for me.” He pulls out of your mouth completely to let you breathe for a few seconds and you hurriedly wipe away the remaining drool and tears that trailed down your neck. You nod eagerly at his words, eyes never leaving his cock as you watch him stroke himself. Your mouth begins to water at the thought of having him fuck your throat, teeth catching your bottom lip as you squirm in your spot on the floor.
“What’s going on in the pretty head of yours, huh?” Jaehyun asks, his question ending in a groan as he squeezes the base of his cock. “Tell me what you want.”
“Fuck my mouth.” You feel your face burn at the vulgar demand but the look that your boyfriend gives you makes your stomach flip. So you muster the sweetest smile that you can to try to hide the eagerness you feel and tack on a, “Please?”
Jaehyun slips his thumb into your mouth and his lips part at the same time yours do, his tongue poking into his cheek as you suck and lick his finger. “Of course I can, sweetheart,” he answers, the cooing of his voice contradictory to the dark look in his eyes. “You gonna swallow all my cum too? Take everything I give you like a good girl?” Jaehyun begins stroking his cock once more as he angles it so that the tip brushes against your lips, laughing when you nod and stick your tongue out to lick at the head. “Of course you are. Because you love my cock that much, right?”
Before you have the chance to nod in agreement, Jaehyun shoves himself into your mouth, his thrusts already starting off hard and fast. You remind yourself to breathe deeply through your nose, the tight grip you have on his thighs keeping you focused and grounded as you try to keep up with his harsh pace. Every thrust sends him to the back of your throat and even though you can feel your jaw beginning to ache, your pussy is starting to ache even more, the thought of him fucking you this roughly making you drool. You really are a slut for your boyfriend.
“Fuck- ‘m close, baby,” Jaehyun groans as he tugs at your hair. “Your mouth is so warm and wet. But I bet your pussy is even better, can’t wait to feel it around me- fuck.”
You reach up to massage his balls and when you feel his dick twitch in your mouth, you know that he’s only seconds away from falling apart. So you dig your nails into his thighs and leave red lines on his skin, a smirk appearing on your face even with your mouth stuffed full. Above you, Jaehyun pants and whines out your name as he spills into you, shuddering as your tongue swirls around him. His grip on your hair loosens until his hand is gone altogether and he watches as he slowly pulls out of your mouth, a string of his cum connecting your lips to his shaft. Your eyes close as you savor Jaehyun’s taste, gathering any cum that spilled out onto your thumb before placing it on your tongue.
Hands wrap around your upper arms and your eyes fly open as Jaehyun pulls you up and pushes you against the wall before shoving his tongue into your mouth. He groans at the taste of himself on you and you gasp when one of his hands comes down to smack your ass. “Fuck baby, you’re so fucking hot,” he moans and you swear your knees almost buckle from how fucked out he sounds. “You did such a good job so I think I should return the favor, hm?”
You watch as Jaehyun gets down on his knees in front of you but before he can even unbutton your pants, there’s a loud bang on the door, causing the both of you to jump. Your heart is beating so hard that you swear you can hear it, and you don’t even notice that you had grabbed your boyfriend’s hand as a familiar voice calls out his name from the other side of the door.
“Jaehyun! (Y/N)! Are you guys done being gross yet?” Johnny yells, and you know that he’s doing it to both embarrass you in front of everyone and to make sure you can hear him. “Our lunch break has been over for 15 minutes, you’re keeping everyone waiting! We’re going to be leaving in two hours, you couldn’t have lasted until we got home? Get out here!”
#cznnet#neowritingsnet#kwritersworldnet#jung jaehyun scenario#jung jaehyun smut#nct smut#nct 127 smut#nct scenario#nct drabble#nct imagine#jung jaehyun imagine#jaehyun smut#jaehyun x reader#nct x reader#kpop imagine#kpop drabble#nct au#jaehyun au#jung jaehyun au#jaehyun scenario#jaehyun imagine#jaehyun drabble
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after i left you | jjk
“when you decided to meet up with taehyung for dinner to reconnect, you didn’t expect to see jungkook, your ex, on a date with his current girlfriend and not to mention, end up fake dating taehyung.”
genre: exes! AU, fake dating! AU, enemies to lovers-ish! AU, unrequited feelings-ish! AU, angst, fluff
pairing: jungkook x female reader
word count: 38.985
warnings: cursing, reader feels very guilty in this one, alcohol consumption (nothing major/bad though)
playlist: happier - ed sheeran, just asking - aquilo, my tears ricochet - taylor swift, one last time please - dodie
a/n: uh, super nervous to post this because ive never written so much before, but i had a ton of fun and i hope you guys enjoy it! if you guys have any problems reading, liking or reblogging it, please let me know! im not sure if tumblr can handle such a word count, so id appreciate it if you guys would tell me if something doesnt work and ill figure it out! anyway, hope you guys enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing this!
The restaurant Taehyung picked was big but cozy. It was one huge room that stretched out further than your eyes could see. It was soaked in golden light, soaked in warmth and comfort. Everything was made out of wood, dark rich wood, and it smelled like home-cooked food. The smell wafted through the entire place.
“‘Let’s all have dinner,’ they said, huh?” Taehyung said and looked around, no Yerim or Yoongi in sight. You laughed and shrugged.
“Yeah, sucks that they had to cancel last minute, but next time, we’ll be all together,” you said and skimmed the hard edges of the menu in your hands.
“Yeah, I know, but I thought we’d find the time once you returned,” Taehyung sighed and put down his menu with a frown.
“Definitely sucks,” you agreed and put down your menu as well. “But I’m happy that at least you and I could find the time.”
Taehyung and you smiled at each other and you could still barely believe it, could still barely believe that you were not only back in your hometown, but sitting in front of Taehyung and having dinner with him. It was all very surreal to you, and even though barely half an hour had passed since you had first seen Taehyung again in four years, things felt like they had never changed. There was no awkwardness, no long silences or weird tension between you. Both of you had simply picked up from where you left off.
“Tell me, Y/N, how was America?” Taehyung asked and plopped his elbow onto the table before letting his chin fall into his open palm and tilting his head to the side. You mirrored him and let out a hum, the golden light pouring down both of your faces and bringing out the corners of your features.
Taehyung’s hair had grown out a lot since you had last seen him. In fact, it was permed now. And even though both of you had finished puberty by the time you had left, he seemed to have gotten a little taller. He had somehow grown into his face and turned into one gorgeous man with fluffy and luscious locks.
“Well, exhausting. I was always studying and pulling all-nighters, and it was so hard at times. The homesickness certainly didn’t make it any easier,” Taehyung smiled, “but it was- it was so worth it.”
“That’s great,” he said and you knew he meant it, knew he was genuinely happy for you. You beamed at him. “You really enjoyed it, didn’t you? America, I mean.”
“Yeah, it was- it was great, truly,” you said with a nod and remembered all of the memories you had made over the past four years. “It was really what I needed. Really the time of my life.”
Taehyung’s smile widened into a grin and you let your words sink in, sink in for him and for you as well. It was in the silence that you felt the guilt come back, hit you square in the face and leave you breathless.
You leaned back and grabbed the edge of the table. You lowered your head and Taehyung perked up, feeling the shift the moment it had happened.
“I’m sorry.”
Taehyung raised his brows at you and let his hand fall onto the table as he leaned forward, trying to see what you were apologising for.
“I- I feel bad,” you started up again and tucked a strand behind your ear. “It sounds like I didn’t enjoy being here and-”
“No, Y/N, don’t,” Taehyung reached over the table and grabbed your hand, taking it into his, “There’s no need to apologise. You worked your butt off to win that scholarship and fulfilled your dream. That’s great.”
“Yeah, but I abandoned you guys,” you mumbled and shrugged. You pulled away your hand, but Taehyung was quick to tighten his grasp, quick to put his other hand over yours and squeeze your hand.
“Stop saying that, Y/N,” Taehyung shook his head at you, eyes drilling holes into your head as you continued to stare down at your lap, “You didn’t ‘abandon’ us. That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Taehyung pulled on your hand and waited for you to raise your head, and when you did and met his gaze, he offered you an even bigger grin than before.
“You don’t have to feel bad for going to America to go study,” he said and tilted his head to the side, bangs tickling his eyes. “We were and still are genuinely happy for you.”
“He wasn't.”
Taehyung’s hands tightened around yours at your words, and he pressed his lips into a thin line, giving you a look that had you shifting in your seat and shrugging in defense.
He hadn’t been happy for you at all when you had told him you had won a scholarship to go study in America. You had expected hugs and cheers, but received cold stares and bitter words instead. When the summer had neared its end and you had to leave, he hadn’t been there. Taehyung, Yerim and Yoongi had all hugged and kissed you goodbye, had wished you the best, but he, the person you had wanted to be with you right now the most, had been by your side.
You were eighteen, barely an adult, when you had boarded the plane to America without him kissing your forehead and wishing you the best, and you never forgot that, forgot just how unhappy and miserable you had made him.
“He wasn’t,” you repeated like it excused your words in any way. Taehyung opened his mouth to launch into a speech, a speech you already knew by heart without having heard it a single time.
“Y/N-”
“This place,” you started and pulled your hand away, gesturing around you. “It’s nice.”
Taehyung blinked at you, obviously contemplating whether or not to allow you to change the subject like that, and you were more than glad when he leaned back into his chair and nodded.
“Yeah, it opened recently,” he said with a smile and you smiled right back at him. Both of you shared a look for a moment and after many years of friendship, there was no need for words, no need for you to thank him for letting you off the hook like that.
“It’s so nice,” you repeated and you barely heard Taehyung’s laugh as you let your gaze wander, taking it all in.
Seemingly every table was filled, and everybody was in their own world. You could hear laughter and shrieks in between the conversations, and a smile stretched across your face. Your eyes softened at the sight of loving couples and you ignored the pulling in your chest, ignored the yearning for what they had sitting deep within you.
“I really like it here,” you said and Taehyung stuck out his chest a little. A smirk was painted on his lips and pride was glimmering in his eyes. You chuckled a little and let yourself sink into the chair before your gaze travelled through the room once more.
The restaurant seemed to be frequented by a lot of couples, and you understood why. This place reminded you of the restaurants Jungkook would take you to from time and time again to show you how much he appreciated you, one of those restaurants he had taken you to when he had confessed to you and told you he loved you for the first time.
“This is totally a place for him.”
You said it without meaning to, said it without thinking, and when your eyes locked with Taehyung’s, you both shared a knowing gaze. Panic wanted to flush through your chest—because was Taehyung going to circle back to your previous words?—but then, he smiled at you and nodded.
“Yeah, totally is. It’s his favourite restaurant actually,” Taehyung said and you weren’t surprised. “He dragged all of us out here on opening day.”
“Opening day?”
“Yeah, can you imagine this place on opening day? This place had been hyped up months before its opening. So, it was fucking insane when we got here. He almost got into two fistfights that day,” Taehyung laughed and sighed at the memory.
“The hostess couldn't find his reservation and he insisted that he had made one like months ago. Yeri literally had to talk him down. And when we finally got to our table, he almost fought Yoongs because he said he didn’t like it here,” Taehyung told you and shook his head with a grin plastered on his lips. “Can you believe?”
“Honestly?” You raised your brows and you didn’t answer your question because Taehyung and you exploded into more laughter. “Shit, he hasn’t changed at all, has he?”
“He is dumber now,” Taehyung smiled and scrunched up his nose. “Definitely still an idiot.”
You nodded and this time when you both fell silent, there was no guilt building up inside of you, no coming back to the surface.
“How is he?” you asked and Taehyung puckered his forehead. He tapped the table with his one hand while he ran his other one through his fluffy locks.
“He’s,” Taehyung hesitated and your heart stopped in your chest, but then you saw the smile pulling on the corners of his lips, “good.” Taehyung paused a moment before nodding. “He’s good. Recently finished up his studies and started his first job. He’s enjoying it.”
You smiled.
“That’s great. I’m happy for him.”
You meant it, meant it because he had deserved so much more, deserved better. When you had last seen him, he and you had been wrecks, crying and sobbing and angry messes, and it was great to hear that he wasn’t anymore, great to hear that he was doing better now.
“Is he, you know, uh seeing-” you trailed off as the rest of the question got stuck between your teeth like chewing gum, but Taehyung knew what you wanted to ask. He gave you a look, a look you weren’t sure how to interpret. There seemed to be pity and almost sorry in his eyes.
“Yeah, he is.”
You expected that answer, expected it because someone as amazing and great and funny as he was more than desirable but it still hurt to hear. You couldn’t stop your chest from tightening and your heart from sinking a little deeper inside you, shrinking in itself. You wanted to tell yourself to stop, wanted to tell your heart to not be like that because you had no right to feel like that, had no right when you had been the one leaving him.
He had every right to move on, had every right to forget about you and be happy with someone else. But your heart simply couldn’t help itself from clenching in your chest like you were the one that had been left behind and not him.
“Wait, where are you?”
Taehyung and you snapped your head around when the girl next to you suddenly spoke up, thinking both that she was talking to you. Neither of you had taken notice of her before or looked at her when the hostess had led you two to your table. Until now, she had been typing away on her phone, waiting in silence, but right now, she had her phone pressed against her ear, definitely talking a little too loudly.
“What do you mean you can’t find parking? There’s a huge parking lot right next to the restaurant.”
Taehyung and you locked eyes when it clicked with both of you that she was not talking to you two. You shared knowing looks, remembering the same thing.
“He never found parking either,” Taehyung mumbled and both of you leaned closer to one another, not wanting for the girl to hear that you had eavesdropped on her conversation. Smiles played on your lips and you snickered.
You recalled the many times you had sat in his car and cursed at him for running another red light because you were late, again, because of him, recalled the many times you would sit in a restaurant on your own or in the mall, waiting for him with your phone pressed to your ear as he assured you over and over again that he had planned in time for traffic, but that it was just worse than ever before.
“And he always had his excuses,” you snorted and shook your head. “‘There was a fire, so I had to turn around and take this huge detour.’ I think there was a fire somewhere every other week.”
Taehyung laughed and grinned at you. “Oh, but I think ‘Someone dropped a bunch of mirrors on the road and when I tried to turn around, I couldn’t because there were a bunch of cars, so I had to wait until they cleaned up the road.’ is still my favourite.”
“Ugh, he’s such a drama queen, I swear,” you groaned and leaned back into your chair.
“I have no idea how you dated him for most of high school. Like he’s so exhausting sometimes,” Taehyung mumbled and shook his head.
“Oh, you spent just as much time as I did with him,” you said with a roll of your eyes and Taehyung wiggled his finger at you.
“I didn’t date him though. There’s a difference,” he argued and you dismissed his words with a quick shake of your head before crossing your arms in front of your chest at a certain memory.
“Does he still insist on having his cucumbers diced and not sliced because sliced cucumbers don’t taste as good?”
“Please, don’t remind me. Every time I think about that I want to stop being friends-”
“Wait, where are- oh, I can see you already,” the girl next to you said into her phone and Taehyung and you froze at her interruption. Both of you looked at each other and before either of you could get back to your conversation, you were interrupted once more.
“I’m so sorry, but I swear the traffic was just out of this world today.”
Your eyes grew wide at his voice and your heart plummeted into your stomach when you heard his voice. You recognised it immediately, would have recognised it even if you had been deaf. You could never not recognise it, could never forget his voice. Your heart thumped in your chest, thumped painfully, as you turned your head and your eyes landed on him and his eyes landed on you.
His lips parted the slightest bit as he looked at you, frozen, and he gripped the back of the chair as his brows furrowed together at your sight.
“Y/N?”
Your name slipped off his tongue and confusion etched onto his face. Hearing him say your name sent your heart into a frenzy, had the panic bulldoze you away and your brain short circuit. The world went silent, the conversations all around you faded away and left you in silence with him. Time seemed to stand still as he and you looked at each other, desperately trying to process what was happening right now.
“Jungkook.”
His name felt dry and heavy on your tongue, felt like cement, felt like something you had been wanting to say forever now, but had avoided saying because you knew you had lost the right to say it and therefore had never said it again, until now. Until now when he was standing wide-eyed in front of you.
“Wait, what’s happening right now?”
The question barely registered with you as you continued to stare at Jungkook, continued to stare at the boy that had once meant the world to you, continued to stare at the boy that you once had the right to calling him your boyfriend, continued to stare at the boy that still had your heart in such a tight grip that he managed to send it into a frenzy and have panic pumping through your veins merely with his sight.
Jungkook had changed. Now, he was taller and stood out in this crowded restaurant, towered over every other guest. Jungkook demanded attention from everyone, from you, and you were willing to give it to him because how could you not?
His hair had grown out, was longer now than you had ever seen it before and you wanted to comment on his tattoos when you saw them, juxtaposing his golden and warm skin. From the day you had met Jungkook, he had been talking about all of the tattoos he had wanted to get once he was old enough, and you almost couldn’t believe that he had actually finally gotten some. You wondered if he had to go behind the back of his parents or if they gave him their approval since he was an adult now.
“Uhm, babe?”
It was the word ‘babe’ that had you snapping out of it, that had the world start turning again and the time unfreezing, conversations returning to their original volume. It was the word ‘babe’ that had your eyes tearing away from Jungkook and to the girl sitting next to you instead. Her brows were raised and her gaze was drilling into Jungkook’s as he slowly pulled himself together too.
For the first time, you actually looked at the girl, actually gave her some of your attention. Until now, she had just been the girl sitting at the table next to you, been the girl typing away on her phone, been the girl having a conversation a little too loudly, but now, she was the girl who had waited for Jungkook, was the girl who had called Jungkook ‘babe’.
Now, she was the girl who was seemingly Jungkook’s girlfriend.
Jungkook sank down in his chair, but the confusion never left his face. His eyes stayed on you before his gaze wandered to his left, meeting Taehyung’s. When he locked eyes with him, Jungkook’s whole face dropped once more, eyes growing bigger and wider than they were before.
“Taehyung?” Jungkook almost yelled and drew the attention of some people around you, but none of you could muster up the energy to give them an apologetic smile.
“Hi, Kook,” Taehyung managed to cough out and filled the awkwardness and silence with it. Jungkook crashed against the back of his chair with a thud as he gazed into nothing, brain desperately trying to process this.
Taehyung and you exchanged glances, both of you not knowing what to do or to say. This wasn’t what either of you had prepared for. Both of you had only signed up to have a nice dinner and catch up while tiptoeing around the topic of Jungkook and you. You knew you were going to see him again because he was still friends with Taehyung, Yerim and Yoongi and so were you, but you just hadn’t thought that you were going to see him today.
“Okay, uhm, babe, could you please explain to me what’s going on right now?”
For the first time since he had arrived, Jungkook looked at the girl who was most definitely his girlfriend. His eyes were still wide when they met hers and there was a strained smile on her lips as she drilled her gaze into him, demanding some sort of answer from him, but he couldn’t deliver. He opened his mouth, but his throat felt scratchy and dry and so, he could only stare into nothing again.
“I- I need some water,” Jungkook managed to blurt out, reaching across the table to grab her glass of water and gulping it down like he hadn’t drunk something in years. He devoured it in seconds and stared at it with big eyes, mentally cursing at it for not holding more water for him to gulp down.
Jungkook put down the glass, but he didn’t let go of it and instead held it, tightening his grip around it until his knuckles turned white.
“Okay, uh,” Jungkook started and massaged his temple as he screwed his eyes shut, fighting off the headache that made him think his skull was going to split open.
“Uh, so,” Jungkook sighed and puckered his forehead before peeling his eyes open and gesturing towards Taehyung. “This is, uh, Taehyung. I- I’ve told you about him, babe, right?”
“Yeah, oh,” the girl next to you perked up and turned her gaze to Taehyung, offering him a genuine albeit tense smile. You couldn’t blame her, this was still very awkward.
“Yes, Taehyung. Hi! I’ve heard so much about you. I’ve been dying to meet you.” Taehyung forced a smile on his lips and it looked genuine, but having known him for so long, you could spot the difference right away.
“I’m Heejin.”
Heejin.
A pretty name for an even prettier girl. It suited her, suited her to have such a beautiful sounding name. Of course, she did and you almost scoffed, scoffed because your name paled in comparison to hers. Hers had a pleasant ring to it, but yours just sounded off and wrong now.
“Heejin, yeah, I’ve heard of you too.” Taehyung nodded and extended his hand. She took it and they both shook hands for a moment before she turned to you, her smile still tense, but the genuineness shimmered through.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I know-” Heejin trailed off and looked over to Jungkook for help, but he had his eyes locked with yours. And with that simple look, you knew.
He hadn’t told Heejin about you.
And judging from the way he was slightly shaking his head, he wasn’t planning on doing so just now. Taehyung and you understood immediately, but it had another dose of panic rushing through both of you.
“I’m Y/N,” you offered and extended your hand to Heejin like Taehyung had because this was the polite thing to do, the right thing to do, and for once in your life, you had to do the right thing regarding Jungkook.
“Hi, Y/N. Heejin,” she smiled, taking your hand into her perfectly soft one, and you made sure to smile at her too as you shook her hand. You smiled at her as much as one could smile at your ex’s current girlfriend. “It’s nice to meet you.”
No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t nice to meet Heejin, wasn’t nice at all. You wanted to shout it into her face, tell her you already hated her for simply existing and taking your place in Jungkook’s life and heart, but you swallowed all of the bitter and petty words, swallowed your anger aimed at her that was truly only anger at yourself, and nodded.
“Yeah, really nice to meet you, Heejin,” you said and let go of her hand, eyes turning to Taehyung instinctively. He offered you a smile, a smile that had your heart calming down a little, but then your eyes wandered to Jungkook and it sped up again. He sat up straighter and cleared his throat.
“Heejin, here- she’s, uh-” Jungkook stammered and the rest of his sentence refused to come out, leaving him with his mouth open and staring back at you.
“I’m his girlfriend,” Heejin finished with a smile and Jungkook and you locked eyes. It almost looked like he wanted to correct her with the way he sat up, with the way his back straightened out, but he didn’t. He didn’t correct Heejin because there was nothing to correct. And you knew that.
“Yeah, exactly, right,” Jungkook confirmed with a quiet voice and a nod. You tore your gaze away and looked around, looked around the room and stared at anything as long as it meant that you didn’t have to look at him, see him sitting across the girl who was his girlfriend.
You couldn’t bear the sight, couldn’t bear it to see Jungkook here with his girlfriend. You weren’t prepared for this, but you didn’t think that anything could have prepared you for this, for this bitter reality anyway.
“And, so, how do you all-” Heejin didn’t finish her sentence and gestured between all three of you instead. You shared a glance with Taehyung, asking him to say something because you couldn’t right now, couldn’t bring yourself to explain how you all knew each other.
“Uh, well, we all went to high school together. We were all friends back then,” Taehyung said and shifted in his chair to cover up the pitchiness of his voice. Heejin nodded at his words and looked between you all three once more before gesturing at all three of you again.
“Oh, okay, but why was Kook so shocked-”
“Well, it’s been a while since Kook and Y/N have seen each other, right?” Taehyung smiled and you could see the trembling corners of his lips. You nodded in confirmation because Jungkook was still somewhat stuck processing all of this.
“How come?”
“Well, I, uh,” you rubbed the back of your neck, “I moved away for college.”
You did. It wasn’t a lie, but it was also not the whole truth either because you moved to America and not to some neighbouring city that was half an hour away. Jungkook raised his brows at you and pursed his lips together, but you refused to look back at him, focusing instead on keeping the smile on your face for Heejin.
“Yeah, it was surprising for Kook to see Y/N, huh?” Taehyung asked and put his hand on his shoulder, and Jungkook looked at him before humming in confirmation and forcing a smile onto his lips.
“Surprising, for sure. Shocking, too.”
You folded your arms in front of your stomach and bit on your lip, trying to ignore the thudding of your heart ringing in your ears.
“Oh, so, this is like you guys reconnecting again?” Heejin asked and you begged her to stop asking any more questions, to stop trying to understand this because, fuck, this was only going to end badly. The truth was ugly and terrible and you didn’t want to face it, didn’t want to look it into the eye, couldn’t face it and look at it, at least not yet.
As much as you wanted to open your mouth and swiftly change the topic, the words were stuck to your tongue like gum stuck to the sole of a shoe. It was helpless.
“Wait, but why wasn’t Kook invited-”
“Well, actually, this isn’t us reconnecting again,” Taehyung interrupted and you turned your head to him. He placed his hand on the table and beckoned for yours, and too confused to use your own brain, you just put your hands into Taehyung’s. Bad decision as it turns out.
“This is actually a date.”
You almost pulled away your hand, but Taehyung was quick to hold onto it and tighten his grasp. Your heart was now beating out of your chest and you were sure everybody could hear it, were sure it was louder than the whole room.
“Y/N and I are dating.”
This time, you didn’t try to pull away your hand. This time, you actually did the opposite and tightened it. In fact, you tightened it so much that your knuckles turned white and Taehyung had to hold his breath to stop the groan from slipping.
“Right, yeah, boy and girlfriend. Super duper in love,” you croaked out with a tight smile before lowering your gaze. What else could you say?
Jungkook drilled his eyes into your face. You could feel the holes he was staring into you right now, but you refused to look at him, refused to spare him a glance and possibly see his reaction to the revelation that Taehyung and you were supposedly dating.
Even if it was a lie, an obvious lie, a lie that only needed to be told because Jungkook hadn’t told Heejin about you yet, it still knocked the breath out of Jungkook and had him bending over, still had his face etching into something else, into something unreadable.
“Wait, oh my God,” Heejin squeaked and her hand found her mouth as it split apart into a grin, covering it as her eyes flickered between Taehyung and you. “This is a date? Then-”
Heejin turned to Jungkook with the most excited smile on her lips before whipping her head back to Taehyung and you.
“This is totally a double date then!”
The shock didn’t wear off for another five seconds, but when it did, you offered Heejin the most convincing smile you could muster up. Taehyung put his hand on yours when you tightened it around his other one a little too much, but you didn’t let go.
There was no way out, no revealing this was all a lie anymore and he was to blame. He was the one that had started it and dragged you along.
“I guess,” you said through a tight smile.
The scruffing and scraping of Jungkook’s chair against the hardwood floor when he got up rang loud, painfully loud in your ears and you cringed. He held up the glass of water and only looked at Heejin, but somehow you knew his words were meant to shoot through your heart.
“I’m gonna get you some water, babe.”
There was just something about the summer evening air that always managed to relax you, managed to calm you down and ground you again.
The warm breeze blew through your hair and filled your lungs with much-needed oxygen, oxygen you had been craving for since you had first seen Jungkook again. He had taken your breath away, stolen it and left you dealing with the agony and pain with finding it again as you desperately tried not to suffocate.
The last hour had flown by you, had passed you in a blur. As much as you tried to, you couldn’t recall what you had talked about, couldn’t even recall what you had ordered and what your dish had tasted like. Everything was so hazy. The only thing you knew for sure was that it had taken Jungkook far too long to fill up a glass of water and that when he had finally returned, there was a glass of water in his one hand and a glass of whiskey in his other one.
At one point, you had gotten up with an excuse of needing to make a call and before anyone could protest, you had fled out of the restaurant. You did contemplate taking a cab and going home, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to unlock your phone—not to mention, leave without a word.
Going inside was just as difficult though, so you stayed outside, and simply let the view dawn on you. Because a restaurant like this, of course, had to be located on a small hill that overlooked the city, had to have the most gorgeous view.
Your hometown wasn’t magical, wasn’t pretty at all, but with the sun slowly dipping below the horizon, the warm sunshine turned the cracked streets into golden rivers and the lines and lines of cars waiting at the red lights into boats. The street lamps decorating the cracked streets resembled fireflies, buzzing and bright.
For a moment, you forgot, forgot about the world around you, forgot about the tension poisoning the air inside the restaurant and making every breath more and more unbearable and deadly, forgot about the web of lies you were slowly sinking into, forgot about the aching of your heart every time you looked at Jungkook.
For a moment, you forgot that Jungkook and you weren’t dating anymore.
“You’re dating Tae now?”
You jerked around at the question, eyes finding him instinctively. Your breath hitched in your throat and you opened your mouth to answer, but no sound would escape you.
Jungkook stood there, a few metres away from you, with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted to the side, and, God, was he just gorgeous, so breathtakingly gorgeous, beautiful, pretty.
Even though his tone was light and almost playful, his face was hard. Jungkook looked at you for another moment before his gaze wandered to the view in front of him. His eyes were cold, cold enough to turn the golden rivers into ice, cold enough to freeze the boats, cold enough to kill the fireflies.
“You know I’m not. He just panicked. Tae’s always been a shit liar,” you chuckled, trying to lighten the situation and cut down on some of the tension, unfreeze the world, but you fell short and failed miserably. Jungkook let a smile pull on the corners of his lips, but it was gone within a second.
You were frozen when he started closing the distance between you two. When he finally stopped next to you, there was a noticeable gap between you, a gap big enough to have your heart wrenching and twisting in your chest.
Fuck, this was what Jungkook and you had become, huh? Two people that couldn’t even stand close enough to each other without that awkward and horrible gap between you.
There used to be a time when there was no gap, no space, used to be a time when you were always in each other’s arms, used to be a time when the air wasn’t cold and the world frozen. But there also used to be a time where you two could only smile and grin at the other, used to be a time where there were no hardened faces and cold gazes.
There used to be a time that was just Jungkook and you together.
“Yeah, that’s a fucking mess,” Jungkook laughed humorlessly and you didn’t join him, didn’t try to. “How are we gonna fix that?”
“I don’t think we need to,” you said with a frown and turned to him for a moment, but he didn’t reciprocate your gaze. You got the message and turned to face the city again, looking out like you hadn’t been doing that for the past minutes.
“I doubt we’re gonna see each other again, right? I mean-” you trailed off and shrugged, rocking on the balls of your feet as you struggled to finish your sentence.
“I mean, I would like to if that was okay and fine with you, if you’re ready for that, but I understand if you’re not.”
Jungkook turned to you, blinking at you for a second before ultimately turning away and looking out again.
“Yeah, no, you’re right,” he chuckled dryly and you thought you could even hear a scoff. “Are you going back? Leaving to continue your adventure? Is this just a pit stop before you’re off to continue your adventure?”
The words stung, cut into you and your heart clenched at them. A cold breeze blew through you, gutted you, and you were left shivering and with goosebumps covering your entire body. Your throat knotted into a mess, and you wanted to look at Jungkook, see his expression, but you trained your gaze on your frozen hometown, trained your gaze on it like it didn’t shatter your heart to see it like that.
Jungkook had every right, every right to be bitter and cold, but it didn’t mean it hurt you any less for him to treat you like that, treat you like you hadn’t been each other’s worlds at one point of your life.
“No.” You shook your head, desperately trying to rid your voice of its trembling. “I- I’m staying.”
Jungkook didn’t say anything, didn’t respond, didn’t even react in the slightest way. You thought maybe he hadn’t heard you, but when you dared to peek at him, you saw the way the lines of his face had deepened. He had heard you, loud and clear.
You both drowned in the silence, sank into it, deeper and deeper with each second, and you crossed your arms in front of your chest, tightening with each passing moment.
“Did you stay in touch with the others? Yoongs? Yeri?”
You shifted on your feet and tucked a strand behind your ear. “No- I mean, we tried, but after like a year or two, we slowly lost contact with each other. We did check on each other every couple months and texted every now and then, but we- we did definitely drift apart.”
“I guess then they were meant to come too, right? Tonight?”
“Yeah, they were, but they had to drop out last minute. We, uh, always said we were gonna have dinner once I returned,” you mumbled and Jungkook hummed at that, nodding a little. Both of you stayed silent for a while, and even though you wanted to say something, cut into the silence because it allowed you to think and right now, you didn’t want to think, you couldn’t come up with anything to say.
“How long have you been back?”
Your gaze wandered to your feet and you kicked the dirt a little, digging into it with the tip of your shoe.
“Uh, I got back a little over a week ago,” you whispered into the air and tightened your arms around your chest. Jungkook nodded, but he didn’t look at you.
“Why are you back?” Jungkook asked and when you struggled to answer his question, he scoffed. Your silence was telling, said more than you ever could.
“You came back for a job, didn’t you?”
You didn’t reply, didn’t tell him you hadn’t come back just for a job, but because you had missed home, had missed your family, had missed Taehyung, Yerim, Yoongi and more importantly, had terribly missed him. You had missed everything and everyone here so much you couldn’t even put it into words, but you said none of that, didn’t correct Jungkook.
The wind blew through your hair and the once warm breeze that had filled your lungs with the oxygen you so desperately needed filled your lungs now with sharp and piercing icicles this time. You hugged yourself more, tighter. You tried to warm yourself up, but no amount of hugging yourself was enough to melt the ice in your lungs.
“What are you, uh, doing out here?” you asked and turned a little to Jungkook, eyeing him with a raised brow, but he didn’t reciprocate your gaze this time either.
“Heejin’s cold,” Jungkook answered after a beat of silence, brows knitting together as he kept his focus in front of him. “I’ve got a jacket in my car.”
You hummed and a small smile made its way onto your lips. You totally got it. You were cold too, freezing, in fact, but there was no jacket for you, no Jungkook running out for you to get it and warm you up.
“You still got a whole closet in the back of your car, don’t you?” you asked with a slight smile, trying to lighten the mood, but when you turned to Jungkook, your smile fell off.
Instead of flushing red in embarrassment or laughing because of how well you still knew him after all these years, Jungkook stared into your eyes, harsh lines etched onto his face. It wasn’t the kind of stare that had your heart thumping and your throat constricting and kaleidoscopes of butterflies in your stomach flying. No, it was a piercing kind of stare, the kind that had your breath hitching in your throat in the worst way possible and your heart sinking into your stomach.
“Don’t.”
The message was loud and clear, delivered with one simple word, but it was enough, enough for it to click in your mind. You didn’t try to catch your heart as it sank deeper and deeper inside you, as it sank down to the ground and came closer and closer to shattering into tiny little pieces that would take you ages to glue together again.
You opened your mouth to say something, but your tongue was a mess in it and the words sat deep in your stomach. It took you two more tries, two more times of you opening and closing your mouth for you to finally unknot your tongue and drag the words to the surface.
“You haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
You worded it like a question, but you knew the answer. It was written all across Jungkook’s face, surrounding him the moment you and he had locked eyes, spilling from his mouth every time he opened it.
Jungkook’s lips tightened into a hard line and his jaw locked up as he eyed you before ripping his gaze away to stare off into the sky and scoff quietly into the air. His hands balled up into fists at his side and his Adam’s apple bopped up and down as he desperately tried to keep his composure.
You had seen all of this before, had watched him try and fail not to punch the air and let his anger out. Jungkook had done the exact same thing, had made the same face after you had told him you were going to America.
You expected him to blow up in your face, to explode, to burst at all of his seams and rip apart and scream, yell, curse at you because that was what he had done, what he had done the last time, but to your surprise, Jungkook didn’t, didn’t do any of the things you had expected him to.
“Fours years,” Jungkook scoffed, holding up four fingers like you didn’t know just how much four was. “We dated for almost four fucking years.”
You bit on your tongue, heart tumbling and rumbling in your chest like it was about to burst out and fall to her knees and beg for Jungkook’s forgiveness.
“And you left,” Jungkook continued, anger dripping from his words, but his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “Just like that.”
He snapped his finger and you cringed at the sound. It rang in your ears, pierced through your eardrums.
“Remember our promise?” Jungkook asked you and you could hear his voice wavering and shaking. “Remember our promise of forever?”
You wanted to tell him that you did, that, of course, you fucking remembered your promise of forever. It had haunted you, kept you awake every night, eaten you up and chewed you out every morning and kicked you to the floor every time it slipped your mind the tiniest bit.
“You know how people say that you always learn something from a relationship?” Jungkook asked you and you wanted to beg him not to, not to continue. You couldn’t handle this, couldn’t handle this much longer and you weren’t sure just how long you could keep it together.
“The only thing you taught me was that people are selfish.”
You were sure that you were drawing blood from your tongue now, were sure that your heart was on her knees now and begging, begging for Jungkook to just please forgive her. You thought that was it, thought he was going to scoff at you and walk away, but Jungkook wasn’t quite done.
“I really do hope that you’re right and we won’t see each other again after this.”
If you thought that Jungkook’s eyes were cold before, they were icy and freezing now. They were icy and freezing enough to bring in the new ice age, icy and freezing enough to stop time. Your lungs were shredded by the icicles, ripped apart by them like they were paper, and your heart shattered on the frozen ground, turning into dust before ultimately being dragged away by the wind and into Jungkook’s hands. And he crushed it, crushed the tiny pieces of your heart into powder.
There was no repairing anymore, no glueing the pieces together because there was nothing to repair or glue together or fix in any way or form.
Jungkook didn’t say another word, didn’t spare you a single glance when he turned on his heel and walked away, walked away with your pulverised heart on the ground and your world cold and frozen. The golden rivers didn’t burst through the ice, the boats didn’t unfreeze and start sailing again, the fireflies didn’t come back to life.
It stayed, lingered.
Your world took its time to come back, and you watched it, watched it slowly resemble what it once had been before Jungkook. When you looked at it, however, it wasn’t quite the same. The golden rivers weren’t rivers, but only weak streams, and the boats had shrunk into simple rafts. The fireflies were only humming now, barely illuminating their surroundings.
And this time, when you looked down, you didn’t forget, didn’t forget about the world around you, didn’t forget about the aching of your heart every time you looked at Jungkook.
This time, you didn’t forget that Jungkook and you weren’t dating anymore.
This time, you almost suffocated.
By the time you had reached your table, you slumped into your chair, falling into it with wobbly knees, defeated and panting. Taehyung and Heejin were too wrapped up in a conversation to really take notice and Jungkook, well, Jungkook did the thing he had grown to excel this evening, staring into nothing.
There was a jacket around Heejin’s shoulders, hugging her form and it took you one single glance to know. One glance was enough to prompt you to reach for your glass of wine and down it. The wine burned your tongue and your throat on its way down, and it was what you needed.
Because the jacket wasn’t just any jacket. It was the jacket you had bought for Jungkook with the money you had gotten for your 17th birthday, was the jacket he had called his favourite, was the jacket you had worn as much as he had, was the jacket both of you had used as a blanket when you had held a film marathon the day before school started again, was the jacket you had worn when you had told him you were going and he had demanded back from you.
And now, Heejin was wearing that jacket.
“You okay, sweetie?”
You looked up and stared straight into Taehyung’s face. His brows were raised and you could feel Heejin’s eyes on you too. And you almost frowned at him and questioned the ‘sweetie’, but then it hit you again. You were dating Taehyung.
“Yeah, uh, I just had a shitty phone call,” you dismissed quickly with a wave of your hand, realising that you definitely shouldn’t have one-shotted your wine like that. “It’s fine. I’m just a little tired from talking.”
Heejin nodded at your words and seemed happy with the answer, but Taehyung’s eyes stayed on you for a few more seconds. He could read between the lines, could piece together what had happened outside.
“What were you talking about?” you asked, gaze finding Heejin because looking at her was easier than looking at Taehyung.
“Oh,” Heejin placed her hands on your armrest and a frown settled on her face, “we were talking about films. Did you know that Taehyung has never watched ‘Titanic’ before?”
Your eyes wandered to Taehyung who had put on a smile and was shaking his head at Heejin’s words, but you could see that he wanted to question you, ask you what had happened outside.
“You haven’t?” you asked, trying to change the subject from you to him.
“The only film I haven’t watched yet.”
“Can you believe?” Heejin said it like it was a big deal and to her, it seemed to be. Her mouth was slightly agape and her eyes were blown out as she looked at you, obviously expecting for you to react the same way, thinking you were going to be as appalled as she was by the fact that Taehyung had yet to watch ‘Titanic’.
Maybe if you were in a better mood or maybe if Jungkook wasn’t sitting literally an arm’s reach from you or maybe if Heejin wasn’t his current girlfriend right now, you would play along, act appalled and criticise Taehyung for never having watched ‘Titanic’, call him a film illiterate even though you haven’t watched it yourself yet.
“I mean, I’ve also never-”
“Do not finish that sentence, Y/N,” Heejin cut in and while everything was in good fun, you couldn’t help but feel miffed and weirded out by her words. You two didn’t know each other and acting like you did was, well, weird to say the least.
But Heejin didn’t pick up on your tightening smile and slight raise of your brows, too busy acting appalled to notice any of that.
“Okay, that’s it. It’s decided.” Heejin clapped into her hands and looked at Jungkook to grab his attention. “I’m hosting a film night at my place next week. I can’t walk this Earth knowing that you two have never seen the masterpiece that is ‘Titanic’. It’s a must, a cult classic.”
Your eyes locked with Taehyung’s first and he had the same panicked look on his face before he turned to Jungkook, but you avoided his general direction, not wanting to look at him.
“Wait, no, babe, you can’t just host a film night,” Jungkook jumped to argue with Heejin and you swallowed.
“I really do hope you’re right and we won’t see each other again after this.”
“Why not?” Heejin asked with a tilt of her head and blinked at Jungkook as he stammered for a reason.
“Because- you just can’t. That’s not how this works.” A deep line formed between Jungkook’s brows and Heejin as she frowned at his unconvincing argument.
“What do you mean it’s not how this works? If you wanna host a film night, you ask people if they are down for it and host it. I just did that.”
Taehyung and you looked at each other, both deciding to stay silent. Not only was this the most that Jungkook had contributed to this ‘double date’ so far (without counting your conversation you had had with him outside, of course), but it didn’t seem like either of your places to chime in.
“No, babe, you announced you were going to have a film night and essentially demanded them to be there,” Jungkook said and Taehyung and you shared another glance. Heejin furrowed her brows and a pout formed on her lips. She wasn’t taking this nearly as serious as Jungkook was, but it seemed to dawn on her that he was.
“I don’t see where the problem is, babe. I thought you guys were all friends. Isn’t a film night a great way to reconnect then?”
Jungkook opened his mouth to argue against her, but he couldn’t come up with something to say. He wanted to tell Heejin that reconnecting with you was at the bottom of his list of things he wanted to do right now, wanted to tell her that you weren’t just an old friend of his, but his first love, the girl who had meant the world to him for years, the girl who had taken his heart and kept it before deciding it and he simply weren’t enough and shattering his heart, breaking it into dust and leaving him having to pick up the pieces again.
You were the girl who had haunted him every hour of the day ever since you had left.
“Isn’t it great that we found a couple that’s cool and our age? We can do so much stuff together. Also, Taehyung did say you were all friends once, right? And Taehyung here is still your friend. I really don’t see the problem here. Am I missing something?”
And again, Jungkook was left processing Heejin’s words, prompting Taehyung to jump in.
“Yeah, no, we were friends and, yeah, Kook and I still are friends.” A nervous smile played on his lips as Taehyung shot you a glance, a glance you could barely meet. There was a moment where Heejin was just waiting for any of you to say something, a moment where neither Jungkook nor you met his gaze. It was at that moment that Taehyung made the decision.
“Next week you said?”
By the time you finally step out of the restaurant, the sun had made its way back home and fallen asleep, leaving the golden stream and rafts and fireflies to the moon.
“Y/N!” You turned around at the call of your name and watched Heejin jogging towards you, hands reaching for your wrists. “Next week, right? Promise me. Next week.”
She smiled right into your face, smiled one of those genuine and big and beautiful smiles, one of those smiles that could charm anybody, and that included you.
“Yeah, next week,” you said and nodded. Heejin’s hands squeezed your wrists and her lips split apart into a grin. With a quick turn of her heel, she was facing Jungkook, who had come to a stop behind her with Taehyung to his left.
“Oh, it’s gonna be great,” she cheered and took hold of Jungkook’s hands now, squeezing as she jumped around him. The displeased look, which had etched onto his face when Heejin had declared this to be a double date and deepened when Taehyung agreed to the film night, slipped away.
Jungkook couldn’t resist her, couldn’t resist Heejin and for the first time in four years, you saw a smile spread across his lips.
Fuck.
“This was great,” Taehyung cut in before Jungkook could lean in for a quick kiss because he always did, always leaned in for a quick kiss whenever his heart pounded a little too much in his chest, and it definitely did, definitely did pound a little too much just now.
Jungkook and Heejin looked at Taehyung and once again, you froze up when he took your hand into his. The fact that you two were dating slipped your mind again and again throughout the night.
“Yeah, definitely was,” Heejin agreed and interlaced her fingers with Jungkook’s, but unlike with Taehyung and you, it was normal for them to hold hands, second nature. “Right?”
She nudged Jungkook with her elbow and he looked at Heejin, looked at her like he wanted to disagree. Maybe it was because it was rude to disagree and say that one hated the night or maybe it was because Jungkook’s heart melted in his chest seeing Heejin looking at him like that, but a second smile found its way onto Jungkook’s lips.
“Sure was.”
Jungkook said it looking at Heejin, gazing into her sparkling eyes, and you wanted to look away, but you couldn’t, couldn’t because they were like a car accident, but the most beautiful and at the same time, ugliest and most painful car accident this world had ever seen.
Heejin and Jungkook were in love, in love with each other.
“Right, definitely,” Taehyung cut in, breaking up Heejin and Jungkook as he drew everybody’s attention to him. You squeezed his hand a little tighter.
“We’ll text, yeah?” Taehyung continued and Heejin nodded at his words, beaming as she let go of Jungkook’s hand. You wanted to grab her by her shoulders and tell her not to, not to ever let Jungkook go, but then you realised that she wasn’t actually letting go of him, wasn’t letting go of him the way you had let go of him.
Heejin stretched out her arms and wrapped Taehyung into a hug, a hug he reciprocated without letting go of your hand, which led to you kind of hugging Heejin too.
“Goodbye, Tae. It was so nice to have met you,” she said into his ear before turning to you and wrapping you into her arms. “So, so nice to have met you, too, Y/N.”
You also didn’t let go of Taehyung’s hand and neither did he when Jungkook leaned in for the hug.
“Yeah, nice to have met you, too,” you breathed out, quiet, but it was enough for Heejin to pat you on your back and let go.
“We’ll text,” Heejin said as she stepped back to make space for Jungkook to hug you. He and you locked eyes, both knowing exactly what Heejin was expecting of you two.
There was this terrible moment of hesitance, and you were ready to throw up a hand and give Jungkook a simple wave, but he leaned forward and stretched out one arm. You leaned forward too with your feet planted metres away from him, which led to a rather awkward half-hug thing, but it was definitely more than both of you could offer, more than anyone could really ask for.
Jungkook patted your back two times, and you frowned because who patted someone’s back twice and only twice? The ‘hug’ didn’t last longer than a second before both of you jumped away from each other.
“That was so awkward,” Heejin chortled and threw her head back, loud and beautiful laughter resounding in the air. Jungkook’s cheeks did what they should have done when you had commented on how he had a whole closet in the back of his car: flush.
“Whatever. We’re old friends, remember?” Jungkook argued and it was definitely the sight of Heejin laughing that had him do what he, again, should have done when you had commented on how he had a whole closet in the back of his car: laugh.
“Anyway, we’ll see each other,” Jungkook mumbled into your general direction before taking Heejin’s hand into his and leading her away from you two, throwing up his hand for a wave. Heejin beamed at Taehyung and you and you mustered up the best and most convincing smile for the last time this night.
“Bye. We’ll be in touch.”
“Bye.”
You didn’t say ‘bye’, too focused on the way Jungkook fixed the jacket that was slipping off Heejin’s shoulders, and when it almost landed in the dirt, your heart dropped. You wanted to catch it, take it and hold it close to your heart because that was your jacket. Jungkook caught it though just in time and you let out a breath.
“Really squeezing my hand here, huh?” Taehyung pressed through his smile and you looked down at your hands, realising only now that your knuckles had turned white. Immediately, you let go.
“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, face flushing hot. Taehyung simply dismissed it with a smile, but you could see him lightly knead his hand, stretching it to get the blood circulating again.
“It’s fine.” Taehyung tilted his head at you. “I guess you don’t have a car yet, right?” You were about to respond, but he didn’t give you enough time. “I can give you a ride.”
“Yeah, that would be great.” You nodded and Taehyung and you made your way to the parking lot. He held the car door open for you and when you were both strapped into your seats, you turned to him. “You didn’t have anything to drink, right?”
“Nope, been sipping on my water the whole night,” he chuckled as he put the keys into the ignition, slowly pulling out of the parking lot. You nodded and sank a little into the seat. The tension that had been sitting in your shoulders and in every single one of your joints slowly escaped you and you let out a sigh.
You typed your address into Taehyung’s phone, Google Maps doing the rest, and for a few minutes, both of you simply drove in silence, enjoyed it. The night had been hard on both of you, and you two were definitely ready to jump into your beds and go to sleep. The silence was exactly what you needed right now, at least you thought that was what you both needed.
“What happened outside?”
You should have expected him to ask because, of course, he would, but it still had you turning your head to him and eyes growing wide. Taehyung met your gaze and you put your hands together in your lap, thumbs rubbing against one another.
“Well,” your feet pressed into the ground, “he, uh, asked me if I was gonna stay here and if we all kept in touch. And,” your voice quivered only the tiniest bit, but Taehyung noticed, “how long I’ve been back and everything.”
You shrugged. “The basic things, you know. Nothing special.”
Taehyung hummed and his brows furrowed together with his lips pulled into a thin line. He was clearly not believing you completely, not buying what you were selling him. You pressed harder against the ground, begging for it to give in and let you sink into a hole.
“Anything else?”
Lying was stupid, lying to Taehyung was even stupider, but you seemed to like to be stupid today.
“Nope.” You said the last syllable with a pop and it had Taehyung’s frown deepening and his gaze digging into you when you two stopped at a red light.
“Y/N.” A sigh followed and you lowered your gaze before shaking your head as your teeth sank into your tongue.
“Fine,” you breathed out and slammed back, head hitting your seat definitely too hard. “We- well, he-”
Taehyung turned to you, but you stared out the window, realising that you were almost at home now. His eyes dug into your face and you sighed, thinking of a way to word all of this.
“We- technically, we didn’t talk much at all. At least I didn’t,” you started again and took your time to get it all together. “But- he did say that he,” a heavy sigh slipped past your lips and you gnawed on your tongue before deciding to just say it, “learned from our relationship that people are selfish and that he hoped he would never have to see me again after this.”
Taehyung was stunned, stunned silent and you wished he would say something, react in some way. The tension came rising back, stretching every one of your joints to the point it hurt.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Taehyung muttered underneath his breath and when you turned to him, there was anger etched onto every line of his face. It was burning in his eyes and it had you quickly jump to Jungkook’s defense.
“No- it’s fine. I get-”
“No, Y/N, it’s not fucking fine,” Taehyung interrupted and to your dismay, you had reached your front door. He parked rather smoothly and when you came to a stop, Taehyung turned to you.
“Don’t say it’s fine because we both know it’s not,” Taehyung said and you didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s rude, unnecessarily rude. I get it. He’s pissed and you hurt him and whatever, but it’s been four fucking years. And he’s literally the one that broke up with you-”
“Well, I was leaving for America-”
“But you wanted to try, right? You didn’t want to break up, right?” Taehyung asked and you didn’t say anything. “See! You wanted to try, but he refused. Don’t even get me started on the fact that he didn’t say goodbye to you at all. You go to America and he doesn’t even bother to show up at the airport after dating you for almost four years, not to mention text you or call you on the day to wish you well? I haven’t forgotten that bullshit yet.”
You pressed your lips into a thin line and lowered your gaze.
Taehyung sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I still love him. He’s my friend after all, and it’s not like I don’t get it why he’s mad. I do, in a way, and not because I ‘hate’,” Taehyung made air quotes around the word hate, “you for going or anything, but because it was surprising. But still saying shit like that is not okay.”
“It’s fine,” you tried again, but your words seem to have the fire in Taehyung growing because he shook his head vigorously.
“Stop saying that! It’s not.” Taehyung paused, taking a moment to breathe. “It’s definitely not. He’s so-” Taehyung threw up his hands and pressed his lips into a hard line, words failing him as his anger consumed him more and more.
“We all thought he was over it.”
“He isn’t,” you mumbled and Taehyung ‘duh’s your answer, realising himself that Jungkook was far, very far from getting over you leaving, not to mention forgive you in any shape or form.
Both of you sat in silence for a while and your fingers itched for the door handle. You hated this, hated this because Taehyung didn’t get that you were fine, didn’t get that you were fine with the way Jungkook treated you because you had fucked up and now, these were the consequences.
“You don’t have to do this.”
You kept staring out of the window, kept staring like you couldn’t feel Taehyung’s eyes dig into your profile and demand for you to look at him, kept staring like you couldn’t hear him.
“There’s no one forcing you to go next week. You could just simply-”
“I know,” you said and sighed. You leaned forward and covered your eyes, pressing on them slightly as you thought of everything that had happened today, thought of every little interaction you had shared with Jungkook.
“I know,” you muttered before looking up and turning your gaze to Taehyung, cheek falling into your open palm. “I know.”
Taehyung and you looked at each other for a few seconds.
“You’re still gonna go, huh?”
You sat up straight and unbuckled your seatbelt, arms stretching out to pull Taehyung into a hug. He reciprocated it and you tightened your arms around him a little more than you usually would, chin resting on his shoulder.
“You’re still great, Tae.”
Taehyung chuckled and patted your back, sinking deeper into the hug. You were the one to pull away, but you rested your hands on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eye.
“No, really,” you smiled and squeezed his shoulders. “You’re really great, Taehyung.”
Slightly embarrassed by your words, Taehyung looked down at his hands.
“You’re stupid, Y/N.”
You laughed.
When you came out of the shower that night and checked your phone, a frown etched onto your face.
[You’ve been added to the “DD” group chat]
[Unknown Number - 11:24 PM] : hi! it’s heejin here and I just wanted to ask if next saturday works for everyone!!
[Unknown Number sent in location]
[Unknown Number - 11:24 PM] : my address!
[tae - 11:27 PM] : uh DD?
[Unknown Number - 11:27 PM] : double date. couldnt think of anything else realy
[tae - 11:27 PM] : okay lol but yeah should work
[Unknown Number - 11:32 PM] : yeah, think I can make it too
[Unknown Number - 11:32 PM] : okay, great! only gotta wait for y/n’s answer now
[tae - 11:32 PM] : wouldnt expect an answer any time soon lmao shes too stupid to text
[You - 11:48 PM] : you take a shower once and immediately people talk shit about you :))
[You - 11:48 PM] : but should work for me too
[tae - 11:48 PM] : love you too sweetie! and goodnight!!
[You - 11:48 PM] : :))))
When you went to save Heejin’s number, you got distracted by her profile picture. She was smiling right into the camera, smiling the same smile she had smiled at you. It was almost scary how genuine her smile looked even through a simple picture. No one smiled like Heejin.
Her number was saved rather quickly, but when you went and clicked on Jungkook’s number, you were, once again, distracted by his profile picture. You should have expected it for Jungkook to have Heejin and him together as his profile picture, but it still shocked and surprised you, had your lips pressing into a hard line.
Jungkook had his arm around Heejin and she was looking at him, mid-laugh There was a proud smirk on his lips, that proud smirk he got whenever he managed to make someone laugh. Both looked at each other and the sun brought out both of their eyes, brought out the love in them. You could practically see it glimmering in their pupils.
Your heart tumbled in your chest, tumbled in the most painful way possible, but you ignored it, ignored it because what else were you going to do? Complain? You had no right to.
And as you let your phone slip into your pocket, a certain thought planted itself into your mind, robbing you of the peace and quiet you thought you would get once you were at home. The roots dug deeper and deeper into you until it was ingrained in you, swimming through your blood and consuming you whole, chewing you up over and over again simply to spit you out.
You would have been Heejin if you hadn’t left.
“What is she like?”
There was a beat of silence for a moment and you hugged your knees you had pulled close to your body self a little tighter at the question.
Your phone was laying on your desk, speakers on.
“Well,” Taehyung sighed, “she’s- she’s nice, I guess.”
Taehyung said it like a question, clearly choosing his words carefully as he tried not to offend you in any way, and you almost smiled at that.
“Yeah, she’s nice,” you agreed.
“That’s great,” Yerim started, uncertainty swinging in her words. “Right? That’s great that she’s nice, right?”
No one answered and after a while, you pressed your lips into a thin line and nodded.
“Yeah, it’s great,” you said and you could hear Yerim exhale in relief. You chewed on your lip, and tried not to think about how it was not great and that you hated that Heejin was nice because it made hating her so much more difficult.
“I’m happy for him.”
This time when you said it, you weren’t sure if you really meant it, weren’t sure if you could say it from the bottom of your heart. Jungkook still, of course, deserved so much more, deserved better, but the thought that he was doing so much better with Heejin left a bad and bitter taste on your tongue. You didn’t want to think or feel like that, but your heart was selfish, just like he had said.
“That’s nice,” Yoongi mumbled and his voice was muffled, but the familiar snarky tone came through perfectly. “Nice of you to lie like that.”
You bit down on your lip and buried your face into your knees.
“Dude,” Taehyung said and used ‘dude’ like he always did whenever he was getting mad and refused to use one’s name.
“What? We all know it’s a lie,” Yoongi said, matter of factly. “It’s not bad. It’s commendable that Y/N’s trying, but let’s not act dumb and oblivious to it.”
“Yoongi,” Yerim sighed from the other side of the line, groaning. “You can’t just say something like that.”
“We were all thinking it.”
You pressed your face further into your knees, squeezing your eyes shut as you hugged your legs closer to your chest.
“Dude,” Taehyung warned again, voice dropping significantly, and you could picture Yoongi rolling his eyes at him before sitting up to defend himself.
“All I’m trying to say is that it’s stupid to lie and pretend that it doesn’t suck that Kook is with Heejil or whatever her name-”
“Heejin,” Yerim threw in and there was a beat of silence before Yoongi continued again.
“Okay, fine, Heejin, but it doesn’t really matter,” Yoongi paused and the silence that settled was deafening and you begged him to continue. “What matters is the fact that Y/N shouldn’t need to pretend to be happy for him. They both hurt each other and acting like Y/N only hurt him is so fucking stupid. Kook’s really gotta learn how to be civil and not act like a complete ass-”
“Tae!” You cut in and looked at your phone like he could see you. “You told them? I thought we agreed on leaving that out.”
“Please, you seriously didn’t think I wouldn’t tell the others, did you?” Taehyung scoffed and you huffed, brows furrowing together as you fixed your phone with a glare like it was to blame for this.
“And I’m happy that he did tell us, Y/N,” Yoongi said and you groaned, burying your face once more into your knees now. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that. I get it that Kook’s mad because it was all very sudden and quick and you were his first love or whatever, but it’s not a reason to be an ass to you.”
You didn’t respond, and for a while, the silence lingered on. It was almost unbearable, but you couldn’t think of anything to say, knowing already you were going to be shut down anyway.
“You don’t have to do this,” Yoongi said and sounded exactly like Taehyung. You looked up and put your chin on top of your knee before closing your eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Yeri?”
There was a shuffle and a moment later it was followed by a sigh. “No, I do agree with the others. Kook can be mad and everything—we all get it in a way—but it’s not an excuse to be an ass to you and say hurtful shit like that. You’re not selfish for following your dreams. Also, didn’t he technically break up with you? So, actually, I don’t get why he’s still mad at you.”
You stayed silent.
“Again, you-”
“I know, Yoongs,” you groaned. “I know that I don’t have to do this,” a heavy sigh slipped past your lips, “but it’s just this one time anyway and unlike what you guys might think, I’m not hurt by what he said.”
Neither Taehyung nor Yerim nor Yoongi said something for a while and just as the silence was about to become too unbearable and just as you were about to tell them you had to do something and therefore, hang up, Taehyung spoke up.
“You’re stupid, Y/N.”
You peeled your eyes open and lowered your gaze, a tight smile splitting apart on your lips.
“I know.”
You couldn’t recall how this had happened, how a simple film night turned into a dinner party, but somehow you were all standing in the middle of Heejin’s kitchen, preparing dinner. Taehyung and Jungkook were manning the stove, cooking the meat and Heejin and you were cutting up vegetables for a salad.
“Careful!”
You froze at Heejin’s voice and looked up, eyes locking with hers. Jungkook and Taehyung stopped messing around and turned their focus to you two, brows raising at the sudden exclamation. When you looked back down where Heejin’s fingers had curled around your wrist, you realised that you were about to cut off your fingers. Immediately, you let go of the knife and forced a laugh to spill from your lips.
“Shit. Good catch.”
“You okay? Almost cut off your fingers there,” Heejin said with a small smile and you quickly nodded, ignoring the gazes that were digging into your back.
“Yeah, uh, just spaced out a little,” you mumbled and Heejin laughed, returning to cutting up the rest of her carrots.
You grabbed your glass of wine and when you took a sip from it, your eyes locked with Taehyung’s. There was a deep line etched between his brows and in an attempt to smooth it over, you smiled at him. It took him a second, but he smiled back at you and seeing his smile had your smile turn into a genuine one.
Your gaze wandered and locked with Jungkook’s. You looked at him without meaning to. Your gaze just automatically travelled to him. His face was stiff and hard. Harsh lines were carved into it and you thought he was going to say something, scoff at you, but then he turned around without a word.
Taehyung and you looked at each other once more and his jaw locked up, but you shook your head. When he sighed, you thanked him with a smile and turned away, putting your wine glass down to focus on your vegetables again.
“Oh.”
Heejin stopped and looked up, raising her brows at your sudden exclamation.
“What?” she asked with a tilt of her head and you pointed at the cucumber on her cutting board.
“I, uh, like them diced more,” you said and Heejin blinked at you, expecting you to be joking. “Yeah, I- I just think cucumbers taste better diced.”
You shrugged and Heejin’s light laugh filled the air before she nodded and started dicing the cucumber.
“Okay, sure thing. Diced cucumbers it is.”
You smiled at her. “Thanks.”
Heejin waved it off. You stopped yourself from shaking your head at yourself because a week ago, Taehyung and you were rolling your eyes at Jungkook for preferring his cucumbers diced, but here you were, making sure his cucumbers were going to be cut the way he liked them.
“So, tell me,” Heejin started when you picked up the knife. She tucked her hair away and looked at you. “What was Kook like in high school?”
You stopped chopping your tomatoes and bit on your lip. You struggled to think of something to say and Heejin’s staring certainly didn’t make it any easier.
“He, uh, well, the same, I think,” you started and your words had Heejin chuckling. “I mean, I don’t think he really changed that much since.” You kept cutting up your tomatoes, eyes focused on the task in front of you. “At least, I doubt it. He didn’t change much during high school, so, I don’t think he did now.”
“Well, what was he like during high school?” Heejin asked again, not getting the answer she had been fishing for.
“Funny and kind,” you said without missing a beat and surprised yourself. You paused before shrugging and transferring your tomato wedges inside the big salad bowl. “He’s—not to gas him up—but he’s always been funny and kind, I guess. Like, he’s just always had a good heart.” You took the last tomato, starting to cut it up into wedges too. “He’s always just cared about others around him and tried to make others happy. It’s- it’s really nice and sweet.”
“That’s-”
“Like, one time he stayed after school with,” you quickly swallowed the ‘me’, “uh, one of our friends for hours because they had lost their keys. And they didn’t even ask him to stay. He just did it himself and helped them out because they were, like, freaking out and on the brink of tears. And they weren’t even friends at that point. They were just classmates, but he- that didn’t matter to him. He helped them nevertheless.”
You laughed at the memory a little, remembering clearly how panicked you had been when you had realised that you had lost your keys.
“But he also definitely has his dramatic tendencies, and he’s also very picky with his food. I’m sure you know by now- oh, and he’s constantly late. At this point, it’s just chronic. Don’t get me started on his shitty excuses.”
You put away the last tomato wedges and your grip around the knife loosened. With your eyes on your hands, you sighed and without noticing, a smile stretched across your lips.
“But nevertheless, he’s a really amazing and great person.”
Heejin had long stopped dicing the cucumber and simply stared at you. When you looked up to her, you realised that maybe you had said too much. Your heart dropped into your stomach at the realisation and you were about to dismiss your words when a smile grew on Heejin’s lips.
“That’s great to hear,” she said and you couldn’t figure out if she meant it or not. “Sounds like you two were close.”
“Well, no- He was known for being kind and funny at our school. Ask anybody, they’d say the same thing about him,” you laughed and you hoped you could hide the wavering of your voice. “And if anyone was close to him, then it was Taehyung.”
“What was I?”
Taehyung stood next to you and you were about to respond when he took one of the tomato wedges and plopped them into his mouth. He stopped chewing when he saw the diced cucumbers and he looked at you, but you avoided his gaze.
“Don’t eat all of them. It’s for the salad. Also, are you done with your thing?” you said when he mindlessly reached for a second tomato wedge. You slapped his hand away, eliciting a gasp and whine from him.
“You’re mean, Y/N,” a pout formed on Taehyung’s lips, but you simply rolled your eyes at him, “and, yeah, Kook is finishing everything up.” He rubbed his hand. “Also, what was I?”
You sighed and put down the knife, reaching for the kitchen towel hanging from Taehyung’s shoulder to wipe your hands on it. “Close to him during high school.”
Taehyung raised his brows for a second before his gaze wandered behind you and it clicked in his mind. “Talking about the past, huh?”
“Yeah, Kook rarely ever talks about it,” Heejin said and you took the little piece of uncut cucumber from her cutting board, wanting to busy yourself with something.
“What are you guys talking about?” Jungkook turned off the stove and walked up to you, stopping behind Heejin.
“High school,” Taehyung said and Jungkook’s eyes shot to you. His gaze dug into you, but you acted like you couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel him looking at you and instead kept your focus on dicing the cucumber in front of you.
“Yeah, you never wanna talk about it, babe,” Heejin repeated again and Jungkook frowned at her words.
“It wasn’t a good time.”
For just a second, you stopped focusing on the cucumber and instead focused on the icicles slowly forming in your lungs and the piercing breeze blowing through your chest, but you pulled it together and ignored the cold spreading through you.
“Wait, seriously?” Heejin asked and looked at Jungkook with raised brows.
“Yeah, I guess-” Jungkook shrugged and you could feel Taehyung’s eyes on you as you poured the diced cucumbers into the salad bowl. “It wasn’t-”
Jungkook looked over to you for a second, but you didn’t meet his gaze. You just kept staring at the cutting board and over your head, Taehyung shot Jungkook a look that almost resembled a glare.
“I just don’t like thinking back to that time.” Jungkook shrugged once more and you let go of the knife. It hit the cutting board with a faint thud that had your face contorting and Taehyung tensing up next to you. His fingers pulled on your wrist and wrapped around it, thumb brushing over your skin to soothe you, but it did nothing to thaw the icicles hanging from your lungs, sharp and ready to steal your breath.
“I mean it’s not like it was awful or anything. I did have my friends and a g- uh, stuff like that, and at the time, I thought it was great,” Jungkook continued on, and your heart froze up more and more with each of his words.
His eyes wandered to you, digging into you as he continued,
“But great things always have to come to an end.”
Taehyung was glued to your side for the rest of the time, and you thanked him with a smile when you felt like you could muster up one. He shot one right back at you and by the time dinner was actually served, you had almost completely forgotten about Jungkook’s words and the way they had frozen up your heart.
You almost forgot.
Because for some reason, you were the one sitting across from Jungkook. When Taehyung and you had noticed, you couldn’t switch anymore. And so, Jungkook and you made sure to keep your heads low and your legs tucked underneath your chairs.
“How come?”
You looked up and blinked at Heejin as she quickly swallowed the rice to continue talking.
“How come both of you haven’t watched ‘Titanic’?” she asked and pointed between Taehyung and you.
“I don’t think there’s necessarily a reason, right?” you said and looked at Taehyung for confirmation. He hummed in agreement and shrugged, stuffing his face with some of the salad.
“Do you guys just not like romcoms?”
“Uh, wouldn’t say we don’t like them,” Taehyung mumbled, “but we don’t really watch them either.”
“Yeah, most are just a little too unrealistic for me,” you added and took a sip from your wine.
“I get that. Unrealistic romcoms are definitely the worst,” Heejin laughed. “Kook and I really enjoy romcoms though.”
You almost told Heejin that you knew that, that you knew very much that Jungkook was a sucker for romcoms. He had been the romantic of you two, taking you out on the most extra dates, making sure that you always felt special, trying his hardest to make your relationship into a romcom.
“Netflix has put out some really great and realistic ones though recently,” Heejin continued. ”Like, ‘Set It Up’ is really great and funny and ‘To All The Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before’ while a little more cheesy, is still very great.”
“You really like romcoms, don’t you?” you asked and Heejin beamed at your question, clearly excited about the prospect of talking about romcoms in depth.
“Yeah, I absolutely love them,” she sighed and leaned forward a little, her smile widening. You smiled back at her because it was truly hard not to smile at Heejin.
“What’s your favourite one?” you asked and Heejin’s smile grew into a grin, eyes glossing over as the excitement etched onto her face.
“Hard question, but I’d say ‘About Time’ and ‘Someone Great’ are some of my favourites,” Heejin said and you perked up.
“Didn’t we watch ‘About Time’?” You looked over to Jungkook without meaning to and when he met your gaze, his eyes were big and flushed with panic. Quickly, you added, “We watched it together, right? All of us?”
Your head whipped around to Taehyung and he was mid-bite, caught off guard.
“Yeah, no, we, uh, did,” Taehyung coughed out, slightly choking on his rice.
“Wasn’t it great?” Heejin said with a big grin and you nodded, taking a big sip from your wine.
“W-what was the other one again? ‘Someone Great’? What is that one about? I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” you said, changing the topic. Jungkook quickly went back to focusing on his food, but Taehyung was still looking at you out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, it’s about Jenny—she’s the main character—who is a journalist, and she lands her dream job, but to fulfill it, she has to move across the country,” Heejin started to explain and you thought you were hearing wrong. You almost choked on your own spit and you weren’t the only one noticing the similarities because Jungkook slowly raised his head and looked at you.
“Her boyfriend, Nate, of, I think, nine or ten years ends up breaking up with her because of it and then she and her friends, like, try to forget about everything and cheer her up. It’s a really good film. They also all have their own respective relationship problems and we also get to see Jenny’s and her boyfriend’s relationship through flashbacks,” Heejin finished up telling and Taehyung’s hand found yours. You let go of your fork to interlace your fingers with his because right now, you needed someone to hold onto.
“It’s not your conventional romcom,” Heejin said with a smile. “It’s why I love it so much. It totally brings up the question of love or work and what’s the right choice.”
You hummed and looked away, deciding not to look at Jungkook because you didn’t want to see the way his features contort and harden. You had seen it once already, had seen his face split apart in pain once before. You had seen it when you had told him you were leaving, and ever since, you hadn’t gotten it out of your head. It had haunted you all of these years.
You knew if you looked at Jungkook right now, the guilt and bad memories would bubble up and chew you out again. A lump would lodge itself into your throat and your heart would tighten into an impossible knot and everything in your body would ache and scream and tears would prick your eyes and your lungs would freeze to ice.
At the sight of it, you would be left on the floor, gutted and breathless and in pain and frozen.
“What do you think, Y/N?”
You were more than caught off guard by the question and you scrunched up your brows, tilting your head to the side as you met Heejin’s gaze.
“Like, the fact that her boyfriend broke up with her and she essentially had to choose between love and work. What do you think about that?” Heejin blinked at you and her expression was hard to read. Her lips were pressed into a thin line and her brows were slightly raised.
You stammered for something to say, incredibly aware that all eyes were on you. Jungkook seemed to be staring holes into you, almost like he was challenging you to say the wrong thing. Taehyung squeezed your hand even tighter now and you couldn’t thank him enough because it offered you enough strength to croak out,
“I don’t know.”
For a moment, there was silence.
“Well, I think it was fair of her boyfriend to break up with her because leaving like that was just shitty,” Jungkook piped up and Taehyung scoffed quietly underneath his breath, whispering an ‘of course’ to himself.
“I wouldn’t say breaking up with her was fair at all,” Taehyung argued and you squeezed Taehyung’s hands, wishing he wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t start all of this, but you couldn’t get through him. He couldn’t feel your hand tightening around his, could only feel the anger coursing through his veins.
“How is breaking up with her not fair if they were going to break up anyway? It was inevitable. She essentially left him for a job. Might as well just do it instead of dragging it out,” Jungkook said and put down his fork and knife, leaning back to cross his arms in front of his chest.
“Dude, no, it wasn’t,” Taehyung spat out and tried his hardest to keep his voice level. “They could have tried, tried to work it out somehow. Maybe they would have broken up later, but not trying at all and then being mad at the other person is not fair at all and fucking ridiculous.”
Heejin looked between Jungkook and Taehyung as they threw words at each other’s heads like doing so would make the other understand. You sank deeper into the chair and never more did you wish for a hole to appear underneath you and swallow you. In fact, you wouldn’t mind if the hole swallowed you and never spat you out again.
The conversation had taken a different turn than Heejin had intended it to go and you hoped and prayed she wouldn’t piece it together, wouldn’t figure out what exactly was being said right now, wouldn't manage to read between the lines.
“Can you really blame her boyfriend, though?” Jungkook was slipping now. The anger was consuming him slowly and wholly, taking over him. “I- he must have been so caught off guard by the news that she was moving away. It’s not okay or fair to keep that shit from him all the time and then expect him to be fine with it or supportive after telling him-”
“Yeah, I get it. It sucks that she kept it from y- him, but ever thought that there was a reason, huh?” Taehyung was breaking as well and the mask of friendliness and neutrality was sliding off, sliding off so fast he couldn’t catch it. Not that he bothered to. ”Ever thought that she kept it a secret from him because she was scared and didn’t want to hurt him? Like, fine, dude, be mad at the moment, but hating her forever and not even bidding her goodbye-”
“You don’t seem to get just how hurt I- he was, Taehyung. It’s not that easy-”
“How is it not that easy to be a decent human being? If he loved her, if he really loved her, he would have realised that it was her dream and wished her well-”
“Well, if she really loved him, she wouldn’t have left him like that! But she did because she’s selfish.”
At this point, Jungkook and Taehyung were essentially screaming at each other, words bitter and far too loud.
“Dude, how is it selfish to chase your dreams? Also, what the fuck are you trying to say? Is she meant to always choose him over everything-”
“No, that’s literally not what I’m saying. She should have talked to him-”
“And she did, but he didn’t listen. What was she gonna do? Harass him into listening?”
“No, because at that point, when he refused to listen, she had already messed it all up! She had already broken him. Fuck, they were literally dating for years and years and one day, she just tells him she’s gonna leave? Like, what the actual fuck? What about their promise of forever? What about that? Was he not enough for her now?”
Jungkook was glaring at Taehyung with his eyes blown out wide and his chest heaving, lungs aching for air.
“She can go fuck herself for that!”
Your knuckles turned white around Taehyung’s hand and your teeth sank into your tongue. It was your poor attempt to numb the pain rippling through you now with even more pain.
Jungkook’s words were dripping with venom and anger. They sliced into you and pushed out any warmth inside you, leaving you freezing and cold. They poisoned you, sent the icicles crashing down from where they had been hanging, and they pierced through your lungs and filled them up with blood. You could feel yourself choke, suffocate slowly and painfully as his words replayed over and over again in your mind like a broken record.
You wanted to press your eyes shut and run away. You didn’t want to hear any of it anymore, didn’t want to have to listen to Taehyung and Jungkook screaming at each other, yelling like it was a battle of who could be the loudest.
Your eyes locked with Jungkook’s and while his stare was cold and hard, colder and harder than you had ever seen it, there seemed to be something else glimmering in his eyes too. And that something made him look like he knew he had gone too far, look like he knew exactly what his words were doing to you, but right now, he didn’t care, didn’t care just how much he was hurting you because in his mind, you had hurt him first, had hurt him worse.
So, hurting you was okay, justified even.
Taehyung fixed Jungkook with a glare, but he simply held his own, eyes digging into Taehyung’s as much as his eyes were digging into Jungkook’s. Taehyung’s nostrils were flared and his jaw was locked to the point it had to hurt. Both slipped into a staring contest either were more than determined to win.
At the end though, it was Jungkook who tore his gaze away, but the anger and frustration were etched onto every line and edge of his face.
Taehyung scoffed before throwing his fork down on the plate and jumping up. His chair hit the floor and you were about to pick it up when he yanked on your hand. You stumbled after him more than anything else and as Taehyung led you around the table and out of the kitchen, your gaze met Heejin’s.
Her brows were drawn together and for once, there was no hint of a smile on her lips. You wanted to apologise to her, tell her it was all fine—even though you weren’t even sure if it was—but then you saw her hand on his knee underneath the table and suddenly, there was an unbelievably uncomfortable knot sitting in your throat, stopping you.
“I hope you don’t choke on your fucking diced cucumbers, dude.”
[yoongs - 08:23 PM] : @y/n @tehyung how is the dinner going?
[yeri - 08:34 PM] : ohh, yeah, how is it? are you guys still stuck watching jack draw rose like one of his ~french girls~??
[yeri - 08:34 PM] : also yoongs do you have taes name saved wrong in your phone??? wtf
[yoongs - 08:57 PM] : have you guys gotten to that stupid door scene yet?
[yeri - 09:14 PM] : are you ignoring me?
[yoongs - 09:43 PM] : @y/n @tehyung didnt you guys say youd try to go home asap
[yoongs - 09:43 PM] : how long is dinner and a film? or are you guys ignoring us?
[yeri - 09:45 PM] : tae, are you ignoring us like yoongs is ignoring me right now?? like y/n i get bc she sucks at texting, but you? tae? not responding? :o
[You - 04:57 AM] : hey, yoongs! please dont say anything to yeri or tae, but could you give me his address? kinda urgent.
[yoongs - 09:14 AM] : are you okay? why are you texting me at 4?
[You - 09:14 AM] : im fine. ill tell you all about it later. just give me his address please
[yoongs - 09:15 AM] : uff fine
[yoongs sent in location]
[yoongs - 09:15 AM] : its 201
In high school, you hadn’t been nearly as close to Taehyung as you were now. It wasn’t because you hadn’t been friends with each other, but rather because he had been so close to Jungkook already. Even after your friend group had formed, the two always had a different kind of bond, a deeper one. And even after Jungkook and you had started dating, their bond had been just as strong as yours had been with Jungkook.
It had never bothered you because Taehyung and Jungkook had known each other forever, had known each other since they were in diapers. In fact, Yerim, Yoongi and you had always poked fun at that, always joked that those two were the true couple of your friend group.
It was why you should have expected this to happen when you knocked on Taehyung’s front door.
“Jungkook?”
Your lips parted slightly as you stared at him with big eyes. He was equally as shocked as you were, clearly not checking who it had been before opening the door.
“How’d you get in?” he asked with a furrow of his brows and you stammered before pointing behind you.
“Uh, someone let me in when they were walking out,” you explained and Jungkook scoffed slightly, head shaking from left to right as he cursed his neighbour.
Jungkook was donning a simple white T-Shirt and grey swats. You had seen him in this outfit more times than you could count when you had dated, but it still had your heart quickening because, fuck, he did look good dressed like that.
And as you stared at him, all of the memories of yesterday came rushing back to you and immediately, you lowered your gaze to your feet.
“He isn’t here. Didn’t come home yesterday,” Jungkook mumbled, knowing exactly why you were here and that you definitely were not here for him. Judging from your reaction upon seeing him, you hadn’t expected to see him. Another scoff almost escaped him, but somehow, he managed to swallow it.
When you looked back up to him, Jungkook was already walking away, but the door stood wide open. Interpreting him leaving the door open as inviting you inside, you stepped in and closed the door behind you.
You tightened your grip around your tote bag as you walked inside, steps light. You were ready to run right out if Jungkook was to ask you why the fuck you invited yourself inside, but he didn’t. He just walked into the living room and sat down on his U shaped couch before pulling out his phone and mindlessly scrolling through it.
Unsure what to do—not only because you had never been here before, but also because you hadn’t expected to see Jungkook—you stopped behind him, not daring to take a single step inside the living room.
It was small and most of the room was taken up by the U shaped couch, but somehow it still looked home-y and cozy. Something about it, about the way the furniture was arranged and the room was decorated screamed comfort and you knew Jungkook was to thank for it.
“Jesus fucking Christ, just sit. Looks like I’m not letting you.”
You snapped around to see Jungkook rolling his eyes at you. He gestured around him, offering you the rest of the couch, but you hesitated to do just what he had told you to. His eyes continued to burn into you and after a second and some internal debating, you wandered around the couch and sat down, choosing the seat that was furthest from Jungkook’s.
The gap between you two was huge, enough to fit Taehyung, Yerim and Yoongi between it, and you were more than thankful for it because the tension was palpable, thick, so thick a knife couldn’t even cut through it, so thick it could stop a bullet.
You put down your tote bag next to you, but you held it close to you, protecting the food inside. After a few seconds of silence, you pulled out your phone, unlocking it to open Taehyung’s and your chat.
[You - 09:32 AM] : where, uh, are you right now?
[You - 09:32 AM] : please come home asap. im sitting in the living room with him and its awkward as fuck. hurry
[You - 09:32 AM] : also why the fuck didnt you tell me you lived w him??
You were about to make a new group chat, add Yoongi and Yerim to it and panic text them when Taehyung came online and started typing.
[tae - 09:32 AM] : wtf??
[tae - 09:33 AM] : why the fuck ar u at my place?? you know where i lve?
[tae - 09:33 AM] : im there asap
[You - 09:33 AM] : i made you food as a way to say sorry
[tae - 09:33 AM] : go into my room its in the back. on the left second dor
[tae - 09:33 AM] : why sorry????
[You - 09:34 AM] : okay good. hurry
[You - 09:34 AM] : uh well your fight with him???? you forgot abt it?
[tae - 09:34 AM] : no ofc not
[tae - 09:34 AM] : but
[You - 09:34 AM] : omfg what does it matter. just come home
[tae - 09:35 AM] : fine
You sighed and hoped that Taehyung was going to come back in the next ten minutes or so because you couldn’t stand being in a room with Jungkook any longer. You just couldn’t forget that he was right here, that he was just sitting a few metres away from you, in the same room as you.
“But she did because she’s selfish.”
“When he refused to listen, she had already messed it all up!”
“She had already broken him.”
“He wasn’t enough for her now?”
“What about their promise of forever?”
“She can go fuck herself for that!”
You pressed your lips together and let your head fall, eyes squeezing shut as you tried to block it all out, tried not to think, but it was hard, hard when the person you had hurt the most in the world was sitting right there. You wanted to fall to your knees and beg for Jungkook’s forgiveness, but you doubted you had a right to even do that, not to mention talk to him.
The guilt had been eating you up since yesterday evening and continued on as you laid in bed, desperately trying to get some sleep. In the end, you watched the sun creep up the sky, painting your hometown in a tragic orange.
“Here.”
You peeled your eyes open at the sound before slowly raising your head to see Jungkook standing right in front of you, hands buried in his sweats. He nodded towards the coffee table and when you looked at it, a cup of coffee was sitting on top of it.
“Looks like you haven’t slept in years,” Jungkook scoffed, almost like his words were meant to hurt you, but for once, for the first time since you had seen him again, they had warmth spreading through you.
“Oh, thanks.”
You reached for the cup of coffee, and it was bordering on cold, but when you took a sip from it, you could feel the sun start to shine in your chest and thaw the remnants of the icicles that had stayed behind from yesterday, shine away the mess that yesterday had left behind.
“Thanks,” you mumbled again, but Jungkook had already turned on his heel and sat down again. You didn’t care, didn’t care because that had just been the first somewhat civil interaction Jungkook and you had shared and you couldn’t help but treasure it.
If you were completely honest, the coffee tasted okay at best and kind of bad at worst, and maybe it was because you were incredibly tired so any caffeine was welcomed or maybe it was because Jungkook had given you the cup of coffee, but somehow that was the best cup of coffee you had ever had. It dissolved on your tongue in the best way possible.
“Uh,” you turned to Jungkook and he looked up from his phone, brows shooting up as his lips pulled into a thin line. You wanted to say something, but your voice had to have dissolved with the coffee because you couldn’t get it to come out.
You simply pointed at your empty cup of coffee and after a few more seconds of incredibly awkward staring, you managed to croak out, “Where can I put, uh-”
“Just leave it on the coffee table,” Jungkook said before immediately turning back to his phone. You nodded nevertheless and did as you were told.
You pulled out your phone too, and, so, you two sat there for a while in silence as you waited for Taehyung to come home. Almost twenty minutes had passed at this point and because you were too focused on your phone, you didn’t notice Jungkook turn off his phone and put it back in his pocket, didn’t notice him press his lips into a thin line before sighing and looking up to you.
“You remember how I like my cucumbers cut?”
Your eyes shot to him and you could feel the heat crawl up your neck at the question, recalling clearly how he had reacted when you had insinuated how well you still knew him, how that had led to him fixing you with the most piercing stare and ended with him telling you that you taught him that people were selfish and that he hoped you were right and that he didn’t have to see you again after this.
“Uh,” you started before carefully continuing, “yeah. I- I do.”
And it was then that you watched Jungkook crack a smile.
He smiled like he hadn’t essentially told you to go fuck yourself yesterday, smiled like you hadn’t broken his heart, smiled like everything was fine between you two. For the first few seconds, you thought your brain was playing a joke on you, thought you were seeing wrong and that the coffee was hitting you just really hard, but then-
“I thought it was dumb that I prefered diced cucumbers.” Jungkook scrunched up his nose and tilted his head at you, and a smile stretched across your lips, heart tumbling in your chest.
“It is,” you said, “but I’ve been kind of dumb these days.”
You shrugged and Jungkook’s smile widened the tiniest bit, and you had to bite on your lip to stop your smile from growing into a grin, from growing a little too big.
“I swear they taste better diced-”
“Oh my god,” you groaned and rolled your eyes at Jungkook in faux annoyance. “You still seriously think that-”
“I don’t think, I-”
“Yeah, I know you don’t think,” you said and slipped back into teasing Jungkook like nothing had ever happened between you two, like you had never left, like he hadn’t hated and resented you for it, like you hadn’t hurt each other, like yesterday hadn’t happened.
Jungkook gasped at your words, and you giggled when you saw the smile pulling on the corners of his lips that he was so desperately trying to hide, relieved to know that you hadn’t crossed a line.
“Damn, I didn’t miss this, Y/N,” Jungkook said with a light laugh and you noticed instantly that Jungkook had said your name. Your heart tumbled in your chest, involuntarily, and as much as you had tried to hide it by biting it away, a grin split apart on your lips.
For once, there was no tension in the air, no cold lingering around you two, no icicles forming in your lungs. For once, your joints weren’t tightening to the point it hurt and ached, no stiffness stretching you straight. For once, you felt somewhat comfortable around Jungkook, somewhat at ease.
“What did you miss then?”
“You.”
The answer slipped past Jungkook’s lips, rolled off his tongue without a second thought and you knew it, knew he hadn’t meant to say that, knew he hadn’t intentionally said it when you saw the blood rush to his face and paint his cheeks a bright and blaring red.
Your lips parted slightly and you blinked at Jungkook. Both of you both fell silent again and snapped your heads around, avoiding each other’s gazes as much as possible. And slowly, you could feel the tension fill up the room again, seep into every crack of the room, but this time it was different.
This time the silence was loud, louder than Taehyung and Jungkook had been yesterday when they were screaming at each other. And with each second it lingered in the stifling air, you felt like it was urging you to say something, urging you to break it and tell Jungkook all of the things you had been wanting to say.
And so, you did, did break it, but you didn’t say the things you had been wanting to say. You said the thing you knew was okay to say.
“Heejin is nice.”
You whispered it into the room, whispered it so quietly like you didn’t want to break the silence that had been begging to be broken. Your eyes stayed on the ground, stayed focused on anything that wasn’t Jungkook, and he did the same, didn’t look up either.
“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed out and propped his arms on his knees, body leaning forward. “I guess she is.”
You nodded, barely registering his answer because you weren’t actually listening for it, not that you could have if you had wanted to because your heart was thumping in your ears, each beat as loud as a bomb going off right next to you.
“H-how long have you two been dating?” you asked and you were honestly not sure why you were asking because simply thinking about Heejin and Jungkook together hurt you. Somehow you had been spared of their relationship details so far and you were more than thankful for that.
“Well, uh, a couple months,” Jungkook said with a cough. “Almost six now, I think.”
“And she hasn’t met the others yet?” you asked and peeked over to Jungkook. He only lowered his head even more and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yeah, no, she hasn’t,” Jungkook mumbled.
“How come?” you continued in an attempt to lighten the whole situation, but somehow the air seemed to grow thicker with every word you exchanged.
Jungkook took his time to answer, eyes scanning the floor like the words would appear on it if he stared long enough, like someone would whisper into his ear why Heejin hadn’t met his friends yet, like he would remember what his reasoning was.
“I- I don’t know,” Jungkook ended up sighing before curling up into himself, head lowering even more as if he was aiming to plant it to the floor.
“How’d you meet?” you asked.
“How does anybody meet anybody these days? Dating apps.”.
“What-”
“Did you date?”
The question was simple, each word easy to understand, but you had difficulties figuring out what he was asking you.
“When you were there, I mean. Did you date?”
You stammered for an answer, words running away from you like you were children playing Tag on a sunny day with your friends, and you were losing, miserably. The air was knocked out of your lungs and it took you seemingly an eternity to finally get it together and cough out some words, words that put together resembled an answer.
“I- yeah, I, uh, did.” You grimaced at yourself, head lowering to avoid Jungkook’s gaze the same way he had avoided yours before.
“So, you had, like, a serious-”
“No,” you cut in a little too fast. “I mean I dated, but nothing was really serious. I never had anything like a proper- you know.”
The corners of Jungkook’s lip curled up the tiniest bit at your answer.
“How come?”
You sighed and gripped your tote bag next to you, wondering now where the fuck Taehyung was because hadn’t he said he would hurry?
“It just never felt quite right, I guess.” You shrugged and shifted from left to right, fingers tightening around your tote bag. “They were all funny and kind, but- I guess you could say that something was missing. Like, I don’t know, the spark or whatever.” Another shrug. “But also not like I had time to date. Was busy with my studies anyway.”
Jungkook hummed and for a moment, you both fell silent again. You were about to pull out your phone and mumble something about checking where Taehyung was to change the subject to something lighter, easier, when he cut in.
“Anyone significant though?” Your eyes shot to him and you raised your brows at him. His face was neutral, but there was definite curiosity swimming in his pupils. “Like, memorable? Anyone that stuck around a little longer? Or, you know, you liked-”
“No,” you said with a vigorous shake of your head. “No one that was in any way memorable or significant. Most just- they just kind of blur together.”
Jungkook looked at you for another second, words sinking in with him before he nodded and hummed. Both of you lowered your gazes again and fell into the all too familiar silence, tension creeping up on you.
But before you could be forced to break the silence once again and word vomit all over yourself, there was a rumbling and a frantic turning of keys. A second later, the front door flew open. Hectic and clumsy steps followed and soon enough, your eyes landed on a frazzled and panting Taehyung.
He stopped in the middle of the room, right in front of Jungkook and you. His chest heaved and judging from the sweat running down his temple, he had run a good amount.
Jungkook looked away when Taehyung stumbled into the living room, and instantly, you could feel a change in the air. The tension sat on your chest, suffocating you as it seeped into every corner of the room.
“My room,” Taehyung panted before pointing at you and into the hallway, not sparing Jungkook a single glance as he turned on his heel. You didn’t follow his words and only tightened your grip around your tote bag.
“I, uh,” you cleared your throat and Taehyung stopped, turning around to look at you with raised brows, confused, “I’d rather stay, uh, here.”
“What?” Taehyung asked and irritation started to mix with his confusion. “Why?”
His eyes dug into yours like he was trying to tell you just how little he wanted to stay here, and you sighed, tucking a strand behind your ear. Your tongue swiped across your bottom lip and you could feel your heart quicken in your chest, quicken impossibly.
“I-” you lowered your head before finally mustering up the courage to say it. “I know I said I came here to say sorry for yesterday, but I’m also here to say that I’d like to stop—I guess you could call it fake dating, right?—well, anyway, I’m here to tell you I’d like to stop fake dating you,” you thought to yourself, unsure how to call what Taehyung and you had been doing, “or whatever.”
“Why?”
“Because,” you started, voice quiet and calm, and you couldn’t look at Taehyung or Jungkook as you explained yourself because, fuck, all of this was so ridiculous and dumb, “I don’t like it. I don’t like lying. It’s stupid.”
You shrugged and when you looked up to Taehyung, he had his brows raised at you and his hands on his hips, obviously not believing you at all.
“You’re literally ly-”
“Also,” you cut in, not wanting to give Taehyung a chance to disagree with you and because you had to get everything out right now before the courage left you and you were staring at the floor once again. “Also, it’s just not fair to Heejin. She doesn’t deserve to be lied to you. She’s a good person and if she finds out that we’ve been lying to her, she- I don’t know, might break up with, uh, you know.”
Your eyes flickered to Jungkook. He was already looking at you, and maybe it was because your heart was beating in your ears, tumbling way too loud in your chest or maybe because you couldn’t properly look at him for more than a second, but you couldn’t read his expression. There was something in his eyes, but you couldn’t quite figure out what exactly.
“And we don’t want that, right?”
Your voice wavered as you said the words and you hoped it would go unnoticed, hoped that neither Taehyung nor Jungkook listened closely enough to hear the waver. You folded your arms over your stomach, focusing back on Taehyung. He eyed you, continued to do so and you had to try your hardest not to shift and look away.
“Fine,” Taehyung sighed, gaze tearing away to let it wander before his eyes returned to you like he had come to accept your decision just now. “What do you suggest?”
“I- uh,” you flashed Taehyung a nervous smile and wrung your hands together, “I don’t know. I- I figured we’d come up with something,” a short pause, “together.”
When you looked over to Jungkook again, he was staring at the floor before meeting your gaze, obviously not thinking he was going to be included in this. You wanted to muster up something that resembled a smile, but looking at him was something you couldn’t do, so, your eyes flickered to Taehyung. No smile for Jungkook.
“Together,” you repeated and Taehyung sighed, head lowering for a few seconds as he squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked up again, there was a deep line etched onto his features.
“Fine,” Taehyung breathed out before wandering into the room again and sitting down right opposite of Jungkook.
All three of you occupied one side of the U shaped couch, Jungkook the left, Taehyung the right and you the middle.
“Okay, uh,” you started when the silence continued on too long, leaning forward to grab Taehyung's attention. “I- I’d say we have to break up amicably, right?”
You looked over to Taehyung for some kind of reaction, but his eyes were fixed on Jungkook and his eyes were fixed on Taehyung as well. Your head started to throb and you knew it was a matter of time until it split apart. Unable to take it any longer, you clapped your hands together and cut through some of the lingering tension.
“I thought we were gonna talk,” you said, voice quiet because you were too scared to speak up too loudly. You looked at Taehyung only because looking at Taehyung was easy and looking at Jungkook was not. “Let’s talk then, please.”
Taehyung and Jungkook locked eyes once more, the corners of their lips turned down, but both came to a mutual conclusion.
“Okay,” Jungkook sighed and shifted in his seat.
“Yeah, fine,” Taehyung mumbled quietly, arms unfolding to rest on his knees.
There was a moment of silence as he thought.
“You said break up amicably, right?” Taehyung pointed at you and you nodded. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”
“What does it matter if you two break up amicably or not?” Jungkook questioned with a furrow of his brow and Taehyung sighed.
“It matters because if Y/N and I don’t break up amicably, we can’t hang out in the future. So, if Heejin were to see us, it’d be weird,” Taehyung explained and the irritation was dripping from his words.
“You guys wanna hang out in the future?” Jungkook asked and Taehyung contorted his face at him.
“Yeah, of course, dude. Why the fuck wouldn’t we? We’re friends,” he said and shook his head at Jungkook, scoffing slightly.
“Don’t-”
“Okay, great. Break up amicably. How though?” you cut in before things could escalate any further, turning to Taehyung for some answers, but he simply shrugged.
“How about,” Jungkook started and ran a hand through his hair, “How about you two start acting annoyed with each other the next time we meet up? Like, start dropping hints and then, I’ll make some comment about how you two have problems and then, when we see each other again, you two are broken up.”
“Yeah, I doubt that Heejin would like to meet up again after yesterday,” Taehyung said and you hummed in agreement.
“Are you sure this is about Heejin not wanting to meet up or just you?” Jungkook bit back and you sighed inwardly, regretting not taking Yoongi or Yerim with you as support.
“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” Taehyung sneered with a scoff and a breathy chuckle, and you were certain your skull was going to break into pieces.
“What am I talking about? How about the fact that you didn’t come home yesterday?” Jungkook asked and pointed at Taehyung, the knit deepening between his brows.
“What does that-”
“Tae, please,” you interrupted and closed your eyes, hating every second of this. “Just don’t, please.”
You peeled your eyelids open and locked eyes with him, shaking your head from left to right as you were on the verge of giving this up and going home. Taehyung’s gaze softened when he saw how tired you were, irritation washing out of him in an instant.
“Yeah, no, you’re right. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, hand reaching for yours and you took it, squeezing it to thank him silently. You two shared a look and both of you were too occupied to notice Jungkook lowering his head and scoffing silently to himself, teeth sinking far too deep into his lip, so much so it should hurt.
“Okay, so, how-” you started, letting go of Taehyung’s hand to concentrate on the conversation again. “How did you imagine us meeting up again? Because I also don’t think that Heejin would want to meet up after yesterday.”
You glanced into Jungkook’s direction, but he kept his head low, acting like he was thinking when in reality, he was trying not to burst.
“Maybe we could convince Yeri or Yoongs to host a game night or whatever,” Taehyung offered as a solution and you thought about his words for a moment before nodding, a smile tugging on the corners of your lips.
“Yeah, that sounds like something,” you said and turned to Jungkook slightly, glancing into his general direction to gauge his reaction.
“But,” Jungkook started, head raising a little as he looked at Taehyung with his brows slightly knitted together, “that’d mean Heejin would meet-”
Jungkook didn’t finish the sentence, deciding to swallow the rest of it instead and Taehyung and you exchanged a glance, giving him a few seconds to make up his mind again as to what he wanted to say.
“Yeah, no, that’s fine,” Jungkook sighed at the end, nodding, and Taehyung and you locked eyes once more.
“Great. I can talk to them about it,” you said with somewhat of a smile on your lips and Taehyung hummed in agreement and Jungkook just rubbed the back of his neck.
Stifling silence fell over all three of you, but then you remembered why you had come here in the first place. You dug through your tote bag and pulled out one tupperware box before pulling out another one. You placed them both on the coffee table and pushed them into their direction.
Taehyung and Jungkook looked up when they heard the sliding of the tupperware boxes and almost simultaneously, they furrowed their brows together and glanced at you. You didn’t meet either’s gazes, deciding to fiddle with the strap of your tote bag instead.
“Breakfast,” you said with a shrug and it took Taehyung grabbing his box and removing the top for Jungkook to finally stop staring at you and grab his box.
“You made me food too?” Jungkook asked and stared at the box in front of him before glancing back up to you. You lowered your head even more, cheeks growing hot underneath his eyes.
“Well, no, not really,” you started, clearing your throat. “I mean I didn’t know you lived with Tae, but since he always used to eat so much I figured one box wasn’t enough and so, I made two, but I’m pretty sure two boxes were too much anyway. So, this works out perfectly actually. But it’s just a bunch of stuff I found in my fridge and threw together. Really nothing special.”
You shrugged more and Taehyung mumbled something underneath his breath, but you couldn’t catch it. Without a fork or a chopstick or any cutlery, he dug in, biting off a piece of the fried egg.
“Fuck, it’s good,” Taehyung said with a slight scoff like it was infuriating to him that your cooking (Could it be considered cooking though because you just made some bacon and fried egg and cut up some vegetables?) didn’t completely suck.
“Thanks,” Taehyung mumbled in between bites, enjoying the food so much that he couldn’t even raise his head to look at you.
You nodded and glanced at Jungkook, who had snapped out of whatever he had previously been and finally removed the top of the box, marvelling at the food in front of him. And just like Taehyung, he dug in, fingers first. You watched Jungkook try the bacon and shake his head as he chewed, a smile overtaking his lips more and more as he continued eating.
Jungkook looked up, eyes locking with yours and with the softest smile, he nodded at you.
“Thank you.”
And you nodded right back at him with your heart tumbling far too loudly in your chest.
“You’re welcome.”
All three of you fell silent and for a while, Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s constant chewing was the only thing that rang in your ears at all.
“Uh, Tae, could you give me-” Jungkook pointed at the box of tissues in front of Taehyung, out of his reach. He looked up at Jungkook’s voice, blinking for a few seconds because this had been the first time Jungkook had talked to him in a civil manner. Taehyung nodded and shoved the little piece of carrot into his mouth.
“Yeah, no, sure thing,” he mumbled before taking a tissue and leaning over the table to give it to Jungkook. He took it, wiping his fingers and mouth before locking eyes with Taehyung once more.
“Thanks,” Jungkook mumbled quietly and Taehyung smiled to himself a little before waving it off.
“Sure thing,” Taehyung mumbled equally quiet and you had to stop the grin from growing on your lips.
For a few more seconds, you sat there as Taehyung and Jungkook practically devoured the food you had made (neither bothered to go to the kitchen and get some cutlery though) before you crossed your arms in front of your chest and turned to Taehyung.
“Why were you so late?” you asked and he looked up, a piece of fried egg hanging from the corner of his mouth. “And where were you that it took you half an hour to get back?”
Taehyung rolled his eyes at you and swiped across his mouth with the back of his hand, swallowing heavily. “I crashed at Yoongi’s, and I swear the traffic was just out of the world this morning. I hit more red lights-”
“What? Was there a fire? Or did someone drop a bunch of mirrors on the road?”
Jungkook choked next to you and you watched him cough and pat his chest, trying desperately not to suffocate. Taehyung and you exchanged glances, and even though it had been incredibly awkward and tense just mere minutes ago, things were slowly changing.
When he finally managed to swallow his food, Jungkook locked eyes with you and you tried to hide it, but a smile grew onto your lips, eliciting his cheeks to grow hot and red.
“You guys never believed me,” Jungkook mumbled, a dramatic pout forming on his lips, and when you looked at Taehyung again, both of you burst out into laughter.
“Can you blame us though? Fires? Broken mirrors?” Taehyung laughed, forgetting everything that had happened between Jungkook and him.
“Why would I lie? There’s literally no reason for me to-”
“Because you forgot time and are now running late and trying to shift blame because you don’t want to get shit on for being late, again,” you offered as an explanation, falling into the same old teasing you all used to do when you were all still in high school and your biggest worries were if your mother or Jungkook was going to drive you home today and if Jungkook was going to stay at your place or if you were going to stay at his.
“I would never do that,” Jungkook argued and you rolled your eyes, exchanging a knowing glance with Taehyung. “Hey! No, don’t look at each other like that. I can see you guys.”
“Never thought or said you were blind,” Taehyung grinned and plopped a small tomato into his mouth. You hummed in agreement, grin growing bigger and brighter when you saw Jungkook scoff and shake his head at Taehyung and you.
“It’s always been you two against me,” Jungkook complained and Taehyung and you rolled your eyes simultaneously, scoffing.
“Please, if anything it was always you two,” Taehyung pointed at Jungkook and you with a piece of carrot before pointing at himself, “against me.”
“That is not true-”
“It was,” you said and locked eyes with Jungkook, nodding. “We’ve gotta admit it. We bullied Tae more than Tae and I bullied you.”
“So, you did bully me then,” Jungkook said and you rolled your eyes in faux annoyance.
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Taehyung started and pointed at you, waving the piece of carrot around like it wasn’t food. “Y/N never got bullied. Only we did.”
“Oh my God, we never did bully you,” Jungkook said with a dramatic turn of his head and you scoffed, shaking your head because, oh, you did get bullied.
“Yoongs bullied me,” you corrected with a raise of your finger. “And if anyone didn’t get bullied, it was Yeri.”
“No, Yoongs bullied Yeri,” Taehyung said with his brows furrowed together and dismissed your words with a wave of his hand, after having finally eaten the piece of carrot. “You know who actually didn’t get bullied?”
“Yoongs,” Jungkook replied and all of you locked eyes, the realisation dawning on you. There was a beat of silence before you all started talking again, simultaneously.
“That bitch really bullied all of us relentlessly, but never got some of it back.”
“How did we not notice earlier?”
“Looks like we’ve got some bullying to do, huh?”
Another beat of silence followed before you locked eyes once more and all started laughing, pearls of laughter spilling from your lips, loud and beautiful.
And all of the tension and stiffness was gone, gone as you laughed your hearts out. Everything that had happened between you three was forgotten for a moment, the grudges were at the back of your minds, locked away for now, and you took it, took whatever the universe gave you that resembled normalcy. Deep down, you knew things were going to be awkward and tense once you all saw each other again, but for now, it was different, was like it used to be.
Everything was great.
“I thought you guys would never come,” Yerim laughed, trying so hard to hide the nervosity, but you could hear it. She threw her arms around Jungkook’s neck, pulling him into a hug as he mumbled some excuse into her ear.
“Yeah, sorry.”
You watched Yerim and Heejin meet for the first time and you caught pieces of their conversation, listening to the usual spiel that consisted of ‘Oh, I’ve heard so much about you.’ and ‘It’s so nice to finally meet you’ before plopping a chip into your mouth, deeming whatever Yerim and Heejin were talking about as not interesting.
You had decided to busy yourself with the snacks in the kitchen when the bell had announced Jungkook’s and Heejin’s arrival, coming to the conclusion beforehand that if you looked busy, you didn’t have to get the door and do the obligatory greetings and hugs. With the way the door to the kitchen stood open, you could only see parts of the living room, but you had a perfect view of the front door. You, however, were somewhat hidden by one of Yerim’s plant. Essentially, you stood in the perfect spot to observe without being observed yourself.
“I thought you hated these chips.”
Your head whipped around at his voice and you realised only now he was already standing next to you, fingers grabbing the chip you had been about to eat. A gasp slipped past your lips as you watched him throw the chip into his mouth and lean against the table, shifting his whole weight onto the table.
“Yoongs!” you said, exasperated, but he didn’t care at all, grabbing a handful as he watched Yerim, Heejin and Jungkook exchange pleasantries at the front door.
“Didn’t you say the last time we hung out that these were too stale and bland in your opinion?” he asked, eyes never leaving the people at the front door, and you shrugged, plopping another stale and bland chip into your mouth.
“Opinions change.”
“That was last week.”
“Fine, so maybe they are too stale and bland in my opinion, but Yeri doesn’t have anything else,” you grumbled and threw another chip into your mouth, barely allowing yourself time to swallow and realise (again) just how horrible these chips were and why exactly you hated them.
“Shouldn’t you be saying hello right now?” you asked with a furrow of your brows and Yoongi scoffed.
“Why would I? I don’t live here. Yeri does,” Yoongi said with a scrunch of his nose. “Also, these are fucking horrible.” He looked at the chip in his hand with narrowed eyes. “God, they are stale and bland. I think these are those healthy chips or whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” you said, not really caring about the chips anymore, “but you haven’t met Heejin yet.” You nodded into her direction. “You should say hello.”
“Shouldn’t we all say hello to her regardless of if we’ve met her before or not?” Yoongi asked, plopping another chip into his mouth seconds after complaining about them. “So, shouldn’t you too?”
“I- Yeah, technically, I guess. But it’s different for you,” you argued.
Yoongi scoffed and shook his head, pausing a little as he focused on Yerim, Heejin and Jungkook again before snapping out of it.
“I tell you what,” Yoongi started before shoving a handful of chips into his mouth, chewing to the end before continuing, “you go over there and say hello and then, I’ll do the same thing.”
You stared at Yoongi, but he didn’t meet your gaze, enjoying the view of Yerim, Heejin and Jungkook in the distance instead, and you huffed before mumbling underneath your breath for him to forget it. Both of you ate chips in silence for a few more seconds before he nudged your elbow with his hand, accidentally dropping a chip when he moved a little too quickly, but he didn’t mind or care at all.
“Tae’s going in,” Yoongi informed you and at his words, you looked up to see that, yes, Taehyung was, in fact, walking up to Yerim, Heejin and Jungkook, a strained smile on his lips.
“Yeah, probably because we aren’t,” you mumbled and Yoongi hummed in agreement. “Always there to save the day.”
“Look at Yeri’s panicked smile,” Yoongi said and pointed at her, and as much as you tried not to, you laughed a little, eliciting one from him.
“We’re bad people, Yoongs,” you snorted and he shook his head at you as he watched the horror unfold in front of him.
“They haven’t made up yet, have they?” Yoongi asked and judging from the way Taehyung and Jungkook were hugging each other (or, well, actually not hugging each other because they were doing that awkward thing Jungkook and you had done the last time you had ‘hugged’ each other, and that was definitely not a hug.), it was obvious what the answer was.
“Obviously not,” you said and reached for your glass of water to wash down the salt. “Things are better though. Last time, they were ready to jump each other’s throats.”
Yoongi snorted and it was then that you remembered and looked over to him.
“Remember how I asked you for Tae’s address? Why didn’t you tell me he was crashing at your place then?”
A smirk formed on Yoongi’s lips and you wanted nothing more than to throw your glass of water into his face. The fact that he was still not looking at you only added to your irritation and frustration with him.
“You told me not to tell Tae and Yeri, so I didn’t.”
“Yoongi!” you growled and jabbed him in his ribs, eliciting a breath from him. “You should have told me! Do you know how weird it was when he opened the door? You’re impossible sometimes.”
You scrunched up your brows and gritted your teeth, but Yoongi just cackled next to you, obviously enjoying your misery very much.
“You know what?” you asked and put down your glass of water with a little more force than necessary. “I take it back. We aren’t bad people. You are. You’re straight up a dick.”
“Oh, I never agreed with you,” Yoongi said and you frowned at his words, not getting what he was saying. “I know that I’m a bad person, but, trust me, you’re definitely not.”
Your frown deepened and you were about to ask him what he was talking about when Yoongi finally looked at you and stopped eating the chips, letting the few pieces in his hand fall back in the bowl. He dusted off his hand and straightened up to look at you properly.
“Look around yourself, Y/N,” he said and threw his hands into the air. “We’re at a fake game night party or whatever this thing is that you forced Yeri to throw, so you could act ‘annoyed’ with Taehyung because you’re fake dating him and you’re only fake dating him because that dumbass ex of yours, who is also somehow our dear friend, Jeon fucking Jungkook, forgot to tell his current girlfriend that you dated during high school.”
You tore your gaze away and bit on your tongue, trying desperately not to squirm underneath Yoongi’s gaze.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Yoongi continued and you lowered your head, squeezing your eyes shut. “This is literally the dumbest thing ever. You’re making sure Jungkook, who, again, I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, is your ex, keeps his current girlfriend because he, again, was a dumbass and forgot to tell her about you. And on top of that, he’s been acting like a complete fucking asshole to you.
“Obviously. you’re not a bad person. You’re a fucking saint for putting up with and doing all of this.”
“It’s not like that-”
“Don’t try to convince me otherwise, Y/N,” Yoongi cut in and shoved his face with chips again before regretting it immediately and scrunching up his face in disgust. You peeled your eyes open just in time to watch him drink all of your water, but this time you didn’t complain. You simply sighed and crossed your arms in front of your chest.
“I hurt him-”
“And?” Yoongi argued with a groan. “Stop blaming yourself for everything. We hate it if you do that. If Yeri wasn’t so freaking weak and had stuck to our agreement, this wouldn’t be happening right now.”
You shook your head and pressed your lips together. Yoongi didn’t understand, didn’t understand just what you had done and how much you had actually hurt Jungkook. In fact, none of your friends understood, understood why it wasn’t as easy as they seemed to think it was.
They hadn’t been there when you had told Jungkook you were going, hadn’t been there to witness him crumble apart in front of, hadn’t been there as his anger took over him and consumed him whole, hadn’t been there when Jungkook’s begs for this to be a joke turned into deafening screams and ultimately into bitter words.
“Out!”
You flinched, flinched because Jungkook had never raised his voice withyou, had never looked at you like that. There was no warmth, no light, no love swimming in his eyes. All you could find was anger and pain, and you wished you could say you weren’t the reason for all of that.
His face contorted and hardened into something unreadable, something you had never seen before, and you wanted to soothe over every line, wanted to kiss them over and over again until they were gone. Even with the anger etched onto his face, Jungkook was painfully beautiful, heartbreakingly so.
“Please. Just let me explain, babe-”
“No!” Jungkook cut in and pointed at you, finger jabbing the air like it had wronged him and not you. Your heart rang in your ears and you were almost certain he could hear it too, hear it thumping in your chest.
“Kook, please-”
“Do not call me ‘Kook’. I’m not fucking ‘Kook’ or ‘babe’ or even fucking ‘Jungkook’ to you. You’ve got no right to call me by my name anymore!”
A new wave of tears streamed down your face at his words. They pierced through you like bullets, hitting you in rapid succession and at the end, you were laying on the floor, on the brink of death.
“You’ve decided to- decided to leave me, no, us for your stupid adventure. You’ve fucking decided to break our promise! Remember our stupid fucking promise of forever?” Jungkook pressed through gritted teeth and took a step towards you, hands waving wildly around him. “You don’t get to say my name, don’t get to act like everything’s fucking fine and I’m your ‘Kook’ or ‘babe’ or whatever the fuck you call me after breaking it!”
You hiccuped and let your head hang as the realisation dawned on you that he was gone. He had slipped out of your reach and walked, no, ran away. He had put oceans and continents between you two, and there was no more asking him to come back anymore.
You knew then, he and you were done.
More curses slipped past Jungkook’s lips, but you couldn’t hear them, couldn’t hear the accusations he threw at you. For that, your heart was breaking and sobbing far too loudly in your chest.
You weren’t sure how much time passed, how long you stood there and cried your eyes out as he paced up and down his room, but by the time, you managed to lift your head, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees and hands folded together with his gaze stuck to the floor.
And you weren’t sure how much time passed, how long you stared at him until he opened his mouth again.
“I really really love you,” Jungkook mumbled through gritted teeth and you knew he wished he didn’t love you anymore.
You wanted to grab him, cup his face and whisper into his ear over and over again just how sorry you were, whisper into his ear until words stopped making sense and the stars rained from the darkened sky.
“I really do,” Jungkook scoffed, but tears spilled from his eyes, involuntarily and far too many. Too proud to cry in front of you now, Jungkook covered his face with his hand and sank his teeth into his bottom lip, but even then, he couldn’t silence the sobs and sniffs. They banged on the walls of his throat and bursted through his lips.
And you hated it, hated seeing him like this, hated seeing his entire body shake and tremble, hated seeing his face contort in pain, hated seeing the tears collect at his chin and drip to the floor, hated seeing his lips quiver uncontrollably, hated seeing him desperately try to keep it together.
You hated seeing Jungkook cry.
But he was, and all because of you.
You were to blame, to blame for the state Jungkook was in right now. You had inflicted that pain on him, had broken and shattered his heart, had made him cry.
“Please, just let me explain-”
“There’s nothing to explain, Y/N,” he said, a sob erupting from his lips again, and you shook your head, trying so desperately to say something, but your tongue was tied into a messy knot. You wanted to tell him that there was so much you wanted to say, so much that needed to be explained, but you couldn’t bring yourself to, couldn’t bring yourself to form the words necessary.
Slowly, Jungkook looked up to you, hand falling into his lap, and when your eyes met his, your heart raptured in your chest. His features were twisted in pain and agony as the tears scared his beautiful face.
“You’re leaving.” Jungkook whispered it into the silence like you didn’t know.
“You’re leaving me.”
You closed your eyes at his words, shaking your head like you were about to disagree, but you couldn’t, couldn’t even bring yourself to make a single sound.
The anger in Jungkook’s voice had dissipated into the air and been replaced by disappointment and hurt. And if you had to say which one was worse, Jungkook screaming at you or Jungkook simply looking at you with tears streaming down his face, you would choose the latter every fucking day.
Because without the anger and the screams to numb you, to silence your thoughts and mind, it was obvious, glaringly obvious.
You had broken Jungkook.
“I hope you’re happy,” Jungkook continued, voice cracking in the worst way possible, and a deaf man could have heard that he was lying, could have heard the bitterness swinging in his words.
“I hope you’re happy knowing you’ve hurt me.”
“You don’t get it, Yoongs,” you mumbled quietly to yourself before looking at your hands. “None of you do.”
You had always preferred game night over film night. You just always thought that it was so much more fun to play games than to sit in darkness and watch some film half of you didn’t watch anyway or had already watched. Your competitiveness and need to win certainly played into your preference of game night over film night. But right now, you would choose film night over game night any day, would never have another game night ever again if that meant you could switch to having a film night now instead.
You really had no idea what Yerim had been thinking when she had decided to draw lots to determine the teams.
“So, we need a total of seven points to beat them, right? Both rounds?” Heejin asked you and you nodded, your heart racing more and more as you waited for the game to begin.
2 rounds of Taboo. 90 seconds to get through as many words as possible.
“You sure you don’t wanna be the one explaining? I’m sure you’re better at this than I am,” you said and Heejin shook her head at you.
“Trust me, I’m definitely worse than you,” she smiled. “If we wanna win, it’s best if Kook and you do the explaining.”
“Are you ready, Y/N?” Yerim asked you, her finger hovering above the start button, and you turned around to her before nodding. It was a complete lie, you weren’t ready, but you didn’t think you were ever going to be.
You always got nervous right before you started playing a game, but this time, it was different, different because it mattered so much more if you won or not. Never had you wanted to win more, and the thought of possibly losing had your stomach churning. You couldn’t disappoint, disappoint him because you knew that he was just as competitive as you, if not more so.
“Go!”
You picked up the first card and scanned it.
Tattoos
Ink
Permanent
Skin
“Okay, uh,” you turned around and looked at Heejin and Jungkook, “they are like paintings or sketches.”
“Black and white paintings?” Heejin guessed and you shook your head, biting your lip as you thought of something else to say.
“Uh,” you tucked a strand behind your ear before looking at him, “ you always said you wanted them and they can be in any colour.”
“You always said you wanted them and they can be in any colour‘? What is she talking about?” Taehyung laughed at your poor attempt at describing the word ‘Tattoos’ and you started to panic even more.
“Stop guessing. You’re not on her team,” Yoongi said with a slap to his arm and Taehyung simply dismissed him with a wave of his hand, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Once you get them, they’re forever.”
“Jesus, Y/N, did you get worse at this?” Taehyung laughed and you could hear Yerim’s laugh mix with his. You couldn’t blame them though because you were really struggling to come up with a way to explain ‘Tattoos’.
“Why is Y/N describing and not Kook? Wasn’t he always better at this than her?” Yerim asked and you regretted not putting up more of a fight when Heejin had told Jungkook and you to do the explaining.
You had always been better at guessing and Jungkook had always been the one better at explaining. You had your roles, but with Heejin on your team now and refusing to do the explaining, you had to step up.
“You got into this huge fight with your parents once because they didn’t like them- oh, you’ve got some now on your freaking hand!”
“Tattoos!” Jungkook exclaimed and you let out a squeal. A smile flashed across your lips before you nodded at him and picked up the next card, the previous card landing on the floor.
Valentine
February 14
Red
Love
“45 Seconds,” Yerim said and you turned to Heejin and Jungkook with wide eyes, quickly starting to explain.
“Okay, uh,” you said and tucked a strand behind your ear, brain trying to come up with a way to word this correctly. “It’s a holiday at the start of the year.”
“New Years?” Heejin said and you shook your head at her.
“Later.”
“What holiday is at the start of the year but not New Years?” Taehyung asked and once again, Yoongi slapped his arm, telling him not to guess.
“Easter?” Heejin said and you shook your head.
“30 Seconds,” Yerim interjected and you wanted to curse at her because this was really stressing you out.
“Fuck, uh,” you turned to Jungkook. “We always made fun of it because we thought it was just so commercialised.” You gestured wildly around yourself. “It’s for couples-”
“Oh, Valentine! February 14th-”
You cheered once more before picking up the next card, letting the other one fall to the floor once more.
Harry Potter
Film
Scar
Magic
“Uh, this is easy” you mumbled. “It’s a fictional character.”
“Sherlock Holmes? Iron Man?”
“No, let me finish first,” you shot back with urgency in your voice. “ He’s really famous-”
“Iron Man!”
“No, God, just let me finish!” you groaned and Jungkook sat back down a little more, lips pressing together to let you talk. Heejin smiled next to him and placed her hand on his knee, trying to calm him, but Jungkook had his eyes fixed on you, desperately trying to get that win.
“15 Seconds,” Yerim smiled, definitely enjoying the distress in your eyes far too much.
“Okay, uh, we can get this one,” you said, stumbling over your own words.
“You can do, like, quizzes.” You looked at Jungkook once more. “We did them too!” You gestured between him and you. “You got really pressed because you got Hufflepuff, but you wanted-”
“Oh, Harry Potter,” Jungkook said and snapped his fingers.
“Time’s up!” Yerim said and you dropped the card in your hand.
“Three points, right?” Heejin counted on her fingers and turned to Jungkook and you.
You let out a long sigh, feeling the stress wash out of you a little because now, you got to do the part you were actually good at, guessing.
“Yeah,” Jungkook nodded as he got up and stretched, preparing himself for the next 90 seconds. “So, four points.”
You walked past Jungkook, slumping into the seat he had just sat in. Your heart was still beating way too fast and the adrenaline was pumping through your veins like a bullet train.
“We can do this, right?” Jungkook asked and turned back around, standing in the middle of the room. When you realised he was looking at you, talking to you, you could feel the heat creep up your neck. “You know, like we used to?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” you muttered, far too embarrassed to respond properly. He blinked at you before nodding and walking up to Yerim, who was shuffling the cards.
“‘Like we used to’?” Heejin asked and turned to you with a furrow of her brows. You cursed Jungkook and slowly nodded.
“Yeah, uh, he and I were kinda always a team when we played Taboo,” you said before cleaning your throat and avoiding Heejin’s gaze as much as you could.
“Dream team,” Taehyung interjected and you rolled your eyes at him, leaning towards Heejin a little too slap his shoulder.
“‘Dream team’?” Heejin asked, but before you could answer, Yerim, thankfully, interrupted.
“Next round!” she announced and turned to Jungkook, nodding at him when he did. “Go.”
Immediately, Jungkook picked up a card and you turned around again, putting all of your focus on him and winning.
“So, this is something I want but it’s not a thing or object. It’s, like, alive.”
“Dog?” you started and he quickly shook his head.
“Cat?” Heejin tried and before Jungkook could shake his head, you interrupted.
“No, he wants a dog, not a cat,” you mumbled, brows furrowing together as you thought about Jungkook’s words, trying to figure out what he was talking about until you got it. “Oh, a family!”
“Yes!” Jungkook grinned and gestured for you to think further. “Right, but that’s not it. When you have a family, you have-”
“Kids?” You quirked a brow at him and Jungkook nodded.
“Okay, right, another word for kids is-?”
“Children!”
“Yes!” Jungkook cheered and grinned at you before throwing the card away and grabbing a new one. He read it and nodded to himself.
“It’s once a year, but not a holiday.”
“Not a holiday?” Yoongi mumbled quietly to himself even though he had told Taehyung not to guess.
“Say more,” you told him and Jungkook sighed, wrecking his brain before pointing at you.
“It’s your favourite day of the year and- You get a bunch of presents and, oh! We threw you a surprise-”
“Surprise party?”
“Yeah, but why did we-”
“My birthday! Is it birthday?”
Jungkook beamed at you and you mirrored him, beaming right back. Your heart was pounding in your chest, but now, it was out of excitement. You could practically taste the win on the tip of your tongue.
“Okay, uh, this is hard,” Jungkook sighed after picking up the next card. He frowned before looking up. “It’s something you can eat.”
“Food.”
“Yeah, but that’s only the second word,” he said and gestured for you to think further again. “Like, ice cream-”
“Ice cream food? Food ice cream? Ice food cream?” you blurted all out, screaming one word after another, and Jungkook frowned at you.
“‘Ice food cream’? Maybe you’re not that good at guessing,” Jungkook laughed with a shake of your head, and you rolled your eyes at him, mumbling underneath your breath that it had been a long time, but your words fell on deaf ears. “No, it’s not ice food cream. It’s something you shouldn’t eat much of.”
“Sugar?” you guessed, but Jungkook shook his head at you.
“45 seconds,” Yerim said and Jungkook and you looked at each other, eyes wide. The need to win sparkled in both of your eyes and quickly, panic rushed through you, replacing the excitement.
“Say more-”
“There isn’t more. You’ve just gotta think- food is the second word!”
“But what about ice cream? Why did you-”
“Ice cream is-”
“Cold?”
Jungkook groaned, “No, I don’t mean cold.”
His brows furrowed together as he wrecked his brain before he thought of something and pointed at you again. “Okay, uh, we used to go to this one place all the time! Remember our midnight dinners? And the category of food that they sell is what we’re looking for.”
“Oh! McDonalds!” You snapped your fingers. “Junk Food!”
When Jungkook nodded at you, you squealed, watching him turn around and pick up the next card.
“If they get this next point, they won, right?” Yoongi asked Taehyung, but you answered.
“Yeah, we beat you then, losers,” you grinned and Jungkook laughed at your words before he turned to the card in his hand, scanning it.
“They’re really good at this, aren’t they?” Heejin asked Taehyung and leaned into him to make sure neither Jungkook nor you could hear her. Not that you two would have anyway, far too focused on the game at hand to pay her any attention, completely forgetting that she was on your team too.
“Yeah, both are incredibly competitive, so they work well together. Like, they practically always know what the other is thinking,” Taehyung mumbled as he watched you shuffle in your seat, not noticing the way Heejin looked at him at all.
You raised your brows when you saw Jungkook freeze up upon reading the card. His jaw didn’t go slack nor did his eyes go wide, but you could see, could see right away that something was wrong.
“Uh? What’s wrong?” you started, but even then Jungkook didn’t look up, eyes fixed on the card in front of him. Slowly, the others seemed to notice too, heads turning to see a frozen Jungkook.
“20 Seconds.”
You exchanged a glance with Taehyung, but he shrugged at you, and so, you looked at Yerim for some help as she stood right next to Jungkook. She squinted as she tried to read the card herself.
“Oh, shit,” she blurted out and pressed her hand on her mouth when she realised that she had spoken without meaning to. She looked at Jungkook, mouth opening as she struggled to decide to say something or not, but then he snapped out of it.
Jungkook glanced at Yerim’s phone in her hand and looked up to you, eyes locking with yours like before, but this time, it was different. You immediately felt that there was a shift and you had a feeling that it was bad.
“It’s, like, a place you could say.” Jungkook’s voice quivered the tiniest bit, but you noticed immediately. You raised your brows and leaned even more forward, as if you could coax the word out of Jungkook that way.
“Really big,” he continued and looked at you like you should know what he was talking about now. When you furrowed your brows at you, he sighed, “You were there for the past four years.”
“Oh.”
Your entire face dropped as the realisation dawned on you and you sat back. You felt Taehyung eyeing you with worry etched onto his face, about to say something, but Yoongi put his hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Only Heejin was more lost than ever, but you paid no one any attention, far too shocked to say anything.
All of the memories, all of the memories connected to America and all of the pain it had caused not only you but Jungkook when you had left to go there, hit you so hard you feared whiplash.
“5.”
You tried to say something, tried to give the answer because you knew it and you really didn’t want to lose, but somehow you just couldn’t. Your voice was gone, had disappeared. The word didn't hurt you, but you knew it hurt him, and that was one thing you didn’t want to do ever again.
“4.”
Jungkook and you kept eye contact as Yerim counted the seconds and you watched his brows furrow together and his lips press together in a thin line. He was debating internally, trying to figure out what he wanted, if the win was worth it, worth the memories and pain.
“3.”
Your eyes were fixed on him and when you saw Jungkook sigh a little and nod at you, you knew right away what he was telling you.
“2.”
You nodded at him too.
“America-”
“1.”
And even though Jungkook had told you to say it, the guilt still bubbled up and formed icicles in your lungs, piercing tiny holes in them, and you could feel the blood slowly filter in, suffocating you.
Jungkook and you kept staring at each other, and you should look away because there was no reason for both of you to be still looking at each other, but you couldn’t.
“Does it still count?” Heejin asked, breaking the silence, and looked at Yerim.
Yerim’s eyes were trained on Jungkook and you, and only when you two tore your gazes away and looked at her, did she speak up.
“Yeah, it counts.”
Jungkook and you whipped your heads around, looking at each other with big eyes. For a second, both of you didn’t know how to react, but then, the corners of his mouth curled up into a smile. Your lips split apart into a big grin and squeals and cheers escaped you two. You jumped up and Jungkook ran towards you, hands held up for high-fives. You reciprocated it and both of you beamed at each other.
“We won!”
Jungkook laughed at your words and nodded, eyes softening as he watched the joy spread on your face.
“Yeah, we did.”
His words were soft, incredibly soft. A whispered secret almost.
“Yeah, we did,” Jungkook repeated with a nod and a smile. “We did.”
You looked at Jungkook and even though you should look away again, you couldn’t. You two were locked into each other’s eyes, locked into each other’s eyes like it was just Jungkook and you in this room, in this world, in this universe, like you were falling in love with one another all over again.
And for a moment, it truly felt like that, felt like it was just him and you in this room, in this world, in this universe.
But then, his gaze flickered to Heejin.
Your eyes grew wide at the same time and your smiles almost slipped off your faces before you both turned to Heejin and let out another round of cheers and squeals.
“We won, Heejin!” Jungkook said and you held up your hand for a high-five. She blinked at both of you and you thought she was going to ask you two what the fuck that just was, confront you on forgetting her for the second half of the game, but then a smile split apart on her face.
“Yeah, isn’t that great?” she smiled and gave you a high-five.
After another round of Taboo and a few rounds of Charades and Pictionary (which you all won), you were exhausted, definitely spread thin. The adrenaline got to you, but so did actively avoiding your friends’ stares and trying not to get too swept up in the games and forgetting about Heejin again. So, when no one paid attention to you, busy with cleaning up and preparing for the next game, Werewolf, you snuck away.
“Best part of Yeri’s tiny flat, isn’t it?”
You didn’t turn around at Yoongi’s voice.
“Truly is.”
Yerim had a tiny flat, but she had a balcony. It was tucked behind the kitchen and, you had almost not seen it when you had walked in and looked for some peace and quiet. Yerim’s fridge blocked the glass door a little because, after all, the flat was tiny and so was the kitchen.
The railing of the small balcony was lined with flowers, flowers that Yerim had texted you far too much about, flowers that had gone from blooming to dying to almost blooming to what they are now, almost dying.
Yerim had sent you pictures of the view when she had first moved in, but standing on here yourself was different. Truth be told, the view wasn’t the best, wasn’t breathtaking, nothing compared to the view you had gotten to enjoy at the restaurant, but it was enough to ground you, calm you down and give you the sense of peace and quiet you had looked for.
“You okay?”
You snapped out of your thoughts and looked at Yoongi, offering him a smile as you nodded.
“Yeah,” you said.
“That’s nice,” he hummed before leaning against the railing with his arms, careful not to hurt the flowers. “You sure, though?”
Yoongi peered up at you and you thought about his words for a moment. You had truly thought that this would be worse, that it would be awkward and weird as hell, but you had to say it wasn’t. When Jungkook turned out to be your partner (You had Yerim to thank for that. How was drawing lots to determine the teams a good idea?), you had truly thought that things were only going to go down from there. To your surprise, they didn’t.
There had been some tension between Jungkook and you, but the moment you picked up the first card and desperately tried to explain ‘Tattoos’ to him, both of you completely forgot about it, and instead worked together to win.
So, with a smile, you mirrored Yoongi’s stance, resting your elbows on the railing like him and leaning forward before letting your cheek fall into your open palm and turning to him.
“Yes, I’m sure, Yoongs,” you said. “Thanks for asking.”
Yoongi blinked at you before chuckling quietly to himself and turning his head away, eyes watching the sun dip below the horizon.
“How are you though? You okay?” you asked and watched as Yoongi let out a long and heavy sigh, eyes staying on the horizon.
“I hate this. So, wouldn’t say I’m okay.”
“You do? Sure you’re not hating this because you’re losing constantly?” you teased.
“Yes, Y/N, I do and, yes, I’m sure it’s not because I’m constantly losing. I’m not Kook or you. I don’t need to win. I don’t care that much,” Yoongi said with a roll of his eyes and another sigh. “You realise how dumb all of this is, right?”
You looked at Yoongi, raising your brows at him.
“We’re only doing this so you can act annoyed with Tae and then you two can break up or whatever, right?” he asked you and you nodded. “And that’s what’s dumb about this.”
You tilted your head at him, eyes narrowing as you tried to figure out what exactly he thought was dumb about your plan.
Yoongi sighed once more. “You realise you don’t owe Heejil, or whatever her name is, an explanation, right? Fucking just text her that you’re broken up. Or, you know, better yet, don’t tell her because, again, you don’t owe her anything. She isn’t a friend of ours. She’s just the girl your ex and our dumbass friend is dating.”
The annoyance was dripping from his voice as you continued staring at him. “Or, like, make up some story and the next time she sees you, just tell her that. You think she’s really gonna question that? She doesn’t know when you or Tae are lying.”
You blinked at Yoongi because how had none of you thought of that before? He was right. You didn’t owe Heejin any sort of explanation, but here you were, meeting up to put on a whole show (that you didn’t even put on) to give her some sort of explanation.
Yoongi seemed to be able to hear his words click in your mind because he scoffed at you. “You guys are fucking dumbasses.”
Now, you scoffed too, scoffed at yourself because, once again, Yoongi was right. You were dumbasses and you couldn’t believe neither Taehyung nor Jungkook nor you thought of this.
“Shit.”
Yoongi chuckled and shook his head at you, the corners of his lips turned downwards.
“Yeah, shit.”
You pressed your lips together as you let Yoongi’s words fully sink in with you, dawn on you and float away.
“Hey, guys.”
Yoongi and you turned around at Yerim’s voice, straightening up in an instant. You watched her slide the glass door open, a bowl of chips pressed to her chest as she stepped out.
“What are you two doing out here?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“Oh, we-”
“Hiding,” Yoongi stated like it wouldn’t get you two in trouble and you whipped your head around to him, hand hitting his arm as you fixed him with a glare.
“Yoongs,” you growled, but he just laughed a little and rolled his eyes at you.
“Hiding?” Yerim questioned with a raise of her brows and tapped her foot like a mother about to scold her children.
“Yeah, hiding,” Yoongi continued and gripped the railing behind him, leaning against it. “We didn’t want to subject ourselves to that bullshit out there any longer. It’s really weird out there.”
“Yoongs, don’t say that. Yeri put effort into today. It’s not that weird-”
“Nope, Yoongs is right,” Yerim sighed and uncrossed her arms, tension washing out of her in an instant. She took a handful of chips and shoved them into her mouth, and as she chewed, a pout formed on her lips. “It’s weird as fuck outside. I don’t know what we’re doing really. Like, we’re playing games and everything and I guess it’s fun or whatever, but something’s just kinda off.”
Yerim shook her head and Yoongi grabbed a couple of chips as he chuckled at her words.
“Told you,” he said and you shoved him away when he grinned into your face, not appreciating the smugness.
“I mean,” Yerim started again before eating another handful of the chips, “you’re right. Heejin’s nice, but I honestly think she makes things weird-”
“You think it’s Heejin?” Yoongi laughed with a shake of his head before pointing at you. “It’s Y/N and Kook. They’re the ones making it weird.”
“Excuse you? How am I making it weird?” you asked with big eyes, swatting Yoongi’s hand away,
“Please,” Yoongi scoffed with a raise of his brow. “How are you not making it weird? Kook and you are totally in your own world. It’s like you two are dating again, and we’re all, like, six wheeling.”
You scoffed and stared at Yoongi with your jaw open. Your hands balled up into fists at your side and you shook your head at him.
“Bullshit,” you said. “It’s not like that at all.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that,” Yoongi said, enjoying the way you got all worked up. And before you could stop him, he had placed his hand against your forehead. “Woah, your face’s literally heating up.”
You shoved his hand away, lips pressing together into a line as you shook your head at him and waved him off.
“Bullshit,” you pressed through gritted teeth. “It’s just the sun. It’s summer. It’s hot.”
“Yeah, sure,” Yoongi scoffed at your reasoning, and you were about to curse at him when you realised that you getting worked up was exactly what he wanted.
You turned to Yerim for backup, but she simply stared into her bowl of chips and shoved her face with it, actively avoiding your gaze. A scoff slipped past your lips and you mumbled curses aimed at Yoongi underneath your breath, deliberately ignoring the fact that it was definitely not hot enough today for your face to warm up like that.
Yoongi was ridiculous, definitely ridiculous. Jungkook and you just get carried away when you play games. You were competitive, nothing more.
Your heart definitely only beat so hard and fast in your chest because the adrenaline was pumping through your veins, and you were only so incredibly happy about winning a stupid game of Taboo because it had been a long time since you had played against your friends, making the wins even sweeter.
It was nothing, nothing like Yoongi had said.
Jungkook and you were acting nothing like you two used to when you dated.
“Uh.”
All three of you looked up at the interruption, and your breath hitched in your throat when you saw him. He stood there, gripping the handle of the glass door as he awkwardly shifted from one foot to another. A tiny smile pulled on the corners of his lips while he looked between Yerim and Yoongi, but not you.
“Hey, Kook,” Yerim said and did this terribly awkward dance with Jungkook as she tried to step away and make some space for him, but there was none left, and you couldn’t help but laugh a little. The fact that you were upset just seconds ago was completely forgotten.
“Sorry,” you mumbled between laughs when Yerim turned around to glare at you, and you had to bite your lip to hide the grin that tugged on the corners of your lips.
Yoongi eyed you with narrowed eyes before he shook his head and sighed. He kicked himself off the railing, and his hand landed on Yerim’s shoulder, stopping her from continuing this terrible dance with Jungkook and drawing her attention to him.
“Yeri, didn’t you want to show me this one thing that you got recently?”
“What?” Yerim furrowed her brows at him and it took Yoongi raising his brow at her for her to get it. An uneasy and tense smile stretched across her lips before she nodded her head, far too vigorously.
“Ah, yes, right. That, uh, thing. I- I remember. Let’s check it out, yeah?” Yerim laughed, and you frowned at her words, not believing her even for a second.
Your gaze drilled into Yoongi to ask him what the hell he was thinking he was doing, but he was avoiding your gaze expertly. And when you looked over to Yerim, she had essentially buried her face into the bowl of chips, and you wanted to throw it over your shoulder and demand her to look at you.
Without really meaning to, your gaze travelled to Jungkook. When you looked at him, his eyes were already on you. His expression was unreadable and you didn’t know what he was thinking, but you knew that it was a bad idea for Yerim and Yoongi to leave you alone with him, knew that you didn’t want them to walk away. Because what were Jungkook and you? Back to being friends? Was it okay to laugh and tease each other now? Or was Jungkook still mad at you?
But before you could say something, Yerim and Yoongi had walked away, had left you standing alone on the balcony with Jungkook right in front of you.
He didn’t step out, didn’t join you on the balcony, and instead chose to stand at the glass door with his hand still gripping the handle. It was like he was ready to slam the door shut and walk away if things started to get a little too much for him, if this conversation didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to.
And you gnawed on your lip as he stared at you, stared at you like he had done before when you two had won your first round of Taboo. Just before the silence got too unbearable to handle and the tension too thick for you to breathe in, Jungkook opened his mouth.
“I missed you.”
Your heart stopped in your chest, stopped in your chest like maybe if it stopped, time would stop and you would get to enjoy the moment a little longer. You had no idea how long you simply blinked at Jungkook, but by the time you finally managed to get your thoughts together and properly look at him, he was shifting from one foot to another with his knuckles white around the grip of the glass door and his eyes dancing around, looking at everything except you.
“What?”
When Jungkook spoke up again, there was the slightest quiver in his voice. The slightest quiver that told you just how nervous and uncertain he was, how much he feared you laughing into his face.
“I meant it when I said it. I missed you.”
It didn’t sound like a joke, didn’t sound like he was messing with you at all, but it still took your brain seemingly forever to comprehend his words, to realise that he was completely and utterly serious.
“You did?” you asked in a whisper and Jungkook’s gaze found the floor, a breathy chuckle escaping him before he nodded.
“Yeah, I did.”
You blinked at him before your lips curled up into the softest smile.
“I did too.”
Jungkook raised his head and looked at you, and you watched the corners of his lips curl up into the most beautiful and dazzling smile. This time when he smiled at you, it was nothing like the smile he had given you when you had sat in his living room or when you had both realised you had won. No, this smile was different. It was the smile you had dreamt of every night, was the smile you had remembered every morning, was the smile you had longed to see on his lips again ever since you had first seen it.
It was the smile Jungkook showed you when he had whispered the three words for the first time,
“I love you.”
And so, your heart surged in your chest, rose above and beyond, reached the sky and the stars, touched the sun and moon, and when she fell back down, she didn’t land in your hands. No, she landed in his hands.
“I missed having you around, you know,” Jungkook started, voice still quivering as he spoke. “I missed being able to call you up or text you and talk about everything and anything until we both just fell asleep. I missed showing up at your doorstep and going out for our midnight dinners with you. I missed laughing at other couples for stressing over Valentine before going out ourselves and being one of those stupid cheesy couples we made fun of.
“I missed having my best friend around.”
Jungkook stepped out on the balcony and closed the glass door behind him, hands at his side. There was a heavy sigh, and instantly, you knew. Slowly, his gaze met yours and he stared into your eyes with that look, that look that broke you.
“Why did you have to leave me?”
You sank your teeth into your lip and wrung your hands together, chest rising and falling far too quickly as you ran out of breath simply thinking of the answer. There was so much weighing on you, so many things you wanted to say, but couldn’t say, couldn’t because you couldn’t handle it, not even years later.
“You know why,” you breathed out, eyes searching the floor for words, for words that would escape you.
“Please, tell me again,” Jungkook asked and you wanted to ask him why he wanted to know, why he so desperately wanted to bring it all up again when he and you had done such a good job tiptoeing around it before.
“I-” You shook your head at yourself and you thought that maybe Jungkook would interrupt you and tell you he had changed his mind and didn’t want to hear it again if you paused, but his silence demanded for an answer.
So, you gave him one, one that was worded badly and didn’t even begin to explain why you left, but it was an answer, the most you could do right now.
“I- it was my dream,” you managed to croak out and you expected a scoff, but Jungkook simply looked at you, waiting for you to continue. “It was my dream to study in America. So, I did it. I- I fulfilled my dream.”
The quietest sigh escaped Jungkook and even though you could barely hear it, you felt your heart tumble in his hands at the sound of, felt her start to slip through his fingers.
“Have I ever told you what my dream was?”
You looked up at his question and shook your head, unable to make a single sound, not to mention say something.
Jungkook smiled to himself before he wandered over to you, feet stopping right where Yoongi had stood, next to you. And once again, you noticed the gap, the gap between him and you, the gap that seemed to never really close.
“I’ve had it since the start of high school, but unlike you, I didn’t fulfill it,” Jungkook started, eyes gazing into the sky. “I still want it and I do think I’m gonna fulfill it one day, but I don’t think I’m gonna do it the way I thought I would.”
Jungkook shook his head and you were really not sure how to process his words, or what he was trying to tell you.
“It’s stupid and childish, I guess, but I really thought I would fulfill it, fulfill it the way I had dreamt of.” Jungkook laughed to himself before he fell quiet again.
Slowly, he turned to you, eyes glazing over as he looked at you, looked at you with his incredibly beautiful eyes. You could see the warmth, the light, the love in them, but there seemed to be something else swimming in his pupils, and you hated it when you realised what it was.
Sadness.
You bit on your tongue as you watched the wind blow through Jungkook’s fluffy hair and mess it all up, and even then, Jungkook was still breathtakingly gorgeous. And with the sun going down behind you, the most beautiful and heartbreaking halo was cast upon him, surrounding him, hugging him.
“You were my dream, Y/N.”
Your heart didn’t fall to the ground and shatter into pieces because she tumbled too much in Jungkook’s hands. She fell to the ground and shattered into pieces because Jungkook didn’t hold on tight enough, because he couldn’t hold on tight enough.
“You and me, forever. Together. A house, a kid or two, maybe a dog. Really, anything you wanted. That was my dream,” Jungkook whispered, words slipping off his tongue quietly and slowly, like it was a secret, a secret meant to be only shared between him and you.
The corners of Jungkook’s lips curled up into the saddest smile you had ever seen when he continued, “I thought we were going to be together and grow old. I truly thought one day I would get the pleasure and honour of watching you walk down the aisle.”
Jungkook raised his hand and for a moment, it seemed like he was going to cup your face, seemed like he was going to stroke your cheek, but then, he hesitated. It was like he remembered, remembered then that you were not like that anymore, were not dating anymore.
And so, Jungkook shook his head at himself and curled his hand into a tight fist, knuckles turning a painful white before he let his hand drop and swing by his side. It was like if he didn’t curl his hand into a tight enough fist, he would lose and cup your face, stroke your cheek anyway.
“I really thought you were my dream.”
There was no malice in Jungkook’s voice as he spoke. He wasn’t trying to make you feel bad or trying to hurt you. He was simply trying to be truthful, but the truth was ugly and terrible and neither of you liked it very much. But at least, the truth didn’t hurt Jungkook, it only hurt you, only stabbed you in the chest and asked you where your goddamn heart was, only cursed at you for leaving Jungkook, the one boy who had loved you more than anything else in this world.
“Do you regret it?”
You hated that question, hated it so much because, fuck, you didn’t know. You didn’t know if you regretted it, if you regretted leaving Jungkook. You regretted that he and you broke up, regretted the way you two broke up, but did that mean you automatically regretted going to America? Did that mean that going to America was the wrong choice?
And even though you asked yourself these questions, you didn’t want the answers, didn’t want to know them because, fuck, you were afraid of them, afraid to realise that you regretted both and you had fucked up your chance of true and lasting love with Jungkook and spent all of this time, all these years in a foreign country without your friends and family for nothing.
You lowered your head and squeezed your eyes shut, trying to keep your skull together as it threatened to split open.
In the silence, Jungkook’s steps were loud, ringing in your ears, deafening. And you contorted your face and bit on your lip when you heard Jungkook slide the glass door open, a heavy sigh slipping from his lips before he spoke up, mustering up the best smile he could,
“We’re still gonna bully Yoongs for bullying us, right?”
You chuckled because how could you not? Of course, Jungkook could still make you laugh. It was a sad chuckle, but it was a chuckle no one else could have ever elicited from you.
You lifted your head and peered at Jungkook over your shoulder, peered at him even though it hurt you to. He was just too beautiful to not look at.
“Yeah, we’ll still bully Yoongs for bullying us.”
You almost didn’t see the way the corners of Jungkook’s lips curled up into something that resembled a smile, almost didn’t see it with the tears swimming in your eyes, blurring your vision.
“Amazing.”
Jungkook nodded at you, fingers tapping the glass door before he turned around and walked away. And even though you shouldn’t, you watched him, watched him slip away more and more, watched him walk away from you.
You turned back around and only realised then that the sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon. The sky was painted an incredibly mellow and sorrowful orange, and even with your heart shattered on the floor and guilt leaving gaping holes in your chest, you had to smile.
And with that smile on your lips, the tears rolled down your cheeks, sparkling in the sunlight as you let them flow, flow because you didn’t see a reason to wipe them away. Sometimes it was good to just cry, let yourself feel.
“Tell me you’re not crying.”
His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but you heard them. You pressed your lips together at his words because, of course, he would also come out to talk to you. You really should have expected it, should have expected it because he was simply that great.
“Well, guess you gotta give me a second then,” you said and rubbed on your cheeks, quickly wiping away the tears you knew were going to have his blood boiling and anger unfurling in his stomach.
“Y/N,” Taehyung sighed as he stepped out on the balcony, glass door clicking shut behind you as his hand gripped your elbow and turned you around.
“What did he say?” You shook your head, smiling at him as much as possible, but your smile did nothing to soothe the deep line between Taehyung’s brow, did nothing to loosen the grip he had around your elbow.
“Tell me. I don’t care if he’s my friend, he’s-”
“No, stop,” you interrupted with a shake of your head and placed your hands on his shoulder, lips splitting into a grin because truly, Taehyung was the greatest, the greatest friend you could have ever wished or asked for. “It’s nothing. He didn’t say anything.”
You knew with the way Taehyung was eyeing you that he didn’t believe you, didn’t believe you for a single second, but you also knew that you could spend hours trying to convince him otherwise and he still wouldn’t believe you.
“You sure you don’t need me to beat him up a little?”
You laughed. “You think you can beat him up?”
Taehyung scoffed at your words and tried his hardest to look offended, but even he had to smile a little.
“I’d try for you,” he said and you laughed again, shaking your head from left to right. The thought of a beaten up Taehyung popping right into your head.
“Let’s be honest here, he would just beat you up. No offence.”
Now, Taehyung laughed as well, laughed because he knew you were right. And for a moment, both of you only smiled at each other. For a moment, things seemed great and like he wouldn’t bring it up again that you had just been crying.
But just like a wise man once had said, great things always have to come to an end.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty.”
Taehyung’s smile disappeared and your hands slid off his shoulder. You sighed, knowing exactly what he was talking about even though he didn’t specify.
You closed your eyes and took a few deep breaths before humming and peeling your eyes open, head cocking to the side.
“Well, I also shouldn’t stay up so late and get more sleep, but here I am.” Your attempt of humour wasn’t well received at all. Taehyung didn’t even fake a smile at you, and you quickly let yours slip away, realising the weight of the situation and just how serious he was.
“Y/N, I mean it. You shouldn’t feel guilty,” Taehyung said, stressing every word of his last sentence like he wanted to drill it into your head, like he wanted for you to remember it, like he wanted to tattoo it into your skin so you would never forget.
“It’s not that easy,” you said in a quiet whisper and Taehyung pursed his lips, hands burying into his pockets as he suppressed the sigh from slipping.
“But it’s not like you try either, right? Not like you try to free yourself from all of that guilt,” Taehyung argued and you almost groaned because, once again, he showed you that he had no idea.
“Taehyung, it’s really not that easy. I can’t just wake up and say ‘Well, it’s his fault that he got hurt-’”
“That’s not what I’m asking from you. Yes, you can’t wake up and say that, but you can wake up and say ‘It sucks that Jungkook got hurt by me leaving and was unable to properly forgive me for not telling him earlier, but aside from that I didn’t do anything wrong because I simply chased my dream.’. I’m not asking you to wake up and be all ‘Jungkook can suck a dick.’. That’d be ridiculous, but I’m asking you to stop blaming yourself.”
You tore your gaze away and crossed your arms in front of your chest as you suddenly realised how mesmerising Yerim’s flowers were.
“It’s trying, trying to feel less guilty. That’s what I’m asking from you. And I realise it’s a process, but for the love of God, can you start it?” Taehyung said and tried to get you to look at him again, but you whipped your head around.
“None of you understand,” you whispered and Taehyung scoffed, hands running through his hair as he tried not to snap.
“But we do!” Taehyung groaned and you turned around to look at him, ready to shut him up and tell him how exactly he was wrong, but he continued, “You seriously think that Yoongs or Yeri or I weren’t hurt by the news of you leaving? You seriously think that we weren’t mad too? You seriously think it was easy for us to go to the airport and wish you well? No!”
Taehyung gestured wildly around himself, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath, as he tried not to shake you and yell into your face to wake the fuck up.
“It wasn’t. It sucked because while, yes, none of us dated you, we still loved you,” Taehyung said, leaning forward to stress his words. “We were hanging out every day for four years, spending every minute together, and then suddenly, at the start of our last summer, you tell us you’re going to America?”
You swallowed heavily and bit on your tongue.
“It wasn’t easy and it fucking sucked, but we still wanted the best for you, still wanted you to go because we knew just how much you wanted to and how much you had worked for it. You deserved it, truly,” Taehyung said, voice growing soft as he calmed down a little.
“It was why we did go to the airport with you and wished you well,” Taehyung spat out and for a moment, he stopped, paused and put his hands on his hips, eyes piercing through yours as you struggled to hold his gaze.
“Do you realise that you haven’t said his name?”
You blinked at Taehyung, unable to say anything as a lump lodged itself into your throat, growing bigger and bigger with every word that left him.
“I don’t think you’ve said ‘Jungkook’ or ‘Kook’ even once except for that time when we first saw Kook in the restaurant,” Taehyung said and you really thought he wouldn’t realise. “You feel so guilty you can’t even say his name. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
You uncrossed your arms and let them slip to your side, eyes darting across the floor as you tried to find your words, but you couldn’t.
“And what hurts and frustrates me the most aside from the fact that you will not recognise that your guilt is, in fact, ridiculous, is that Kook treats you like shit. And he’s so rude to you even though you go out of your way to fucking dice his cucumbers, even though you and I are fake dating for him, even though you organised this entire thing to break up with me so Heejin will never find out that all of this is a lie and you’re in actuality Kook’s ex.”
Taehyung was heaving at the end, chest rising and falling as the world spilled from his lips like an overflowing bucket. He levelled you with a gaze and a few seconds passed by before he spoke up again. But this time he wasn’t on the edge of yelling, this time his voice wasn’t dripping of urgency and frustration, this time he was calm.
“Look, I’m not saying that you did nothing wrong and that Kook has no right to be mad at you at all.” You pressed your lips together. “You did just leave, did just apply for that scholarship without telling us beforehand. That sucked, and you shouldn’t have done that. You should have at least told him.”
Taehyung ran a hand through his hair as he gazed off into the sky, eyes squinting when he looked right into the disappearing sun.
“But it doesn’t mean that it’s okay for him to act the way he does. You’ve both fucked up, but it’s been years.”
You leaned against the railing and let out a long sigh, eyes wandering to Taehyung. He offered you a smile and while you felt the corners of your lips quiver and your lungs ache, you smiled back at him.
“You two obviously have a lot to work through,” Taehyung said and you threw your head back into your neck, gaze finding the sky.
“Where do I start?”
And without missing a beat, Taehyung answered,
“Start by forgiving yourself.”
When Taehyung came home that night after dropping you off, he found Jungkook in the kitchen, McDonalds bag sitting on the dining table.
“Got anything for me?” Taehyung asked as he made his way over to Jungkook, sitting down opposite of him and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Jungkook didn’t respond or look at Taehyung, simply putting down his burger on the wrapper that functioned as a makeshift plate before rummaging through the brown bag and tossing a cheeseburger at Taehyung.
“You took Heejin home?” Taehyung asked as he peeled the wrapper away, wondering how Jungkook had made it home before him when he had been at McDonalds before.
“Uh, she insisted on going home herself. Called her an uber,” Jungkook mumbled between bites and Taehyung stopped unwrapping his burger for a moment to eye him before nodding and continuing.
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Taehyung said, trying to make Jungkook feel better, but he shrugged and didn’t really react.
Interpreting Jungkook’s silence as him not wanting to talk, Taehyung didn’t say anything more and focused on the food in front of him, biting into his burger that was disgustingly cold now, but after the night he had, any food was welcomed, even if it tasted of artificial flavouring and left his throat dry.
And for the next few minutes, Jungkook and he sit in silence, eating. At one point, Jungkook reached for his second burger, tossing Taehyung another one even though he hadn’t finished his nor asked for one. Two bites into his new burger, Jungkook paused and stared at some point in front of him, just not at Taehyung.
“She broke up with me.”
Taehyung looked up, but Jungkook kept his eyes trained in front of him.
“Heejin broke up with me.”
A second passed before Taehyung put down his burger and straightened up. He wasn’t surprised because Yoongi had been right when he had told you that Jungkook and you had been in another world. A blind man could have seen that there was something between Jungkook and you.
“You okay?” Taehyung offered and forgot that he was, deep down, still mad at Jungkook, forgot that Jungkook still made him want to rip out his own hair.
Jungkook scoffed before dropping his burger. It landed halfway on the wrapper and halfway not, but he didn’t care enough to adjust it. He leaned back and covered his face with his hands, fingers digging into his eyes.
Taehyung was about to make his way over to Jungkook, about to pull him into his arms because he was clearly not doing well, but before he could even move a single centimetre, Jungkook’s hands fell away and he looked up to him.
“Yeah, I am.”
It sounded like Jungkook couldn’t believe himself, like he was angry and frustrated with himself for being able to say that he was okay and mean it, like he wanted to be the opposite, crying and bawling instead.
“I’m okay,” Jungkook said, head shaking from left to right as he furrowed his brows and scoffed at himself. “How am I okay? How am I okay when Heejin, my fucking girlfriend, just broke up with me?”
Taehyung blinked at Jungkook, knowing exactly that he needed to rant right now, needed to get all of the words out.
“She told me to get her an uber and after I did, she turned to me and said that she thought we should break up,” Jungkook recounted, eyes unblinking. “Just like that. We broke up just like that.”
He rubbed his eyes and groaned before snapping out of it and looking back at Taehyung.
“I- I didn’t even fight her on it when she told me to call her an uber. I just did. I did as she told me to, but- but as her boyfriend, I shouldn’t have, right? I should have insisted on driving her home, but I didn’t. I- I knew I should have. I was screaming at myself to, but I just couldn’t. And when she told me we should break up-” Jungkook paused and gestured around like that would finish his sentence. “I, again, didn’t fight her on it.”
A bitter scoff escaped him and Taehyung watched Jungkook shake his head at himself, obviously confused by himself. “Instead of insisting to talk about it or whatever, I just went to fucking McDonalds.” Jungkook punched the bag and it tipped over, slow and sad. “I went to McDonalds! Can you fucking believe? Instead of driving home my girlfriend or fighting for my relationship, I just said okay and went to get food at the shittest place ever.”
Jungkook gestured around himself wildly, hands flailing around like he was drowning and trying to gasp for air. His voice grew in volume and the desperation and frustration seemed to thicken more and more, lacing his every word as he rambled on.
“And it all just doesn’t make sense because it’s not like I don’t care. I do. I do care about Heejin, but it’s just- it’s just-” Jungkook shook his head and pressed his lips into a thin line as he scanned the room for the rest of his sentence. “I just don’t know anymore. I don’t even know why she broke up with me.”
When Jungkook looked at Taehyung, it hurt him to see the frustration swimming in his eyes, hurt him to see how helpless he was. And so, Taehyung sighed and sat up even straighter, gaze levelling Jungkook’s.
“Do you love Heejin?”
“She’s my girlfriend.”
“Was,” Taehyung corrected with a raise of a finger. “But that doesn’t answer my question, Jungkook-”
Jungkook furrowed his brows at him and shook his head at him.
“What? It does answer your question,” Jungkook said, staring at Taehyung like he had just said the most ridiculous thing ever. “She is- was, whatever, my girlfriend, so, of course, I love her.”
Taehyung scrunched up his nose at Jungkook’s answer and slid his burger to the side to lean forward and be a little closer to Jungkook, needing to look right into his eyes as he said the next word.
“Do you, though?”
Taehyung didn’t give Jungkook a chance to answer.
“Do you seriously love Heejin or do you assume you do because she was your girlfriend?”
Taehyung eyed Jungkook as the words sank into the air and dawned on him, as they replayed over and over again in his head, as they started to push through everything inside him and reached his heart.
“Jungkook, don’t you think there was a reason why Heejin and you had been dating for almost six months and we hadn’t met her yet? Don’t you think there was a reason why you never told her about Y/N?”
He looked at Taehyung, his gaze hazy and clouded with questions. Jungkook had no idea, had no idea why Heejin had broken up with him. She had simply smiled at him and wished him well before getting into the uber, no reason. But he also hadn’t tried to stop her from getting inside and demanded an answer. He had just accepted it with a nod and gotten into his car.
But now, with Taehyung looking at him, gaze digging deep into his, he started to think, started to replay the events of this evening, started to dissect every interaction today.
He thought about how you all had played Taboo, thought about how you had smiled at him when he had gotten the first word, thought about how you had essentially beamed at him when you two had gotten closer and closer to the win, thought about how you had squealed and jumped up when you had realised you had won, thought about how beautiful you had looked standing on the balcony with the wind blowing through your hair and the sun highlighting your beauty, thought about how he wanted to hold you close to him when he saw you standing there, thought about how you had smiled at him when you had told him you had missed him too, thought about how you were the only thing he could think of.
“I love Y/N.”
The corners of Taehyung’s lips curled up and he nodded.
“I still love, Y/N.”
And once again, Taehyung nodded.
Jungkook slumped into his chair, hands in his lap as he stared at some chip in the dining table, mind far, far away. Never had he been this confused before, never had he ever struggled this much to process anything before.
But at the same time, it made sense, made sense that he was still in love with you. How could he not be? How could he not be when you were the only one that had ever made him so happy that the corners of his lips had started hurting from all of the grinning and his stomach aching from all of the laughing and his lungs screaming for oxygen? How could he not be when you were the smartest, kindest, funniest. most talented, brilliant, inspiring and prettiest person he had ever met?
It made so much sense that Jungkook was still deeply in love with you after all this time, it hurt his brain.
And so, he stayed silent, stayed silent even as Taehyung reached over and bit into his burger after finishing his own.
“What do I do?”
Jungkook surprised himself when he spoke, not intending to, but once the words were out, he wanted the answer. Taehyung put Jungkook’s burger down on his own pile of cheeseburger wrappers and brushed his hands off.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to tell her. I want to try again. I want to hold her in my arms and kiss her until the sun rises-”
“Okay, calm down, Kook,” Taehyung laughed and leaned back into his chair. “I get it. You wanna rush over to her and profess your love to her in this grand romantic gesture, but take a moment and think about it, about everything.”
Jungkook lowered his gaze and looked up after two seconds, chest pressed against the edge of the table and legs itching to carry him to you.
“You think she’s still up-”
“No,” Taehyung cut in and pointed at Jungkook, burger abandoned to the side once more as he leaned forward. The smile that had pulled on his lips before disappeared.
“Kook, I need you to think about how you’ve treated Y/N these past weeks.” Jungkook straightened up and his legs tucked themselves under the chair when the memories came crashing down on him. “Really think about it.”
And so, this time, Jungkook did think about it, did take a moment and let all of your interaction run through his mind. And the longer he did, the longer he thought about what he had said to you and how he had treated you, the more he wanted to punch himself, the more he wanted to turn back time, the more he wanted to fall to his knees and beg you to forgive him, beg you to just please not hate him.
Jungkook ran a hand through his hair, fingers clawing on the roots as he cursed himself.
“Bad, isn’t it?” Taehyung said and cocked his head to the side.
“What do I do?”
“Well, I’d apologise first if I were you and I’d take all responsibility for what, well, you’ve done. And I’d tell her that if she doesn’t feel the way I do, that it’s fine and I will do anything in my power to not make it awkward for her and the fact that she’s friends with my friends.”
Jungkook hummed, hummed because he really couldn’t do anything else. He just couldn’t believe how blinded he had been, how blinded he had been by all of that ugly and unresolved anger and pain.
Taehyung let Jungkook think for a while, think before he leaned forward again and said what he had been trying so desperately to tell him, what he had been trying to get through his thick skull all this time.
“But before that, Kook, I need you to realise that when she made your promise of forever, you were teens. Remember how dumb and stupid we were back then? And I know you felt like Y/N was being selfish and leaving you behind to go study in America, but in reality, she was following her dreams. And you thought that those dreams didn’t include you, but they did. You were the one that broke up with her. She did not break up with you. You did.”
Taehyung paused for a second, arms crossing in front of his chest.
“You decided to not be in her dreams.”
You banged on the door, banged on it like you were about to kick it in, banged on it like your life depended on it, and when it finally opened, you almost banged on his chest, fist stopping mid-air.
“Who the fuck- Y/N? What are you doing here? It’s five in the morning- wait, why are you all wet? Did you run through the rain?”
You shoved your phone into his face and he squinted, your screen blinding him. The overhead light above you did barely anything to illuminate the hallway you were standing in, leaving both of you essentially in darkness.
It took him a few seconds, a lot of blinking and wrapping his fingers around your wrist to hold your phone away to finally see what you were showing him.
[heejin - 11:21 PM] : hi! I wasnt sure if I should tell you this or not and I honestly contemplated not to
[heejin - 11:21 PM] : but at the end, I think you should know
[heejin - 11:21 PM] : I’m not too sure what exactly is going on between kook and you, but for what it’s worth, kook and I broke up
[heejin - 11:22 PM] : I hope you two figure out whatever is between you two because I do think you two would be cute. you definitely got my blessing!
[heejin - 11:22 PM] : dream team ;)
Your knuckles turned white around your phone before you let your arm drop to your side. Your heart was pounding in your chest, pounding so much that you were certain that she was trying to leap out of it and fall into his hands again.
Jungkook blinked at you, mouth agape as he struggled to find his voice, struggled to take you all in because did you really stand in front of him, soaked to the bones, hair all tangled up and wet from the rain, chest heaving like you had run all of the way here or was he simply dreaming? Did he finally fall asleep?
“Did I wake you up?” you panted and shifted from one foot to another, expecting him to slam the door in your face.
“N-no, I, uh, I wasn’t sleeping,” Jungkook said and you looked at him before nodding and letting your gaze travel to the side. Your brows pinched together and Jungkook was about to invite you in because, again, you were soaked to the bones, but then, you took a deep breath and opened your mouth.
Here goes nothing.
“Look, Jungkook, I debated with myself for the past four or so hours whether or not I should come here. And then, it started to rain, and, well, I know that you love your romcoms. And even though I also know you probably wanna be the one to execute the grand romantic gesture because you are you and you love so fucking deeply and wholly, I decided that I’m gonna do this because, well, you deserve it.
“When I left for America, I- I truly thought I was going to move on from you at one point, thought you were going to turn into an old love, a memory. I thought that one day I’d tell my grandkids about you, Jungkook, and how you were my first love and how happy you had made me and how bitter our ending had been, but,” you shook your head, “but the truth is, you still have such a hold on my heart. You’re still vibrant and alive in my mind, imprinted in there.
“And I know I’ve hurt you by leaving, but I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you, Jungkook,” tears filled your eyes, “I left because having you, having you by my side, as my boyfriend, Jungkook, made me believe that anything was possible, made me want to reach for the stars, fulfill my dreams because before America, you were my dream. You were the one thing I had wanted for so long, and then, I had you. Then, you were mine, and I was on cloud nine.
“I’ve felt so guilty all this time and beaten myself up for leaving because you were obviously still so angry and hurt by that, and unlike what you might believe, I never wanted that, never wanted to hurt you in any way. I need you to understand that I didn’t leave because you weren’t enough. You were and are enough, Jungkook. I left because you made the impossible seem possible, and so, I thought you’d be my side forever, even if oceans and continents and whatever were between us.
“And I realise that was selfish, selfish of me to just expect you to be fine with it. I should have talked to you, told you about the scholarship and my plans and not broken our promise like that. But I didn’t, and I made you think that everybody is selfish and that you weren’t enough. But that’s not true.” You shook your head and swallowed heavily, trying not to choke on your own tears. “Jungkook, you taught me that people are wonderful and amazing and you made me feel like I was more than enough, beyond enough. And you deserve to feel the same way, so, I’m deeply sorry for failing to do just that and for leaving without a proper explanation and talking to you beforehand.
“I know you probably don’t wanna hear this because you probably hate me now, but even if you decide to slam the door in my face and curse me out for the rest of my life after this and forget about all that I’ve said, I want you to know one thing.
“I love you. I love you so much it hurts, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop, not even if you hate me.”
Jungkook looked at you, gazed into your eyes, and truly, you thought time stopped. You waited, waited for him to say or do something and it felt like eternities were flying past you as you stood there, blinking at him. And even with tears in your eyes, blurring your vision, you could see him clearly, could see Jungkook standing right in front of you.
“Y/N, oh, my love,” Jungkook started, voice shaky before he took a step closer to you. His hand reached up and he cupped your face. Your cheek was cold, cold from the rain, but the moment he touched you, you felt warmth push through you, through your chest, felt the remnants of icicles melt away in your lungs.
“Please, don’t apologise. I should be apologising to you, should be the one banging on your door and begging for your forgiveness. I don’t hate you. I could never truly hate you.” Jungkook swallowed, voice cracking as the words continued spilling from him without a pause. “I- I’m the one that fucked up so badly, I don’t even know how you can still love me. I hurt you so much, said so much dumb shit and made you feel so fucking guilty when you shouldn’t have felt guilty.” He shook his head at himself and held onto you a little tighter like he was scared you were going to slip away if he didn’t. “I’m so sorry, my love, for being so incredibly blinded by anger and pain for so long. I’m so sorry for hurting you and making you feel like you needed to apologise to me.
“Tae is right. I should have taken you to the airport and wished you well. I should have been there with the others and said goodbye. I shouldn't have screamed at you and stayed at home-”
“Kook, babe, no,” you choked out and grabbed his wrist, holding onto it as you shook your head at him. “Don’t apologise. I- I should have talked to you before. You had every right to be mad at me. I understand why you didn’t go. I understand why you couldn’t do it. It’s fine-”
“But I don’t want it to be fine,” Jungkook interrupted and your fingers tightened around his wrists. “I don’t want it to be fine because I know I hurt you by not being there. And I never want it to be fine or okay or whatever if I hurt you.”
Jungkook and you looked at one another, vision blurry and just as the first tear began spilling from the corner of your eye, you took a step towards Jungkook, closing the gap that had lingered between you two and pressed your lips to his.
You kissed Jungkook, kissed him standing on the doorstep of his front door, kissed him standing there, soaked to the bones, kissed him like it was just you and him in this universe. Your body leaned into his and your hands were desperate for him, desperate to just touch him. You grabbed onto whatever skin and piece of Jungkook you could get, and he did the same, but your kiss was soft and calm, the opposite of your hands. You held onto you like you were drowning, like you were Rose and Jack.
You moved your lips against his and your smile grew the longer you kissed Jungkook. And you wondered if he could also feel the sun shine in his chest, if he could also taste the honey and sugar and love trapped between your teeth, if his skin was also prickling everywhere you touched him, if fireworks were also exploding in his stomach like they were in yours, if this was enough of a grand romantic gesture for him.
You wondered if Jungkook could feel just how much you loved him.
The sun rose behind you two, and when you two pulled away to breathe, you smiled at each other.
Jungkook didn’t let go of you and neither did you. He cupped your face once more and pulled you close to him. Your breath mixed with his, heavy and varied, but it was all good, all good because smiles were on your lips, all good because you had each other again.
“My love,” Jungkook breathed, and gazed into your eyes the way he had when you had won that round of Taboo and smiled at you the way he had when he and you had stood on the balcony. “I love you.”
“Kook, babe,” you started, pecking his nose before beaming at him, beaming at him like you had used to, beaming at him because he was your sun and your dream. “I love you more.”
Jungkook leaned in for a quick kiss, leaned in the same way he used to whenever his heart pounded a little too much in his chest. And you pressed right back against him, lips finding his, and you knew,
Jungkook was warmth.
Jungkook was home.
Jungkook was love.
“Fucking finally.”
Jungkook and you pulled apart and jerked around to the source of the sound, and when you saw them standing there, behind you, your heart stopped mid-beat. Your jaw went slack as you blinked at them, unable to process what was happening right now.
“Worth it, right?”
Jungkook and you whipped your heads around one more time, and it was then that you saw Taehyung standing behind you, hands shoved into his pockets and body leaned against the door to the living room.
“Eh, was kinda obvious that this was gonna happen at one point,” Yoongi mumbled with a shrug, clearly unbothered, but Yerim was the complete opposite, hands pressed to her mouth as she tried to stop the squeal from spilling free.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, voice so high it hurt and Jungkook and you cringed. “I- I’ve been literally dreaming of this!”
“So, worth it, right? Coming here?” Taehyung asked again and squeezed himself between Jungkook and you to step out into the hallway, prompting you to move to the side a little.
“Yes, absolutely!” Yerim grinned and nodded vigorously, and for a moment, you thought her head was going to come off.
“What’s happening right now?” you asked and your hands found Jungkook’s, your fingers lacing with his for some kind of support.
“Oh, yeah, I heard you banging on the door, so, I called up Yoongs and Yeri and told them to get their asses here because our best friends don’t get back together without everybody here to witness it,” Taehyung explained with a shrug.
“Wait, how did you two make it here in time?” Jungkook asked, thumb brushing over your hand as he stepped closer to you to look at Yoongi and Yerim.
“Yeah, unlike what you might think, Kook, traffic isn’t always so bad and there aren’t always fires around,” Yoongi smirked and Jungkook gasped behind you.
Taehyung, Yerim and you looked at each other, jaws going slack before you started grinning and all three of you had to bite your lips to stop the laughter from spilling free. Jungkook tugged on your hand and you tried your hardest not to laugh, but when you looked at him, you just couldn’t stop it.
Pearls of laughter spilled out and you took Taehyung and Yerim with you. Taehyung placed his hand on Jungkook’s shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze, and Yerim hid behind Yoongi, trying her hardest to avoid Jungkook’s gaze.
And even though he was offended and tried to keep looking like he was truly offended, he couldn’t help but laugh with you all, couldn’t help himself when he saw you grinning at him like that.
“Can we go now?” Yoongi smiled when you all had calmed down, the bags under his eyes darkening with every second he wasn’t in his bed. “It’s five in the morning and usually, I’m in bed during this time.”
Taehyung smiled at him. “Only if you say, it was worth it.”
Yoongi groaned and threw his head into his neck, not enjoying that answer at all. Yerim giggled and nudged him with her elbow, but instead of just saying it was worth it, Yoongi decided to argue with Taehyung.
“It was so obvious that they were gonna get together again. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if you hadn’t called me.”
“Min Yoongi, are you seriously telling me that you wouldn’t have minded missing out on our best friends getting back together?”
“Honestly? Yeah.”
“He’s lying. Yoongs loves Kook and Y/N together.”
“What’re you talking about, Yeri? I don’t-”
“Do I have to remind you that you texted me last week that you couldn’t believe that they weren’t back together yet?”
“Oh, Yoongs, that’s so cute.”
“Why would you believe her, Tae? It’s bullshit!”
Too busy watching Taehyung, Yerim and Yoongi argue with each other, you didn’t notice Jungkook turning away. So, when you suddenly felt cotton brush against your arms, you were more than surprised.
“What?” you blurted out before looking down at yourself and seeing one of Jungkook’s jackets around your body.
“Thought you might be cold. You know, with all of that running through the rain and everything,” Jungkook hummed with a shrug and you stared at him for a little before you smiled at him again. You leaned up and pressed a quick kiss against his lips, a kiss that had the corners of his lips curling into the most beautiful smile.
You hugged Jungkook’s jacket closer to your body, trying to keep that warmth in your chest locked down. The smell of his detergent and sweat mixed with your senses and you felt all dizzy, but it was the good kind of dizzy, the kind of dizzy you loved, the kind of dizzy only Jungkook could ever make you feel.
And when he wrapped his arms around you, you quickly wrapped your arms around him too. Your lips brushed against his neck and you left a kiss there, trying to make sure that he would never ever forget that he was more than enough, never ever forget that you loved him like nobody else in this world.
And with his arms around your body, you, once again, felt like the impossible was possible, like the stars were yours to grab, like nothing could ever come between you, but unlike before, you knew that this time, it was all true.
“I love you,” you hummed into Jungkook’s ear and he smiled into your hair before tightening his arms around you.
“And I love you.”
Jungkook and you gazed into each other’s eyes, sunlight sparkling in your pupils before you both slowly leaned into each other, more and more. Your eyes flickered down to his lips and you knew that any second now, he would kiss you. And the thought alone had your heart racing and your breath hitching and your hands shaking but in the best ways possible. And right as your lips were about to connect,
“Fine!” Yoongi grunted and silenced Taehyung and Yerim, cutting them mid-sentence and Jungkook and you mid-kiss. “It was worth it. I missed Kook and Y/N and I’m more than overjoyed to see them together again! My heart is literally melting in my chest and I can’t wait to go home because I wanna shriek and scream into my pillow!”
Jungkook and you turned your heads around to see a panting Yoongi. His eyes were big and nostrils flared as he glared at Taehyung and Yerim.
“Happy now?” he asked through gritted teeth and he looked between Taehyung and Yerim, who were exchanging glances with each other. There was a beat of silence and a second later, the two burst out into laughter. Jungkook and you had to grin too, but you still shook your heads at your friends, the situation far too ridiculous.
“Hey, Yoongs,” Jungkook called over your head before looking at you. When you nodded at him, he turned back to Yoongi, who was, at this point, fuming and mumbling to himself, cheeks red. “You can go home now.”
“Thank you!” Yoongi grumbled and threw his hands into the air, but before he could turn around and drive home with his cheeks and the tips of his ears bright red, Jungkook interjected,
“But you are a dumb, little bitch.”
Yoongi’s jack went slack as he furrowed his brows at Jungkook, more than caught off guard by the sudden insult. It was clear he was struggling to process it, but so were Taehyung, Yerim and you, all three of you going silent at Jungkook’s words.
It took you a moment to understand why Jungkook had said what he had said, and when you did, you burst out into laughter.
You gasped for air as you threw your head back, laughter rippling through your chest, and Jungkook joined you, bending over as he laughed his heart out as well. And soon enough, Taehyung joined you two, finally making the connection himself. Yerim started laughing as well, but only because Taehyung, Jungkook and you were laughing.
Yoongi was left blinking at you three as he struggled to decide whether he was offended or amused, and judging from the smile tugging on the corners of his lips, it was the latter.
“Not like that,” you said with a shake of your head and Jungkook shrugged at you.
“What? Isn’t that we were talking about when we said to bully Yoongs?” he asked with that proud smirk on his lips, that proud smirk he always got whenever he managed to make people laugh. Taehyung and you shook your heads at him, both definitely not thinking of calling Yoongi ‘a dumb, little bitch’ when you had agreed to bully him a little.
It took a while, but soon your laughter died down, but the grins stayed on your lips.
“Definitely not like that,” Taehyung agreed with you, fingers wiping away the tears, and you three locked eyes with each other, grinning, no, beaming.
Yoongi sighed after he had enough of whatever this was, and turned on his heel, but once again, before he could go, Jungkook interjected,
“Hey, I think you should all just crash here. It’s, well, early and probably better for you two to not get behind the wheel right now.”
Yoongi opened his mouth to protest, but then, he stopped himself and paused, gaze levelling Jungkook’s.
“I get your bed?”
“Sure thing, I’ll kick you out of it,” Jungkook grinned and even though that had not been the response he had wanted, Yoongi shuffled inside, Yerim right behind him.
“I’m happy you guys are back together,” she told you two as she walked past you and you grinned at Jungkook, a grin he returned right away.
Taehyung let out a sigh, lips still pulled into a smile before he, too, shuffled inside, gaze meeting yours when he did.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, seriously. Thanks,” Jungkook hummed and Taehyung laughed before waving you two off, dismissing your words with a flick of his hand.
“No need to thank me,” Taehyung grinned. “I’m just happy that you two are back together.”
Both of you wanted to disagree, but Taehyung silenced you with a smile. And right as he was about to turn into the living room to figure out where Yerim and Yoongi were going to sleep, he looked over his shoulder and met Jungkook’s and your gaze.
“You can name your firstborn after me if you’re truly thankful.” A pause. “Taehyung Jeon. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?”
“You think we would name our firstborn after you?”
“You think I would take Kook’s last name?”
Jungkook gasped next to you and took a step back, hand gripping your elbow to draw your attention to him. His brows were slightly furrowed together and his mouth agape.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with Jeon?” he asked and you stared at him.
“Gonna leave you two alone now,” Taehyung laughed, not wanting to see where that conversation was going, and joined Yerim and Yoongi in the living room.
“Nothing. Don’t you worry about it,” you said with a smile and stroked Jungkook’ cheek, and instantly, he melted into your touch, frown washing away. “It’s fine. It’s a nice last name.”
You pinched Jungkook’s cheeks, making him pull away and just as he was about to complain and tell you not to pinch his cheek, you continued,
“You know, fine and nice for now.”
Jungkook’s eyes grew big at your words and before he could ask you what exactly you meant with that, (because you knew he was going to. It was Jungkook after all.), you closed the door behind you two. You patted his chest and took his hand to lead him to the others, but he stopped you, pulling you back to him, smirk on his lips.
“You wanna fulfill Tae’s wish?” Jungkook asked with a quirk of his brow and you looked at him, lips pressing into a line. When you didn’t respond, the smirk fell away, prompting you to smile at him again.
“Let’s join the others, yeah?” you said with a wink, enjoying teasing him a little too much. You didn’t wait for an answer and turned on your heel, but once again, Jungkook stopped you.
“How about we fulfill my dream, then?”
Jungkook looked at you with the same smirk on his face again, and before you could stop yourself, you laughed at him, shaking your head from left to right. You leaned up to him and planted a kiss on his cheek before patting his chest and walking backwards, pointing at him as you did.
“Just get me a towel.”
→ links don’t work, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts/feedback! i’d love to hear it!
#jungkook angst#jungkook fluff#bts angst#bts fluff#bts scenario#jungkook scenario#bts imagine#jungkook imagine#bts au#jungkook au#jungkook x reader#bts x reader#jungkook oneshot#bts oneshot#bts#jungkook#exes au#fake dating au#enemies to lovers au#e2l#unrequited feelings au#angst#fluff#after i left you#linh.fic#ITS HERE#I CANT BELIEVE IT#ALSO JUST REALISED THAT ON MY PREVIEW THE DATE IS OFF BY ONE DAY LMAO
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I live in the neighbourhood
When Y/N moved to Hampstead she was unaware of the implications the decision would have on the course of the rest of her life.
or
Harry is Y/N’s eccentric neighbour who sweeps her up in the whirlwind that is his life
this gif bc its maybe my favorite clip of him EVER holy fuck - this is the harry of my dreams this is the harry of i live in the neighbourhood
HEY YALL it’s been a minute and I missed yall so much and I’m just about to be on break so maybe i’ll be back to posting writing regularly but with school its so hard and I think I’ve been working on this for months so yeah <3 lol PLS PLS PLS leave me feedback and reblogs and that stuff bc otherwise my writing just feels...empty and you have no idea the smile i get when even just the tags say like “god this was everything” it can be anything honestly but it keeps my passion up. Thank you again and hope you enjoy.
Word Count: ~10k | Warnings: swearing probably? no smut (yet), rich and famous harry - mentions of Taylor Swif
-
She considered herself an average young woman in her mid twenties. She liked screaming Taylor Swift and Megan Thee Stallion songs alone in her car and thrifting on weekends. She hated cable because of commercials and when doordash didn’t deliver all of her order. She had asthma when she worked out or the air quality was bad. She had dumb celebrity crushes that her friends and her still laughed over with every new instagram post. She had hopes and dreams she had yet to achieve and she had past trauma that many would never know about, especially at first glance.
Sure, she was successful. She would admit that. How else would she be able to afford even the modest little house she had found in Hampstead? She had studied international business in college and hopped on a plane to London the first chance she got. After a few years of a more than decent paycheck and an advantageous stimulus check from her kind parents, she was able to move out of her starter flat into the suburbs. The definitive push for the move was two-fold. Her parents wanted her to take her dog and her apartment complex was strict on no pets. Then her promotion at work - which included a pay raise - made it hard to wave off taking full ownership of her childhood ten-pound best friend.
So with life happening as it usually does, Y/N first found herself scouring Zillow, then touring homes in the area, and finally standing outside a three bedroom, two bath, two-story cream house in Hampstead. Her house.
The little moving truck she had rented sat beside her as she stared at her future. The realtor had told her they would be there in ten minutes. For the next ten minutes all Y/N had to do was keep herself from combusting, or worse, sobbing.
She felt overwhelmed already. Renting a flat in London was one way to describe herself as independent. Owning a home in Hampstead seemed like a whole new level of adulthood she wasn’t sure if she was prepared for.
After taking a few deep breaths to ground herself, Y/N walked up to the gate that kept her front yard narrowly separated from the sidewalk. She lifted one hand from beneath the box she clutched tightly to her chest to push past the iron-rod gateway. The garden was cute, a little bland, and she thought to herself that maybe she’d develop some gardening skills now that she had her own front yard. The thought made her smile a little, refraining from laughing aloud while on her lonesome, since she had never taken interest in gardening before. But this house. This house. It was a new beginning. It was a fucking unwritten journal. Blank film. Unknown territory. She could be anyone in this house.
She gently placed the cardboard box on the first step up to the front door. There was no porch, but she couldn’t complain. It was gorgeous and she was lucky to get it at the price she did. The house was cream with dark blue accents and a grey shingled roof. Lots of windows. It was classic and it was hers.
After the realtor came with her keys and made sure everything seemed alright, Y/N’s couple of friends, Amélie and Daniel, arrived with their cars filled with items she had needed picking up from various stores. They helped her move her stuff into the house. Thankfully it was already half furnished, meaning she didn’t have to go out and buy beds or couches or any of those big items that are both expensive and a hassle to deal with.
By the time the evening had rolled around, everything was in the house and it actually seemed semi put together. Y/N looked around, sweat apparent on her face and hands on her hips, proud of what she had accomplished. The nerves from earlier had been drowned by pride.
-
The next day, she woke up from her first night in the house. It felt like a dream even though she was sure she was awake.
She had to navigate her way to the airport today to pick up her dog from his long flight and then mainly settle into the house. Her house sat on Sherwood Avenue, one of the many streets in Hampstead. It’s neighboring houses were much larger. The ones directly next to and across from her weren’t drastically bigger but what she had yet to learn was that next to the house across from her there were two houses that had been joined together by their slightly eccentric owner. A man who would be the match that ignited the flame that was the rest of her life.
This unknown fact quickly became known after Y/N’s first few weeks in her new neighbourhood. The eccentric - more so absurdly rich - neighbor who conjoined the houses was Harry Styles.
The first time they crossed paths she wasn’t even aware of it. It was the day she moved in. He had been out for his usual morning run and was rounding the corner when she had pulled up in her moving van. Once inside his home, he snoopily watched on as his neighbour began to move in. He hadn’t taken note of much about her, just that she was new and that she had a nice pair of jeans on that day.
The second time, Y/N was convinced she needed to get her eyes checked because there was no way that she had just seen Harry Styles key himself into the house across the way from her. There was no way that she had moved into the same area as him, let alone the same street. It seemed far more plausible that she needed a psych evaluation or a strong glasses prescription.
But the third instance of them crossing paths, she was proven wrong. She was on her way back from the neighbourhood park when she saw a guy jogging towards her. With a yellow beanie and a black Columbia sweatshirt paired with running shorts and shoes, he was hard to ignore running straight towards her. The iconic curls, strong jawline, and soft green eyes were dead giveaways this time. After making brief eye contact as their paths literally crossed, she felt herself make a little face of odd interest. Her head quirked and her eyes narrowed, lips pursed with slight confusion. That was definitely him.
After that, she found herself seeing Harry around the neighbourhood a relatively good amount. She’d see him at the park, at the coffee shop, on their street, and more. They didn’t speak. She really didn’t think he would want to be bothered by his neighbours and she certainly wasn’t willing to test the theory. They sometimes gave a small smile of acknowledgement but nothing really friendly. Just ‘you exist and I know that’.
-
Fridays are Y/N’s favorite day. It’s the beginning of the weekend, she never has to go into work and it’s simply a nice day. People are happier, they smile brighter and it just seems like the world is a little better than usual.
Friday was especially amazing today because her childhood best friend, Cate, was arriving at London Heathrow in the evening. Y/N had begged Cate to fly out to see the new house in person and Cate had finally found the time to run away to England for a week.
She shut her front door carefully behind her and placed her headphones in her ears. Rori, that little terrier, who had made a similar flight to see Y/N’s place not too long ago, scampered out the door with her and jumped happily at her legs as she fiddled with her phone. Her coat ruffles around her disturbed from the morning air. It’s blanket-like fabric that consisted of a deep blue backdrop with felt giraffes sewn on it, kept her warm while she walked. With her mind racing with weekend plans and ideas for her and Cate to do both in Hampstead and the city, she crossed the street like usual and began to walk with her dog to the coffee shop for her morning tea.
Unlike usual, she fumbled just as she was putting her phone in her pocket and bumped into something large and definitely not sedentary.
“I’m so sorry!” She blushed and moved backwards from the man who had just been shutting his own front gate to head somewhere.
“S’alright. No harm, no foul.” He looks down at her and her dog. Rori seems excited by the stranger and sniffs him eagerly. A single paw prodding at the man’s long leg.
She grimaces, hearing the voice and stepping back allows her to fully recognize who she had just bumped into. Her neighbour. The runner. Harry Styles.
“Sorry.” She mutters again as Rori continues to prod at Harry’s leg.
She tries to coax Rori away, but Harry simply smiles and leans down to the small dog.
“Hi there buddy,” he coos and rubs the top of the fluffy dogs head, in between his pointy ears, “What’s your name?”
“Rori.” She states easily, Harry’s eyes flickering to her smoothly. Rori makes a smile babbling noise that sounds a bit like a tiny roar - hence the name - and Harry chuckles to himself.
“He’s really adorable,” he finally says and straightens up from his admiring of the dog.
The grimace becomes more of a smile on her face and she mumbles a “Thank You”.
As her neighbour - who hasn’t introduced himself (which wasn’t necessary, but still) or bothered to ask for her introduction - seems to be about to say something new when his phone begins to vibrate obnoxiously. He twitches, his large hands immediately going to his pockets for the important device. He checks the message and looks back at her face.
“Sorry, I have to run...um,” he’s not sure what to say. He really does have to go, but he doesn’t even know his neighbour’s name. He’ll have to make sure to get it at some point in the near future. Especially now that he’s acquainted with her dog.
“No worries,” she smiles completely this time, relieved for the whole interaction to be over. She felt like she was going to explode with each passing moment. In the presence of a legendary musician, c’mon, who wouldn’t be freaking out. All she could think about was how Harry Styles now knew her dog’s name. What the fuck!
-
Upon arriving at the airport, she waited patiently for Cate to walk out of the customs area.
When she did, the two young women began jumping up and down excitedly, Y/N squealing only slightly. They hugged and began chattering intensely, catching up on lost time that generally occurs when you live an ocean apart.
Finally, one comment rings through the constant back and forth and Cate stops.
“Wait, what did you just say,” she questions as they begin walking to catch an uber back to Hampstead.
“I think my house might be haunted?” Y/N’s voice raising because she’s unsure if that’s what Cate was talking about.
“No, no, the thing after that. I think I must’ve misheard you.”
“Harry Styles is my neighbour?” Y/N’s brows raise as she looks over at her best friend, curious to know what she will say.
“Yes! Explain. Now!”
“It’s not really a big deal. It’s a nice neighbourhood, it makes sense that celebrities of his caliber want to live there.”
“That is not explaining. You have to introduce us!”
As they climb into their uber and settle in for the short ride back to Hampstead, Y/N sighs and tells Cate everything she knows.
“We’ve only just spoken today and I’ve been here for a couple weeks. He lives across the street and down one, I guess. I just see him around, it’s not like he knows who I am. He didn’t even get my name today, just Rori’s.” She laughs lightly, still finding it funny that Harry knows her dog’s name.
Cate nods, leaning in slightly to her best friend, hardly able to contain her awestruckness from the story and baffledness at Y/N’s calmness. “So, like, when do I get to meet him?”
“Girl, I don’t fucking know. Never, if you’re going to act wild. I don’t want the neighbourhood to think I’m not chill.”
“Sometimes…” Cate starts and leans away from Y/N jokingly, “I hate you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
They both smile, bumping elbows silently. The song on the radio fading in louder as their words die out.
-
The next day, Y/N took Cate to the local park. It was expansive and connected to the football fields that local teams would play at. The park section was a luscious green that was maintained with copious amounts of watering by the township.
She and Cate settled on a patch of grass near a slender tree that would offer some shade if the sun’s rays became too harsh. The quilt they sat on was something her grandmother had made her when she was maybe 8 years old, meaning it was torn in places and completely worn in a different shade of pink than it had been initially.
They set up their picnic and played music, enjoying the sunny day. Something rare and fleeting as the fall began to creep up on Hampstead.
They eat and catch up on life for about an hour. Basking in the sunlight, Y/N had laid on her back and was staring up at the clouds passing along the sky. Cate was carefully watching their surroundings, simply taking in her friend’s new home, but possibly for another reason too.
“Hey, isn’t that…” Cate trails off, trying to subtly nod in the direction of an approaching figure.
Y/N sits up, her hands holding her up from behind her. Her hair fails in front of her shoulders slightly and it’s a little disheveled from being mused in the grass. She looks discreetly in the direction of Cate’s nodding and then looks at her friend and rolls her eyes.
“Yes, but don’t say anything, he might not even notice me and I’m certainly not calling out to him.”
‘Illicit Affairs’ by Taylor Swift is playing off her speaker and as she’s about to change it, Cate turns it up slightly. They share a glare with one another before trying to act casual again, even though both of their eyes kept flickering to the man who seemed to be continuing closer and closer to their set up.
It became clear that Harry was approaching them after all and Y/N tried to carry on an unbothered conversation with Cate, which was hard with the constant nudging of Cate’s foot on her shin.
He stops a mere foot away from their blanket, beaming at the two young women lounging on the ground. He makes an attempt at a casual wave, his large hand splaying his fingers quickly, before opening his mouth to speak.
Cate beats him to the punch. “Hello there!”
“Erm, hi!” He says nicely to her and then looks at Y/N.
“No Rori today?” He inquires.
“No,” she smiles, slightly blushing at the fact that he remembered her and her dog. “He’s napping.”
“Ah, I see,” He pauses, “I feel like I need to apologize.” He continues.
“For what?” She questions and Cate watches on anxiously, mesmerized by Harry and dying to see what happens next.
“I ran off before I could even ask for your name or introduce myself. It was terribly rude.”
“Oh,” she can’t stop smiling, “It’s nothing to apologize for, I’m sure you’re busy. Besides I had to get my day started, otherwise I would’ve been late picking her up.” She points to Cate who smiles sheepishly, still internally screaming over the fact that her friend is able to talk so easily to a celebrity.
Harry nods and looks at Cate again, “Just visiting I take it then?”
She nods quickly, words escaping her. Y/N chuckles under her breath and swoops in to save her friend any embarrassment. “Cate’s my best friend and she’s been kind enough to take time out of her extremely busy life to come look at my new house.”
He hums, still standing a respectful distance from their set-up. “Nice to meet you, Cate,” he says very kindly. Then he laughs, but in a way that is like he’s beside himself. The two women both quirk their heads at him. Y/N squints her eyes slightly, trying to understand the guy she is talking to and connecting him with the man that is all over the news all of the time for his musical genius.
“Now I know your dog and best friend’s names but still not yours. At this point, I’m begging you to tell me.”
They all laugh and Y/N feels nervous for the first time since Harry had walked up.
“You first,” she smiles slyly.
His eyes widen slightly in surprise, but then go back to normal. Harry was very smart, she likely knew his name, but one, she was trying to be funny and two, she was also trying to be courteous. He preferred to introduce himself rather than just be told who he is, even if people already knew. It allowed him to maintain some normalcy.
“‘M Harry,” He says with a smile.
“Alright.” She says and then remains quiet.
Harry’s lips quirk up in a faint smile, amused at her expression.
“I thought it was a ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ type of situation or was I mistaken?” He finally asks when she remains silent still.
The two young women laugh and Y/N bites the inside of her cheek, both feeling flustered and completely in control at the same time.
“You weren’t mistaken, I was just thinking.” Then she pauses again and Cate thinks Harry is about to combust and Harry thinks he’s going to as well with all the anticipation that has been built up over his neighbor’s name, even though he was pretty sure he’d heard it in passing at one point or another but had forgotten quickly afterwards.
“It’s Y/N.”
Harry releases a facetious sigh of relief, “Oh thank god! Finally!” His words quickly turn into an infectious laugh that is paired with a shining smile and she feels like she’s swooning right then and there. The control has gone out the window and she’s taken with her neighbor. He’s wonderful in that moment and she forgets about Cate or the park or anything. It’s just Harry and how it seems like he’s smiling just for her.
“Now that I’ve gotten your name,” he smiles pointedly at her after his laughter has faded away. The smile doesn’t leave his face though, his eyes still crinkled, his dimples still showing.
She nods, encouraging him to continue. Cate feels like she’s watching a movie unfold in front of her and she wishes she could record the entire interaction.
“I can finally ask you, Y/N, where did you get that fabulous coat I saw you wearing yesterday?”
She twitches further upright, eyes bringing themselves directly inline with Harry’s gaze. “Oh,” she inhales, “The giraffe one, yeah?”
He nods.
“I got it from a Goodwill years ago. It’s some vintage company that used to only make sleepwear. I looked up the tag one time and it doesn’t exist anymore. Super cool, though. Wish I could buy more.”
“Yeah,” Harry says eagerly, even taking a step towards the women, “It was so intriguing. Maybe, if you didn’t mind of course -” he falters, losing his courage for a moment, “you could bring it over and my stylist could check it out. I would love something similar and I’m sure he could figure it out.”
She shrugs. It wasn’t crazy, especially not for Harry - she assumed. She was certain he often found things he liked but there was only one of them so he would just order his own. She couldn’t help the pride that was swelling inside her though it that moment. Harry Styles liking her jacket so much he asked where it was from and then wanting his stylist to look at it. She’d jump for joy when she was in the safety of her private home later tonight with Cate.
“One condition,” she says and Harry’s brows quirk amusedly at her.
“You are a very tit for tat person,” he muses.
“Fair’s fair,” she shrugs again and then looks around her quickly, “It’s simple so don’t get too worked up over it, buddy.”
He laughs slightly again and tries to figure out what she’s looking for. When she extends a scratched up, sticker-covered point and shoot film camera he smiles.
“Can you take a picture of Cate and I? It’s always just the two of us so we never have anyone to take pictures of us together.”
Harry grins at this and her sincere face. Cate is a little taken aback, because while it’s technically true, it’s not entirely factual. They have plenty of film pictures of them - maybe not recently though. And she wasn’t going to question Y/N right now. It seemed like she knew what she was doing.
Harry takes the camera and begins to look through the viewfinder. The women scoot closer together and Cate wraps her arm around Y/N’s shoulder. She leans in to press her cheek against her best friend. They smile up at the camera and Harry crouches slightly to get a better angle.
“Alright,” he mumbles, “Ready?...Cheese!”
Their smiles stay hung on their face as they listen for the click and when the faint sound befalls their ears, Cate laughs and Y/N pulls away. She reaches forward for the camera, her hand easily brushing Harry’s large one.
Their smiles meet each other and Cate can’t help but notice how they grow as the two of them look at one another.
“Thank you,” Y/N says sweetly and pulls back to retake her seat on the blanket.
Harry straightens up, his grin falling back into that signature smirk. “No problem.”
“So-” He begins but she cuts him off.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll see you around, yeah?”
He clears his throat, feeling thrown off. “Yeah, sure. I guess next time I see you we can talk about when a good time would be for your jacket to come over?”
His voice raises at the end of his question a little more than usual, he’s trying to get her to bite, but she doesn’t seem like someone who is easily thrown off. He is trying to read her and she’s been completely cool the entire time. It’s intriguing. Even more so than the jacket, even though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it, it wasn’t really his focus when he walked across the park to her and Cate.
“Yep! It was nice finally meeting you Harry.”
He feels the cue to walk off and says his farewells. As he walks off, back on course to his intended destination, his head is filled with questions. Most important of them being when he would see her again.
Cate and Y/N watch him walk towards the football fields. They see him meet with a group of men and it seems like they’re there to practice or play a game. Y/N couldn’t be sure.
“He likes you!” Cate finally bursts out.
Y/N rolls her eyes, “Stop trying to make me take the piss. That’s a fucking lie and you know it.”
“It’s not! He likes you and you obviously like him, I mean, but we been knew.”
“Having a crush on the famous Harry Styles when you’re 17 is different than me liking my neighbour Harry.”
“But you like him don’t you? He’s even better than he was when he was 19. Now he’s all grown up and established and more your style anyway.”
“Shut up! He could hear you.”
“He really couldn't, he's yards away, you’re just paranoid.” Cate continues to tease and ridicule her best friend over Harry and Y/N is just about ready to up and leave, but she also can’t help but laugh it off.
“I’m literally gonna kick you out if you keep talking,” Y/N says between laughs and the women feel like they’re back in high school losing their minds over the stupidest joke ever.
“Okay, fine. But all I have to say is I will hold this over you when you end up together.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure, whatever. Just be prepared to wait forever because I can promise you Harry Styles and I are never ending up together.”
--
Two Weeks Later
Y/N walked to her door after hearing the doorbell ring and opened it to find her neighbour standing with his arm raised ready to knock.
“Hey, Harry,” She greeted easily, but not entirely sure why he was here.
They hadn’t really seen each other since their official meeting in the park. It hadn’t bothered her and it hadn’t really bothered Harry either. It seemed like they both had extremely busy lives that they didn’t plan on throwing out the window because they had said they would meet up at some point. She liked that.
Harry had come over because he finally had a break in his schedule and was hoping to talk about the jacket and anything else really. He was interested in getting to know her and he didn’t care to hide it.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go get a coffee or something?” He asked, leaning himself against her door frame now.
Her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen a little bit, not completely sure she heard him correctly.
“Right now?!” She asked incredulously.
She was wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt and black bike shorts that peaked out from underneath the sweatshirt hem. One of her socks was shoved around her ankle while the other was pulled up flat to touch the base of her calf. She didn’t think she was looking the most presentable at the moment. She had been basking in her day off by simply laying on the couch watching hours of Netflix.
He nods, his smile growing on his face. Her flustered expression only made him happier. She was always so nonchalant with him, he wanted to see her a little more antsy.
“Unless you’re busy,” he adds seriously, not wanting to bother her, just wanting to spend time with her.
“No, no. I’m not...I’m not busy. I just wasn’t expecting any plans where I would be required to go out in public. Let me just...um, come inside and then give me five minutes.”
“Sure,” Harry smiles again as he steps into her home.
Her smile is sheepish and much less genuine then the one Harry holds on his face as he takes in her abode. She tells him to make himself comfortable and then runs to her room to try and possibly fix her state in under five minutes.
She tears around her room, heaving off the frumpy sweatshirt and grabbing a long sleeve striped v-neck top she had hanging out half out of her hamper, a sign known to her that while it was clean enough to wear, if she happened to do laundry she should wash it. Slipping it over her head, she walks to her dresser and leans over to open the bottom drawer and unfolds a pair of dark wash oversized jeans. There’s no holes in them and she throws them on the bed so that she can slip out of her current pants. Next, onto the socks, she swaps out the current ones for a fresh black pair and finds her tortoise print boots to flick on. As she just about runs into her en suite bathroom, she zips the two boots up between steps. A quick comb through her hair, deodorant, two spritz of perfume, her eyelash curler and mascara and she’s running back to where Harry is waiting in her living room.
He blinks surprisedly at her promptness, usually giving people more time then what they say they need. She had indeed gotten ready in five minutes. He thought she looked breathtaking. And she felt like she was at a lack for breath in any case.
“It’s a bit cold out,” he glances to the window.
“Isn’t it always?” She smiles, finally catching her breath.
He chuckles and then nods, a smile appearing on his face as he feels a warmth in his chest at her wit.
“Ready?” He checks in.
She nods, grabbing a coat she kept hung by the door.
“Just the coffee shop down the way?” She inquires as they exit the house and she locks the door behind her.
Harry hums, waiting down a step for her to turn around and walk beside him. It was so strange to her, this felt all too normal with him. Like he was just a friend who had come to pick her up for coffee, her neighbor, nothing more.
“Did you hear the new season of the Crown is coming out soon?” Harry asks as they walk shoulder to shoulder (technically since her shoulder wasn’t in line with his).
“Really?” She looks at him, “I love that show!”
“Me too,” He looks at her and smiles happily.
“That’s amazing,” she breathes mostly to herself, half about the show and half about how Harry watches television and that he watches one of her favorite shows.
There’s silence. The brisk air pricking their cheeks as they walk down their street. Their puffs of breath create a slight mist of white ahead of them and then quickly dissipates.
Her eyes flit up to Harry’s chiseled jaw and face and she watches him as his eyes carefully and meaningfully take in his surroundings. Was it her turn to take a stab at conversation? It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence but she just wasn’t sure what was going on.
“You play football right?” She says finally as they turn onto the next street that would bring them closer to the café they both frequented.
She remembered seeing him there on several occasions. The tips he left were always overly generous, which she assumed you could do when you were exorbitantly rich. He always smiled when he ordered and knew the baristas by name. His order rarely differed and she hated to admit but she knew his two regulars. His actual “regular” was a 12 ounce black coffee, dark roast, no cream and no sugar. The other, his “I’ll actually have”, was a 16 ounce iced green tea, no cream and no sugar.
She couldn’t help that she was observant and that when ‘H’ was called at the bar she looked at what was pushed out, patiently waiting for him to come snatch it up with a smile and nod to the workers before he left. Sometimes he’d even smile at her over the lid of his drink as he exited the establishment. It was warm and inviting and she felt good about the twinkle in his eye that never seemed to waver no matter the day.
Now they were going there together and she’d have to pretend like she’d never noticed what he got as a drink.
He responds to her question with another glance at her and a simple “yes”. His hands shove into his pockets and one side of his pink lips quirk up. He continues, “I’m on a local team with some mates. We’re in a little competition with our league. The final match is coming up this Sunday actually...You should come.”
He says it so casually it almost doesn’t catch her off guard. Harry inviting her to his football game, maybe this was going to be her life now. Going to her neighbours football match. Going to Harry Styles’ football match.
“Sunday…” She sounds out, choosing to look out into the distance instead of at him. “What time?”
“Eight.”
“P.M. right?” She responds quickly, worried since she never wakes up that early and rarely before 10 a.m. on the weekends for that matter.
“Of course,” he chuckles.
They’ve come upon the café and he’s quick to grab the handle to open the door and let her go before him. She can’t stop the blush and smile that spread on her face as she ducks her head into the warm and cozy shop. Men had opened doors for her before and she really thought of herself as a strong woman who didn’t need a man for anything, but something about Harry’s action felt especially, and specifically, chivalrous. Why, she had no idea.
Neither of them stop to look at the menu. They were regulars and they both knew that about each other as well. He gestures for her to go first and she mutters her thanks before turning to the patiently waiting barista. She orders and is about to hand over her card when Harry suavely steps in and says, “Don’t worry about it. I invited you with me, I’ll pay.”
It was both completely unexpected and expected at the same time. Knowing she’d never win this fight, she thanked him again, glanced at the man taking her order and then stepped aside. Harry orders his own drink and then pays for both. Today he leaves double the amount he usually leaves for tip, she assumes since it’s two drinks he was paying for.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” She says quietly to him once they’re in a corner of the café waiting for their drinks.
He stands slightly slumped against the wall, closer to her height right now. He only shrugs, his good natured smile not once leaving his face since he entered this place.
“I wanted to,” he said simply right as the drinks were ready since it wasn’t particularly busy on this random Friday afternoon.
They glance outside and see that it’s begun to drizzle while they’ve been inside. She sighs, having hoped to walk around a little after being inside all day.
Instead, they sit at the corner table in the café, across from each other. She moves on from the paying thing, knowing it was simply how this guy probably operated most of his life.
He got a black coffee today, the cold and rain likely contributing to that choice.
As one pop song fades out, slightly under the sound of the coffee machines, she’s about to tell Harry she’s pretty sure she can make his final football match when ‘Cardigan’ fades in. It’s the second time a Taylor Swift song has been playing while she’s been in the presence of Harry and they were conversing. She tries to ignore one of her favorite songs at the moment. Harry doesn’t seem to pay much mind to it. His foot is tapping against his other, but it’s been tapping like that since they sat down.
“I think I could probably make it to your game,” she says finally after a pause and a sip of her own drink.
Harry grins at the response and launches into how great it will be if they win and how happy everyone will be. She smiles along and doesn’t notice the slight head swaying to the song that she’s begun.
“Fan of Taylor?” Harry inquires and Y/N’s face drops, eyes widening cartoonishly.
She stutters, a nervous laugh leaving her mouth before she can actually say something. How does she respond about liking Taylor Swift to a man who counts her as an ex. She’s at a loss.
“Yeah, uh,” she finally starts.
Harry watches her curiously, obviously noticing her discomfort as his question.
“I used to not really consider myself a fan. I don’t really follow her just because I don’t really follow...um...musicians,” she chokes out the last word realizing Harry fits that category. “But, after folklore, I don’t know, this album really spoke to me. I also really like Lover and...uh” she pauses again, sticking on 1989, an album she has argued with her friends about how it’s basically a tell all of the man before her and Taylor’s relationship.
He nods, hoping she’ll continue. He wanted to get to know her and he kind of liked seeing her squirm. “1989?” He finally supplies.
Her blush isn’t able to be covered this time. If her hair didn’t fall in front of her ears she was sure they’d be flushed with blood.
Then she draws out of her own self stress and looks at the smooth man before her and grows calm. He was amazing at winding her up and she didn’t want to seem like some young, impressionable fangirl to him. So, she squared her shoulders and straightened up in her chair.
“Yes, it was pop perfection as one of my college friends liked to say. I’d always listen to it at the gym.” Then she pauses, taking a measured breath, gaining her confidence back. Her eyes meet his, “Is there any songs off it that you particularly enjoy, Mr. Styles.”
He chuckles, mostly because of her emphasis on ‘Style’.
“Shake it off?” He asks.
“Oh fuck off!” She laughs and he joins in with her.
When they catch their breaths from laughing, they simultaneously take sips of their drinks and settle their eyes back on one another. Exes and songs written about oneself weren’t exactly the topics Harry had in mind for the coffee outing he had asked Y/N out on, but talks of exes had never been this funny with anyone else. He was grateful for her playfulness, her demeanor.
“Can I ask you something personal?” She asks quietly and seriously.
“I think we’re past that question, love,” he responds.
“Yeah, I guess,” she pauses and just about whispers, “Pretty much all of them are about you right?”
He shrugs again, his felt coat rustling around his seat. “We never really talked about every single song.”
She leans forward at the ‘we’ Harry is using about himself and Taylor Swift.
“But when I listen to the songs, I hear us in just about every one but a few.”
“Wow,” she breathes and sips her drink. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lived through something that intense and then someone commemorated in a masterpiece.”
“Do you have a favorite on that album?” He asks, moving on from her revelation.
“I love ‘I know places’, it has a cool sound. But I also really love ‘Wonderland’. They both have kind of dark sounds, yet it still is like what you have is so special that the bad bits are worth it. I don’t know, it just seems like a tv show. I don’t think my life could ever be that crazy or dramatic.” She doesn’t notice her use of ‘you’ because she had meant it as a form of analyzing the song theoretically as she had done hundreds of times with her friends, but this time the ‘you’ is literally the ‘you’ the song is talking about.
“Love can turn anyone’s life chaotic.” Harry muses.
The green eye’s that flashed at Taylor throughout that album look at Y/N from across the table and she feels a flip in her stomach at his tone.
Maybe he notices her mild discomfort, maybe that’s just who he is. But after a beat, Harry’s onto the next topic on his mind. He launches into how he’s just returned from Scotland for a shoot for something so undercover he can’t even divulge to her, much to his dismay. She’s taken aback since she didn’t consider her someone Harry would divulge any of his private matters to, but it seemed like he already considered her a confidant. Just not for that. He wants it to be a surprise.
She smiles and listens attentively. She wonders as he goes on about his interesting yet absurdly lavish life whether he even knows what regular life is like anymore. Or if he’d even enjoy it if he experienced it.
Sure, coffee and football were plenty part of regular life . But the football league was something novel to Harry. He had just gotten to do it and he was thrilled by its normalcy.
She regarded him carefully, unsure what the next step was in this budding friendship. Was it dangerous to get involved with someone’s life which seemed to be filled with whirlwind rigor and constant change.
She liked her chaos, don’t get her wrong. She felt like she often was the odd one out in life. Always thinking differently than the ones around her. She often was the one to suggest spontaneous late night trips around town or exploration of an abandoned building known for spooky stories. She liked inviting friends over for themed parties for no specific occasions and she liked taking film pictures of friends like they were models even though it was only for her and her memories. She thought of herself as silly and fun, but what Harry described as his chaotic fun actually was regimented tight schedules of constant travel and work. Interesting experiences came out of that constant travel and work, but didn’t seem like something she necessarily wanted to get herself wrapped up in.
After coffee, they leave the café and it’s pouring now. Instead of going home, Harry insists on walking her to her place. She relents, realizing, once again, that Harry wasn’t someone who took ‘no’ for an answer. She then invites him in because it’s the polite thing to do. And Harry being Harry accepts.
“Want a dry sweatshirt while you wait?” She asks as she slips off her wet shoes and jacket in the entryway. Harry follows suit, his knit sweater being pelted with rain for the last eight minutes left him feeling cold and shivery.
He nods as he toes off his shoes and ventures back to the living room she had him wait in a few hours ago.
“Here,” She says as she tosses a grey sweatshirt in his direction. She believes it's her one from earlier, an innocuous pullover with ‘London’ in collegiate lettering on the front. He catches it as she rounds the corner to turn up the heater.
Her mistake was being so careless to not look at the sweatshirt before handing it over to her neighbor. Anyone else, maybe they wouldn’t have questioned it. But Harry, how could he not.
“What’s this?”
“A sweatshirt,” she doesn’t spare him a glance on the coach as she fiddles with the thermostat.
“It’s one of my sweatshirts,” Harry says and she can hear the smile on his face.
“That’s impossible, I’ve never borrowed-” Her brows had raised at what he said but now her words fall short.
He didn’t mean one of his personal sweatshirts that she possibly borrowed if they were better friends. No. He meant his merchandise.
“It was a gift,” she sighs as she turns to face him. He’s now wearing the sweatshirt proudly and grinning up at her smugly.
She rolls her eyes when he gives her a knowing smile.
“I didn’t know that it was the one I was handing you. Honest!”
“I thought you didn’t “keep up” with musicians,” Harry says playfully, his fingers making quotes appropriately.
“I don’t.” Her tone is serious as she plops on the couch beside Harry.
“I enjoy your music from time to time. Is that a crime?!” She finally exclaims when she can’t handle Harry’s knowing smirk.
“No it’s not, you could have just told me you were a fan!” She tries to stop him and protest that she wouldn’t consider herself a fan, but he continues, “I still would have wanted to have been friends.You’re one of the liveliest neighbors I’ve got. Everyone else on the street is rather dull.”
She chuckles, remembering finding out quickly that the street wasn’t a lively bunch.
“I just wouldn’t say I’m a fan,” she presses and sits across from him.
He continues smiling like he knows the truth.
“I don’t think you’ve met an average person in awhile, Harry.” She finally says after they sat in silence for a few minutes because they were both too stubborn to be the first to talk.
“I would hardly call you average if that’s what you’re implying, Y/N.” He nods her way and he shifts on her plush couch, his legs adjusting themselves on their own accord. “And I know plenty of average people,” he adds huffily.
“I normally wouldn’t either, but compared to who you seem to surround yourself, I very much am. And that’s not meant to be a jab at anyone involved.”
His right hand sneaks up to his head to scratch at the base of a particularly perfect curl. His eyes squint a bit as his mind processes her claim.
“What are you trying to say exactly?”
“I’m just curious to see if you’d actually like me in your life. It seems like you want to be friends with me and that’s great, but realistically I don’t know how much I would fit into it.”
Harry scoffs, “That’s literally bullshit, just relax. I’m so chill you won’t even know what to do with me.”
Now it’s her turn to scoff. “Chill?!” She asks incredulously. Harry nods with a seriousness she hadn’t seen before.
“When’s the next time you’re flying off to another country for work?”
Harry pauses, “Um...the day after the final match. I’m beginning to film a movie, so I’ll be there for a month.”
“Busy bee,” she muses and they both chuckle.
There’s something about the somber look Harry is giving her. His eyes twinkled in the coffee shop and with playful winks she was excited to be in his presence. But after she mentions when his next trip is, he seems saddened. There’s skepticism behind his eyes and maybe he doesn’t like being challenged about who he is from other people, especially those who are new in his life.
But that’s who Y/N is, she’s straightforward and doesn’t lie to someone. If Harry was now her friend, she was going to tell it like it is to him. That personality trait she worried wouldn’t make her long for his world.
“So the cardigan? Do you have it here?” Harry changes the subject, clearly not wanting to actually consider a realistic friendship together instead just charging ahead with no hesitation. Whatever happened they would deal with it as it came. Maybe she should just go with the flow, let herself be swept up into his madness. Maybe it would be easier than fighting it.
“No.”
“Oh?”
“I do, I was joking. Where else would it be?” Her tone is light, trying to get back the shine she had seen Harry exhibit before it had vanished.
Maybe that was Harry’s effect on people. He was vibrant and like an Elton John song. You never wanted that shine to go away, never wanted the song to end. Never wanted him to stop shining his light on you. She felt this happening in just a few hours with him. When he was happy so was she and when he wasn’t entirely shining she wanted to do whatever she could to get it back.
A smile curls on his face and his green eyes narrow slightly. He’s trying to figure her out, know what she’s all about.
“Do you want to go and grab it?” His voice sweetening, almost like a tease. Maybe he means to bite his lip, maybe he doesn’t, but the effect on her is nonetheless earthshaking.
She pops up and smiles back, happy to have made him happy. As she walks out of the room to go get the cardigan that had started this all, her head tilts and she furrows her brow wondering why she felt such a sense of pride just for making him happy.
Would this man cause her to finally put someone else’s wishes ahead of hers?
-
“Are you on your way?”
She listens to Harry’s slightly worried voice crackle over the speaker of her phone as she shuts her door with the hand not holding her phone to her ear. His voice is raspy and muffled. She assumes it’s from the cold air of London at night and the scarf he is likely got wrapped around his neck.
“Yes! Jeez, I’m on my way. Walking over right now.”
It’s the final match for Harry’s football team and if they win the game then they get a trophy and it’s all Harry has been talking about since they got coffee and she handed over her cardigan.
Harry huffed an “alright” on the other side of the line and she called a “see you soon” before hanging up.
He was both eager for Y/N to come and possibly meet some of his teammates and a few of his close friends who he had invited and for her to arrive so that she wasn’t walking out late at night alone. He hadn’t known her for long, but he felt a certain protectiveness over her. She was relatively alone here, only two friends at work that she had mentioned and everyone else lived far away. She said she didn’t mind it, but Harry had a hard time understanding it since he surrounded himself with his friends as much as he could and was constantly either traveling or having them travel to see him.
He had even contemplated inviting her to come to Los Angeles with him for a month, but knew she would remind him of her ever important job that she couldn’t just randomly take a month off.
He’d have to ask her what exactly she did because every time he tried to remember, it always slipped his mind.
When her figure came into sight below the fluorescent lights, he breathed a sigh of relief. A grin spread on his face as she beamed at him and waved a bit. He didn’t understand how she couldn’t see how special she was. Every time he saw her he felt himself straighten up and feel a bubbling in his chest. Her smile was infectious and the way her eyes glittered when she looked away quickly and then returned eye contact made him want to stay in her presence forever.
“You made it!” Harry said and scooped her up in his arms, not realizing just how happy he was to see her, swinging her around in a half circle.
She laughs in surprise, but appreciates the warmth Harry’s hug offers her. She’s not quite sure they had ever touched each other before this moment beside shoulder brushes and hand touches. Nothing so...purposeful.
“I made it,” she confirms and pats him on his broad shoulders.
Questions in her mind raced as she questioned whether it was normal for friendships to happen like this. She knew in college friendships could happen this quickly. And that’s when it dawned on her, she really hadn’t made a new friend since college and that was why everything with Harry was so odd to her. She had forgotten what new friendship was. She needed to stop questioning everything and just live in the moment with a person she really liked being with.
Harry’s hands move from her waist and one stays to lead her forward so he can introduce her to some of his mates, as he had promised.
She felt at home in that moment. His hand on the small of her back, his heat radiating off of him and her hair swept behind her ears and her cheek pressed to his shoulder staring up at him sweetly.
She meets Charlotte, a member of Harry’s band who lives in London, her boyfriend, Mitch (who had just happened to find himself in Hampstead this weekend), Ben, and a few more people she couldn’t remember all the names of.
Harry’s team wins the game and Y/N’s not sure if she’s ever seen someone so happy to win an adult league football match. There wasn’t any official trophy except the one Harry had made himself and said he would even give to the other team if they won. It was engraved with the words “The World’s Greatest Football Team of Stars Ever. October 22, 2020”. It doesn’t even make sense but she’d been holding it for the entire night as he played.
He goes down the line of his friends who have been watching and gives them all jubilant kisses on the lips. When he reaches Y/N she holds out the trophy and he grins and gives her a kiss on the cheek. His lips are surprisingly soft and his scratchy stubble tickles her and she swiftly pulls back, a smile on her face and blush on her cheeks nonetheless.
Charlotte and Mitch share a look between the two of them and Ben’s eyes narrow slightly at the interaction. His eyes narrow just as they had when Harry had strutted over to the group with Y/N before the game. He had happily named everyone and she had shaken all of their hands with a warm smile on her lips. Ben had regarded her warily and she had shaken it off as the chill of the night air. But there it was again, not quite trusting of the neighbour girl Harry had just randomly befriended a few days ago.
The team and the friends of the team decide they deserve to celebrate this win, mostly at the request of Harry.
Y/N tries to find a time to leave, to return to her place so she can prepare for her day at work tomorrow. But no excuses will be heard from Harry and she has a hard time saying no to his sparkling eyes and gorgeous grin that she’s growing far too accustomed to.
She’s ushered down to the closest pub with the rest of them and finds herself chatting with Charlotte’s boyfriend. He’s the most...normal. She’s not sure how to explain it, but he doesn’t seem to be regarding her as different, unlike every other one of Harry’s friends. They were all perfectly nice and cordial with her, but she just felt like she wasn’t a part of their group, their world and she didn’t know how to explain it.
Charlotte and Mitch are rather nice too, but they’re more reserved with her. They’re musicians, like Harry, and they somewhat have that air of awareness around them that Harry sometimes gets. She thinks it’s from the fame, having to constantly be wary of who is around you, what everyone is doing, what is happening next. She doesn’t mind it, it’s just not something she’s used to.
She wishes she could just throw back some drinks and she could allow herself to be more...well just be more. More of a presence, more of herself, but she has a job she has to get to bright and early. Tomorrow was Monday and for her that meant work. So she sips a beer that Harry insisted be on his tab and she makes small talk with Charlotte’s boyfriend about how he’s been helping her produce her first EP. Charlotte occasionally pops in when she hears her name, but mostly is conversing with Mitch over something silly. Y/N knows because they keep laughing.
Harry is going around to just about everyone in the party and she watches as he happily talks with every one of his friends. He’s ecstatic and she wonders if she’s ever experienced happiness like he has.
At midnight she attempts to make a French exit, as her mother always called it, and slip away with little to no farewells, but Harry spots her before she can.
“You’re leaving already?” Harry asks loudly, the euphoria of winning his silly little game and drinking a fair amount of pints has him at his peak boisterity.
“I have work tomorrow,” she says warily, slumping slightly from the weight of Harry’s arm slinging around her shoulder.
He turns serious and straightens up slightly, his green eyes looking especially dark in the pubs dim lighting as they look her dead in the eye. “Let me walk you home.”
“I can get home by myself,” she laughs, shrugging off his hold. “Plus, the host can’t leave his own celebration.” She gestures to everyone else happily celebrating on a Sunday, somehow not bothered by the beginning of the average week.
He steps closer, his brow furrowing for the first time that night. One of his large hands raises to his tousled hair and he runs it through the tresses. He even nibbles at his lower lip as he contemplates his decision. Then quickly and suddenly, he makes up his mind,
“No, I’ll escort you. Can’t have my neighbour walk home this late alone. I’ll just leave my card with Mitch. He’ll settle up the tab.” He smiles at his perfect plan and she grimaces feeling slightly embarrassed that he would leave his friends to walk her home. “Won’t you Mitch?” Harry calls as he grabs his coat from the wall next to the door. Mitch simply nods and Harry yells his farewells, Y/N waves meekly.
“That was...interesting,” she mulls over her words as they walk through the cold night air outside of the pub.
“Amazing, right?” Harry speaks over her less enthusiastic voice.
“You have a lot of friends,” she mused, trying to sound less disheartened than she had in her last statement.
Harry only hums and shivers slightly from the cold. His breath comes clearly out in puffs in the cold night air. Y/N’s is muffled by her scarf wrapped tightly up to her chin. She’s tucked his face as far into it as possible but her nose won’t stop from freezing as they walk.
Her hand goes up to it and she rests her palm to the tip of it. The motion grabs Harry’s attention and he looks directly at her curiously.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m freezing,” she muffles out, “This helps my cold nose not be so..cold.”
He chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulder and she easily folds into him, welcoming any warmth right now.
After another moment of silence and them enjoying each other’s warmth and slight smell of whatever perfumes they had chosen earlier that night as well as beer and wood of the pub, Harry nuzzles his head above hers and then asks her something.
“Was that overwhelming for you?”
She’s quiet, thankful his eyes can’t reach hers right now. He was too powerful with those things.
“I, um, a little. I just...I just realized today that I haven’t made a new friend since college outside of work and it was overwhelming just hanging out with you. So all of your friends as well, yeah, it was a bit much for me.”
Harry looks out at the empty street ahead of them and sighs in realization. In his excitement, he hadn’t accounted how she might have felt tonight until just now. He wanted to kick himself for not thinking of her feelings, but other’s feelings slipped his mind so easily sometimes.
They round their street corner and she nuzzles back into his side.
“I’m sorry, love.” He rubs at her outer arm, “I didn’t think about it like that. I was just so excited for my plan to come together. Maybe next time, it’ll just be a couple of them rather than so many?”
“Sure,” she says quickly, wanting to make him happy, knowing how much he cared about his friends. “I feel like we need to hang out more with just you before I osmos into your friend group though if I’m being honest.”
“Well that can definitely be arranged,” he says and reluctantly lets go of her body. They’ve arrived at her door.
“I also want to see the inside of your house at some point.” She tugs at one of his hands before it can disappear into his warm coat pocket. “Houses,” she corrects.
“That can also be arranged,” Harry smiles with his lips closed. Pink lips and rosy cheeks extra bright from the cold. He plays with her fingers as the two stand close to one another, happy for the alone time and chalking the proximity up to heat sharing.
“You leave tomorrow right?” She finally asks.
His head falls and he sighs.
“Yeah…”
“It’s just a month,” she smiles, trying to stop Harry from being so dramatic. Especially when there was no logical reason for him to be so upset over not seeing his neighbour - she keeps telling herself.
“Are you sure you can’t quit your job and just fly out with me?” He pleads.
She throws her head back in laughter and shifts closer to him, her front porch light illuminating and shadowing every perfect place on Harry’s gorgeous face.
“Not even a chance.”
“That is a shame,” he takes an experimental step closer and she feels his breath fan across her cheeks at his last word.
She wrinkles his nose at the smell of his last beer, even though coming from him it was endearing.
Just as she feels him being to shift his head closer, she steps forward and gives him a tight hug.
“Goodnight Harry,” she whispers into his ear, “Safe travels.”
Then she’s stepping back and swiftly unlocking her door. She moves it slowly so as to not wake Rori and then Harry’s left alone and dumbfounded on her doorstep.
He definitely preferred being with her alone, but now he didn’t even have that chance until next month. And nonetheless she had just sidestepped his kiss with such ease he’s not even sure if he meant to kiss her. It had felt right, but why? Because it was cold and picture perfect? Or because he was enchanted by her and liked her as more than a new friend?
She slumps in her kitchen and fixes an Emergen-C to stave off the chill of the night and any germs that might have been lurking around the pub. She hopes when she walks to her bedroom she can check the front porch and see that Harry has gone home because she would hate to turn the light off on him.
How could he have expected her to kiss him just then? They’ve only just met each other a few weeks ago? And he’s Harry Styles and she just lives in the neighbourhood. What the actual fuck had happened to her life?
#not at all proofread#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles x y/n#harry styles x reader#harry styles x you#harry styles fluff#harry styles series#part 2 coming#harry styles one shot#harry styles angst#harry styles smut#coming soon#harry styles fan fic#harry styles fan fiction#harry styles fanfic#pls share#pls give feedback#ok goodnight#I said id get it up#so I did#that's what he said#I hate myself#also I honestly don't love where this is going but maybe ill fix it#lol
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