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tipsydipsydo · 3 years

Text

The laundry hamper [M]

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Gender of the Reader: female

Word Count: 2.2k

Rating: 18+

Genre: Smut

AU: College AU!; Roommates2Lovers AU!; Friends2Lovers! AU

Warnings: Dirty Language + slight Dirty Talk; sweet and shy but naughty Jungkookie; Mentions of Masturbation in the shower; Scent/Smelling-Kink; Panty-Sniffing; Masturbation; slight Voyeurism; Teasing; Petnames; soft sub! Jungkook & dom! Reader undertones; Mentions of mutual Masturbation; Mentions of 69-Position

Summary: Jungkook has a crush on you since you moved together for college but the poor boy is way too shy to confess his feelings to you... rather he would search through your laundry hamper to get a shirt which smells after your very personal scent and tries to calm his racing heart... and other nerves. He didn’t thought to get catched by the person who already stole his whole heart in the most embarrassing situation...

A/N: Happy first year friendship anniversary with my dearest @borathae!! I love you to death my sweetheart and I thought today would be the perfect occasion to finally finish this Oneshot I started 10 months ago and waited to get finished until today on my IPad... especially because you was the person who gave me the inspiration to write this idea... I hope you like it!!

Status: halfway edited bc I was stressed I wouldn’t finish it on right time-

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「© tipsydipsydo」

This following story is my intellectual property and belongs only to my blog tipsydipsydo.tumblr.com!

I’ll not accept any kind of reposting, stealing or using/editing my work!

That includes reposting my content on other social media platforms too, even when you link me as the original author.

Thank you.

He knows it's bad and that he shouldn't do it. Well... honestly, already before this thought, which is haunting him since two weeks, he wasn't any kind of "well mannered" anymore. ...before you apologized for taking so much space with your shower untensils in the shower basket and then decided, to take your Shampoo, Conditioner and Bodylotion to your room.

The thing you didn't know was that you took with this decision, Jungkook's one and only opportunity to properly jerk off, with you.

Why?

God, just when the poor boy thinks about it... the thought alone gives him a rosy-red blush all over his cheeks, which almost reachs his ears and leave him completely flustered and ashamed.

How to explain it... your quiet, adorably awkward and super shy roommate, who has a crush on you since two years (or even longer!) tend to use your hair shampoo as a little "fantasy kick". How could he resist the opportunity to smell something so familiar which reminds him of you, so close?

How he used it you ask yourself?

While he was showering, he sniffed on the opened lid of the shampoo bottle like a fucking dog in his rut and jerked off to the smell of English Wild Roses. Yeah, even Jungkook himself is absolutely sure that he reached a whole new level of freakiness. Who else jack themself off while sniffing on a damn hair shampoo bottle?!

Jungkook has simply a thing for scents... especially for everything that smells like you. Whenever something of you comes in contact with his nostrils, he immediately pops a boner.

Really, it's not funny anymore when you feel that your dick is going hard just from getting a whiff of your crush's parfum when they're passing by.

Anyway, not your parfum or shower utensils are giving Jungkook a problem now, it's much more your laundry hamper which suddenly developts a really strong seductive affect on him.

Both of you having a seperate laundry hamper in the shared bathroom and also a laudry bag in your room. It's easier to have these two opportunities to put your laundry than walking always with an arm full of dirty clothes through the whole apartement.

Especially when friends of the other person are over and a pair of Kook's boxer briefs or one of your bra's found their way to the floor, unnoticed. Okay, 'unnoticed' as long as one of your friends are yelling that there is dirty underwear in the hallway. Of course not without dropping some stupid and teasing comments.

Yeah, it's really better for Jungkook's and your own peace to have a laundry bag in your room and a laundry hamper in the bathroom. Even when Kookie wouldn't mind it at all to be the one who would've found your lingerie...

...and that's the point. Since this one incidence with your dessous, Jungkook is haunted by countless absolutely filthy and indecent thoughts. At first he was still able to control them and to shove them away into the last corner of his mind. But after you took your shower stuff with you to your room, these fantasies returned really, really fast and his interest in your laundry hamper grew endlessly.

It absolutely didn't help that he pretty aware of the fact that you showered just a half an hour ago.

You made yourself ready to go to the movies with some of your friends. That means, he would be completely alone for the next few hours with the clothes you've worn before and are now own your very personal scent. How the hell should he survive this silently for him screaming seduction?!

Okay, okay, even when he'd took something off your hamper... just as a hypothetisch thought... it would be definitely only something completely innocent, like a shirt or something else. Really, he just loves to smell your wonderful personal scent. It's calming his wild racing heart... and in some way his unsatisfied desires as well.

Once again he takes a glimpse through the slightly opened bathroom door into the hallway which leads to the front door. Everything is silent, he is indeed completely alone in the apartement.

Now or never. Maybe he should take one of your worn out T-Shirts you always wear for house chores and isn't one of your favourite piece of clothing anymore. Maybe then you wouldn't notice that's even gone... for a longer time.

He shouldn't debate any longer before he reverses his opinion and pull back... he would slap himself if he'd let such an opportunity slip through his fingers unused...

As soon as he opens the lid of your laundry hamper, all his 'good and pure resolutions' are thrown out of the next bathroom window. Hebshould have guessed it, he should have known it... that your underwear is the last thing you take of your body before showering. Well, in conclusion, your panties are the first piece of cloth which is greeting Jungkook's eyes.

He's gulping harshly. Fuck, his brain knows that what he's doing here is bad and dirty, that he shouldn't do it... but his body and especially his dick is literally screaming and begging him to reach out for exactly this piece of lingerie.

Those tiny little wheels starts turning in Jungkook's head when he scans through your latest outfit. He remembers which Sweater and Sweatpants you wore. How could he forget those cute socks with this adorable avocado print on them.

...but no Bra.

Fuck... Jungkook can't explain himself why he finds the thought of you, being so comfortable in your shared apartement and around him, that you decided to not wear a bra underneath and let your tits bounce around freely, so god damn attractive...

Before he even realized it, his greedy hand took your used panties already out of the laundry hamper and lets the soft fabric slip through his fingertips.

It's a plain black cotton panty with a lacey border which has a beautiful flower pattern. Others would say it's boring, unspectacular underwear but for Jungkook it's already beautiful and beyond belief sexy lingerie. To imagine that you walk casually around in those panties everyday... Jungkook feels how his dick is already leaking precum in his boxer briefs.

With every second he holds this pair of panties in his hands, his poor, needy cocks hardens even more in his grey sweats. He gulps again. He shouldn't do it... but your panties are tempting him and his short patience.

Before he can control what he's doing, his nose is already buried in this piece of cloth and takes a deep breath.

If his other hand wouldn't already disappeared beneath his waist band and squeezed the base of his cock, he would've already blown his load right here in his sweats.

He's panting, his breath fast and ragged, trying to take as much as possible of your intoxicating scent into his lungs when he yanks his sweatpants down to his knees and lays his hand in a firm grip around his red, swollen and angrily leaking cock. He's literally dripping, so it doesn't take long until his whole palm is lubed thoroughly with his own precum.

Jungkook's mind is clouded, he can't built any proper thought anymore, your delicious smell makes him salivating and he knows, he feels it in every fiber of his body, that he already got addicted to the smell of your panties... your pussy.

He can't believe that you smell so good, like that fucking good that he almost blew his load already in his pants. Untouched.

His mind is spiralling, dirty thoughts get exceeded by even more filthier ones, every secret and forbidden fantasies which he hold under control for so, so long are crashing down on him.

God, what would he do to be the lucky person who gets you on top of him, queening him, his whole face buried into your pussy, your juices smearing all over his chin and cheeks and getting a good whiff of your perfect cunt first hand. He would happily die between your legs, suffocated by your thighs which you would've squeeze so tightly around his head that it would literally crushed him. He would die as the happiest man in the whole universe.

To imagine how you'd whine, whimper and growl at him... praising him for doing so good, pleasuring you so well, tugging at his locks because you can barely handle the pleasure you receive from his tongue and lips...

His fist goes faster and faster, his wrist will hurt so bad in the exam tomorrow... but that's Jungkook tiniest problem right now, he needs to cum so fucking bad, his balls are already hard and tight, feeling like they would burst if he wouldn't cum and time soon.

"Tz, tz, tz... what do we have here? I didn't thought you'd be such a naughty boy as someone who's so sweet and shy, Jungkook... sniffing your roommates panties and jerking off to them...", you snicker and smirk, even though bis back is still facing you. The later flinchs noticeably and lets a surprised and equally terrified yelp out, almost jumping around to you.

He's trying to save to situation and his pride, throwing your panties back into your open laundry hamper and pulling his pants up as quick as possible.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I am so, so, so, so sorry, it will never happen again, I am so sorry that you have such a disgusting roommate like me, I am so sorry, I didn't knew you'd come back so early again- oh fuck... I am so sorry, I am a disaster", Jungkook chokes out in a trembling voice and glassy eyes, a tiny little sob leaves him as well. He is truly ashamed and mortified to death.

Your heart breaks when you look at him, he looks so sorry and embarrassed, he couldn't look at himself in the mirror again. Slowly you start to shake your head 'no'.

"Oh Jungkookie, I didn't mean to shame you... I... I just was a little surprised to catch you here in the bathroom... having a little fun time with yourself... I realized halfway to the cinema that I forgot my wallet and I came back to get it... then I saw you and just wanted to tease you a little bit... ah shit- I think I just messed the things up as well... okay okay, stupid question from a stupid person who has a big, fat crush on you since months, if not even years... wouldyoumindmetohelpyoutocum?", you ramble nervously, now are your cheeks equally beet-red.

Jungkook's eyes shoot up to your face, your red cheeks, your big, questioning eyes and your lip biting is sending a new rush of exitement down to his softening cock, making him harden all over again.

"W-What? ...what?? You- you too? I-I am crushing on you since we moved in together and now you're telling me that you- ...oh my god, yes... yes... yes please... please help me. I am so needy and horny right now and your pant- you always smelled so good and it's driving me crazy... I am so horny for you, Y/N."

Jungkook couldn't control his blabbering mouth anymore, everything is just blurting out of him with such a force like the Niagara Waterfall.

You sigh in relieve and a bright smile is forming on your lips as you walk over to your crush and lay both of your hands on his cute and round cheeks, so you can look each other into the eyes.

"Jungkook, I would like to ask you if you're comfortable with the thought of me kissing you before I will... devour you?"

Just to hear the two words 'devour you' out of your mouth made his knees almost buckle. His head is moving by itself, nodding vehemently. But to his confusion you're shaking your head no.

"Babyboy, I need your verbal confirmation. Consent is key, alright?", you say in a gently yet firm voice.

Oh God, you'll be his death... calling him 'Babyboy' alone made a whimper slips past his lips which is why you hum very appreciately.

"Oh God, yes, yes, yes... please... please kiss me and devour me, Mistress- ugh, s-sorry, I- I didn't mean to say that", Jungkook coughs out all flustered again, don't dare to look you in the face.

Such a good, perfect babyboy he is already for you.

"Don't be shy, Baby... I like the title you gave me. When you like it, you can continue to address me with 'Mistress'. ...what about we change our location to your or my bedroom? I'd love to let you smell and taste my pussy... not just through worn fabric. I would take great care of your aching cock... I saw how swollen, red and leaking it was already. What about you eat me out while I take your cock into my mouth and jerk you off with the panties I wear right now. Hm, sounds good?

Jungkook's head is already spinning again when your lips finally meet, your mouth and tongue already taking the control over him and devouring him.

Yes, you'll be definitely the death for him.

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sketching-shark · 3 years

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I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

-----

PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure.

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work.

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst.

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels.

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).

----

Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity.

----

As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

#journey to the west #jttw #guanyin #sun wukong #monkey king #monkie kid #fandom #fandom critical

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wellbafineline · 3 years

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a very styles christmas

a/n Im aware this is the most cheesy title that i could’ve picked for this fic but pls forgive me this is the only thing i could think of

I don’t really have much to say about this one but I want to wish a happy holidays and a merry christmas to everyone who celebrates - hope you enjoy this fiancé harry one shot

word count: 2.4k - ish

It felt as if you and Harry had only just gotten home when you started to pull the luggage out of the hallway cupboard again, you're not exactly excited to start packing for another trip, you always complained to Harry when you were trudging around your shared room that it was the worst part of any trip, to which he always chuckles and calls you dramatic but your point still stands in your eyes.

You placed the two suitcases neatly next to each other at the foot of your and Harry’s shared bed, deciding to wait for him to get home before tackling that challenge of what to pack for the two weeks that you both were spending up north in Cheshire at his mums for Christmas.

Just as you sat on the bed, reaching to check your phone Harry trudged back into your shared room still wrapped up in his coat and hat having just been loading the car in the cold London winter with the various gifts for family you needed to bring with you, the last of what needed to be loaded into the car staring back at you from the foot of the bed.

‘No gonna pack themselves are they?’ Harry sighed, shrugging off his coat and throwing it on the chair that you so fondly had named the ‘chaos chair’ which usually housed a pile of washing that neither of you ever really put away just taking items of clothing till it reappeared after the next laundry cycle.

‘Wish they would, hate this bit, never know what to pack to take to your mums.’ Harry had now started to move around the room picking up some jumpers and sweatpants to put into his case.

‘’M only bringing comfy stuff, if this weather keeps up doubt we’ll make it much further than the pub round the corner from mums’ He nodded towards your bedroom window where in true English Christmas weather the rain was bucketing down and wasn't looking like it was giving up any time soon.

‘Now come on,’ he twists the t-shirt he was holding trying to swat at your bum where you were now standing by the window ‘want to make a move soon, hopefully get there before mum and Gem have broken into the Christmas wine supply, so we need to get a move on.’

•··°　• ·*　　·　·　★　.　✦　　　*　*　　.　

It was about an hour and a half in your three hour drive from London to cheshire. You and Harry had just finished loading up his range rover with all of the presents and luggage that you two would need for two weeks up north in time that you could get the worst parts of the drive over with without there being too much of a traffic jam.

‘Love,’ Harry shakes your shoulder lightly as he pulls the car to a halt into the car park, ‘dozed off on me there been out for about the last half an hour’

‘Mmm, no, was jus’ resting my eyes promise, want me to run in get some bits’ nodding your head towards the service station in front of you. You and Harry had driven up to his mums more times than you could count in the three years that you’d been together, always taking the same route, Harry insisting that it was the quickest but you joked that it was the only way that he could take where he wouldn’t get lost on the winding country roads. But either way you had become quite fond of the small service station that was just outside of Birmingham on the M6.

‘Yeah, can just get us a coffee please.’ He asks leaning over to put a kiss on your cheek before you grabbed your bag and made your way out of the car, pulling your coat tight around you, the weather having not gotten much better since the two of you left London earlier in the day.

Although the service was pretty quiet with only two or three people lined up at the Costa Coffee and a woman browsing the WHSmith in the corner, you knew that it was Harry’s time off, so you always volunteered to go for the two of you. Not that he didn't love meeting people but driving up to his mums for christmas seemed like something he prefers to keep private, especially with you news, the two of you didnt want it plastered across social media before you had the chance to tell those closest to you.

Having gotten everything you think you’ll need for the remainder of your drive, just waiting for the barista to call your name to collect the coffee that you feel as though you desperately need now, even if you insist you weren’t asleep, as you wait you twist the new ring on your left hand, a habit that you picked up relatively quickly after getting the piece of jewellery.

It hadn’t been a flashy proposal, no room full of a thousand candles, no plane flying over head asking the big question, it was just you and Harry in your home, if he was being honest it wasn't even planned, Harry saw you making tea for the both of you after returning from a day of interviews and couldn’t describe anything that he was feeling except he felt calm and he knew he wanted to feel like that, with you, forever. And so the ring that had been burning a hole in his handbag now resided on your ring finger and had for the past week unbeknownst to any of his family members. You had caved and face-timed your mum that night but Harry had insisted on surprising his mum with her future daughter-in-law for Christmas, telling you ‘you’ll be the best present she could've asked for this year. You’ll well beat the spa weekend Gem’s got her.’

Your name being called pulled you from your reminiscent day dream as you collected your two coffees and made your way back to Harry waiting in the car.

‘Mum said Gem hasn’t even left yet so we’ve got loads of time, think we’ll be the first ones there.’ He tells you as you pass him his coffee and get settled back into the car for the rest of the drive.

•··°　• ·*　　·　·　★　.　✦　　　*　*　　.　

Harry was right, you were the first ones there, a stark change from previous years where you two were pulling into Anne’s driveway when the only lights on the street were the occasional decorative light and Anne's living room where she was waiting up for you two. But this year you were the only car in the drive as Harry pulled off the main road to pull into the space next to his mum’s car.

As soon as she heard your car, Anne was swinging the front door open to welcome you, no doubt she’d been up all day preparing for you and the others to arrive, her favourite time of year being when she gets all her babies under the same roof again.

Harry parked the car, and you were quick to jump out going to help unload the ridiculous amount of stuff that you’d brought with you for the two weeks you were staying up north. You took the two suitcases wobbling slightly as you hauled them into the entry way as Anne helped Harry with the bags of presents.

As they made their way toward you into the house Anne drops her bag of presents at the door pulling you into a tight hug.

‘You two can’t stay away for so long next time, even if you have to drag my son up here by his hair.’ she told you pulling away from the tight embrace.

‘Right you two go get settled upstairs, all the rooms are set up, and I'll sort these out by the tree’ She says motioning to the bags of presents that had been abandoned on the floor during your reunion embrace.

•··°　• ·*　　·　·　★　.　✦　　　*　*　　.　

Anne had moved since Harry was a child, but she had made sure that both her kids still had their own rooms no matter how old they were or how long they’d been out of the house. Harrys being in the corner of the second floor of the house, looking out into the garden which in typical english fashion was sort of frozen over from rain and frost and sort of coated in snow. The walls of Harry’s room were a dark navy blue with the bed pushed to the window where Harry had already laid himself across.

‘Get up lazy bones.’ You teased throwing a sweatshirt from the case open in front of you at him.

‘M up ‘m up, promise.’ he groaned sitting up on the bed looking at you now. ‘Have we decided how we’re gonna tell her yet.’ He asks referencing the rock on your left hand.

‘Thought that was your thing to plan, haven't done your homework Styles’ you teased ‘Guess i thought i’d take my chances, Styles.’ He threw back at you ‘’sides she's gonna flip anyway we tell her, been on me for months to do it.’

‘I’m not a Styles yet, not for another few months anyway.’

‘Good as one now, unless you're planning on running away at the altar on me? Are ya?’

‘Course not.’ You assure him. ‘Now come here, need to help unpack.’

‘No, you c’mere don't need to pack, need to lay down, at least till Gem gets here an’ then we can tell ‘em together’ His hands grabbing for you to join him on the bed where he's now positioned himself closest to the wall, perfect for you to slide in.

You cave, making your way over to him on the bed, placing his arm over your waist and keeping hold of his hand. Harry sighs into your hair from where his chin now rests on you head, you know you shouldn’t really be napping but when you start to hear Harry’s quiet snores you start to close your eyes too.

•··°　• ·*　　·　·　★　.　✦　　　*　*　　.　

You’re both awoken to the sound of who you presume is Gemma pulling into the driveway and talking to Anne in the entryway as you and Harry had hours before. Harry is the first to move, prompting you to sit up too, both of you taking a moment to rub your eyes but eventually silently moving to go downstairs to greet the rest of the family.

Gemma and Anne were both sat at the kitchen table having a cup of tea when you and Harry joined them.

‘There you are! Both of you were dead to the world when I went up before to check how the unpacking was going’ Anne laughed as Harry gave his sister a hug and went to sit next to Anne and you sat next to Gemma. Anne getting up to get you both a drink, knowing that Harry wouldn’t drink his but getting him one anyway, too while you caught up with Gemma.

So far no one had noticed the ring on your finger, when Anne returns to the table with your two mugs and a plate of Christmas themed biscuits, you place your elbow on the table and lean your head onto your left hand, now this catches Anne’s attention almost shouting ‘Is this what I think it is’ as she grabs your hand to have a closer look.

You and Harry don't really have the words so just nod while both grinning and Anne and Gemma, still both squealing over the ring and repeating congratulations as you hold your hand out to show them both a closer look at the ring.

You sat back in your seat as Gemma turned to Harry finally pressing him for details of how he popped the question as you know he’ll talk about it for hours if given the chance, so you let him repeat the story this time just smiling and occasionally adding your perspective to it.

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry blurb #harry fic #harry imagine #harry x reader #fiance!harry #bf #my writing

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himboarcher · 3 years

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reasons i've seen folks say that grad critics hate grad:

they hate travis (in fairness, i’ve def seen some comments of people shitting on trav for the sake of shitting on trav, but it’s not super common and typically gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit.)

it's not balance / travis isn't griffin (???????)

they hate neurodivergent people (again, in fairness, i have seen a handful of comments that could come across this way! but most of the time when travis being ADHD or his NPD is brought up, it's by defenders saying that criticizing travis is ableist because he's neurodivergent or, in one particular comment, infantilizing him bc of it and literally comparing grad to putting a kid's artwork on the fridge. there were some comments early on that pointed to him being a narcissist as the reason for things people disliked about grad, but everyone seems to have realized that that's a shitty train of thought and left it behind.)

they're just toxic haters (again, there are a small handful of people like this because this is the internet, but the genuine criticism greatly outweighs their bullshit. i 100% think that the people, which is mostly just one dude who is also insufferable on reddit, who have been responding rudely to positive tweets under the episode announcements lately are out of line and need to stop. there's been an influx of that lately, presumably because people are frustrated that after over a year of grad going on, there's been no improvement to most of the major issues. that's still no excuse to be a dick to folks, though.)

vs some of the actual reasons i don't like grad:

the racism / racist tropes, and the way that they’ve straight up ignored this criticism and will likely never acknowledge it. pretty wild considering a core tenet of their brand is their willingness to acknowledge when they’ve messed up and do their best to course correct.

clumsy attempts at inclusion that are shallow and often end up being fairly offensive ("...ask me about my wheelchair," anyone?)

on a related note: i don't think that travis had bad intentions, but as an nonbinary person, it feels othering to me that travis only has enby characters give others their pronouns unprompted. i'm thinking specifically of kai here. having listened to their introduction, i don't think it's as bad or awkward as some people have said, but i can't remember travis ever having another NPC tell the PCs their pronouns, especially not a cis character. it's not a huge deal, but it's something that rubbed me the wrong way. admittedly, i don't think it would bother me so much if travis hadn't dropped the ball so much with performative inclusion in the past.

okay i'm putting the rest under a read more because even without getting into all of the problems i have with it, this got Long.

little to no player agency. player choices are ultimately meaningless and have little to no effect on the world. even when he seems to go along with a plan they come up with, it always ends with them having to go back to travis' pre-written script (see: subpoenaing the xorn, but not really because they had to go with travis' original plan of "send the xorn home through the rift".) the players repeatedly get told things about what they think or feel or what they've been doing to an unnecessary degree. fitzroy is the only one who really gets space to play and decide things for himself, and that's only because travis has decided he's the main character.

the NPCs are all too nice and willing to give the PCs anything they ask for and more, unless the PCs are trying to follow their own plan and then the NPCs are completely useless. but honestly, aside from gray, all of the NPCs are just.... nice. travis refuses to even let his antagonists be mean or cruel or even more than just slightly rude, because that'd be a bummer and we don't want that! the "twist" of gordy the lich king actually being polite and chill is not a twist at all because everyone is like that in this world. the NPCs are also wildly overpowered, but then suddenly absolutely useless when the PCs actually want their help.

too many cliffhangers that are dropped immediately at the beginning of the next episode. i feel bad for travis because so many of these cliffhangers actually set up good momentum and seemed like things were gonna get interesting, but almost every single time he just dropped them at the beginning of the next episode. like when althea showed up to interview the boys and the next episode started with travis being like "actually you went to sleep, she said she'll be back tomorrow!"

that time travis specifically said in his exposition dump that the thundermen left their horses behind because they thought the centaurs might be offended by them riding horses, only to later on rag on them for being surprised that the centaurs had horses they could ride.....

also the centaur arc in general, but i already listed racism above, so.

the way that the toxic positivity and parasocial tendencies in the mcelroy fandoms have made a large portion of the fandom take ANY criticism as a personal attack on travis and/or on themselves for enjoying something others consider bad, either morally or just quality-wise. it’s okay to admit that something you like has problematic elements or just isn’t as good as it once was. you can and should engage critically with the media you consume.

related to above: the way travis has handled genuine criticism, which is to throw public tantrums on his twitter or make weird passive aggressive tweets & ultimately ignore all the genuine criticism and advice he's been offered by claiming it's all subjective, even after he specifically asked for it and set up an email for folks to send in genuine, objective advice for him (after he threw a tantrum on twitter and replied to someone's criticism publicly, which resulted in his followers dogpiling on that person bc how dare they insult their internet best friend). while i was writing this last night, he actually announced that he’s taking a break from Twitter and acknowledged that he’s been using it as an echo chamber where he can easily get validation from folks, and honestly i’m happy for him that he’s recognized this problem and is stepping away for a while! i hope he’ll genuinely use this time to reflect on how he’s been behaving and find a more healthy way to use social media. i’m leaving this point in because i think his Twitter being such a positive echo chamber was encouraging him to do stuff like this, and him somewhat acknowledging his behavior doesn’t mean it can no longer be discussed.

rainer. extremely cool concept in theory and i was very into it until that awkward "does anyone want to ask about my wheelchair?" moment. also when travis had her use her mobility aid to RAM INTO A DOOR instead of just fucking knocking???? also all the times travis has tried to force a romantic relationship between her and fitzroy, despite fitzroy displaying no interest in her in that way. also, just to clarify: as an ace person, i don’t think this is aphobic! (and it’s kind of a stretch to call it that imo, especially since griffin never explicitly said that fitzroy's aromantic!) i just think it’s weird and awkward and a little uncomfortable for me personally, mostly because it reminds me of the times i’ve been in similar situations.

less of a problem than a lot of the other stuff and more just bad writing, but the forced emotional moments. in general, nothing in grad feels earned (why are the boys heading a war? when they have multiple actual heroes with combat experience on their side and a supposedly powerful secret organization? and the thundermen are like 21 years old max and have only had like ~10 fights in the entire campaign?) but there've been a couple times where travis has tried to force unearned emotional moments, presumably because he knows people enjoyed those with the last campaigns. but the difference is that in balance, the big emotional moments happened because they were earned. in grad, it's just travis throwing a baby pegasus at us for a few minutes and then the next time she shows up, it's supposed to be a tearful goodbye.

there are absolutely no stakes. remember when the thundermen got told that if they left, gray would kill 10 students? and then they left and came back and it turns out that what gray actually meant was, "i'll tie ten students who are mostly nameless NPCs to a tree and throw some dogs at them that you can easily stop in time, then throw a tantrum because how dare you but i'll leave before you can really do anything to hurt me lol" travis did have fitzroy's magic get taken away, but like. it didn't really do anything? also all he had to get it back was be coerced into using drugs by an authority figure and trip in the woods?

we're told that the school is weird and the hero system is corrupt, but the world of nua is still presented as more of a liberal utopia than anything? althea getting fired because of a corrupt villain is the only time we've somewhat seen corruption, but even then, she was still allowed to get (what seems to me, anyway, but admittedly i don't know for sure bc nothing about the HOG makes much sense) a fairly important job from the very people who stripped her of her hero license or whatever the fuck heroes need?

travis doesn't actually seem to understand how capitalism or bureaucracy works and just chalks up everything to "red tape." also more on the rest of the boys than him specifically, but the "let's destroy capitalism!" thing turning into just pushing some filing cabinets over................... okay.

and one last piece of extremely subjective criticism: it's just kind of.... boring. i think a lot of people, myself included, would be willing to overlook 90% of the problems with graduation if it didn't feel like such a slog to get through.

also people saying that we can't or shouldn't criticize graduation because it's "free" is absolutely absurd for several reasons. first, something being free does not make it above criticism. second, there ARE people who directly financially support the show with monthly donations. three, there's a difference between something being free and something being not for profit. podcasting is their full time job. they make their living off of money made from TAZ and MBMBAM (and probably their other shows to a lesser extent). this not a fun home game that they are graciously recording and sharing with us. it is a product they are producing that they make money off of, both from ads in the episodes and merch & books based off of these podcasts. they have marketed themselves as professionals, and both griffin and travis have been on panels where they are marketed as professional DMs and appear alongside other professional DMs (which makes it incredibly frustrating when people say that travis is just a newbie DM and we can't criticize him because of that. if he's a newbie, then he should not be taking part of panels as a professional DM where he speaks as an expert). TAZ is free in the same way that an episode of NCIS is free. i may not pay for it directly, but the creators are paid to create it and profit off of me consuming this product. so saying we should be grateful for any mcelnoise that the benevolent good boys share with us and that we're not allowed to criticize it "because it's free" is absolutely wild.

#negativity cw #i guess #anyway this is not meant to say that you cannot enjoy grad.#but i'm tired of folks on this website acting like there aren't genuine problems with it #and saying that people just dislike it bc they hate travis etc etc #taz graduation #i genuinely don't expect anyone to read this bc it's so long #but here ya go.#long post

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cybernaght · 3 years

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The Rebel/叛逆者: A Review of Sorts

After being only semi-invested in the Rebel, I ended up getting so into it in the final weeks of its release, I’ve shelled out on IQIYI premium just to get the final couple of episodes a few days earlier.

That’s right kids, it’s a Review of Sorts. Unfortunately, I could not find a translation of the novella the drama is based on, so will be looking at it as a separate entity.

Most of this post is spoiler-free, however I have dedicated a few paragraphs at the end of it to discussing the final episode, as there are a few specific things about it I wanted to mention. There is a clear spoiler warning before that part.

If you don’t want to risk it, TL;DR version of this review goes something like this: Rebel is very decent, and positively one of the best things that I have seen to come out of China since I’ve jumped into that particular rabbit hole. It’s pretty well written, it’s very beautifully dressed and shot, and the cast is killing it. I thought it dropped the ball a little in post production, and I did not always love the pacing. Other than that, it’s incredibly decent, and well worth watching, unless communist propaganda really irks you, in which case stay very well away.

I have been having many conversations with @supernovasimplicity all the way through watching this drama, so there are likely to be some thoughts here that are influenced by those.

The story centers around Lin Nansheng, a struggling servicemen in the Guomingdang party. He has a great analytical mind, and absolutely no emotional capacity for his job. He has trouble handling violence, he is impulsive, he cannot speak to his superiors without bursting into tears, and has nothing even remotely resembling a poker face. And that is what makes this drama as enjoyable as it is.

I don’t think Lin Nansheng’s journey would have been nearly as exciting had he started it from a place of competence. He botches up everything he touches because his big brain switches off the moment his emotions kick in. And so, when you see him grow in confidence, learn to control himself, learn to fake his smiles and compliments, you can’t help but feel a strange sense of pride. It also makes Lin Nansheng very likeable as a character for reasons other than Zhu Yilong’s ability to look like a bush baby.

It did take me a while to feel fully engaged with his performance - not because there is anything lacking in it, but just because it’s hard to be truly surprised by his choices after the exposure I have given myself to his work. That said, at about a half-way point I got charmed by him anyway, and there were quite a few scenes that were truly mesmerising. There were scenes where he broke out of the familiar mould of big unguarded eyes and fluttering wet eyelashes, and tried something that was not pretty: every time to a great success. I am hoping to see more of that in his future work.

I really wanted to like the female lead, Zhu Yizhen, but unfortunately both the way she was written and the way she was performed by Tong Yao left me somewhat cold. It did not help of course that the screenplay ended up sidelining her at every turn, leaving her with very little personal agency. She was set up so interestingly, but in the end her sole purpose became being someone for Lin Nansheng to pine over. It is particularly curious from a perspective of meta storytelling: seeing how this is all centered around superiority of communism, which as a whole was, arguably, ahead of its time in the matters of binary gender equality.

The ensemble cast of the drama is stunning. Wang Yang came very close to stealing the show at several points as Chen Moqun, somehow managing to make his rather unlikeable character interesting. I can say the same thing about Zhu Zhu who absolutely shined as Lin Xinjie, showing an incredible range and imagination in her performance.

The overarching story of the show is engaging, with some incredibly suspenseful elements; every narrative arc including a nice progression through it. As spy thrillers go, it was fairly well plotted. You could if you go looking for a few things that did not pay off in a satisfying way (notably, the Chekhov’s cyanide capsule), but you overall the story really was well told for the most of it.

I did, however, feel like the pacing started to fall apart in the last quarter of the drama. Last episode in particular really did feel rushed, not just due to its pace, but also in a way it failed to pay off the final mission in any visible way. There will be more on that in the spoiler section of this post.

Important to note that The Rebel is a show made in Communist China in the year 2021. It does not ideologically side-step from the path that was laid out for it by that fact. Which is to say, it is, undeniably, filled with propaganda. Communists are the good guys, and if you think a good guy (or gal) is not a communist, they probably secretly are. With one exception of a friendly character who is not a communist, and whose fate we actually never find out. Curious, that.

The Rebel is not a kind of a show where censorship-appeasing scenes are shoehorned in. It’s a kind of a show in which the main theme is Sacrifice For the Party.

Aside from the being the moral vector of the show, Mao’s gentle teachings explicitly help get Ling Nansheng out of prolonged depression following his injury, and almost annoyingly, this sat incredibly well with the character, as he was written. Lin Nansheng is conceived as this naive idealist who wants to be on the front line, who needs validation and support of others. His - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - his being disillusioned in his beliefs and choosing to join a party which includes people whom he likes and trusts makes sense. Him finding this one thing that gives him hope and letting it propel him into gaining confidence and competence makes sense.

In many ways, the Rebel is a story of Lin Nansheng’s failure to become an antagonist within the world of the drama.

I have honestly spent this past couple of weeks pondering whether being well written makes political propaganda better or worse, whether the subtlety of it makes it more or less palatable, whether it’s enough, as a viewer, to be aware of it to shrug it off. Ultimately, this is not something I could or should make moral judgements on, but I do believe that it’s possible to acknowledge the fact that propaganda exists in the drama, and still appreciate it for a good piece of television that it is.

That said, I am very well aware that me being kind of okay with it stems entirely from my own removal from the culture this is made in, and I am, perhaps, lucky to even have a choice as to whether I want to engage with a product which is, undoubtably, here to dress political ideology in fancy clothes.

I have, on the other hand, also seen many things in Russian media of the “Annexation of Crimea is Good Actually” variety and those make me feel very unwell, so feeling somewhat at ease with blatant political propaganda in Chinese media makes me the biggest hypocrite.

But, I digress.

Before we go into some specific plot-related things, I would like to mention that the Rebel has this weird dichotomy in which the production is sublime, and the post-production… not so much. The show very well shot. Every element of it sits perfectly together, not a single prop out of place, not a single extra underdressed, not a page of script not put to good use. It’s lit to perfection. It’s scored beautifully. So much of this show is just stunning.

And then… there is post-production.

This is not even about bad CGI (and the CGI is, indeed, bad), it’s just that most of post-production as a whole feels rushed.

Starting with surprisingly imperfect editing, which at times just fails to make the scene flow together. The final line of dialogue would be spoken within a scene, and it would fade to black instantly without a single breath to indicate a full stop. A montage sequence would be created, but every shot within it condensed to a second, making it feel incredibly fast-paced when the effect should be the opposite. There would be a cut away from a speaking character and to the same speaking character from a slightly different angle, making it dynamic without any reason to do so. There are a couple of truly startling jump-cuts.

I did not speed this gif up. This is part of a romantic montage, edited like it’s a goddamn action sequence.

And of course dear old friend slowing down footage shot at 24FPS. Please don’t do this. You think no one notices - but we do.

There are other tell-tale signs of production rushing to the finish line: occasional, but very noticeable ADR glitches, very sloppy job done at sound mixing, which contribute to parts of the show feeling ever so slightly off.

It’s not unforgivable, but it does make me wish the same amount of care and efforts that went into shooting this drama would also go into it after it was all in the can.

Oh, and just because if you know me you know I have a professional fixation on fights, and I am happy to say most action scenes are toe-curlingly delightful. Hot damn those fights are good. I am absolutely in love with the shot below, for example. Placing an actor behind a piece of set so he can exchange places with the stunt double during a one shot is such an old trick, but the execution, timing and camerawork are just... flawless. This is what perfection looks like.

Now we got all that out of the way...

SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE BELOW

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love the ending and I found that I could not.

The final mission was presented as important, and honestly the scene in which Zhu Yizhen is sending the vital message out as Lin Nansheng holds his ground in hand to hand fight is incredibly dynamic. Party, this is due to the fight itself being incredibly well choreographed, yes, but it’s also where it sits within the narrative, how high the stakes are for everything surrounding it.

But then, the tension all but bleeds out. The Important Message is sent, the fight is won, and we are treated to ten minutes of a very slow car chase, problem of which is not even its speed as much as its placing within the story. As in, by this point both of those operatives have lost their cover, and completed their Very Important Mission. It would be very sad if they died, but their survival does not technically contribute to their cause. Moreover, Zhu Yizhen getting mortally injured in order to protect Lin Nansheng as part of her mission read a little empty when the mission is technically over.

While I personally found Lin Nansheng slow recuperation and his low key ending enjoyable, I think I would have preferred to have seen a more tangible pay-off to all the sacrifices made in the name of “bright communist future”, just a little more justification for every moment of death and despair we witnessed. I would have certainly at the very least preferred to see Wang Shi’an’s death on screen. Considering how many likeable characters martyred themselves on screen, denying us the death of the one antagonist just seemed cruel.

I really did love the ambiguity of the final few scenes however, if we consider the children choir at the end a fantasy. The idea that Lin Nansheng will live out his life in this hope that Zhu Yizhen is still alive, imagining her just outside of his field of vision, his only joy being in this fantasy of her… now, that is incredibly strong. I equally like the idea of rest being promised to him at the end of his journey, and said rest being painful, and slow and unwelcome.

But it felt like as they chose not to to lean into the “sweet” part of the bitter-sweet tone of the ending and we’re unable not commit to the “bitter” part either, so it lands with a splat which is somewhat lacklustre.

---

This concludes my thoughts on the Rebel.

I am more or less out of Zhu Yilong’s filmography to watch, which is probably a good thing at this point. I have just emerged out of several back to back work projects - literally today - and will hopefully once more have time for things I grew to enjoy doing during the lockdown.

Those things, if you have not guessed, include watching Chinese television and writing things about Chinese television.

#the rebel #叛逆者 #Zhu Yilong #review of sorts #now with gifs #chinese drama

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

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Conner Kent Week 2021, Day Two: Rarepair

Jason knew jokes about how pale Tim was, about how he was either a vampire or the perfect blue blood, about how he needed to get out and absorb some sun for God’s sake. They were met with glares, scathing retorts, smacks with a bo staff, and on one memorable occasion, a horrified Bruce as Tim barged into the house with visible sunburn all along his arms, shoulder and face. (Bruce hadn’t taken Tim’s accusation of But Jason told me to go get some sun! very well.)

Jason wasn’t joking now. Loosely covered in a hospital gown, Tim’s still body seemed to be more devoid of colour than any of the sheets, machines, and tubes surrounding him and attached to his body, keeping him alive in the most impersonal of ways.

It was quiet, the sort of quiet that muffled any attempted noise with a soft hush, an invisible reprimand at showing signs of life in a place where there should be none. The beeping of the various machines didn’t register, the hum of the fluorescent lights was ignorable. Even the rhythmic tapping of Jason’s foot on the linoleum, a nervous habit he’d never been able to break, was utterly silent.

It was quiet. At least until Conner Kent barged into the room, his heavy combat boots thudding on the ground and his breath coming out in pants, the terrified look on his face telling Jason that he thought he hadn’t gotten here fast enough.

“He’s fine,” Jason managed not to cough while speaking, the roughness of his throat a physical ache that was just now flaring up. “Full recovery, they said.”

“Good, good, that’s...” Conner dropped into the remaining hospital chair, right next to Jason. “That’s good.”

Silence blanketed them once again. Jason hadn’t ever been in a regular hospital room. He had supposedly spent a while as a patient in one when he’d risen from the dead and trembled around Gotham like a 21st century zombie, but he couldn’t remember any of it. He didn’t think Tim’s best friend had ever been in one either, given a good majority of Tim’s team was invulnerable or had advanced healing in some way.

Jason was sure Bruce was itching to take Tim to the cave’s medbay, and honestly, Jason found himself on Bruce’s side in this. As much as he liked to distrust the entire Bat clan, he knew they’d give everything they had to make sure Tim was okay, while the hospital was only giving Tim their best care because of the “Wayne” tacked onto the end of his name. Jason had been about to demand Bruce bring him back to the cave no matter what, but Oracle butted in, telling him that Tim been shot as Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne in broad daylight. Bruce couldn’t take Tim home, not without raising some very complicated questions.

So that led them here. Jason being slammed full-force in the face with how much he’d let himself care about the tiny little toothpick, unable to make himself move for fear that Tim would slip away in the one moment he was gone. (Once he’d come back to life and seen how chummy Dick was with Bruce all of a sudden, he’d always expected Dick to drag him back kicking and screaming. He never thought Tim’s unobtrusive yet steady presence, doing his tech work in exchange for food, would lead to the word brother coming to his lips as easy as a breath.)

Next to him, Conner shuffled, and snapped Jason out of his thoughts. “I thought Nightwing would be here.” A statement, subtly posed as a question.

But, still one Jason had an answer to. “Deep cover. A mission he’d been planning for weeks. He doesn’t know.” And he would probably throw a fit about it too, when he came back. Even Jason had to wince a bit at the horrible sense of déjà vu Dick would end up feeling.

“So they sent you instead,” Conner said, and his tone was simple, but Jason found himself getting heated anyway.

“What, you thought the fill-in for Big Bird would be a little better?”

Jason was just burning for a fight, the helplessness he felt at being able to do nothing but sit in a low-quality plastic chair skating up his body and down his arms, forcing his fingers to curl in a fist. He expected the other boy to rise to the bait, having heard Tim’s complaints on how hot-headed Superboy was.

But something about their current situation caused Conner to just turn and glare at him flatly instead. “You once put him a hospital bed, too. Don’t act like you care about him now when you would’ve celebrated this a couple years ago.” His tone was dismissive, and that dug under Jason’s skin much more than he expected.

“Well then, it’s a good thing time travel’s reserved for the speedsters, huh? ‘Cause lucky for you, I’m not the same guy I was a couple years ago,” Jason replied scathingly. The next words were ripped from Jason’s throat, and he could almost see the blood splattered on them. “That’s my brother in the shitty hospital bed right there.”

“Yeah? And how long have you even cared about that ‘brother’ of yours?” There it was. Jason could see red trickling into Conner’s cheeks as he let Jason’s words get to him, and found himself oddly curious about that flush.

Still. Argument to win. “Long enough to know him,” Jason shot back. “Long enough to help piece him together after he almost broke. Where were you during that time? Fucking around with your friends or dead?”

“Trying to hold together the team that Tim helped build,” Conner shifted a bit to face Jason more directly head on. “All you’ve done is tear people apart. News flash: having a sort-of truce with Tim doesn’t automatically mean your family loves you again.”

That one hurt. Years of training to keep his emotions hidden was the only thing that kept him from flinching back visibly, but Jason still felt like he’d been slapped. Because the boy was right; just because Tim liked dropping by one of his safehouses every other week doesn’t mean the rest of the family was anywhere near comfortable with him, not after all the pain he’d caused them. And he couldn’t even fault Conner on it, because it wasn’t like he was wrong and it wasn’t like it wasn’t Jason’s own damn fault.

Still. He couldn’t just let that slide. “At least my family loved me to begin with. What do you have? Megalomaniac scientists who built you from an evil billionaire who thinks of you as an experiment at best and supposedly one of the best men on Earth who still thinks you’re not worth his time.”

Too late, Jason realized his insult came out a little too scathing. Conner’s eyes widened, and Jason saw him blink back pinpricks of tears...fuck. He didn’t know when mutual antagonizing had turned into a caustic competition, but he was pretty sure Tim wouldn’t be very happy with the two of them biting each other’s heads off. And Jason was the one that goaded Conner into this to begin with, to let some of his own helpless anger loose. Conner just wanted to make sure his friend was alright.

So, slightly reluctantly, Jason said, “Sorry. That was a bit too far.”

Conner shot him a grimace. “S’okay. You’re keyed up ‘cause of Tim. I get it. You’re still a jackass, though.” After saying his bit, the other boy turned away, taking up another vigil by Tim’s bedside.

...What the hell. It wasn’t like Jason had lied, anyway. If there was one person that had worse daddy issues than Jason did, it was this poor son of a bitch. Back when he was first catching glimpses of updates on what happened in the larger superhero world while he was letting green overtake his mind, he’d marveled a bit at Superboy, and the way the Justice League seemed to speak about it. How bad do you have to be to be Superman’s own son, (sorta), and still have him hold you at arms length. But after Tim’s stories, and after meeting him now, Jason was pretty sure Superman was in the wrong.

You really couldn’t trust anyone, could you?

“Nah. You’re right,” Jason said. “God knows none of the Bats want anything to do with me, so this stupid sort-of truce with this stupid brother’s all I got.”

Conner glanced over at him, surprised. Jason couldn’t blame him, he was a little taken aback at how easily the confession had spilled out of him too. They both knew how closed off people in their line of work were, but Conner seemed to take Jason’s words as an olive branch.

“You were right too. Found out the fun way that parents aren’t worth shit. So the team’s all I got, and Tim’s a big part of that.”

“The kid fucking hates you,” Jason said, putting some good-natured humor into his words to let Conner know he wasn’t entirely serious. “Loves you to death, but complains about you to me all the time.”

Conner snorted. “Look who’s talking. Every week at Titans Tower, it’s all ‘Jason won’t stop scaring off all my informants’ and ‘Jason spit on my copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’”

“You can’t blame me for that last one, aight?”

“No, I agree with you,” Conner said. “That movie was terrible. I don’t know why Tim likes it.”

“Because he’s a goddamn loser,” Jason said. He couldn’t say he was expecting Conner to know who he was, much less from stories Tim had told him. But it felt...good, in a way. Nice to be recognized by his media tastes instead of his bone-chilling reputation. Nice to know that the guy Tim wouldn’t shut up about to him knew who he was.

Silence fell in between them again, but it was comfortable, mutually acknowledged and let rest. Jason didn’t break it when Conner stood up, brushed a kiss to Tim’s hair, and left the hospital much quieter than he came. Jason didn’t break it when he made to leave either, squeezing Tim’s hand and mentally willing him to heal faster. Jason didn’t break it all the way home.

The next day found Jason in a similar position. The positive side of being a mob boss: he didn’t have much in the way of a day job. He didn’t know why cramming himself into an uncomfortable position to stare, with a tight throat, at a kid in a medically induced coma was what he decided to do with his day.

Maybe because the kid had grown on him, latched onto his heart like a leech and didn’t let go until Jason could ruffle his hair and think of him as a little brother without physically throwing up.

And maybe because he wanted to see Conner again. He didn’t know why, but their brief talk yesterday had loosened something inside his chest. He was used mulling over his regrets, used to Bruce condemning him and giving up on him as a lost cause, used to Dick trying to brush everything aside and form a bond with him again. He wasn’t used to someone staring his sins in the face, then shrugging and forgiving him.

Forgiveness was much lighter and much less guilt-ridden than Jason expected, and he wanted more of it. From the way Conner had sunk into the same line of thinking as Jason, he wanted more of it too.

Conner didn’t disappoint him, but Jason wasn’t sure when he’d gotten his hopes up high enough to be disappointed in the first place. Calmer, now that he knew Tim was doing better, Conner leaned against the doorframe of hospital room, staring at their resident comatose with a little frown on his lips.

Jason took the time to study him. A black leather jacket stretched across his shoulders, a little more showy than the practical brown one draped across the back of the chair Jason was sitting on. He supposed it fitted in with Superboy’s theme, because anyone who wore that pinwheel-bright costume with the fucking thigh holster Jason saw pictures of online was more than a little showy. There wasn’t much proof of in his simple t-shirt and jeans, though, and Jason almost would’ve been disappointed if it weren’t for the earring hanging from his left earlobe and the tall black boots with glinting metal lace hooks that stretched up their length. Jason bet he owned the exact pair of fingerless gloves that were wrapped around Conner’s wrists right now.

In all of Tim’s vivid descriptions of the guy, Jason never realized how much he had in common with the guy, at least cosmetically.

“How’s he doing?” Conner asked, and jolted Jason out of his reverie. He didn’t make any indication he caught Jason looking, but Jason eyed him in slight embarrassment just in case.

Realizing that Conner was actually waiting for an answer, Jason cleared his throat and leaned forward a bit from his relaxed sprawl. “They say they’ll bring him out of it tomorrow, then a week here before he can go home. That is, if he doesn’t wake up on his own. The doctors say they’re astounded at how fast he’s recovering.”

Conner snorted, then stepped fully into the room. “Can you build up an immunity to injury? Or, like, have your body develop a mini healing factor or something? Just based on the kind of shit we’ve gone through over the years?”

Jason didn’t miss the way Conner put feather’s touch more emphasis on “we,” or the way his eyes flicked over to Jason. “At this point, I’m sure it’s the only way we’ve stayed alive so long.”

“No you didn’t,” Conner chuckled.

Jason’s head whipped up, staring at the other boy with disbelief threading through his mind. It had taken months for Dick to start making death jokes, and even then, he hesitated a bit, as if making sure Jason was okay with it. But after one meeting, Conner just steamrolled ahead, every bit as confident as he appeared to be. Jason found himself laughing too, with genuine amusement albeit a little punched out.

Crossing the room to seat himself in the remaining plastic chair, Conner sunk down with a sigh. “I just want him to wake up already.”

“Yeah, well. Who doesn’t?” Jason said, feeling unreasonably a little disappointed. Of course Conner wanted to talk about Tim, that was the whole reason he’d come to the hospital in the first place. He’d only known Jason for an hour, and a large part of that was spent trading insults back and forth. Of course he didn’t want to talk about how Jason was doing.

“So,” Conner said, turning away from the hospital bed. “How are you doing?”

Or maybe he did. Jason didn’t know what to call the little bubble of satisfaction that flew up his throat and popped in his mouth. “Not bad. Life as a mob boss is kinda boring, whaddya know. You?”

“Playing den mother for a bunch of hypercompetent yet cluelessly stupid baby superheroes is not how I imagined my life going.”

“Playing den mother?”

Conner wrinkled his nose, in a motion that was in no way cute, honestly kind of gross and flat. Jason found himself staring nonetheless. “Bart used to call me Team Mom back when we founded the team, and it caught on. Now, Cassie leads, but since even she says it, everyone fucking says it. They ask me for granola bars and money to buy movie tickets.”

“And?”

Conner sighed. “I give them granola bars and money to buy movie tickets.”

“There you go,” Jason said, his voice dripping with smug amusement.

“I swear I’m not usually this lame,” Conner pleaded, and his half-smile was aimed straight towards Jason.

“No, no, I believe you. Tim’s told me stories,” Jason said. “Didn’t you once throw some guy into a police car so hard, the car dented and they had to call in a helicopter so the guy didn’t die on the way to the hospital?”

Conner flushed, and Jason found it just as entrancing as last time. “He tried to touch Cassie,” he explained. “And she can take care of herself more than well, I know. I just got a bit...overprotective.”

Jason just laughed. “Don’t worry. I thought it was badass.”

“Really?” Conner’s lips twisted into a sour smile. “Because the League thought it was proof of my, fuck, what was it? Violent, destructive tendencies mirrored on a smaller scale of the schemes of Lex Luthor. Something along those lines.”

Shaking his head with desideration, Jason scoffed. “Sounds about accurate. Besides, you don’t wanna know what the League thinks of me.”

“What?”

“Aside from, like, Joker and Two-Face and Mad Hatter and shit, Red Hood is one one of Batman’s most powerful and dangerous rogues, and must be stopped at all costs.”

Conner was laughing before Jason even finished talking. “I love that for you,” he said. “You’re just so powerful and dangerous. I’m quaking in my boots.”

Jason shoved him lightly, and felt Conner give way on purpose, ignoring how natural and easy the motion felt. “Whatever you say, Luthor Lite.”

“Well, guess I found my new superhero name,” Conner said, finger held up to his chin in mock-thought as if musing something extremely important.

“It’s perfect,” Jason said. “And here we have Conner Kent, ordinary punk-rock farmer. But he’s hiding a secret! When his ‘violent and destructive tendencies’ come out, he turns into...Luthor Lite!”

The two of them collapsed into muffled laughter, Jason stifling his noise by biting his lip and Conner putting his head in the crook of his arm to hide his red face. Pity, Jason liked that flush.

Straightening up with a sigh, Conner offered Jason a little grin. Crimson was still creeping along his cheekbones and the edge of his jaw, and Jason was suddenly struck by the urge to trace it.

“Kon,” Conner said.

“What?”

“Call me Kon,” Conner said. “Everyone does.”

“Kon, huh? With a K, right?” Jason asked, then nodded thoughtfully when Conner made a noise of affirmation. “Is it Kryptonian or something?”

A rueful expression stole it’s way onto Conner’s face, mischievous lips and daring eyes staring at Jason as if challenging him. “Yeah. Kon-el. Kryptonian for ‘abomination’. It’s what they thought of clones.”

A pause. Then, “Wow.” Jason bust out laughing for the second time. “That’s metal as fuck. Good for you, Kon.”

“Says the guy who took the name of the person who killed him, then twisted it into something so horrifying that now, no one else associates it with anything other than you.”

“Is that judgement I hear?”

“Respect,” Kon said, and his smile was oddly shy, the first time he’d shown that emotion since he’d met Jason. Jason liked the way it looked on him; it suited him oddly well.

They were quiet for a minute, grinning at each other like buffoons, but Jason couldn’t find the heart to stop. Eventually, Kon stood up and rolled out his shoulders to stretch. “I gotta get going. I’m meeting Bart and Cassie, updating them about Tim.”

“They’re waking Tim up in the afternoon,” Jason said. “Bruce is gonna be here, plus Steph. So I’d stay clear.”

“Gotcha, thanks. I’ll come in the morning.”

A proposition, if Jason ever saw one, and there was no way he could have refused. “I’ll be here,” he said, and kept his eyes on Kon until he rounded a corner, away from sight.

Kon was already there when Jason came to visit Tim the next day, and he gave him a friendly, if a tad flirtatious, smile. Jason responded, accidentally putting too much emotion into the greeting than he would have liked, but it made Kon brighten, so Jason didn’t feel too bad.

Dropping heavily into what had become “his” chair, Jason shrugged off his jacket. He gave himself a mental high-five when he noticed Kon staring at his shoulders, but made no motion to address it.

“If all goes to plan, he’ll be the same annoying little prep boy that’s always annoying the hell out of me by tonight,” Jason said.

“He’ll be fine,” Kon said, and his voice was quiet, but there was an undercurrent of confidence curling around his words. He sounded like he had utter faith in Tim. Jason wished some of that would bleed over.

“He’s a tough little shit,” Jason said, then repeated Kon’s words. “He’ll be fine.”

“How ‘bout you?”

“Hm?” Jason raised an inquiring brow. “Oh, I’m all good It’s not me that’s hurt.”

“Jason,” Kon snorted. “If I have learned anything over the past two days, it is the fact that you are most definitely not ‘all good.’”

“Yeah well,” Jason said. “You’re one to talk.”

Kon made a noncommittal noise, and shrugged as if to say what can you do? “We’ve all got issues. But I get the feeling that you’re not as closed off and angry as you let people believe. Or maybe you are, but you don’t want to.”

Jason bit back the first response that came into his mind, telling Kon that no, he was closed off and angry, just not with him. But that wasn’t the truth, and he definitely didn’t have the courage to say it out loud. So instead, he said, “Maybe. Not gonna lie, from the way Tim and everyone talks about you, I was expecting more...”

“Cocky little frat boy?” Kon asked, smirking.

“More or less.”

Kon sighed, then looked down to where his hands were fiddling with each other. “Superman doesn’t act like a cocky little frat boy. Neither does Lex Luthor.”

“You’re not either of them,” Jason said, realization pouring into his mind like spilled oil. “You’re not either of them, but no one else seems to get that, so you make it as obvious as possible.”

“A couple people got that eventually,” Conner said, looking up at Tim with a soft smile. “Not many, though. And none as quickly as you.”

Kon leaned back, level with Jason now, turned to face him, something on his face that Jason couldn’t read. The chairs seemed much closer than Jason could remember, but he wasn’t very much banking on his memory right now.

“Yeah, well,” Jason said, feeling a little lame. “What can I say. Misery likes company, and companies read each other through water.”

“Never heard that one before.”

“I came up with it,” Jason said.

“I like it,” Kon smiled, then leaned forward with an ease Jason had been determined to build up first.

A little peeved at Kon beating him to it, Jason closed the distance first, the kiss probably a little too rough. But given the way they’d met, Jason felt like the bite he gave Kon was justified, even if the other boy was invulnerable.

Jason had made plenty of bad decisions in his life, and he knew exactly what they felt like. This wasn’t one of them. There was no chance that the way Kon’s hands coming up to cup Jason’s face, dragging his nail down Jason’s jaw, was anything other than good. No chance the way Kon’s soft hair suddenly threaded through his fingers was anything other than soft, no chance the soft noise Kon made in the back of his throat was anything other than delightful.

Yeah, Jason knew bad decisions. And despite the avalanche of bad decisions that seemed to make up every inch of Jason, from his scarred hands to his chipped nails, despite the pile-up of thoughtless ideas that led to this boy being made, despite how intimately familiar Jason was with regrets, he was certain Conner Kent wasn’t one of them.

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

this was almost 4k what the fuck

also. please imagine tim waking up to see his best friend and older brother aggressively making out in the plastic hospital chairs next to him.

anway, suddenly i have a new ship.

imma post this on ao3 later, it got a bit long

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @screennamealreadyused @subtleappreciation @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @bonkybearjpeg @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump

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detectivesplotslies · 3 years

Text

Too many memories, two many occupants

Description: The game is over, and someone has to answer for how it played out. Tsumugi's the obvious answer, as perfectly so as her cosplay. Features VR AU and postgame spoilers. Word Count: 3591 Read on AO3 here

Chapter 1: Beyond Notice

During the trial it had been a lot easier. Having an opposition, having a role, having a part to stick to. There was the audience, there were the fans. There were her brilliant cosplays! There was the vote. She had known what she’d press. She knew where it would get her.

Waving her last, she knew what it really meant. But something within her still grew quiet. Something mourned. The triumphant grin of despair wouldn’t surface, no matter how hard she tried. Her contestants. Her classmates. Her victims. Her cast. They had sentenced her… themselves… to this.

Even though she knew better, she felt numb. Her feet were heavy, rooted to the spot. The others were out of sight. Her executioner flew around above, raining his destruction down on them while she retreated inwards, her vision narrowing. Waving, as her cosplay fell away, as the school crumbled, she should feel the heat of the explosions, but none of that reached her.

She saw the rock. She made no move. Part of her was ready. Part of her was resigned.

It went dark.

Even though Tsumugi knew better she was almost relieved.

Until it was time to wake up.

---

Coming to feels hazy, disorienting. Her limbs jerk awkwardly, as if starting awake from a nightmare, eyes still seeing darkness but hands brushing against cords, glass and consoles. A pair of hands brush her cheek as they remove her headset, and she flinches involuntarily. One of her own hands goes to her face, tugging at its electrical tethers, still taped to her in various nerve points.

She’s not wearing her glasses. Panic washes over her just as the blinding light of the room that refuses to adjust for her does, and her other hand frantically reaches around the pod for where they must have fallen. She’d never leave her glasses. Without her glasses she’s not… she’s…

The light becomes less intense as she blinks, and she can make out the blurry silhouettes of three people in front of her, standing at attention, waiting patiently. One holds a hand outstretched with something silver clasped in it.

Shakily she takes it, unfolding the arms and sliding them carefully onto her face. The unfocused world comes back into sharp clarity. She half recognizes the faces of those who are in front of her. The silence remains. Is she supposed to say something? Eventually the one who returned her glasses clears her throat, and gestures to the others. They begin to remove the wires quickly and efficiently. Tsumugi crosses her arms and rubs at them idly as the rest are secured, feeling like this should be a more private process. As the last wire is removed the one who’s clearly in charge clears her throat again and nods to her.

“The Board would like to see you.”

Slowly, Tsumugi pushes herself out of the seat, wobbling on her feet as she does so, gripping the side of the chair shaped pod, carefully avoiding the lit LCD consoles lining the edges. The trio before her make no moves to help, nor does she request it. The legs beneath her quiver a few times, threatening to fold before her knees lock with some promise of support. Her hand gripping the side betrays the truth though, trembling with effort.

“Alright, take me to them.”

---

They aren’t happy.

There’s some general gratitude that an ending was guaranteed through her actions, but thanks for it are brisk and short lived. There are bigger problems now.

Lost footage was bad enough, but a protest live on air? Sure, there were tons of supportive fans out there with a continued commitment to the brand, but the vocal few were making themselves heard. Sponsors were pulling their funding. Team DanganRonpa needed to make a statement. They refused to take fault, they had the consent waivers, despite the impassioned display on screen. They needed a scapegoat to take the fall, and who better than the face of the disaster? It was for the good of their franchise, and their only chance to hang onto enough profit to keep the company running.

They are firing her.

The show must go on, but they would make a good faith decision to change their methods for the next season. With a brand new production team.They were advancing their technologies still and R&D was indispensable right now, so the focus went towards the writing talent. It was her failure, anyways, they posited. The simulation hadn’t flickered once, even when the jig was up.

Tsumugi is silent and numb as she is told this. Turmoil brews as a debate begins around her about when to release the announcement.

How dare they do this to me? I worked so hard for them! Without me this season would have never got off the ground! Who else had the brilliant idea to move into a space epic? To introduce new worlds for the future of the story? Who risked their life to bring down every last obstacle? Who gave up their classmates? Was chased down for this mad show and they care more about sponsors? How dare they place the blame on a highschooler, when I-

Wait, no, she’s not…

She runs her fingers over her temples gingerly, swaying slightly on her feet. The discussion in front of her ebbs, attention back on her, and some expressions exchanged before they agree to resume once she’s more aware. Perhaps they were too prompt in calling her here, but they had assumed she wouldn’t need long to adjust, since she knew the truth.

They didn’t realize knowing the truth was the crux of her dilemma.

---

Deleting memories when a consciousness was plugged directly into a simulation was very simple. The centers of the brain known to store them were easily targeted without physical intervention, leaving common sense and learned skills. Untethered knowledge, learned without recalling how. The amnesia effect here was valuable. Recalling this knowledge caused a disconnect, and when memories were implanted the brain would do something extraordinary. It would map a route from the presented memory to the knowledge, all on it’s own. Connecting the neural dots and repairing the damage as though it were never there, without guidance or supervision. The human mind was a brilliantly sophisticated device.

Every cast member had been selected with some semblance of knowledge or aptitude for their assigned talent, even if it was utterly average. The knowledge was filled out for each, with painstaking researchers drafting long memories of ancient tomes, infidelity cases, star charts, blueprints, masked faces, island maps and coastal vistas. They filled in as much as possible, but even if they missed something, the mind was resilient, and would work out the holes on its own.

It wasn’t the same for her however.

There was a perk to being the ringleader for the whole affair. The person in charge had to know some of the infrastructure that was keeping them there, some of the motivations. Lest the show fall apart, or even worse be boring. So the game master went into the simulation without memory deletion.

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t memories implanted. That would be too simple. They had to provide some true evidence of their talent to back up the enhancement of their skills and knowledge. Without a sturdy foundation built on confidence any additions would crumble and refuse to attach. Having worked in the costume department for a few seasons before her promotion, her suggestion of cosplayer had been approved almost instantly. Soon the research team was looking up Cosplay Masquerade winners from years past and the details of every prized piece of workmanship, photography and character acting they could find, and drafting it into a light for her as well. Tsumugi had been excited, and had even helped pick her absolute favourites to be remembered as costumes she made.

Ideally, this booster pack of memories for her talent would supplement her own enough to use to her fullest if the time came in game. Her script outline didn’t even call for her reveal, but having been behind the scenes a few seasons, she knew a lot more was up to chance than Team Danganronpa liked to let the media know. She wanted a strong backup at her disposal, should the need arise.

However, when the game began, something hadn’t been quite right. Backstory memories were implanted as planned, but the talents were yet to be placed. Already in the simulation, she couldn’t ask The Board if this was deliberate. It could be a marketing scheme to boost audition rates for the next round. But already her concern grew.

The human mind is a fascinating thing.

The others spoke of being grabbed and taken here. The dots were already connecting, firing on all cylinders, looking for solutions to lost memories that didn’t need answering. It wasn’t as though they erased everything of course, it was impossible to work with a blank slate, so the bits remaining were playing havoc with their reactions. She alone had none missing, and merely nodded along. With the arrival of the talent light, she had an inward sigh of relief. Soon it wouldn’t matter, this would overwrite any unintended connections left by this stunt.

They received the memories.

Tsumugi had never expected them to feel so real. Every costume she had lovingly picked out, from footage and articles, she could feel in her hands, as though she touched the fabric and threaded the seams. Every pose she had seen a cosplayer photographed in, she was viewing outwardly, seeing the cameramen she never even imagined existing prior, while holding her position with careful grace. Every character, be they dramatic, loud, shy, soft or brash, came to her in vivid detail. Their tales, their backstories, their struggles, their gestures and voices.

And it clashed against her memories of Danganronpa.

All these characters, all these series, they were not the ones she grew up on. They were new and relevant, often references classics, selected for memorability, for the audience. And yet now they were intimately hers. They crowded for attention, buzzing and vying for a place as her favourite.

Her true favourites, the reason for her years of work and devotion, were shoved to the very back, not forgotten, but duller. Flatter. The Ultimate Cosplayer was vibrant! Though plain outwardly her skills were undeniable! She wasn’t some drop-out made-seamstress made-scenario writer. Why would she ever want to be?

Therefore, it couldn’t be that surprising how lost in thought she was at her introductions, she spent far too long trying to remember the lines she had written to poke a reference to the show. There were a lot more than 52 killing games to think back on now. She regretted not stocking the A/V Room with more of these shows...

----

With an escort, she goes to her office to clear it out. Memorabilia lines the desk and walls, from seasons past. She looks them over passively as she is handed a box, and begins to take each thing down one by one. Every character, name, and mascot was familiar. Security waits at the door, and she wonders why. What could she possibly do here to harm them anymore than she supposedly already had? She had not been allowed online yet to confirm anything told to her, but she had resolved that when they spoke to her again she’d make it a condition before her termination. They couldn’t plainly believe she’d take their word on it when they put her… no that wasn’t right…

They didn’t put her anywhere, she put herself somewhere.

She shakes her head slowly a moment, the numbness in her hands having returned. Before she can react the snowglobe in her grasp slips out of her clumsy unfeeling fingers and shatters on the floor. Water and glitter splash the floor as tiny Monokumas skitter outwards past her feet across the room, freed from their little round prison. Security whirls around to face her at the sharp sound she doesn’t hear. She stands there staring at the base of the glass bauble, dumbfounded.

She vaguely recollects that that had been special. A collector’s item, given to her by someone perhaps? Limited edition? But she felt nothing staring down at the wet shards remaining, her arm hanging limp at her side. Whatever it was before, it was trash now.

Tsumugi is ushered out with her box half packed, with no mention of if she could come back for the rest. Part of her wants to scream to get the rest and cling to it all! It took so long to amass! Without it, what is there to prove her efforts? A larger part of her was happy for it to be out of sight.

She unceremoniously leaves the box in the corner of her recovery room. Not one of her own things is taken out to put anywhere. She likes the room bare and plain. Like her. Just like the girl she thinks she is.

---

Unlike before the game, when the research team and writers had meetings, strategy plans and long discussions, the classroom where Tsumugi stood with the Game Master interface was lonely and cold. There were no intricacies to any of the selections, they were mere branching paths. Sure, she recalled some of the writing details for each from before the season launch, especially the ones she had chosen as her outlined route, but how simply the screen stated them to her was troubling.

The talent had been supposed to be this simple too, but it had depth she hadn’t expected. The selection hovered over the Ultimate Hunt and the mass funeral choices, the ones her writing team had OK’d. She wondered what depth she’d feel seeing fake people mourn her. Would they seem fake?

She pressed the button and waited for the light to pop out of the locker, adjusting her glasses idly and looking out the dark wire barred windows. She thought about her ‘classmates’, who had nothing in their heads remaining to help them deny these. It really was a perfect system. For them.

There was a thud in the locker. Tsumugi returned to her task, like so many all nights she’d pulled before, both real and fictional. She walked over to retrieve it, carefully tucking it into the interior pocket on her coat. Once it was placed that was their plot, no rewrites, no erasing anything. Living the story was a lot more nerve wracking than writing it.

---

Tsumugi knows her way around the building without help, but that doesn’t stop security from falling into step and walking with her whenever she leaves her room. She supposes it’s not to help her, anyways, so it’s not an issue. There’s no regimented schedule for her during recovery, though doctors have visited her room a few times and there was one impromptu check-up with an actual CT scan.

She tells them all she feels fine. Everything is fine. She’s readjusting just fine, thank you for asking. No, no abnormalities. No numbness. No confusion. She does admit to being very tired. That one is a safe answer, it usually makes them leave faster so she can rest. They aren’t very good doctors, she thinks. She wonders if they are just as poorly attentive to the other patients’ issues and lies.

Without a schedule, Tsumugi avoids the cafeteria at what she guesses would be the busier times, but even doing so she has caught glimpses of her cast.

A girl sitting with an untouched meal laid out before her. Her hands clasped in front of her in her lap, eyes hidden behind loose grey hair.

A tall silent boy gazing out one of the few windows into the courtyard. He traces his no longer ringed fingers along the surface.

A coughing bout in the hallway followed by the rush of feet and a familiar loud voice shouting them off.

Echoes of their more vibrant selves, haunting the halls.

She walks into the cafeteria and stops. There are voices but she’s already through the door before she realizes it, eyes darting to the table to the right of the door. Sitting there in what sounded like a disagreement were Shuichi and Maki, with Himiko sitting idly beside the latter cheek resting on the heel of her hand while gazing at the door. The other two don’t notice her but the small redhead locks eyes with her instantly. Her posture stiffens as her eyes widen. The two girls stare at each other for a moment, the conversation a buzz in the background as the air thickens. Shuichi, who’s back is to the door must have noticed because he stops mid-sentence and glances over his shoulder. He freezes.

It’s Maki who stands, nudging Himiko behind her, taking on that intimidating stance. She’s glaring daggers across the room at her, and Tsumugi backs up involuntarily, right into the security guard who was following her into the room. Clumsily, she stumbles forwards to step out of his way and adjusts her glasses, the other three’s eyes still locked on her. Not wanting to leave, but unsure of what to do with herself, Tsumugi steps forwards to the adjacent table and quietly takes a seat.

The eyes on her and the silence are wrong. She’s not someone who gets stared at, at least not when she’s not trying to… this isn’t what she should… what should she…

A placid smile spreads on her face and she nods her head to them. “Good morning, Harukawa-san, Yumeno-san, Saihara-kun.” Her eyes squint almost closed in the forced smile, her cheeks pushing upwards under her glasses that help mask the dark bags. Practiced. Placating. A face both of her make. Painful.

“What do you want?”

Himiko isn’t who anyone expects to talk clearly, Shuichi turning to look at her. Maki squares her shoulders, trying to seem bigger. But the smallest of them narrows her eyes and waits.

“Nothing in particular, really,” Tsumugi drawls, folding her hands in her lap. Out of sight as they clench and fidget.

“Oh sure, your goons won’t give us a moment alone, but you don’t want anything. Like we’d believe that,” Maki says before Himiko can continue, venom in every word. Himiko’s mouth hangs open in the interruption, closing again with a pout.

“My goons,” Tsumugi repeats, noting the pointed look at the security detail that followed her in. “Fortunately, they should have provided you all with your contracts by now, and you can see your rights there. Please do use them to your benefit.”

“Oh right. The contracts we don’t even remember signing,” Himiko mutters.

“That is outlined in them as well.”

“This lack of contact with the outside was not, though,” Shuichi cuts in. The sureness there is from someone who clearly read the contract over more than once. Someone looking for loopholes. The memories he received must still be working overtime. She wonders if he’s as glad to have them as he was when he was when the process was explained? Probably not.

“That’s not my area, I’m afraid the simulation and preparations were my purview, Saihara-kun. Feel free to exert your rights in your contract, though. The company has to uphold it.” The strained smile slides into a more natural one as she continues to speak. It’s easier when it’s not about her.

Shuichi raises a brow. Perhaps he had expected resistance? “So they’re breaking their agreement then, holding us here?” he continues, as if to clarify.

“If that’s what the contract promises, then I suppose that’s the case,” Tsumugi answers. They should feel fortunate they got the opportunity to sign those at all, she thinks. Her hands clench tighter. They are fortunate they don’t remember.

“Like we trust you to keep promises,” Maki spat.

“You don’t have to,” she tuts, “Just use the contract, it’s your tool.”

Maki moves so quickly that thankfully Tsumugi doesn’t have the time to flinch. Himiko grabs her by the crook of the elbow before she’s rounded the table towards her.

“Stop it, let’s just talk somewhere else.”

Himiko stands, and moments later Shuichi follows suit. Maki’s expression doesn’t show any agreement, but she leaves with them nonetheless, glaring back over her shoulder on the way out. The security officers never stray from their posts. As soon as she’s sure they’re gone, Tsumugi lets out a held breath. A few moments pass, and she finally goes to get her meal.

She hopes that they really heard her. Their contracts are so much more flexible than her own. They hadn’t bequeath their identities, their citizenships, they weren’t intellectual property of the company no matter how some of the creative team liked to spin it.Their participation was a limited matter, and she was sure her classmates could argue their way through with that fine print at their disposal. She knew that much. She’d seen them face harder things than legal jargon together of course!

...Her classmates? No. Her cast. Her co-stars. A grimace grows on her face as she returns to sit. They never once had a class together, and the game could hardly be called one… not now. Not with her. Together they could bond in their ignorance. Her contract wasn’t flexible. Her consent was different than theirs. She wasn’t new, or at least not all new.

And she couldn’t leave until they decided the best way for them to kick her out. She takes a bite of her food thoughtfully.

If they can kick me out.

#ndrv3 spoilers #ndrv3 #tsumugi shirogane #shirogane tsumugi #team danganronpa #fic #my writing #danganronpa v3 #vr au #postgame #shuichi saihara #maki harukawa #himiko yumeno #my mugi #dissociation #memory #Some of you may remember the preview I posted for this one

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authorlmfletcher · 3 years

Text

Merry Christmas @csulliven ! I’m your secret santa for @mlsecretsanta ^_^ Hope you enjoy it!

Also on Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383465

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

Snow in Paris. How romantic.

Adrien sighed as he watched the large snowflakes falling softly from his bedroom windows, secretly wishing that he was sitting on a rooftop somewhere with Ladybug. An image of her rosy red cheeks in the cold air, dark hair covered in white as she laughed made him smile.

“Ready, Plagg? Time for patrol.”

His kwami grunted noncommittally, tossing back an extra piece of camembert before Adrien called him into the ring. Chat Noir pushed himself out the window almost before he was fully changed, black suit melting over his body in a familiar and comforting feeling.

From the rooftops, he watched children dancing in the streets with arms outstretched to greet the snow. Strings of lights draped over trees and over buildings, creating a warm and magical glow to the night sky. A few windows showcased trees twinkling with lights. It was perfectly wonderful, and all Chat could feel was empty.

Christmas always hit him the hardest, the memories of his mother’s smile, joy, and laughter at this time of year flooding his thoughts everywhere he looked. He missed her so much. While usually he could keep the swirl of emotions under control, the holidays pulled them so close to the surface that nothing he tried could tamper them down. At least this year he wouldn’t let himself fall into the same angst-fuelled stomp around Paris from the year before.

Reaching their meeting point, Chat Noir flopped onto the rooftop, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. He couldn’t help the curl in his back nor the soft frown on his face as he watched a young family walking down the street, each parent holding one hand of their child in the middle, swinging him high into the air as he screeched with joy.

He missed those days.

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

Snow in Paris. Crap.

Marinette’s feet slipped out from underneath her as she stepped out onto her balcony, a soft squeak escaping her lips as she frantically waved her arms to regain her balance. Tikki chuckled softly behind her. Marinette shot her kwami an unamused look.

“You’ll be fine. Go - Chat will be waiting.”

A quick set of words transformed Marinette in a brilliant flash of pink, a spotted suit appearing on her skin before she launched herself off her railing to yo-yo over the rooftops to their designated meeting spot.

Trying not to slip as she landed on their rooftop, she noted the unusually despondent position of Chat’s body.

“Hey Chat,” she called out. He turned and gave her a muted smile.

“Hey.”

That wasn’t her usual exuberant kitty. Deciding that patrol could wait, she plopped herself down beside her partner and gave him a good long stare, trying to telepathically discover what exactly was making him so sad. No answers came to her.

“What’s wrong, kitty?”

His hesitation to answer gave away a lot. Civilian issues, she realized. Something that mattered enough that he actually let it bother him when he was in his super suit. That worried her a little.

“I - “ he shifted his eyes to peek at her, “I’m just finding the Christmas season hard. It’s all bright, and cheerful, and beautiful, but - it’s not like that for me.”

Ladybug blinked, trying to process. Christmas always made her happy. The colours of the lights. The smells of fresh baked cookies. The snuggles on the couch watching a movie together with her parents. The excitement of homemade gifts. This was her favourite season! But, Chat - obviously it wasn’t the same.

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say, her brain already slipping into planning mode. Something had to be done. No one should be unhappy at the happiest season of the year! She looked around the view of Paris, pieces of an idea popping into place in a typically Marinette/Ladybug fashion.

“I have an idea.”

Chat looked at her startled when she got to her feet.

“An idea for what?”

“An idea for you. Come on. Follow me.” And then she was swinging across Paris. It took longer than she expected to arrive at her destination - a large building built like a square. Landing on the rooftop, she turned to find Chat close behind, a confused look on his face.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

“Look,” she replied. A simple gesture brought his attention to the ice track laid out on the top of the building in a long path. “Transform to ice.”

He gave her a startled look, shocked as she gulped down one of her power up macrons. Fumbling through his pockets, he followed her lead.

“What are we doing?” he asked again. She just laughed, grabbing his hand and dragging him onto the ice.

“Come on. I think you just need some fun.”

She had to admit that the sheer look of surprise on his face was worth it. It took a few laps around the icy path before his usual boyish grin took over and he started to show off with spins and acrobatic displays. It felt like hours later when they both collapsed onto a bench with tired legs and hearts full of laughter. Ladybug felt thankful that her little plan had worked. She never wanted to see that hollow look on his face ever again.

“Thank you, Ladybug,” he said softly, dropping his ice transformation with a sigh. “I needed that. Christmas season is just … hard for me. It makes me think of someone I miss a lot.” Throwing his head back, he stared at the sky a moment before grabbing her hand for his trademarked knuckle kiss.

“Anyway, thank you for the special evening. I should probably get going - I have a crazy day tomorrow and need to get some sleep.”

Still on the bench, she watched him vault away. Detransforming, she sat there for longer with Tikki as the little kwami chomped away at a cookie.

“Oh, Tikki. I wish I knew more about Chat Noir. Who could he miss so much that he gets that sad over the holidays?”

Tikki simply chewed, not answering. Marinette sighed. “I know. I just wish I could do something to make Christmas special and happy for him instead.”

It took all of 5 minutes for a massive, crazy, totally insane idea to come together. Changing back to Ladybug, she swung home, brain whirling with plans, knowing there was little chance of sleep for her creative self yet again.

-----

Hands fussed with his hair. Others pulled at his clothes. Voices barked out orders as people raced around, moving props and backgrounds. The chaos of a photoshoot never got easier. The sooner he could get through these “fake happiness” last minute winter shoots, mostly for social media, the better. The head photographer shouted him in place - telling me which way to stand or sit, what to hold, how to pose, what face to wear. His body and expressions moved on auto-pilot. His thoughts wandered to the memories of the skating he’d done with Ladybug the night before. She understood him in a way that no one else likely ever would - able to read his REAL body expressions.

“Adrien Agreste, get your head out of the clouds and down here onto the fake snow,” someone snapped, pulling his full attention back to the business at hand.

The day promised to be one of chaos. Early photoshoot, obligatory fitness workout, rehearsal for a big presentation at an upcoming Christmas charity event, guest appearance on behalf of his father at two different events, another short photoshoot (outdoors - which sounded uncomfortable), followed by an evening at the 2nd or 3rd Christmas gala of the season. Hopefully there would be time to eat somewhere in there.

Rushing from thing to thing on his schedule, Adrien mused over the busyness. Why did Christmas obligate people to fill their lives with meaningless activities and fake smiles? He would give anything to just sit together with his family and enjoy each other’s company in quietude.

By the time he arrived home from the gala, dressed to the nines in one of his father’s top-line suits, that hollow feeling had returned. The oversized tree sparkling with lights and silver ornaments screamed how fake this holiday season felt - meaningless, impersonal, and just there because of obligation.

He was too tired to do much else, stripping down to slip into some comfortable pajamas and tossing an extra chunk of cheese at his kwami. Briefly, he transformed, mostly to check if there were any messages on his baton.

One unread message.

“Hey Chat, I have this idea. Can we get together tomorrow? Say…. 10pm? The tower?”

He typed back a quick message in agreement, mentally sifting through the day’s schedule, then flopped himself onto his bed with muttered words to transform back into his civilian clothes.

At 9:45pm, Chat Noir burst out of Adrien’s bedroom window and raced over the rooftops. The snow from two days earlier had vanished, leaving things with a slightly damp look. Crisp winter air singed his cheeks, but it felt refreshing after yet another busy day.

Ladybug stood waiting at their usual Eiffel Tower hangout, a large bag slung over her back.

“So, what’s up, LB?” he asked, wondering what exactly she hid in a bag that size.

“Follow me,” she said, jumping away. Whatever hid in the bag rattled as she took off. He hurried to keep up with her as she yo-yoed across the city, landing finally in a small park. She slipped the bag from her back, the rattling (and possible jingle?) sounding out. She unzipped it with deliberate slowness, giving him a grin.

Inside sat decorations.

“What are we -” he cut himself off as she laughed, pulling one of the silver spheres from her trove.

“We’re going to decorate this tree. Together. It’s an important Christmas tradition!”

Suddenly, he realized that he hadn’t even noticed the large evergreen tree in front of them. He must have frozen long enough with his mouth open in surprise that Ladybug had managed to hang 4 or 5 ornaments before asking if he was going to help. Springing into action, he carefully grabbed a ball and placed it onto the tree. A few ornaments later, he found himself wonderously tangled by tinsel with Ladybug laughing hysterically. He could feel his cat ears drooping as he asked for some help getting loose.

When the bag was emptied, they stood side by side admiring their work.

“Perfect.” He had to admit, she was right. They had done a terrific job. And it meant so much more to put together a tree with someone he cared about. Better than the team of professional decorators that Nathalie had hired this year.

“Tomorrow? Same time? Eiffel Tower?”

He had no idea what she planned to do, but he nodded, unable to stop the smile that crept onto his face.

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

Everything was ready. Flour. Ginger. Molasses. Sugar. Marinette looked around the bakery kitchen with the feeling that she’d forgotten *something* but time to meet Chat crept closer. Maman and Papa had been more than generous when she had asked to use the kitchen for a couple of nights.

“As long as you don’t touch any of the morning’s baking,” her mother had answered, not needing any other explanation.

“Time to go!” chirped Tikki, wide blue eyes twinkling. “I think he’s going to love this one.”

“I know he will.” Taking one last glance at everything laid out, Marinette transformed and raced to find her partner waiting with anticipation at the tower.

“Follow me.”

She led him back to the bakery with an elaborate explanation of how the owners had graciously let her use their kitchen. From there, Ladybug spent the night helping Chat discover the joys of making a gingerbread house from scratch. Much laughter ensued as flour ended up on faces, ginger sent Chat into sneeze fits, and Ladybug discovered her partner’s lack of skills in a kitchen. By the end of their adventure that stretched early into the morning hours, they had a pair of iced together houses, one more askew than the other.

“Go sleep now, Kitty. We’ll decorate them tomorrow night.” The excited twinkle in his eyes before he escaped made her smile when she finally crashed onto her bed for a few hours of sleep.

The next night consisted of a sugar-fuelled cat boy, happily slapping candies and decorations to his somewhat lopsided gingerbread house. The next, she set up a laptop with a Christmas video on a nearby rooftop with some thick blankets and a thermos of peppermint tea. An afternoon visit to a local library ended up with them sitting in the middle of the children’s section with kids climbing all over them as the librarian read The Grinch and other kids acted it out.

A midnight excursion wandering through Paris, taking in all the amazing light displays led to another spent window shopping well after most Parisians were sleeping. He hadn’t ever really just looked at window displays for their artistic value before.

The following night, all plans were thwarted by the Giftster - an akuma who wrapped everyone up in paper and bows out of spite over a poorly wrapped gift. It took longer than she hoped to defeat the villain,leaving her a little sad that her plan for the night was ruined - the hot chocolate bar she’d put together cold and the whipped cream melted to liquid by the time they arrived.

“It’s still purr-fect, Ladybug. I don’t mind at all. It’s the people we’re with that make the holidays special, not the temperature of the drink.” He poured himself a large mug of cocoa and piled the top full of marshmallows, syrup, and sprinkles.”Delicious.”

---

Adrien’s view of Christmas shifted. The anticipation of Ladybug’s holiday shenanigans brought him more excitement than he had felt for the holidays in a long while. Nothing would ever replace the hole left by his mother’s disappearance, but at least this made him feel hopeful again instead of melancholy. With less than a week left to Christmas, he sat in his class for the last day before the two week break. Marinette lay flopped on her desk, possibly asleep, as Nino and Alya argued the merits of their gift wish lists.

“What about you, Agreste?” Alya snapped, poking Marinette awake with her elbow. “What are you doing this Christmas? Any big plans?”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“No running off and sending your dad into Christmas Godzilla mode this year, ok?” Nino quipped. Adrien felt himself flush.

“I won’t,” he murmured. “Listen - last year was hard. The first Christmas without my mom, ok? She loved Christmas and it just feels … I don’t know. Christmas season is just … hard for me. I miss her so much.”

Realizing that he was killing their fun conversation, he decided to turn himself around. “But don’t worry! No running off this year. I promise. I’ve actually had a friend from work making sure that Christmas is awesome. We’ve gone ice skating, watched a really fun holiday movie, and we even made these gingerbread houses - from scratch! Even Mother didn’t do that!”

He told them all about the adventures that he’d been having and how special they’d made the holidays become, carefully avoiding any mention of their superhero selves. The more he rambled on about the activities he had been doing late in the nights with Ladybug, the more Marinette’s eyes grew wide. He stopped talking when she let out a strangled sound.

“Are you ok, Marinette?”

She sat frozen, statue-like for a long moment, staring blankly at him. Suddenly she jumped with a yelp, clutching at her side.

“Oh, yep. Yep. Totally good. I’m totally fine. Everything’s fine.” She let out a wild and panicky laugh, blinking rapidly. “I’m good. Are you good? Everyone’s good, right? Ok. I’m just - I’m just - Ms. Bustier? May I be excused to use the bathroom?”

And then she bolted, racing out of the classroom in a gangly, flailing pile of limbs. The whole classroom paused in their conversations for a quiet moment as they stared at the door, then with a universal shrug, returned to what they were doing.

“That was weird,” muttered Alya, frowning. “Even for Marinette.”

-----------

“Just breathe, Marinette. Breathe. In. Out. Innnnnnnn. Ouuuuuuuuuuut. Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Out.”

From the bathroom stall she hid in, Marinette could hear and see her kwami giving anti-panic attack advice, a blurry red dot floating in front of her face, but she couldn’t process the words being said. Adrien Agreste. Chat Noir. Adrien Agreste? Chat Noir. Nope. It just had to be a coincidence that Adrien’s “friend from work” had taken him on all the same adventures that Ladybug had put together for Chat Noir. Totally a coincidence that Chat missed someone special while Adrien missed his mother. Just coincidence.

Oh crap.

Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste. ADRIEN AGRESTE WAS CHAT NOIR.

She threw up in the toilet.

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

Chat couldn’t quite put his finger on what was different that night as they listened from the rooftops to a group of carollers in one of the parks. Ladybug sat a little farther away than she usually did. She didn’t roll her eyes at his jokes or speak much at all. In fact, she didn’t even look him in the eyes.

“Everything ok?” he asked finally, unable to stand the awkwardness any longer. Her head snapped at that, eyes connecting with his for the first time in the night.

“Oh. Yes, sorry. I just found out something about a friend today and it’s been hard to work through, that’s all.” She smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile - her eyes skittering away from him. He frowned.

“Want to talk about it? In generalized terms, I mean.”

She shook her head.

“No. I’d rather just listen to the music, ok?”

“Ok.”

The next evening, with only 2 days left to go before the big holiday arrived, Chat found himself at a local food bank, handing out meals to families whose faces shone with so much gratitude that it made him feel embarrassed to live as he did. Ladybug still seemed preoccupied. He smiled at her every time she tried to stealthily look at him, wondering exactly what was going on behind those brilliant blue eyes.

At the end of their volunteer time, they escaped to the rooftops.

“Are we doing anything special tomorrow?” he asked, wondering if the magical sense of Christmas had worn off for her. “It IS Christmas Eve after all.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t quite define.

“Are you ok, LB? You’ve been really … off for the last day or so.”

He watched as she opened and closed her mouth like a fish for a moment before snapping it shut. She visibly straightened her back.

“It’s nothing big, I promise, but yes - let’s meet at the tower tomorrow?” When he nodded, she flashed him an almost real smile before swinging off into the distance.

Plagg had no ideas, simply focusing on his cheese and musing over whether Adrien had any stocking fillers planned. The kwami tapped suggestively at the pictures in his Gentleman’s Camembert magazine.

Adrien gave up, hoping that whatever bothered Ladybug would be resolved by the time they got together tomorrow.

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

Christmas Eve dawned bright and crisp, the cold smell of winter on the air. Marinette did not want to get out of the coziness that her oversized comforter provided. If it hadn’t been for the wail of her akuma alert alarm forcing her to drag herself out of bed, she might not have for the whole day.

The realization that Adrien Agreste - face of perfection and heart of gold - and Chat Noir - jokester and impulsive rogue were the same person had left her rattled. Marinette had needed a few days to process it all, but she was slowly coming to terms with how much it meant to her to discover the boy she deeply cared for was also her best friend.

She swung across the city to find a Grinch-like akuma, green from head to toe with a red hat and coat. With a single touch, the lights and decorations found on the streets of Paris simply vanished. Anyone found in his path transformed into lumps of coal.

“I think he has the wrong city. This isn’t Whoville.” Chat voice chirped happily - sickeningly so, given the early hour of the morning. “Good morning, milady.”

“Morning, kitty.” With a yawn, she searched the akuma for clues where to find their target. “I’m guessing it’s the Santa hat. But we have to keep out of range of his hands. Turning to coal sounds like a terrible way to spend Christmas.”

With a nod, he stood up and extended his baton with a grin. “40 feet.” Then he launched himself off the rooftops to place himself securely in the path of the opponent.

“Hey, is that your resting Grinch face?” he taunted, starting his usual distraction methods. She watched for the briefest of moments as the akuma threw itself at her partner with a growl. If she could just sneak in behind while it was distracted, she could probably pull the hat from his head.

Things never are that easy when fighting akumas. Realizing that a second superhero attempted to stealth attack him, the Grinch whirled around, knocking her to the ground mid-pendulum arch. She hit the ground with a roll, dodging away from the outstretched hand. Chat responded with a careful leap, vaulting himself towards the villain and narrowly missing the hat. Acrobatic flips moved him back out of the way of danger.

A few cheesy puns about the Grinch and being green later, Chat still somehow managed to keep most of the attention on himself while Ladybug attempted another grab for the hat. Failing, the Grinch growled, grabbing onto Chat’s baton and flinging the cat boy into the air. Ladybug watched in horror as her partner landed right in the akuma’s grip, wide-eyed and legs kicking.

Mere seconds felt like hours, a black heaviness overcoming Chat from his toes to his face. She screamed his name, panic clawing at her heart. No. No! Her yo-yo whirred with renewed vigour, calling her Lucky Charm. Into her hands dropped a carefully wrapped, red-polka dotted present with a tag reading “For the Grinch.”

A plan clicked into place.

“Oh, Mr. Grinch. I have something for you.” The akuma dropped the lifeless stone figure of Chat Noir to the pavement with a loud thud, turning its attention instead to her. She thrust the present at him with a smile, which made him stop and cock his head sideways with a frown. If she hadn’t been so focused on where the hands of her opponent were in that moment, she would have started singing. After all, music won the day in the story of the Grinch - hadn’t it?

“Merry Christmas.”

Cautiously, the akuma accepted the gift, settling down on the pavement beside Chat’s coal statue to rip open the paper and see what his gift was. The moment the lid popped free, a brilliant flash of light went off, blinding the akuma long enough for Ladybug to grab the hat and tear it apart. Away fluttered the butterfly, captured a moment later in her yo-yo with a snap. Bubbles enveloped the akumatized victim. In its place sat a confused man.

Grabbing the remaining pieces of the gift box, Ladybug threw it up into the air with a shout, releasing the Miraculous butterflies. They swirled around everything. Lights and decorations reappeared. People changed back from coal to themselves. She watched with relief as Chat emerged from his own coal statue, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Whoa!” he yelped, arms wrapping around her to prevent himself from falling backwards onto the pavement.

“Stupid cat,” she murmured, prying herself free to pay attention to the man on the ground nearby. Helping him to his feet, she found herself giving Chat the chance to interact with the victim - watching in silence as her partner graciously reassured the man that everything was okay now and Christmas hadn’t been ruined.

With a wave, they escaped to the rooftops.

“So,” drawled Chat, giving her the most curious of looks. “I have a question for you. Why did you shout ‘Adrien’ when I turned to coal?”

Certain that her heart stopped, Ladybug froze. She hadn’t. Had she? She blinked at him, wondering exactly what to say, brain scrambling for words.

“Why would I call you Adrien? That’s just silly. You aren’t Adrien - you’re Chat Noir. Completely different people. You must have heard wrong. I’m sure I shouted for you, silly cat. Chat Noir. Not Adrien.” Realizing that she rambled stupidly, she snapped her mouth shut and waited.

He narrowed his eyes at her, the gaze heavy and searching before he laughed. “Of course. I must have been mistaken. See you tonight then, LB?”

She nodded and he saluted before running off. Breathing a sigh of relief, she headed home, hoping to get a little more sleep before the busy part of the day before Christmas required her attention.

-------

“She knows, Plagg. I don’t know how, but she knows who I am.” Adrien lay flat on his bed, arms thrown wide, eyes staring at the ceiling. “Is that why she’s been acting strange lately? Maybe she figured out who I am and doesn’t like that it’s me!”

A million ideas and thoughts raced through his mind, distracting him through the day’s schedules. Appearances here, appearances there. Fake smiles and poses for media cameras. No family time like all his friends. His Instagram feed showcased Nino and his brother working on making cookies, Alya’s family sitting around in their PJs playing board games, Marinette hard at work in the bakery with her parents. Sitting in the back of the car that drove him everywhere, Adrien felt that emptiness that always seeped in around Christmas. Alone, isolated, and now - Ladybug knew who he was to the point of not being able to look him in the eye. Christmas sucked.

When their designated meetup time approached, he dutifully transformed into Chat Noir, stuffing the gift he’d put chosen for her into one of his pockets. Hopefully she would at least like that.

Ladybug stood on their favourite platform of the Eiffel Tower, pacing back and forth with wild arm gestures. She must have really been deep in thought since she didn’t even hear him land on the metal railing.

“Merry Christmas!” he called out, making her jump in surprise, hand clutched to her heart and blue eyes popped open wide in a strangely familiar and out-of-place motion.

“Oh, Chat. You scared me.” He chuckled. “Merry Christmas.”

“So, what’s on the plans for tonight’s Christmas adventure?” he asked. “Anything exciting?”

She blinked twice, staring at him for longer than should feel comfortable.

“Oh. Right. I thought I’d give you a special gift. It’s a tradition that my family has to open one gift each on Christmas Eve, so I thought it would be fun to do that with you.”

It would be fun, he thought. As long as she still liked him.

“Can I go first?” he asked, pulling the small package from his pocket and thrusting it at her. “It’s not much, but it seemed to scream like the gift you needed.”

Inside held two small pins. The first - a tiny ladybug with closed wings, the other - a small white circle with a set of black cat ears and green eyes peeking up from the bottom. She laughed, telling him that his gift was wonderful and that she’d find the perfect place for them.

She took a deep breath before she passed him a gift bag.

“For you.”

Carefully, he pulled out the tissue paper and unwrapped something soft. Into his hand fell a palm-sized hand-stitched doll of himself - Chat Noir. Digging into the bag more, he found a matching Ladybug. Something nagged in the back of his mind that he’d seen dolls like these before - back when Manon had been akumatized. Marinette had made dolls that Manon wanted to play with. He flipped them over to admire the neat stitching work and attention to detail.

“These are adorable. Thank you so much. Did you get these from Marinette Dupain-Cheng? I think she had some similar to these.”

She made a funny sound before answering. “Kind of? I made them for you.”

She had made them? He frowned in confusion.

Ladybug stepped forward, pulling the dolls gently out of his hands and putting them back in the bag before putting it on the ground. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and moved so that she was achingly close.

“Tikki. Spots off.”

He didn’t have time to close his eyes, other than to wince slightly at the bright and unexpected flash of pink light as Ladybug’s transformation dropped. In her place stood Marinette herself, a heavy black cat-ear hoodie pulled up over her head. An homage to himself, he realized. Two heartbeats later, she raised herself up on her tiptoes, hands clutching at his arms, warm lips pressing against his.

She stepped back before he could even react, whispering “Merry Christmas, my kitty - Adrien Agreste.”

He stared into her bluebell eyes, the pieces of the puzzle in his life clicking together in the most wonderful of ways. She did know. And she kissed him. Marinette Dupain-Cheng had turned a season full of disappointment and missing his mother into something full of memories and wonder. She had turned it into the best Christmas he had ever had.

“Thank you, milady Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

As he dared to pull her close and kiss her for real, he realized that snowflakes were falling gently on Paris. How romantic.

#ml secret santa #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #lyramaearcher #miraculous fanworks #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #marinette and adrien #ladybug and chat noir #identity reveal #christmas #christmas fun

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cutegirlmayra · 3 years

Note

*Slurps on ice coffee* ey yo Mayra what's cracking? I need some good ole fashioned protective Sonic of Amy I̶'̶m̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ . Maybe something like the press or newspaper attack Amy's character which upset her and Sonic defends or tries to comfort her? That'd be great thanks *Puts on shades and skateboards away*

What up, homie? How’s the skate? Don’t get home to late, my man, you know how these streets be at night. OUR TOWN. That’s what’s up! -slaps hand into yours and does a bro-hold-

You can see my response and thinking for this on the Pajama Blogs! (x) Timecode: 28:12

Referencing my fanfiction: Trying to ‘Tap’ into Love

PROMPT REQUESTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN, DO NOT SEND ANY TO ME, please and thank you ;3c

Prompt:

It was a pretty late night. I hadn’t seen Amy so upset before.

Usually, in the past, it wasn’t uncommon for Amy to come rushing to me--arms flung out and moving like a speed train with tears that sprawled into sparkling stars against the sky.

I always, usually, kinda-sorta, caught her and just let her cry it out with an awkward smile to my face.

But this time... Amy wanted to be alone.

That was weird. I first heard about it from Tails, who said that she had been reading some articles about the team and how they’ve said some pretty critiquing things about her... I’ve never really dealt with anything like that.

Joking, completely, I’ve totally had my fair share. But what about Amy? I always figured... well, she came off as pretty independently confident all on her own. I didn’t think she cared that much about what everyone thought of her.

So I was a bit concerned by Tails’s words, but I thought nothing of it. Waved it off as a momentary sadness for her, after all, this was Amy! She could bounce back from anything.

If it was really serious, I figured she would have come charging after me like before.

The stars weren’t here tonight... odd.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah. The second time I heard anything a little more alarming was from Knuckles. Apparently, Amy had come to seek some solace from the unconditionally loving Chao--now this had been a solid day and half since I’ve heard about the incident of her wanting to be alone after reading some bad commentary on her--and she would shake the chao away from clinging to her.

He said he didn’t get it, cause she used to love to cuddle them and they all were really hurt by her wanting to keep her distance and just pat their heads.

Now, if anything were to set me and Knuckles off, it was that.

His face was so strained as he talked to me about it, I’ve never seen Knuckles trying to hold back so much worry and anger before. He said he tried to go over and give her a piece of his mind, but when she turned around, her eyes were vacant of anything but tears.

“It looked like she thought she had done something wrong before she even did it.” He stated, “I didn’t have the heart to continue yelling at her, so I just shooed her away, telling her to pick on someone else if she was feeling that crummy.”

“Harsh, Knuckles. Harsh.” I joked, but there was a low-key truth to what I said. “Tails said something about harsh comments on some articles she likes to read about us.” The old alter of the Master Emerald’s shrine was as stony and gravely as ever. The little pieces of chipped pebbles always grinded and dug themselves under my fur and into my skin every time I sat there, but Knuckles acted like nothing ever phased his tough skin.

I was acting kinda tough, too... to be real honest with you.

Knuckles huffed, grumbling as he picked up some berry juice he had squashed into a half-coconut bowl and passed one over to me. “Doesn’t excuse telling a kid they can’t hold ya.” He was right... but then again...

“Maybe she just didn’t want the sympathy.” It was hard to look at it from a girl’s point of view, I didn’t quite understand what would tip her over the edge like that. Maybe they said she wasn’t pretty enough..? Ehh..?

“Girls really care about how others view them, you know?” I took a sip. It did in fact taste good, and I leaned back to let the slight acidy feel tingle against my throat as its favorable burst went down the ol’pipe. “Ahh~ That’s the spot!”

“...I don’t think you should be acting so carefree about this, Sonic.”

His sudden tone made me stop enjoying the berry sensation and look back to him, a little surprised but not by much. Knuckles always chose the direct route in any conversation, it’s what made him so easy and frustrating to talk to.

I smiled and closed my eyes, putting a foot down a step to stretch it out and sighed.

“...Yeah. I know.”

“If you know, then why don’t you do something about it!?” Knuckles, always ready to pull his voice out and speak up when he sees something he doesn’t like. “The very fact that she’s a girl means you should do somethin’ about it! Girls aren’t meant to mope about, they gotta be treated decently! Ain’t that half your job?!” ...Still, it made me like him like that. He was a good guy, and had the real makings of a hero--at least, to my standards--and a good friend at that!

“Half, huh?” I took another sip. Did everyone think me and Amy were something more..? After all these years, I hadn’t the slightest clue. Seems everyone else held a standard in their mind about it though...

“I’m serious! Aren’t you planning to do something about it?”

“Am I?” I smirked, not liking to be asked direct questions about myself. I took the coconut drink down and set it to the side, getting up and stretching my arm out in a few simple gestures. Spreading it across my chest and pulling it with my other hand, then twisting my torso right and down as I put the other arm back and used the one I’d momentarily stretched to reach sky high with it. “Boy, that feels good!”

“Grr... Sonic... if you’re making fun of this, I’ll-!” Before getting Knuckles too wound up, seeing him lift his fists again, I flicked myself in my usual--Sonic Charm~

I winked and wiggled my pointer finger, turning one leg to be slightly bent as I was about to speed off anyway.

I had heard what I wanted too, now time to do some more digging before investigating it right at it’s source.

“Don’t worry so much, Knuckles! Like I’d ever leave Amy to her own assumptions.” I still wasn’t sure what she was struggling with... but wanting to be alone and not have anyone clinging to her in affection?

Didn’t sound like Amy Rose to me.

While heading to dart off the island, I stopped by the chao and asked them what their story was.

Squatting down, I think I mustered up enough of my expertise in games to figure out their charaded play. It seems the chao could tell something was off from Amy’s usual, cheery nature. To try and help, they tried to swarm her as she usually did with endless hugs, but she delicately plucked each one off at a time and set them back down.

All she wanted was to sit, looking sadly between her arms and legs--I’m guessing the chao were trying to do the fetal upright position but their budgy bodies just can’t do it.--and pat their heads.

It made them uncomfortable to not be able to love on her, I assumed, and they continued to show me great concern as they held my arms in different places and showed me their adorable eyes.

“I get it, don’t worry, Amy’s gonna be just fine.” I smiled the best I could, but hearing... well, seeing their side of the story really... heh, opened my eyes?

Puns. Always a defense mechanism when you don’t intend to use them that way.

Something had me wanting to wait before I saw Amy again, though. Usually, that wasn’t like me, but I wanted a bigger picture.

I sped over to Cream’s and Vanilla’s, where I thought more insight might be had.

Tails had already called them, doing his own work to try and collect the pieces before directly asking Amy. We all knew Amy could be a bit... Nah, I won’t say it. But we wanted a better idea before we approached her about it.

Just safer that way...

I rubbed my head, remembering how easily one could fall into that hammer’s swing if they didn’t word things a bit more carefully, as Cream and Vanilla recounted Amy’s strange melancholy behavior, and how she wanted to seem less-

“Feminine?” That threw me for a loop, and trust me, I’ve had my fair share of running through loops.

“Well, not quite.” Vanilla was sitting on her lovely coach with Cream and Cheese sitting adjacent but slightly on her lap. She looked down at Cream who held her chin up a moment, wanting to be polite as she addressed me.

I did my best to hold a steady and kind eye-contact, but I could tell she was struggling to admit what she heard and saw.

“Miss Amy kept asking me strange questions. Like... Was she too much on something. I didn’t understand and she kept insisting I shouldn’t coddle her or lie to her. I didn’t know how to take that... I would never lie to Miss Amy! I just... didn’t understand what she wanted from me.”

It pained me to see that Amy had hurt someone from her own insecurities.

That was everything Amy stood against, and that’s when I knew this was getting out of hand.

I had let her be for a day just to see if she would either work it out on her own or come crying to me... but she hadn’t done either.

She was now hurting those close to her... and so it was time to intervene.

“Thank you for telling me that, Cream.” I purposefully spoke as tenderly as I could, “I’m sure that was hard for you. I’m very grateful you told me what happened.”

She buried herself into her mother’s chest, still hurt, and that drove a powerful fire through me.

That does it, Amy.

You don’t hurt people when you’re injured.

You come to someone stronger to help heal you if you can’t do it yourself.

At the time, I was really upset. Amy must have been polarized by the media.

They call her too traditional? Is that why she wanted to be more ‘tough’ like? Too protected? Too appeased?

Feminine... did she feel like a damsel in distress instead of our trusted friend?

I was trying to keep my head leveled, but I ended up closing my eyes during my run and letting the night’s air beat against me to try and cool myself off before finding her.

She wasn’t home, I checked the windows. No lights.

Unless she was sitting the dark, Amy always had a reading light on. She only turned every light off in her house when she was going to bed, so she could see the stars and feel like we were watching them together, no matter if we were far apart or not.

I looked to see she hadn’t any dirty dishes in the sink, and while peeking through the window, I noticed her drapes were down as well. That means she hadn’t been cooking or baking, and that she hadn’t opened the windows and pulled the drapes to let the smells carry, hoping I’d catch wind of it and invite myself in for a dinner with her.

I sped over to the city, thinking maybe she went on one of those ‘journey walks’ where she just window shops but ends up buying too many bags and waiting for me to bolt by and help her with them. She liked to think and experience things outside the home too... but I didn’t see her struggling with shopping bags anywhere.

She wasn’t watching Twinkle Park’s lights from her favorite outdoor restaurant, or purposefully losing her hat in hope’s I’d somehow see it and return it to her. She wasn’t sitting on her favorite spot with her favorite outdoor umbrella with her typical strawberry and vanilla shake and pretending she was too cold to finish it, bundling up and hoping I’d make a move and pull her closer or something.

She wasn’t in the fields where she’d pick flowers with Cream, or stare up at the clouds and reminisce about old times and stories we used to tell each other, or have her head on a bed of flowers so butterflies would come and sit on her still face as she dreamed of a future with me in it. Waiting for me to zip by and have the butterflies spread out and fly through my backdraft as the air around where I just blazed through would slowly return to a even, equilibrium.

She wasn’t anywhere I usually found her at.

I came up to my last spot I could think of. Why was this so hard? Amy could find me in a heartbeat... which... I couldn’t quite feel right now because it was fluttering dangerously like my shaky breaths.

I kept a strong look on my face, simply because I was worried my fear at not finding her would leak through and make her feel bad about being too well hidden.

I didn’t want her to feel bad... I didn’t want her to be alone for this long.

It had been the dark of the second day... I just wanted to see her. Make sure she was okay...

That anger that once fueled me was now popping in sparks of concern that made me walk around the rolling hills of Green Hill zone.

If she wasn’t here... looking for me... then I truly didn’t know where she was.

Eggman... would have been my next guess.

That, or Amy was replaced by a robot of his and was terrorizing the living daylights out of her friends!

... It was concerning. I wouldn’t worry. I couldn’t worry... Amy wasn’t a little girl anymore and hateful, spiting comments were to be expected when you live in the spotlight.

But I was just wanting to know where she was... how she was... It was starting to drive me crazy.

“Where are you... Amy?” I looked up to the sky, blank and black, and I didn’t like the omen it sent me. Like chills down my fur, the wind finally got to me. I felt the cold... empty world for the first time... realizing Amy was out in it without me.

Was she without her coat? Was she silently re-reading those awful articles?

‘Amy... Amy... Hear me... You’re not alone.’ My thoughts channeled through to my feet and I kept searching, darting here to there, scouting out east and west, north to south was like zig-zagging till every blade swayed left and right to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere in it’s darkened shade...

A crescent moon... not a full one. She liked the full moon.

‘Amy...’

As I ran through a rather flattened terrain of another zone, I watched to the side of me how the treelined slimmed down and the edge of the world rose up on a hill... that soon became a mountain.

Blocking my view... of any light the night could have brought to her.

She only liked the dark when she was about to sleep... it’d be too dark to really see her way home, soon.

I had confidence she knew her way home, that the world wasn’t that dangerous... but I wondered if her mind could be.

‘Amy...’ I bit down my teeth, charging forward in a streak of blue.

“AMMMMYYY!!!!”

----

As though hearing something in the distance, I raised my head and looked back over my shoulder.

Something kept telling me Sonic was looking for me... but I wondered if that was true this time.

I turned my solemn head with a sigh back to the last shred of light from the fading sun... I felt like... if I got any closer, I would feel it’s warmth envelop me completely... and I’d disappear from this world.

All these awful words in my head would cease, all this terrible feeling of not being enough, or too much, or just dull and unwanted... I wanted it all to go away.

I had cried and thought so much, self-reflected to the point of not even knowing where I was or how far I had traveled off too.

Tails said I was acting too sensitive to words that random people that didn’t even know me had said. Knuckles yelled at me when I tried to change my behavior so I wasn’t what those people had written about. Cream even got tongue-tied trying to voice her own thoughts about me... and ended up just saying something to ‘feed my ego’ as they put it.

No... Cream wouldn’t do that. Tails wouldn’t try and be so dismissive of me like they said they all are. Knuckles... Okay, Knuckles is loud and yells a lot, but he meant well..!

She groaned and let herself flop back to lay against the cold grass, still holding her arms around herself as she was getting terribly cold in her heartache.

Knuckles just didn’t like how the chao were reacting to my new behavior... it’s understandable they would have been apprehensive to me trying to love them a little less directly... But practicing my new, refined self on them didn’t seem to have any good effects...

Maybe I’m overthinking... but I just want someone to tell me... I’m alright.

She put her arms over her eyes, refusing to look up at such a dark and ugly sky tonight.

“I just-” she sniffed, feeling the hot tears break through her already stained, sticky cheeks full of her earlier dried tears again. “I just want someone to tell me I’m perfect the way I am..!”

A sound arrowed itself into a bow along the plain of where Amy was, a sound that soared through her like a sonicboom that cracked through to her heart and made her sit up, looking as though with outrageous hope towards the last lowering light of the sun’s touch...

The grassy hill behind her seemed to have made a sound like something was moving quickly across it’s tundra... like something was refusing to let her sit in the quietness to let her thoughts overwhelm and consume her.

Her thoughts could hear someone calling her name...

“Sonic..?”

She lightly whispered his name out.

Then, as though pushing her lips back to not bother him, but wanting more than anything to jump into his arms-!

“SOOONIICCC!!!”

-----

He zoomed back to the sound, his eyes raising as though elated to finally get a trace of her.

And those tears that sparkled and lit up the entire night sky with stars...

And those arms that reached out for him, as though stretching on for eternity... a never-ending yearning he always accepted, granted a little half-heartedly, but never refused.

That scene was forever imprinted on him... and he wasn’t letting Amy leave his sights till she was her usual, teasingly flirty and emotionally unbreakable, spirited and youthful self again!

#The pining..!!!! The yearning..!!! Ahhh!!!#sonamy #sonicxamy #cutegirlmayra #sonic prompt #sonamy prompt #sonamy hurt/comfort #sonic the hedgehog #amy rose

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escape-from-reality-fics · 3 years

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Staying The Night ❋ Yang Hongseok

↳ Pairing: Yang Hongseok/Reader

↳ Word Count: 2,784

⁙ Summary: Hongseok gets locked out of his house while his family is gone, so he spends the night at Y/N’s place, trying to keep his crush on her a secret

⚠️ Warnings: Contains minor cursing and minor adult themes. Please do not read if you are triggered by any of these!

"Are you kidding me right now?" Hongseok growled to himself as he rattled the handle on his front door. Of course, today would be the day he forgot his key, the one day where his parents were out of town, and his older brother was away with friends. He sighed again after trying to open the door for the nth time. He pulled out his phone, looking at his contact list briefly and running through a list of friends in his head. He figured he could crash at one of their places for the night.

"Well, I can't stay at Hyunggu's, his family doesn't have the room with their renovations. Hui and Hyojong are out of town too. Shit!" Hongseok slumped against his door with his head in his hands, mentally cursing his bad luck. He had been sitting there for a couple of minutes now, trying his best not just to break down his front door when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hongseok? Are you okay?"

Looking up quickly, Hongseok reddened in embarrassment. In front of him stood his next-door neighbor and crush (Y/N), dressed in black dress pants and a white blouse, probably on your way home from your part time job. Hongseok promptly stood up, brushing off his jeans. You looked at him quizzically, a small furrow in your brow.

"U-uh yeah, sorry. I forgot my keys, and now I'm locked out," Hongseok admitted, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. You nodded, understanding his predicament. You approached and grabbed Hongseok's hand, giving it a small pat.

"You don't have anywhere to stay, do you?" You ask, a small smile stretching across your lips. Hongseok flushed, surprised by your touch, but shook his head. Your fingers slip away from his as you turn to leave. Hongseok's shoulders slump in disappointment, watching you recede with a frown.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go, silly!" You giggle cheerfully, waving Hongseok towards you with a well-manicured hand. Hongseok stares at you in confused bewilderment, not moving an inch. You sigh, firmly placing both of your hands on your hips, delivering Hongseok an exasperated look.

"Hongseok, I'm offering to let you stay the night at my place," You explain slowly, your face changing to a patient smile. Hongseok still couldn't process your words, but he grabbed his fallen backpack anyway. You grasp his sleeve and start pulling him towards your house, just a few meters away. Hongseok feels like he is in a daze, letting you lead him along.

Hongseok had always liked you, his feelings for you never wavering. He loved the way your hair shone in the sunlight, always looking glossy and full. How your lips never seemed to lose their pink pigment. Your eyes were like diamonds, deep and sparkling. He could list a million reasons why he liked you. You were a caring, loving, selfless person, and his heartbeat a million miles a minute whenever he laid eyes on you. He never dared to confess, however. You were a beautiful girl, and he was Hongseok. He could never compare to you. He would keep his feelings silent for now.

"So here we are! Home sweet home, I guess?" You giggle as you unlock your front door, your Kumamon key chain jingling musically. You swung the door open, gesturing for Hongseok to go inside first. Hongseok stepped inside the foyer nervously, like he was expecting something to jump out at him. He looked around, noting that your house had a similar layout to his own. You strolled in after him, closing and locking the front door behind you.

"Mom? Are you home?" You yell into the foyer, slipping off your sneakers and padding further into the house. Hongseok silently did the same, quietly pardoning his intrusion. As he wandered further into the house, he noticed it's decorated with small ornaments, knick-knacks, and family pictures. Hongseok stopped in front of a wall adorned with images, dozens of frames hung up. He inspected them closely, noticing some were of you as a baby and smiled.

"So my mom isn't home. Guess she got called in for the night shift at the hospital, but she left us money to get pizza, so that's a plus!" You comment, walking out of the kitchen, a piece of paper in one hand and a wad of cash in the other. Hongseok internally screamed, placing an awkward smile on his face, and he felt as if his cheeks were set on fire. Now he was alone, with his crush, in her house. Today should feel like the best day in the world for him, but instead, he felt overwhelmed and panicked.

"So what do you want to do? We could watch a movie? I have all the Marvel movies on Blu-Ray," you announce proudly, smiling at Hongseok and gesturing for him to sit down on the couch. He did so, albeit a bit helplessly.

"Um, that's okay with me. I-if you want to, of course!" He responded, watching as you bent down in front of the entertainment center to search for said movies. He couldn't help but stare at you, your image fixated in his line of sight. You rustle around for a split second more before letting out a triumphant "A-ha!", holding in your hands the movies you had been searching for. Standing, you spun and showed Hongseok the Blu-Ray cases of the first couple of Marvel movies. You set them gently on the coffee table before looking back to Hongseok.

"Hey, Hongseok, do you mind if I go change? I need to get into some comfy clothes, my work uniform is killing me!" You ask sheepishly, pulling at the collar of your button-down shirt in annoyance.

"Y-yeah, of course! Go ahead, I'll just wait here," Hongseok stuttered, nervously patting the couch. You gave him a relieved smile, leaving the room. He could only stare after you, his eyes unconsciously tracing your swaying hips as you left. Feeling a vibration come from his pocket, he pulled out his phone, staring at the notifications he had received. Some were from social media, but most of them were from the group chat he had with his friends.

He quickly scrolled through the messages he had received, responding to his friends, and telling them about his current situation. They all responded with varying degrees of shock and surprise; however, Yuto and Wooseok decided to be little shits.

'Be safe, Hyung! Don't forget to use protection! ;)'

Hongseok flushed in embarrassment and sent a very crudely worded message back before locking his phone and placing it on the coffee table. He looked around the room again, about to get up when you returned to the room. Hongseok froze, taking in your new outfit change. He almost passed out when he realized what she was wearing.

You had changed from your button-up shirt and dress pants into a pair of shockingly tight high waisted jean shorts, barely covering your bottom and a cropped yellow tank top. Hongseok choked on his saliva, realizing he was staring (and maybe drooling). Putting in the first Marvel movie, you plopped yourself down next to him on the plush sofa, your body just a smidge too close to his own. You crossed one leg over the other, and Hongseok could have passed out right then and there.

"You still like (Y/F/P), right? I hope so because I ordered for us when I was changing," You inform, glancing at Hongseok as you started the movie. Hongseok tensed as your leg lightly brushed against his own, feeling the warmth radiating from your smooth skin.

"U-uh yeah, that's fine, thanks!" He squeaked out, sitting rigidly in his spot. You, on the other hand, had squirmed around to find a comfortable position. Eventually, you settled into place, legs tucked underneath yourself, slightly leaning your weight on Hongseok. You gently set your head on his shoulder, and Hongseok continued to feel light-headed.

The two of you sat together, immersed in the movie, and Hongseok struggled to not combust. He was so focused on your body next to him that he forgot about the incoming pizza delivery. You both jumped when the doorbell rang, Hongseok from surprise and you from Hongseok. He had let out quite a shrill shriek, jumping and knocking you off of him and onto the floor.

"Ow! Hongseok!" You complain, rubbing your sore arm from where you had hit it off of the coffee table. Hongseok quietly mutters an apology as you stand up and dart towards the front door, money in hand. Hongseok quietly excused himself, finding the bathroom and locking the door behind him.

"Come on, Hongseok! You got this, act normal!" Hongseok hissed at his reflection, splashing his crimson face with cold water. It had only been a fraction of time since he had arrived, and he was already so close to imploding. He splashed his face one last time, glancing at himself in the mirror before exiting the washroom and slowly creeping back into the living room.

"Ah, I was wondering where you went! I got you some cola and dished you up some pizza, so enjoy!" You say, waving a hand at the plate and glass sitting side by side on the coffee table. Hongseok sat down once again, digging into his pizza after realizing how hungry he was. He finished his two slices in record time and reached to grab some more. You stopped him with a gentle touch to his arm, and Hongseok froze, looking up at you with surprise.

"Hongseok, you have sauce all over your face!" You laugh teasingly, grabbing a napkin and leaning towards him. You stop about an inch from his face, gently wiping the spot of sauce on his chin. Hongseok inhaled sharply as you peered at him through your long lashes, deep pools of (E/C) gazing at him. Hongseok leaned forward, nose gently brushing yours, eyes flicking down to your lips. Your lips were almost touching when Hongseok realized what he was doing, jerking himself away from you instantly.

He gulped down breaths of air, his chest heaving, feeling as if he had just run a marathon. Hongseok could feel his face aflame with blush and fanned himself with his hands. However, he stopped when he heard a huff come from your direction. You sat with your arms crossed, cheeks blushing, and lips pouted in what seemed to be either anger or disappointment.

"Hongseok… Do you not like me? Did I do something wrong?" You ask timidly, your eyebrows furrowing together in sadness as you fumbled with your hands. Hongseok stared at you, bewildered. You glanced up at him, tears building in your waterline, bottom lip slightly trembling.

"No! No, of course not, (Y/N)! I'm sorry if I reacted badly, I was just really shocked and overwhelmed!" Hongseok tried to explain, gently grasping your hand in his own and scooting closer to her. You sniffled a bit and wiped at a tear that had managed to begin its descent down your flushed cheeks.

Hongseok could feel himself panic more, not wanting to make you upset. So he decided to do something drastic. He flung himself forward, his lips crashing onto your own, and kissed you. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened. The silence in the room was stifling. Hongseok was about to pull away when you hesitantly kissed him back, your small hands clenching onto the fabric of his t-shirt to pull him closer.

It felt like time had stopped. All Hongseok could feel was your lips slowly moving against his own, his heart hammering away in his chest. After what felt like years, both of you separated, pupils blown wide and panting out breaths of air.

"Wow, that was something else," You airly laughed, still trying to catch your breath. Hongseok laughed with you, his heart a bit lighter. You scooted yourself a bit closer to him, giving him a small glance as if testing the waters. Hongseok opened his arms, allowing you to cuddle yourself into them, breathing a sigh of relief.

"So, I take it that you don't hate me then?" You jokingly asked Hongseok, peering up at him from where you were curled into his side. Hongseok laughed and shook his head no, kissing the top of your head. You both sat in silence, listening to the movie slowly finish. Hongseok could feel his eyes get heavier and heavier as he fought a losing battle with sleep. He decided to just rest his eyes for a moment, slipping away into the darkness of slumber.

~~~~~~~

Hongseok jolted awake, a gasp caught in his throat. His head whipped back and forth, looking around the room. Sunlight was streaming in through the curtains of the living room, indicating that a new day had started. You were nowhere to be seen, however, making Hongseok worry. He slowly rose from the couch, his back protesting his horrid sleeping position as it popped. His first stop was the bathroom, relieving himself and washing his face. As he stepped out of the bathroom, he could hear your sweet melodic voice softly singing from the kitchen.

He stepped into the kitchen silently, creeping up behind you. You let out a soft squeal of surprise as he wrapped his arms around your waist, nuzzling his face into the junction of your neck. Hongseok pressed a sweet kiss on your cheek, releasing you from his arms to let you face him.

"Good morning, Hongseok! Did you sleep okay?" You asked with a bright dazzling smile, your eyes sparkling in the morning sun. Hongseok could feel himself melt.

"I slept okay, yeah. Did I fall asleep before you? I remember shutting my eyes for a moment, and then I woke up," Hongseok explains, watching you bustle around the kitchen making breakfast, which from observation was probably pancakes.

"Hm, I think you did. I fell asleep shortly after, however. You were so warm and comfy I just couldn't help it" You smirked at Hongseok, serving up some freshly cooked pancakes drizzled with maple syrup and topped with juicy strawberries.

Hongseok sat at the island counter, watching you intently as you fixed your own plate. You sat down opposite him, happily digging into your own pancakes. You both sat silently for a while, the clock on the wall slowly ticking as time passed. Hongseok was the first to speak up, gently clearing his throat.

"So about last night? Uh w-well, what are we?" He stuttered, flustered under your intense gaze. He could feel himself start to panic, his hands becoming clammy and his heart racing. You purse your lips, glancing away from him momentarily.

"Well, I would have thought me kissing you back last night was enough of an answer? Hongseok, you idiot, I like you!" You state, giving him an exasperated huff, smiling afterward. Hongseok instantly brightened up at hearing your confession, all of his worries practically flying away. He reached across the table and gently grasped your hand, intertwining their fingers.

"I was so worried! You know, because you're amazing and so beautiful, and I'm just me. Your next-door neighbor. I thought I didn't have a chance with you," Hongseok confessed, flashing you a sheepish smile when you groaned at him.

"Hongseok, you're an actual idiot. I've had a crush on you for like 5 years!" You laughed, obviously noticing Hongseok's surprised expression. He put his head on the table and groaned, realizing how stupid he was. He felt a hand gently run through his hair and looked up, watching as you leaned forward to pet him in comfort.

"Well, to be fair, I guess we are both idiots, huh? I had a crush on you for 5 years, and I didn't confess either," You comforted him, slipping your hand from his grasp and moving around to his side of the counter. You sat down on the seat next to him, taking both of his hands into your own. Your deep (E/C) locked him in your gaze.

Hongseok decided now was the time. He took a deep breath and leaned forward, giving you a long, sweet kiss. You kissed back, your lips moving together in tandem. You pulled apart a few seconds later, giggling and smiling.

"(Y/N) will you be my girlfriend?" Hongseok asked, cheeks red and heart racing. You leaned forward and wrapped your arms around Hongseok's neck, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

"Well, of course, I will!" You smiled, letting out a gasp when he picked you up in happiness. He carried you to the living room and plopped you both down on the couch. As you cuddled together, Hongseok couldn't help himself.

"Maybe I should have gotten locked out of my house sooner?"

#pentagon #yang hongseok #yang hongseok x reader #fanfic #reader insert #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop drabbles #kpop fluff #pentagon members #secret crush #writing #kpop writing #pentagon x reader

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tsukikento · 4 years

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Empathetic Chapter 11

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Summary: After your mom, the number 1 hero in America, gets offered a teaching position at U.A., you two pack up your things and head to Musutafu, Japan to start a new life. Pressure for you in America was at an all-time high, and now you’re in Japan, where almost no one knows you, or your family’s past.

This tale starts on your first day of class where your new teacher decides the best way for you to fit in is to fight against the strongest person in your class: Bakugou Katsuki.

Warnings/Genre: This piece will feature some angst and reference to an abusive parent, if you are ever worried about other tw’s feel free to send me an ask and I will let you know. There will also be fluff, slight angst, pining, and slowburn.

A/N: Despite how long it might take me to make these chapters, I promise you I have not forgotten about this fic. School is...a lot. Anyways, please send me messages to keep me motivated, I love y’all!

(masterlist)

After a decently long walk full of quips and sarcastic comments that made time go by much quicker, you and Bakugou arrived at the nearest subway station.

“Do you have a card or are you that new?” Bakugou asked as you passed by a help desk.

Quickly, you swung around your bag and grabbed your wallet out of your small pocket. You pulled out a small blue card and showed it at Bakugou with a wide smile on your face. “It was one of the first things I did,” You exclaimed, reminiscent of your second day here when you and your mom went from task to task, only stopping to eat delicious food when necessary.

“You want a medal or some shit?” Bakugou asked while pulling out his own card. He pressed the reader up to the machine and it dinged to signify he could go through.

You pushed on after him, using your own card to get through. “You know, I don’t think I need a whole medal,” You shrugged, “Maybe just a golden sticker.” You chuckled at your own joke and Bakugou just groaned and went off to find the correct station.

You followed closely behind him, feeling rather nervous because of your unfamiliarity with the area. As you brushed past a group of large ment, you unknowingly grabbed onto Bakugou’s jacket, putting your pointer finger into his pocket. It was something you always did to your older siblings as they lead the way.

Immediately, Bakugou turned back to look at your hand and brushed you off of him. “What are you doing?” He questioned, squinting his eyes at you.

“Oh,” You shockingly shoved your own hands into your pockets. “It’s just a habit when I get nervous.”

Bakugou looked at you for a couple beats before turning around and not saying anything else. Silently, he led you as he weaved through the crowd. Eventually, he stopped in front of a yellow line and pulled out his phone to check the time.

“The train should get here soon,” He mumbled. Bakugou stood fairly still, the only movement being his thumb gliding across his phone as he scrolled through social media in his pastime.

What social media would Bakugou even use? You questioned as you tried to peak over at what app he may be on.

Eventually, you gave up and pulled out your own phone, pulling up a random app to occupy your time and you primarily focused on the blond standing next to you. You glance up from your phone and take a peak at him every now and then, admiring the soft curves of his muscles. The visible sunkissed skin paired well his dark clothes and deep vermillion eyes.

You turned back to your phone, knowing your face was just as red as the eyes you were admiring.

You took in a deep breath.

Don’t think about him that way.

He’s just a normal guy, You reasoned as a subway rushed through the tunnel, eventually coming to a stop. When it finally screeched to a halt, you and Bakugou were located just to the left of the opening door, something you believed Bakugou did on purpose.

He put his phone away, you followed quickly after, and watched as crowds of people filtered off the train. The station wasn’t as packed as it was the weekend you ran errands with your mom, but it was still packed enough to make you slightly worried.

You concentrated on Bakugou, knowing he could handle himself in a busy environment like this. When he stepped forward, you stepped forward.

You followed close behind him onto the train, you two being some of the first people entering. There was a handful of seats inside the small compartment and Bakugou led you to one immediately.

“Sit,” He mumbled while motioning towards the seat. You happily listened and posted up on the plastic yellow chair. Despite the empty seat next to you, Bakugou remained standing, his right hand grabbing onto the fabric loop attached to the ceiling.

You pouted up at the blond, jutting out your bottom lip and furrowing your eyebrows. “Why aren’t you sitting?” You asked, patting the chair next to you.

Bakugou was pushed forward, much closer to you, with the masses of people piling in. You tried your best not to become flustered from having his hips pushed to your face. He looked perfectly nonchalant during the whole predicament and simply shrugged his shoulders. “I’m leaving the seat open for people who need it,” He answered.

Before you could retort his argument, a younger teenage boy slid into the seat. He looked like he might be about thirteen years old. He snickered like a hyena as he squeezed in next to you, his friends who were only feet laughing just like him.

You glanced up to Bakugou, trying not to look at the boy who was very obviously dared to sit next to you. The blond accompanying you today was clearing glaring down at the younger boy. His piercing, merlot-colored eyes were glaring daggers at the kid.

You just couldn’t tell if he was dared to sit next to you because of your looks or because he wanted to see if Bakugou would kill him. You would argue for the latter though.

The train doors closed and your journey kicked off, the low hum of the wheels and engine creating a rather peaceful white noise background. You went to pull out your phone to distract yourself from the silent fight going on right next to you. However, before you could even reach into your pocket, Bakugou spoke.

“Beat it,” He growled at the kid, who immediately rushed away like a scared dog with a tail between its legs.

Bakugou immediately took his spot, moving slightly to find a relaxed and comfortable position. His eyes stayed on the group of boys for a bit longer, watching as they whispered to each other and looked occasionally over to you.

“Idiots,” He mumbled, while nudging you and pointing at them.

You laughed lightly, “Come on! They are just harmless kids.”

“Harmless?” He doubtfully replied. “Anyone of them could have a quirk that could kick our ass.”

You laughed louder. “You trying to tell me you weren’t just like them in middle school?”

The blond scoffed, “No way!” He left it there, rather silent for his usual self. You would expect him to try and spend this time boasting about how naturally skilled he was or how he trained everyday. Except…he didn’t say any of that.

“What were you like in middle school?” You tentatively asked, playing with your thumbs to calm your nerves.

Bakugou cleared his throat and adjusted his seating position so he was more upright. “So focused on being a hero that I was blind to everything else,” He practically whispered. His voice was eerily calm and quiet. You almost didn’t hear him speak.

The loud sound of the subway filled your ears as you carefully debated your next words. You didn’t want to start an argument, but it was tempting to tell him that he still was.

At least to some degree.

You didn’t know him in middle school, and from how Ashido talked about Bakugou, you were sure he was a much better person than even just a year ago. Despite this, he was still clueless and not as in control of his emotions as his peers.

Quickly, you backtracked, and chuckled at Bakugou just before the pause went on one beat too long. You nonchalantly slapped his shoulder and replied, “Are you kidding me? So you really didn’t do anything fun or risky? Not even like skip out on a class?”

“Nope,” He grumbled in response while making sure to pop the ‘p’ in his comment. “I may be strong, but middle school was when I needed to prove myself good enough to go to U.A.”

You hummed in response, wishing you could relate to his struggle more. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what that feels like,” You reasoned, “But I do know how it feels to come from a strong family.”

“Sounds pretty nice,” Bakugou scoffed, almost offended that you tried to compare his strife and your benefit.

“Trust me,” You mumbled, “It is not all it is cracked up to be.”

Bekugou looked at you from his peripherals, noticing the small opening to learn more about you. He was not one to care about people’s past and he definitely did not try to hide his lack of care. However, after your tantrum the other night, he had been slowly getting more and more intrigued in your family and their past.

What could be so horrible that you refused to answer why you were so unlike your mother and siblings?

After debating for the rest of that night, Bakugou ended up typing your mother's name and ‘family history’ into a search engine. Just before pressing ‘search’ he stopped himself, realizing how this could invade your privacy.

Bakugou was not one to care about others, but he did respect his own privacy and knew how annoyed he would be in your same position. He closed the tab on his phone and huffed, realizing he could only feel good about getting his answer if he had you answer it yourself.

“Care to elaborate?” He suggested, tugging at the possibility of learning about your past.

You turned your head to look at the blond and debate whether or not to answer. You were brushing shoulders with him, allowing his emotions to rush through you. You knew his heart beat faster and the prospect of you. Although you couldn’t tell why he was so excited, you knew he was tentative and yet unavoidably curious.

Something you studied throughout your adolescence was communication and specifically relationships. Your quirk revolved around knowing people and understanding them, making this aspect of your quirk rather niche, but still valuable.

When forming relationships, it is important and natural to slowly reveal information about yourself to enhance a possible friendship. Despite this analytical thought process, your heart raced and craved for you to rely on Bakugou emotionally and test your relationship with him.

“Well,” You began, “I obviously don’t have a quirk similar to my mom or siblings.” You crossed your arms and tried to maintain a stoic face. “They are so strong and my quirk is so hidden. To me, we are on different scales, but I am always compared to them. They know my quirk so well from training me when I was young that I can literally never win against them. No matter what element they use, they are able to use noise to block out my ability to hear thoughts and keep me at a far distance to make sure I don’t put them to sleep.”

You exasperatedly sighed.

“I just wish people wouldn’t compare me to them or expect me to be as amazing as them when my quirk is so different!” You exclaimed, your voice drowning out fairly well because of everyone else on the subway.

You and Bakugou looked at each other for quite some time, you waiting for him to speak and him having no clue what to say.

Bakugou hummed and looked down at his hands. Your eyes followed and saw him picking at his nails.

You didn’t need Bakugou to respond, and you realized you shouldn’t expect him to. While some people would rush to comfort you, Bakugou would ruminate on your words.

“I’m sure you will kick all their asses one day,” Bakugou mumbled, giving you more than you expected.

You didn’t bother to reply and simply nodded, appreciating the small words of encouragement.

A few silent minutes passed before the train came to another slow stop. “This is our stop,” Bakugou explained while he got up from his plastic seat.

You stood up after him, your two seats immediately being filled. When the doors opened, the natural stream of people exiting guided you and Bakugou out. Despite this, you carefully kept close to the blond, not wanting to lose him in the crowd.

Bakugou guided you through the underground subway station until you finally came to a bright opening. Walking up the stone staircase, you were greeted by the bustling city of Musutafu.

“This way,” Bakugou mumbled, drawing your attention away from the scenery and back to him.

“Ah,” You exclaimed, rushing to catch up to the blond. “How far is the office?” You asked, finally walking next to Bakugou.

With the streets as crowded as ever, you were forced to walk rather close to the blond, your shoulders and arms delicately brushing as you took long strides to keep up with him.

“Just a block,” He explained, while grabbing his phone from his pocket. You saw the screen turn on for a flash, just enough for him to check the time, before shoving it back into his pocket. The large text had read 12:42pm, meaning it took you about 40 minutes to get here.

It didn’t take long for you to arrive at the tall building full of small businesses, but the walk was quiet. Bakugou was taller than you and his strides were long and quick. You were much too focused on keeping up with him and monitoring your breathing to actually hold a conversation.

“It’s up here,” He commented, pointing to the brick building about 5 stories high. This part of the neighborhood was older than much of the city, meaning the architecture utilized more brick and clay than metal and glass.

It was quant, sweet. Not something you would associate with the uptight Bakugou. You would assume he would go to a top-notch, modern company. Then again, he did say Kobayashi was a family friend and old employee of his family.

“Hoo,” You exhaled, “Okay.” You shook your hands and stared up at the building, trying to calm your nerves. You lightly jumped from one foot till the next, hoping the excess of energy and nerves you currently had would go away. You gulped down the lump in your throat and went to step forward before you were stopped by the muscular arm of Bakugou.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Bakugou questioned as he recalled your weird and awkward nervous dance.

Wide-eyed and innocent, you looked up to the blond. You cleared your throat and mumbled out, “Nothing.”

Bakugou scoffed, “That was definitely something, you idiot.” His raised eyebrows and wide smirk made the pit in your stomach enlarge.

You stared back at him, watching his intense gaze. It was practically begging for you to confess, and it was honestly working. “I’m nervous, okay?!” You exasperatedly explained.

“Why?” Bakugou asked, his voice more critical than he wanted it to be. However, instead of correcting himself, he kept silent and let you talk.

“I don’t know!” You replied. “I’m meeting a new person, he’s making my hero costume, which is a big thing! Like, this is how people will know me, really know me!” You groaned out, gesturing in a random direction to show your frustration. “On top of that fact, my mom doesn’t even know I’m changing it! My family has a themed costume and I am about to change mine.”

“Jeez,” Bakugou grumbled, running a hand through his hair. “You sure do have a lot of family problems.”

“Don’t we all?” You groaned, rolling your eyes at him.

Bakugou barked out a laugh, a genuine laugh. “I guess so,” He shrugged, before reaching forward to grab the door. “Ready?”

You nodded, also trying to convince yourself. You stepped inside and Bakugou followed closely behind you. Close enough that you could feel the heat of his chest.

“We are going to the third floor,” Bakugou mumbled. He raised his arm and pointed around your shoulder, pointing at the elevator to your left. Ignoring the body heat that was exuding from Bakugou’s arm, you stepped forth to change a major factor in your future.

The meeting went great.

You checked in at the desk, was brought in almost immediately, and Kobayashi guided you through every step.

Meanwhile, Bakugou sat in the waiting room, on his phone. The young lady at the front desk knew better than to try and start an attempt with the son of Bakugou Mitsuki.

When you exited the room, about an hour later, Bakugou immediately got up from his seat and tucked his phone away. He bowed at Kobayashi, albeit only slightly.

“Thanks for bringing her in, Bakugou-kun,” Kobayashi greeted as he opened the door for you to exit into the lobby.

Kobayashi’s fashionable black clothes outshined both of yours, but it seemed only appropriate. His hair was dyed a dark auburn and his skin was clear and tan with a slight pink flush.

“Of course, Kobayashi-san,” Bakugou replied with the smallest smile on his lips. “Thank you for seeing her.” His posture was much more appropriate and formal than usual, but his hands were still in his pockets, giving him an overall nonchalant appearance.

“Anything for a Bakugou,” The costume designer grinned, his gentle features making him look much younger than a 32 year-old designer. He turned away from Bakugou and faced you once more. “I’ll send you that email within the week, sweetheart,” He explained while casually waving goodbye to the both of you and walking back into his office.

“Thank you!” You exclaimed, bowing at him before he could no longer see you. You then turned to the receptionist and bowed as well, mumbling a small thank you.

“My pleasure,” She smoothly responded, fairly surprised that Bakugou would bring along such a kind person.

You gingerly smiled and turned away to look at the blond boy accompanying you. “Ready?” You asked, watching as Bakugou followed your actions.

“Yup,” Bakugou replied, leading you into the hall by opening the door for you and back to the elevator. The walk was pleasantly silent during the short trek. “How did it go?” He finally asked while pressing the button to the elevator.

“Good,” You nonchalantly spoke.

A bell dinged and the automatic doors opened. You stepped inside first and Bakugou was soon to follow. He pressed the ground floor button and casually leaned against the back wall. You had positioned yourself towards the back wall too, meaning you were within only a few inches of him.

You cleared your throat, trying your best not to focus too much on how close he was. “I showed him my old costume,” You continued to explain, “ and what I want for the new one. He made a couple rough sketches and then took my measurements. He said he would email me some more sketches and we would talk from there.” You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in, additionally tired from rushing through your explanation because of how distracted you were.

Why didn’t I bring water with me today? Why is it so hot?

You fiddled with one of the earbuds in your ears, careful not to take it out. Despite being tempted, you were sure that Bakugou was not thinking about your current proximity. That knowledge would just disappoint you further. You consciously removed your hand away and tried to open up your posture to make yourself more confident.

“Damn, you got a lot more than I did,” Bakugou snorted. “Literally sent him my measurements and a detailed list of what I wanted. Got to say though, I got the perfect costume.”

“Oh yeah?” You remarked, a slight seductive tone to your voice. “I haven’t even seen your hero costume yet.” The tone of your voice was more flirty than you expected, but you attempted to roll with it.

“I’m sure you will soon,” Bakugou barked back, a smirk gracing his lips and a glint in his eyes that made your insides turn.

That was something you couldn’t help, but obsess over for the next few milliseconds. “And you will mine,” You choked out, trying your best to stay calm, cool, and collected.

The elevator doors once again opened and Bakugou motioned for you to exit first. You felt a slight heat on the small of your back, but no touch.

Was Bakugou going to touch me? You questioned, making sure not to look behind you. Better not embarrass him by letting him know I noticed.

You heard Bakugou clear his throat. “The restaurant is just a few stores down,” He explained as you opened the tinted door to the bright outside.

You stepped aside and held the door open to allow Bakugou to come out into the warm sun. “Lead the way,” You offered, gesturing for Bakugou to move much like he did in the elevator.

Bakugou nodded and began walking, this time slow enough to you to easily walk beside him.

“So,” You began, not sure how to approach this topic. “What is good at this restaurant?”

Bakugou shrugged, “All of it. You can read the menu when we get there,” He suggested.

“Yeah,” You paused, “I guess.” You bit your lip, wanting to ask more questions but knowing he didn’t want to answer.

“What?” Bakugou questioned, looking at you with a more teasing expression. When you didn’t respond, he elaborated, “I know you want to ask me something.”

“Huh?” You looked back at him with a surprised face. “I’m don’t--”

“Just because you can read minds, doesn’t mean I can’t know something is bothering you from your awkward as fuck body language,” Bakugou explained.

Although flattered that he noticed, you still couldn’t help but laugh. “What even is that sentence?”

“Shuddup, idiot! I am the native Japanese speaker here!” He yelled back over your giggles.

“Okay, okay,” You sighed while clutching your stomach. “Sorry, Bakugou,” You rather teasingly apologized.

“Tch,” Bakugou snickered. “First off, remember your honorifics,” He held up one finger and looked at you with a serious face. However, you still knew he didn’t mean anything rude by it. “Secondly, you don’t need to apologize,” Bakugou quickly added, “Even if I can tell you don’t really mean it.”

“No, no! I do!” You emphasized. A few beats of silence and you laughed again, unable to keep a straight face.

“Ugh,” Bakugou groaned, and increased his speed.

As you jogged to keep up to the red-eyed teen, you saw a small smile grace his face. Not a smirk, but a genuine smile.

You tried your best to ignore the butterflies in your stomach as you finally fell back into step with the blond. He had significantly slowed down his pace and eventually came to a stop. You looked up and saw a large sign reading “Greek Pizza” in katakana.

You grinned at the blond and he guided you into the restaurant. It was cute and quaint with 2 waitresses immediately greeting you both.

“Reservation for Bakugou Katsuki,” Bakugou spoke once close enough to the front table.

You didn’t pay too much mind to the waitress as she brought you to a table, because you were observing the interior design of the restaurant much more. It looked so much like a typically greek home, with uneven white walls and gorgeous photography lining them.

It was so bright and cheery that you did not expect Bakugou to be interested in a fusion of Italian and Greek food.

You sat down across from Bakugou at a small boothe. The waitress left menus and excused herself as she went to grab glasses of water. You spent the next minute glazing over the menu while you waited for the waters.

The main section of their menu was greek themed pizzas, but they also had a few sandwiches and classic greek bowls that focused around Greek and mediterranean veggies with some Italian additions. Your mouth was practically watering from the select photos they added.

“The family that started this place are a married couple from Greece and Italy, but they hire Japanese staff to make the customers more comfortable,” Bakugou commented. “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid.”

“I can tell,” You smiled as you read over a pizza. “So,” You looked up to Bakugou over your menu, “Explosion of Flavor?”

Bakugou snorted at you just as the waitress arrived with two glasses of water. “Call me over whenever you are ready,” She spoke before bowing and leaving you two to continue looking over the menu.

“I don’t know if I can deal with all that spice,” You commented.

“I’ll get it,” He explained, “So you can try some.”

You looked up at him, but he was simply looking over the menu. You couldn’t read him, but you knew his ability to share was a good sign. “Thank you,” You simply replied, a sweet smile gracing your lips. You continued to look over the food and settled on something you thought would pair well with a spicy pizza.

It was a classic styled pizza with meditteranean toppings, such as artichoke hearts, black olives, and spinach. However, it was topped with a swirl of a fig balsamic glaze. “I’m thinking of getting the Balsamic Classic.”

Bakugou hummed, his lack of complaints making you hope it was an overall good choice. “I’ll order,” He mumbled while waving his hand for a waitress to see. One, who was currently dropping off plates for another customer, smiled towards you.

“Yes!” She exclaimed before finishing up with the people in front of her. Afterwards, she rushed to you. “Ready to order?” She asked, pulling out a paper and pen.

“Yes,” Bakugou began. “Could we please have two glasses of ice, a bottle of blood orange italian soda, the veggies and hummus, the Explosion of Flavor, and the Sweet Classic.”

“Of course, I’ll be right back with your drinks and hummus,” She replied. “Anything else?”

Bakugou shook his head and she swept herself away towards the kitchen.

You not only noted that Bakugou was surprisingly polite, but also realized that he ordered more than you expected. “Drinks and an appetizer?” You question, looking at him quizzically.

The blond simply shrugged and looked up at the wall away from you. “To celebrate you getting a new hero uniform,” He mumbled, clearly avoiding eye contact.

You smiled at his explanation, but didn’t speak, not wanting to tease him or make him upset. You did, however, very much appreciate this more chill and kind persona Bakugou had. You watched the blond look around the restaurant as if he had never been here before, all the time admiring his looks. His jawline and neck muscles grabbed your attention in particular.

After a few moments, you were interrupted by the waitress approaching with your drinks and hummus. You gladly accepted the glasses so she could easily place the platter of food in the center of the table.

She then placed the bottle of italian soda on the table and bowed before leaving.

You cheerily grabbed the glass bottle to pour two drinks while Bakugou grabbed a carrot stick and dipped it into the hummus. Once done, you passed one of the glasses onto his side and took your chance to also eat some of the platter.

“Mmm,” You hummed, noting how great the hummus tasted compared to store-brand containers you’ve had before.

Bakugou chuckled at you as he dipped another veggie stick into the bowl.

“What?” You pouted, looking at him while pushing out your bottom lip.

He laughed even hard, “You are such a child!”

“Am not!’ You shot back, scrunching up your nose is disbelief.

Bakugou smirked at you and picked up a carrot stick, dipped it in hummus and took a bite. He then proceeded to wiggle and wave around the rest of the carrot stick while humming. He was clearly mocking you.

“Ugh,” You groaned, rolling your eyes, despite knowing this was all lighthearted fun. “Am I not allowed to enjoy good tasting food?”

“Guess not,” He shrugged before finishing off the carrot stick in his hand.

You couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction, while he remained cool and simply leaned back into the booth. “You’re so mean!” You exclaimed through your laughs.

“I could be meaner,” He retorted, smirking at you while crossing your arms. It was as if he was just begging for you to challenge him. You, however, were much more focused on his flexing arm muscles. His milky skin had a beautiful golden tint to it and the shirt he was wearing on made it look better.

A little too late, you eventually snorted at his joke and shook your head to refocus yourself. Once done, you looked up to Bakugou and smiled brightly, not wanting to tear your own eyes away from his vermillion ones.

Beats of time passed as you smiled like an idiot at Bakugou and he simply looked back at you, a small smirk on his lips. It was Bakugou who broke the longing gaze first. He blinked, cleared his throat and rotated to look almost completely behind him.

You widen your eyes, not sure why you stared at him for so long. You extended your arm forward and grabbed the ice cold glass of water. You cautiously sipped on it, worried that if you gulped it down, you would choke. The cool water soothed the heat you felt on your face, but you were sure you were still noticeably red.

What can I talk about? You thought, craving something that would make you both completely forget this moment.

“Um,” You mumbled, struggling to make eye contact with the blond. “Kobayashi wanted me to let you know, by the way,” You took another sip of water to try and help swallow the lump in your throat. Bakugou, whose face was very faintly red, looked at you. “He has a new intern that is a student at U.A. He said that once he’s done with me, the intern would be who we could both go to from now on.”

Bakugou nodded, not bothering to vocalize a response.

The air was awkward and you both knew why. You, however, doubted that this would help your relationship with him. It honestly might hinder it.

A few more moments passed before Bakugou finally spoke. “So,” He began, “Is your offer to train with me still on the table?”

You looked up from your lap to meet Bakugou’s eyes.

This looks promising.

“Of course it is,” You replied while smirking, “I’m always up for kicking your ass.”

“Hah?” Bakugou exclaimed, loud enough for multiple other restaurant goers to look over at your both. The fury in his eyes was evident and it made you laugh even harder than you already were. “What makes you think you will beat me again?”

“Maybe because I beat you before?” You suggested.

“Tch,” He scoffed, tearing his eyes away from you. “I was going easy last time,” He explained, practically grinding his teeth as he spoke.

“Ahh,” You replied, “Of course you were.” You raised your eyebrows and slowly nodded before grabbing a carrot stick and dipping it into the hummus.

Bakugou silently eyes you, his furrowed eyebrows and red eyes making him look terrifying. You were determined not to get scared of him.

Eventually, Bakugou was forced to look away as your pizzas arrived. The two gorgeous and ooey gooey pies were placed in front of you, the platter of hummus and veggies being pushed to the side.

Avoiding Bakugou’s eyes, you grabbed one of the small plates they provided you and immediately grabbed one of your own slices.

“Stop being an ass or you won’t be able to try my pizza,” Bakugou pouted as he grabbed his own slice.

You laughed at him, “Although I would love to try your pizza, I, for one, feel like I am not being and ass, and two, feel like you are being a baby.”

“Am not!” He retorted before tearing into the baked dough.

“Are to!”

“Am not!”

“Are t--” You stopped before finishing. “You know what?” You questioned while grabbing one of Bakugou’s slices of pizza. “I am not going to argue with you. I will let my own fighting do the speaking for me.”

Bakugou smirked and you wondered if he possibly was proud of your quick retort. “Clever,” He mumbled before grabbing one of your pizza’s slices.

You smiled, happy with the little praise you were receiving. You didn’t bother continuing the conversation and you dove into admiring the amazing food in front of you.

You and Bakugou ended up spending another hour and a half in the restaurant, meaning you didn’t get home till 4pm. You still had much of the day ahead of you, but spending hours with Bakugou definitely took a lot out of you.

You were glad that your conversation for the rest of the not-so date was pleasant and humorous. You walked into the door with a smile on your face and Bakugou told you about a time when Kaminari spazzed out after only 3 minutes of training.

You immediately saw Midoriya and Iida sitting at the dining table, Sato and Koda in the kitchen, and Hagakure and Ashido on the couch. The smile on Bakugou;s face disappeared and he immediately ushered you to the elevator.

You felt a pang in your heart, wondering if Bakugou didn’t want people to see you together. Then again, Bakugou also seemed like a very private person, maybe he just didn’t want to flaunt around like other people would.

You let him lead you into the elevator where you watched as he sighed and leaned against the elevator wall. You looked at him curiously, not outright asking for him to explain.

“Sorry,” He mumbled, something you did not expect him to say at all. “I just didn’t want to get caught in a conversation with anyone, especially considering the look Pinky was giving me.”

“That’s okay,” You replied, flashing him a kind smile. “I don’t always feel like being around people either.” You felt your phone vibrating non-stop. You were sure it was all texts from Ashido as she has clearly seen you with Bakugou.

“Cool,” Bakugou quietly replied.

The elevator singed and you walked out before Bakugou. He immediately caught up to you and held his phone out to you. You eyed it questionably, not wanting to take it from him without knowing what for.

“Your number, dumbass,” He explained.

You smirked at him before taking it and beginning to put in your number.

“Tch, so we can plan a fight, obviously,” He added in response to your knowing smirk.

You nodded and sent a text to yourself so you would have his number. “Have a good rest of your day, Bakugou,” You spoke while giving his phone back to him. “See you later.” You waved goodbye and walked to your door, knowing full well that he was watching you.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bakugou #bakugo #bakugou katsuki #bakugo katsuki #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #katsuki #katsuki x reader #my hero academy #bakugou fanfic #bakugou katsuki imagines #bakugou katsuki headcannon

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unmanageable-day · 4 years

Text

Come to me

PART 1 - next

Summary. After what happened in a relationship in the past, you found it difficult to trust someone with the gentleman image. 'Gentleman' seems like merely a concept and it was probably impossible for someone to be a genuine one. Now that you're stuck with the number one gentleman at campus for a group project, how would you cope with the one and only Joshua Hong?

Genre. College!au, non-idol!au / friends to lover

Pairing. Joshua x y/n x a little bit of S.Coups, and a sprinkle of Wonwoo

a/n: my brain cannot make plots with ‘y/n x ???’ like those awesome smau writers. anyway this is the first svt series i write! as i’m practicing smau, there will be some parts with texts and social media too! i’ve gotten into svt not long ago and yeah picking a bias in svt is like you pick one and you get 12 for free. if you have time to let me know what you think of this, i’d appreciate it somuch! i can’t update regularly so i don’t think im gonna make taglist like other writers. but if you’d like to be tagged, don’t hesitate to say so! stay safe and stay healthy everyone!! xoxo

"I guess it's just Jisoo now," Johnny informed you for a group project.

It was surely not the first time you encountered people with the same name. Since your school days, there would be at least two Lee Jieuns, three Kim Jonghyuns, and many Minhos or Jaehyuns with various surnames. You just had to ask which one of them if any of your friends mentioned their names without the surname. This, of course, happened until college. One day when you were assigned for a group project, Johnny Suh, the oldest member in your group, asked you to find someone named Jisoo so all of you could gather and start working on the project. Unusually, you didn't ask which Jisoo it was. You were quite certain that you had met two Jisoos since the first day of college. So you thought it would be a piece of cake to find one of them.

"Hey, I've met Kim Jisoo and she said she had taken this class. I spoke to other Jisoo, that guy who goes anywhere with Jieun. He also didn't take this class." You looked at your groupmates, confused.

"I asked Choi Jisoo too. She does take this subject but not the one with Professor Choi," added Suhyun.

You tilted your head, slightly curling your eyebrows. "Is there another Jisoo?" you mumbled with your lips pouted.

"That would be me."

You and the other friends look up at the deep voice that came out of nowhere. The puzzled look was not only appeared on your face, but also on all your groupmates.

"Joshua?" you said his name in confusion, exchanging looks with Johnny and Suhyun.

"Wait a minute." Johnny rushed to dig his bag, searching for a piece of paper that he got from the professor's assistant regarding the group members. Now that he remembered he might not have told you which Jisoo that should be on your group. "Hong Jisoo? Hong Jisoo is Joshua Hong?"

"That's correct," he answered with his unfazed face.

Joshua Hong was a transferred student who came in the second year. You were 200% sure that on his first day, he introduced himself with the name Joshua. That was the one and only information you knew about him. How were you supposed to know that he officially enrolled with his Korean name? Even all the lecturers call him Joshua too. Even Johnny, the social butterfly who knows everyone, who was also a transferred student from the States didn't talk much to him. But again, you never really noticed who your classmates were. The class was always too big, which was the excuse you'd always use.

"Anyway," Suhyun broke the silence. Finally. You were too dumbfounded that you just froze still, trying to process and make sure that Johnny didn't mistake the group members. "Let's just get started because we still have a lot to do, shall we?"

You let Suhyun and Johnny divide the workload for the four of you. And somehow Johnny decided to make pairs so you can work in 2 subgroups. Being a wise man as he claimed to be, he wouldn't let you pick Suhyun to pair with you, saying that every process had to be fair and square. You gave him a judging look, since you knew he also wanted to be with Suhyun because it can be said that she was one of the brightest in class.

"Let's draw," Johnny initiated. He got a pouch—your pouch which he took with force—that was filled with markers and continued, "There are 2 pink and 2 black markers. So, good luck with your hands."

The four of you took turns to pick the marker, starting from the boys. Johnny, who got a pink marker, grinned wide at you, slightly giving a victory vibe, just when Joshua picked a black one. You glared at him. When the chance was 50:50 between Johnny and Joshua, you couldn't even think of anything. First of all, you were not familiar at all with this Hong Jisoo. You had no idea what his pace was like. And you might not be able to order him around. Second, when it came to Johnny, obviously you were much closer with him. You were friends after all. But you knew his pace. You can give him orders and commands but it didn't mean that he would do it. So there were possibilities that you might have to do all the big work unless you were willing to have adrenaline rush, since Johnny was that deadliner type.

"Let's take it at the same time," Suhyun suggested, in which you agreed immediately. You gritted your teeth, hoping it would help you to not lose the poker face you were wearing. Then the markers of fate were revealed. Johnny almost jumped out of joy when the pink marker was in Suhyun's hand. He immediately gave Suhyun a high-five. Meanwhile you quietly turned to Joshua who had been silence since he joined the discussion. You tried to read his expression, but you looked away when his eyes searched yours.

"Anyway, let's get along and get this work done with good marks," Joshua initiated speaking.

You almost startled yourself after hearing clearly how soft Joshua's voice was. Like, it had somewhat a soothing effect to your ears. "Yeah, sure." You flashed him your best smile.

"Do you mind if I leave, like, now? Because I have to run some errands," he asked, still with that gentle, calming voice. The way he spoke and his aura certainly hit differently; it made him the weird one within your group which consisted of loud people. Sometimes you thought yourself to be a calm person too. But now looking at Joshua Hong, you started thinking that you might not be as calm as you thought.

"Yeah, no problem. We've got everything covered. Johnny will manage everything, including the online worksheet so you can just look up everything there. I'll let you know when it's ready."

"Okay, cool. I think Johnny has my number. So you can ask him."

You nodded, pretending to look just a little bit excited. After Joshua left, the fake smile on your lips disappeared and you let out a heavy sigh. Your face landed on your thick textbook. A small groan slipped off your mouth, showing your frustration which Johnny and Suhyun can't really find the reason why. They just didn't see why being grouped with someone like Joshua who had nothing but positive track record in public could be troublesome.

Johnny nudged you on the shoulder. "Hey, don't be like that. You don't even know him."

"I'll tell you a fun fact about him if that makes you feel any better." Suhyun unusually used her cheerful tone. You just knew it must be something unnecessary or something that you didn't want to know about. "Lately he becomes the it guy because he was spotted helping some freshmen, and suddenly he earned title of being a gentleman. Some of my friends also said that he always behaves with such a manner in parties. He doesn't get drunk and does stupid things, because he drinks in moderation."

Raising your head, your brows furrowed with your eyes squinting. "And why do I want to know about this?"

"She's saying that he's a catch. Who knows you're gonna get laid." Johnny clicked his tongue and winked at you.

Your eyes rolled as you sighed. "Not gonna happen. His first impression of me was not really good. I mistook him for an exchange student I was supposed to guide, so I dragged him here and there, causing him to be late on his first class—the evil Professor Lee's class! The next day I tripped over my own feet and basically threw my coffee at him." You groaned as you recalled the memory of meeting Joshua Hong for the first time. He was still as calm and quiet as now. But you can't really forget his expression when Professor Lee scolded him, and when he silently tried to wipe off the coffee stain on his white sweater. "Seriously, if you were him, you must hate me too. Even I hate me sometimes."

"Yeah, but you didn't do it on purpose?"

"Whatever." You stood up as you put back your stuff in your bag, getting ready to leave. "I'm not sure why but I feel guilty for mistaking him for another Jisoo. It's already awkward between me and him. Unless you want to switch partner—yes, I'm talking to you, John."

"It will only worsen the awkwardness between you if I say yes to switch."

Ugh, this giant has a point. But it was not like you wanted to make up to Joshua Hong. Or eventually, you had to? At least for the sake of this group project?

#seventeen imagines #seventeen au #seventeen scenarios #seventeen joshua #joshua imagines #seventeen fics #seventeen x reader #joshua x reader #svt imagines #svt au #svt scenarios #kpop fanfiction #post by yourblinkies

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tisfan · 4 years

Text

Copied from Facebook; verified by a friend

From Joe Morice, daughters in 8th & 10th grade in Fairfax County Public Schools' Centreville Pyramid:

To our fellow FCPS families—this is it gang: 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.

Like all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise. You’ll get no presumption of expertise here. This is how I am looking at and considering this issue and the positions people have taken in my feed and in the hundred or so FCPS discussion groups that have popped up. The lead comments in quotes are taken directly from my feed and those boards. Sometimes I try to rationalize them. Sometimes I’m just punching back at the void.

Full disclosure, we initially chose the 2 days option and are now having serious reservations. As I consider the positions and arguments I see in my feed, these are where my mind goes. Of note, when I started working on this piece at 12:19 PM today the COVID death tally in the United States stood at 133,420.

“My kids want to go back to school.”

I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.

“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”

This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the Fall?

“My kid is going to be left behind.”

Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is “They’ll be behind where they should be,” to which I’ll counter that “where they should be” is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.

“Classrooms are safe.”

At the current distancing guidelines from FCPS middle and high schools would have no more than 12 people (teachers + students) in a classroom (I acknowledge this number may change as FCPS considers the Commonwealth’s 3 ft with a mask vs. 6 ft position, noting that FCPS is all mask regardless of the distance). For the purpose of this discussion we’ll say classes run 45 minutes.

I posed the following question to 40 people today, representing professional and management roles in corporations, government agencies, and military commands: “Would your company or command have a 12 person, 45 minute meeting in a conference room?”

100% of them said no, they would not. These are some of their answers:

“No. Until further notice we are on Zoom.”

“(Our company) doesn’t allow us in (company space).”

“Oh hell no.”

“No absolutely not.”

“Is there a percentage lower than zero?”

“Something of that size would be virtual.”

We do not even consider putting our office employees into the same situation we are contemplating putting our children into. And let’s drive this point home: there are instances here when commanding officers will not put soldiers, ACTUAL SOLDIERS, into the kind of indoor environment we’re contemplating for our children. For me this is as close to a ‘kill shot’ argument as there is in this entire debate. How do we work from home because buildings with recycled air are not safe, because we don’t trust other people to not spread the virus, and then with the same breath send our children into buildings?

“Children only die .0016 of the time.”

First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.

If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.

FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.

Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill you. Do you take the money out of the bag?

Same argument, applied to the 12,487 teachers in FCPS (per Wikipedia), using the ‘children’s multiplier’ of .0016 (all of us understanding the adult mortality rate is higher). That’s 20 teachers. That’s the number you’re talking about. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and diminish and dismiss the risk you’re advocating other people assume. Take a breath and think about that.

If you want to advocate for 2 days a week, look, I’m looking for someone to convince me. But please, for the love of God, drop things like this from your argument. Because the people I know who’ve said things like this, I know they’re better people than this. They’re good people under incredible stress who let things slip out as their frustration boils over. So, please do the right thing and move on from this, because one potential outcome is that one day, you’re going to have to stand in front of St. Peter and answer for this, and that’s not going to be conversation you enjoy.

“Hardly any kids get COVID.”

(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece.

One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in March, children have had the least EXPOSURE to COVID. In other words, closing schools was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging they were among our fastest and most quarantined people. Put another way, you cannot cite the effect without acknowledging the cause.

“The flu kills more people every year.”

(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months.

And when you mention the flu, do you mean the disease that, if you’re suspected of having it, everyone, literally everyone in the country tells you stay the f- away from other people? You mean the one where parents are pretty sure their kids have it but send them to school anyway because they have a meeting that day, the one that every year causes massive f-ing outbreaks in schools because schools are petri dishes and it causes kids to miss weeks of school and leaves them out of sports and band for a month? That one? Because you’re right - the flu kills people every year. It does, but you’re ignoring the why. It’s because there are people who are a--holes who don’t care about infecting other people. In that regard it’s a perfect comparison to COVID.

“Almost everyone recovers.”

You’re confusing “release from the hospital” and “no longer infected” with “recovered.” I’m fortunate to only know two people who have had COVID. One my age and one my dad’s age. The one my age described it as “absolute hell” and although no longer infected cannot breathe right. The one my dad’s age was in the hospital for 13 weeks, had to have a trach ring put in because she could no longer be on a ventilator, and upon finally getting home and being faced with incalculable time in rehab told my mother, “I wish I had died.”

While I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.

“If people get sick, they get sick.”

First, you mistyped. What you intended to say was “If OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.

“I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

You already live your life in fear. For your health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists, extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors, an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, “I’m not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,” and I’ve got news for you: that ship has sailed. It’s too late. There are two kinds of people, and only two: those that admit they’re afraid, and those that are lying to themselves about it.

As to the fear argument, fear is the reason you wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.

“FCPS leadership sucks.”

I will summarize my view of the School Board thusly: if the 12 of you aren’t getting into a room together because it represents a risk, don’t tell me it’s OK for our kids. I understand your arguments, that we need the 2 days option for parents who can’t work from home, kids who don’t have internet or computer access, kids who needs meals from the school system, kids who need extra support to learn, and most tragically for kids who are at greater risk of abuse by being home. All very serious, all very real issues, all heartbreaking. No argument.

But you must first lead by example. Because you’re failing when it comes to optics. All your meetings are online. What our children see is all of you on a Zoom telling them it’s OK for them to be exactly where you aren’t. I understand you’re not PR people, but you really should think about hiring some.

“I talked it over with my kids.”

Let’s put aside for a moment the concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out. Yes, those hygienic children.

Listen, my 15 year old daughter wants a sport car, which she’s not getting next year because it would be dangerous to her and to others. Those kinds of decisions are our job. We step in and decide as parents, we don’t let them expose themselves to risks because their still developing and screen addicted brains narrow their understanding of cause and effect.

We as parents and adults serve to make difficult decisions. Sometimes those are in the form of lessons, where we try to steer kids towards the right answer and are willing to let them make a mistake in the hopes of teaching better decision making the next time around. This is not one of those moments. The stakes are too high for that. This is a “the adults are talking” moment. Kids are not mature enough for this moment. That is not an attack on your child. It is a broad statement about all children. It is true of your children and it was true when we were children. We need to be doing that thinking here, and “Johnny wants to see Bobby at school” cannot be the prevailing element in the equation.

“The teachers need to do their job.”

How is it that the same society which abruptly shifted to virtual students only three months ago, and offered glowing endorsements of teachers stating, “we finally understand how difficult your job is,” has now shifted to “screw you, do your job.” There are myriad problems with that position but for the purposes of this piece let’s simply go with, “You’re not looking for a teacher, you’re looking for the babysitter you feel your property tax payment entitles you to.”

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.

And, if you want to take the actual environment into consideration, the odds of a teacher being killed in a car accident in their classroom, you know, the environment we’re actually talking about, that’s right around 0%.

“If the grocery store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”

(Deep breath) A grocery store worker, who absolutely risks exposure, has either six feet of space or a plexiglass shield between them and individual adult customers who can grasp their own mortality whose transactions can be completed in moments, in a 40,000 SF space.

A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.

Just stop.

“Teachers are choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”

(Deep breaths) Many teachers are opting to be remote. That is not a vacation. They’re requesting to do their job at a safer site. Just like many, many people who work in buildings with recycled air have done. And likely the building you’re not going into has a newer and better serviced air system than our schools.

Of greater interest to me is the number of teachers choosing the 100% virtual option for their children. The people who spend the most time in the buildings are the same ones electing not to send their children into those buildings. That’s something I pay attention to.

“I wasn’t prepared to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”

I truly, deeply respect that honesty. Truth be told, both arguments have crossed my mind. Pre COVID, I routinely worked from home 1 – 2 days a week. The solace was nice. When I was in the office, I had an actual office, a room with a door I could close, where I could focus. During the quarantine that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been short, I’ve gone to just take a drive and get the hell away for a moment and been disgusted when one of the kids sees me and asks me to come for a ride, robbing me of those minutes of silence. You want to hear silence. I get it. I really, really do.

Here’s another version of that, admittedly extreme. What if one of our kids becomes one of the 302? What’s that silence going to sound like? What if you have one of those matted frames where you add the kid’s school picture every year? What if you don’t get to finish the pictures?

“What does your gut tell you to do?”

Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, “Stop, right now, gut answer, what is it,” and we both said, “virtual.”

A lot of the arguments I hear people making for the 2 days sound like we’re trying to talk ourselves into ignoring our instincts, they are almost exclusively, “We’re doing 2 days, but…”. There’s a fantastic book by Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, which I’ll minimize for you thusly: your gut instinct is a hardwired part of your brain and you should listen to it. In the introduction he talks about elevators, and how, of all living things, humans are the only ones that would voluntarily get into a soundproof steel box with a potential predator just so they could skip a flight of stairs.

I keep thinking that the 2 days option is the soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.

At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420 Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that number rose to 133,940.

520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on this. In seven hours.

The length of a school day.

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sittinginacornerihaunted · 4 years

Text

august

masterlist

content warnings: some cursing? mentions of alcohol and drinking

word count: 5,189

Chapter 1

I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try.

He was the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on. And I know that’s a cliche statement, but in this case, it was one hundred percent true. He walked past me with a gait that both intimidated and intrigued me. He walked as though he knew he would never falter, never trip, and never fall. He had a jawline that looked as if it were chiseled by Zeus himself. His curly brown hair fell right above his eyes, not completely masking his bold eyebrows. And his eyes. Oh my god, his eyes. The more I looked at them, the more I got lost. They were a deep hazel, with specks of green and gold, that could surely be seen from space. His hands were encapsulating, as if they had a magnetic force emitting from them, pulling me towards him. The way he briefly touched his beautiful lips with the tips of his fingertips did something to me I couldn’t explain.

I realized I was staring and quickly tried to pull my attention back to the book I was reading, but I continued to glance up at him. He walked by me, close enough that I could feel the slight breeze he caused to blow past me. It vaguely smelled like cedar, cotton, and- was that vanilla? I looked at him briefly before he walked completely out of my eyesight and let myself dream for a second. Who was that? And why have I never seen him before? Okay sure, campus is about 40,000 people large, but still. He was in my vicinity now, so surely he had a class around here.

Okay, that was enough daydreaming. I tried to inhale his scent once more before checking the time. My watch said 12:36 pm which meant that my next class was in twenty-four minutes. I spread myself out on the ground by the tree I was at and continued to read. Today was the first day of my Criminology class, so I wasn’t too nervous about getting any studying in beforehand. Plus, the class was huge, so I didn’t need to worry about getting called on to answer a question if I didn’t want to. I checked my phone before getting up and making my way to class. It was a beautiful day out, as if that boy- excuse me, man, I saw earlier created the perfect environment for him to walk in. The sun was shining but there were just enough clouds speckling the deep blue sky. The trees were a vibrant green, going perfectly with the freshly cut grass. It felt impossibly perfect, considering it was the middle of August. Shouldn’t it be excruciatingly hot? But no, the breeze felt perfect on my warm skin and didn’t cause a chill as I picked up the pace into the Behavioral Sciences Building.

As I walked through the glass door, I felt the chill of the AC hit me as soon as my foot graced the tile floor. It immediately sent a shiver down my spine, similar to the one I felt earlier when that immortal in human form glided past me. I felt myself lose focus and completely miss the elevator I planned on using. I shook it off and pretended like walking to the stairs was what I had intended all along. I opened the door to the corridor and began ascending the stairs that seemed to never end. I checked my watch one more time, to assure that I was still on time, and I was actually ahead of my own extremely strict schedule. As I reached the floor I needed, I took out my phone to scroll mindlessly while I waited for my professor. Of course, I was here before anyone else. My mom always told me “on time is late and early is on time,” so I always made sure to be early by her standards: at least fifteen minutes before any event was supposed to start. But not for parties. I promise I’m not that much of a nerd. Maybe.

Anyways, I took a seat in the third row, close enough that I could see the front without straining my eyes, but not so close that I would be able to eyefuck my professor throughout the lecture. Not that I would. But I’ve seen some try. I don’t understand why people have a professor kink, but to each their own I guess. I stuck my nose into my twitter feed and waited for time to pass. About thirty seconds later, I heard the door open. I expected to see another student, but instead I saw the God that had graced my presence earlier. I tried to stop my jaw from flying open, but I failed miserably. Trying to play it cool, I tucked my hair behind my ear and started to organize my things for class. I looked up at him, seeing that he was already, was he? Staring at me? But I managed a meek smile and basically whispered the word “Hi.” His mouth moved and he spoke the word “Hello” before taking a seat at the front of the class. This kid was the professor? What was I supposed to do? Not stare at him the whole class? I just decided to keep my head down and try to focus solely on moving around my things, whether purposeful or not.

About fifteen minutes passed and as more students strolled into the lecture hall, the man I am definitely not staring at, began to write his name on the large whiteboard at the front of the class. “Dr. Reid.” Hmm. Sounds pretty formal. I instantly began to wonder if he was going to be a hardass and to dread the drudgery that I may encounter throughout this semester. I was taking six classes with a course load that could make a grown man cry. Or in my case, a 19-year-old girl. I do my best to pay attention throughout the lecture, rather than staring at the beautiful man in front of me. The class’s material genuinely interested me, but I couldn’t get over the fact that this man, who I thought was a (gorgeous) student, was my professor. He looked too young to be a professor. Far too young to be a Doctor. How quickly was he able to get his degree? Or maybe I’m just terrible at guessing ages, which I usually am.

Before I got too lost in thought, I heard a firm voice come from the top of the room. “Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Spencer Reid and I will be your Criminology professor this semester. You can call me Spencer, Professor Reid, or Dr. Reid, I really don’t mind. Before we get started today, I want to tell you all a little bit about me.” He clears his throat and leans back on his desk, laid in perfectly in the center of the room, and I see his dress pants crease slightly. I shake myself in desperate need to pay attention to the words he was saying, rather than his legs, which I could only assume were as perfect as the rest of him. I tried not to aim my gaze around his waist but it seemed to land there all on its own.

“I have a full-time position at the FBI with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. They allow me time off on Mondays and Wednesdays to teach, which is how I’m here today” He chuckles lightly. “We work on serial cases and the occasional kidnapping case across the country. We use our knowledge of human behavior to analyze the serial killers we chase down. It helps us understand why they do what they do and what their next move might be. I’ve always found human behavior extremely interesting, which is what brought you all here today I hope.”

He walks around his desk and gathers a large stack of papers in his hands. Oh god, those hands. His fingers were long and slender, and his veins were so prominent, it should be illegal to have hands that attractive. I, once again, caught myself before he made his way down the middle of the row of seats, handing a small section of the papers to the student sitting at the end of each row. He made his way to the third row and handed me a portion of the papers. I took the stack from his hands and briefly looked up and found him looking right into my eyes. My breath hitched as I tried to focus myself and not fumble the papers everywhere. I collected myself and took a syllabus for myself and passed them down my row. Soon enough, I found myself looking back at him as he handed the rest of the syllabi out, hopefully not drawing attention to myself. He walked back down the steps and placed himself at the front of the lecture hall. “I understand that the majority of you will find it strange that I am handing out physical copies of the syllabus, but I have always preferred hard copies to digital ones, and I believe that should apply to students as well. In fact, direct mail requires twenty-one percent less cognitive effort to process than digital media, suggesting that it is both easier to understand and more memorable. Post-exposure memory tests validated what a cognitive load test revealed about direct mail’s memory encoding capabilities. When asked to cite the brand of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was seventy percent higher among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece than a digital ad. Long story short, handwrite your notes.” A small wave of laughter settled over the class. I found myself smiling like a giddy schoolgirl, staring at Dr. Spencer Reid. How am I supposed to focus when he looks like that? I guess I’ll have to figure it out.

The rest of the class went smoothly. The handsome professor went over the syllabus and his expectations for us in his class. The clock struck 2 pm and I found myself writing down the reading assigned for tonight. Reading? Who assigns reading on the first day of classes? No matter, I read the beginning of our textbook ahead of time, so I didn’t find myself too worried. I stuffed my papers and my journal into my bookbag and tried not to stumble as I gathered my things to walk out of class. I walked past the man I had been trying, and failing, not to stare at for the entirety of the class period. I smiled a small smile and softly said “Thank you” as I walked out the door. He smiled back and waved softly as I melted into the hallway.

I had three classes on Mondays and I always tried to end my day as early as possible, so I walked back to my on-campus apartment; Criminology was my last class of the day. Yes, I start my day earlier than 8 am and I can probably be classified as certifiably insane. At least, according to my roommate’s standards. As I entered the cramped apartment, I found my roommate, Amber, asleep on the couch, a tv show playing softly on her laptop. I laughed at the sight of her, limbs everywhere and mouth agape, wondering how she could sleep like that in the middle of the day. It didn’t matter, she knew what worked best for her. She was one of the most accomplished people in our class. She majored in Political Science and International Studies and she seemed to ace every class with ease. I was in awe of her in that regard, as well as her ability to nap at any time and anywhere. We met each other last year in our Freshman Honors lecture and we had been attached at the hip ever since. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as close and safe with a person as I did Amber. I trusted her with all of my secrets and she trusted me with hers. I was extremely grateful to have her in my life.

Scoffing at Amber, I made my way to my bedroom and sat my stuff down in the corner of the room. I jumped onto my bed and began to scroll mindlessly on my phone. About fifteen minutes passed before Amber barged into my room. “Amber!” I jumped, embarrassingly startled by her entrance, “Jesus Christ, you scared the fuck out of me, I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” she started, “but now I’m not. Funny how sleeping works like that.” I roll my eyes at her. “Anyways,” she continues, “I heard there was gonna be a big party tonight in honor of the first week of classes and I was thinking we would go!” She bounces on the balls of her feet, smiling innocently at me.

“Amber, you know I don’t really party” I say.

“I knowwwww but… I thought I could drag you out tonight?” She clasps her hands dramatically. “Please? I just want to have some fun with you before we’re both consumed by homework. Please? I’ll never ask you for anything ever again.” She smiles her stupid smile again.

“Okay fine, I give in.” I say and she jumps up and down.

“Thank you Y/N!! You won’t regret this!” She says as she exits my room. I sure hope not, I think to myself as she closes the door. I go back to scrolling on my phone before setting it down to take a nap before getting ready to go out tonight. I never stay up late so I needed to prepare myself if I was going to stay out all night. I know Amber will want to get drunk and party until at least 5 am, and I wasn’t about to abandon her just to get a good night’s sleep. This could be fun, right?

---

I stare at myself in the mirror as I put on my tightest fitting dress. It was a red bodycon dress that I never felt especially confident in, but tonight I felt pretty good! I put on a pair of simple black heels to go with it. Normally I would wear something more practical, like shorts and a crop top, or something a little more moveable, but Amber insisted we go all out. “If this is the only party you’re going to this semester, you need to look your best! Why not?!” I couldn’t argue with her, she was right. I might as well look good, who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone tonight. I hadn’t had a real relationship since, well, ever. I was never one to put myself out there. I always focused on my studies and I worked part-time jobs whenever I could. Relationships and romance were never a top priority for me. Sure, it would be nice, but I could live without it. I had much more important things to tend to. Amber was helping me forget about all of those responsibilities tonight, which I admit, was a nice feeling. I sat down at my desk to finish my makeup and touch up my hair before I presented my look to Amber. I stood up, smoothed out my dress, and walked out of my bedroom, doing a dramatic twirl for her. “Ooooh, GIRL! You look hot!!!” She squealed and I smiled wide as I bounced over to her.

“So do you!! Bitch you always look good, how DARE you!” I said teasingly as I dramatically fawned over her. We grabbed our phones with our ID’s (real and fake) and some money tucked in the cases of them, not wanting to carry much else with us. I double-checked to make sure I had everything put away and everything with me that I needed. Amber stood in the doorway, checking her wrist as though she was checking the time, silently telling me to hurry up and that I was worrying over nothing. I sighed, “Okay, okay!” and ran out the door behind her. I triple-checked that we locked the door and followed Amber down the stairs of the apartment complex.

We made our way down to the lobby and out of the building’s front doors, the temperate climate and humid breeze hitting us as we walked to the edge of the street. Amber and I turned our heads to see our Uber approaching from the left and I double-checked to make sure that the car was definitely ours and that the driver inside matched the picture from the app. Amber always told me that I was too skeptical and cautious, but I don’t think that’s even possible, being a woman in the twenty-first century. An Uber driver could be a kidnapper or a serial killer, who knows! As soon as I verified the Uber’s identity, Amber climbed over to the far side of the car as I trailed behind her. I sat down on the covered seat and looked over as Amber gave the driver the location of the bar we were headed to. A feeling in my gut started to arise but I wasn’t sure what it was. Probably just nerves, I told myself as I took a few deep breaths and looked out the window. I tend to get nervous about almost any event, regardless of the severity of the situation. Amber asked the man sitting in front of us if she could play some music from her phone and he obliged. She proceeded to put on “Party in the U.S.A” by Miley Cyrus and I looked at her and grinned. This was always our going out song. We danced in the back of the car and sang obnoxiously loud in preparation for the night.

We finally arrived at the bar in which one of the biggest parties in the school was happening. Honestly, I’m more into house parties, but the only house parties here are the ones happening in frat houses and I am not down for getting drugged and harassed by rich, white, republican frat guys. We paid (and tipped) the Uber driver and made our way into the club. The line wasn’t long at all, considering most people had gotten there as early as socially acceptable to maximize their partying time. The bouncer let us through (thank GOD because I spent enough money on that fake ID) and we danced our way through the crowd and to the bar. We met up with a group of friends from our shared freshman year English 101 class and proceeded to get a round of tequila shots. One round turned into four and into ten. One could say I was officially wasted. I don’t normally party, but when I do, I party hard. Go hard or go home, right? Thanks to my not-completely-ruined inhibitions, I made my way to the bartender and asked for a large glass of water. “Party-pooper!” Amber slurred as she grabbed my shoulder for leverage.

“Hey! I just don’t wanna be super hungover tomorrow. It’s literally-” I hiccupped and giggled as I stared into Amber’s eyes, trying to gain some semblance of solidity in my footing, “It’s literally only Monday. I have three classes tomorrow and I always start my days earlier, you know this! I don’t wanna be drunk at my 8 am lecture!” I basically yelled at Amber’s face because the music and bass were so loud, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts.

“Okay, okay!” Amber shouted back at me, “Take a seat at the bar lame-o! I am gonna dance with that cute guy over there and maybeee you and I won’t be leaving together.” She pointed to a tall, blonde-haired man who was smiling and staring at Amber. She waved a flirty hand at him and started to walk away but her hand lingered on my shoulder.

“Amber!” I grabbed her wrist before she walked away, because I was not standing up right now. “Just… Be careful, okay? Text me if you do leave with him because I do not want anything happening to you. And I expect you to update me with texts with your location when you leave and if anything else happens okay? I love you, you know that right?” My fears were sobering me up quicker than the water was.

“I know! I love you too, silly. I promise I will be careful. I’ll make sure I know he is who he says he is before we leave and I won’t let him drive, we’ll take an Uber or something, okay? I don’t even know if I will leave with him, I was just thinking about it.” She paused for a second. “Thank you for caring about me, Y/N. I really do love you.” She smiled at me and I smiled back as she walked away to go dance with the handsome stranger across the floor.

My happy feelings dwindled for a moment as I sobered up and realized I was no longer a part of any group. Mine and Amber’s friend group had dispersed across the bar and the dancefloor, all trying to go home with someone. I would make that my mission too but frankly, I was too drunk to be completely aware of the goings on around me. I took out my phone and pulled up the Uber app, ready to go home. My plans changed when I looked around me and saw a familiar face at the very end of the bar. Dr. Reid? Why is he here? This bar is mainly occupied by college students, plus today was a huge party day, it didn’t make sense. Against my better judgement, I found myself standing up and walking towards him. I tried my hardest to walk straight and keep my eyes focused. I didn’t want to make my first real impression with him, one of me being blackout drunk. I downed the rest of my water before making my way to him. “Professor?” I questioned as he stared off into the distance.

“Oh! Hi. I’m sorry, what was your name again?” He asked nervously. Why did he seem nervous? I don’t think I ever told him my name. In fact, I barely think I even said hello.

“Oh, it’s Y/N.” I smiled at him. Normally, I would extend a hand to greet someone of authority, like him, but my hands were clammy and probably dirty from being in a bar like this. I hope he doesn’t think I’m weird. He looked down, expecting me to extend a hand as well, I assume. He looks back up and meets my eyes.

“It’s nice to officially meet you.” He says.

“You too.” I say and smile. We’re both quiet for a moment and I look around, trying to think of something to say. I’m so awkward. I take a deep breath, in hopes that it would spur a thought or initiate something to come out of my mouth, but it doesn’t.

“You look very nice.” He says and I come short of shaking my head in surprise.

“Thank you! My friend insisted we dress up tonight.” I laugh softly and smooth my dress down with my hands. Should I compliment him too? Would that be weird? “Um, if you don’t mind me asking,” I continue, “why are you out at a student bar tonight? I assume you knew about the party happening?” I don’t know where the confidence came from for me to ask him a question, but I was curious nonetheless.

“Um,” He chuckles and looks at the ground for a moment. “My friend and I were out with our coworkers and he insisted on coming here afterwards. I mentioned the parties that are thrown during the first week of classes and he couldn’t resist, I guess.” He nodded his head to point me in the direction of a very handsome man, dancing with a woman who couldn’t be much older than me.

I laugh and turn back to him. “Are you not the partying type, Dr. Reid?” I don’t know where these conversational skills were coming from. I had a hard time opening up to people my own age, much less authority figures.

“Not really. I mostly teach, work, and go home, to be quite honest.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Please, sit down, you don’t have to stand. I’m sure those shoes aren’t really meant for standing.”

“Thank you.” I laugh at his comment about my shoes. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say they’re the most comfortable pair I own.” I take the seat next to my professor. “And me too, for the most part. My friend kinda dragged me out here tonight.”

“And where’s your friend now?” He questions. I point to the far corner of the club, where Amber was grinding on the man she was telling me about earlier.

“She’s a little more outgoing than me.” I laugh and ask the bartender for another glass of water. I can tell he’s looking at me from the corner of my eye. Why does that make me so nervous? I instinctually start to bite the nails on my left hand. I barely noticed I had started doing that, so I didn’t expect my professor to notice it at all.

“Are you nervous?” He asks and I pull my nails away from my mouth.

“Um, I guess so? I don’t go out too often and new places and people tend to make me anxious, I guess.” I look down at the bar and the glass in my hands.

“I get that.” He says.

“Um, do you mind if I ask how old you are? I’m sorry if that’s a little bit out of nowhere, I just remember you introduced yourself as Doctor this morning in class, and I initially thought you couldn’t be much older than me.” My curiosity got the best of me, I suppose.

“Uh, I’m 28. I have three PhDs in chemistry, mathematics, and engineering.” He rattles the list off as if he says it every day.

“Woah, what are you, like a genius or something? How the hell did you get three PhDs before 28?” I cover my mouth almost immediately. “I’m sorry for cursing, I don’t know, is that not appropriate?” I blush and look down again.

He chuckles, “No, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. And I have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and I can read 20,000 words per minute so, yes, I guess technically, I am a genius.” He smiles at me and- is that a smirk I see?

My jaw practically flies open. “Wow, I guess I’ll have to try extra hard in class to impress you.” I find my courage again and look into his eyes. I almost immediately get lost in the swirls of gold and green. I find myself blushing again and somehow more words leave my mouth. “Would you, um, like to go talk outside? It’s really loud in here and my throat is getting sore.” I begin to stand up after he nods. I look for Amber and as soon as I make eye contact with her across the room, I mime typing on my phone as a signal for her to text me and that I’ll text her with whatever I’m doing. What am I doing? Am I going to talk to my professor and leave? Or am I going to leave with him? No, I can’t even think about that, that’s ridiculous. Whatever, Y/N, just worry about getting outside of the bar.

I push the heavy wooden door of the club open, exiting while Dr. Reid follows. I make my way towards the edge of the building, the music muffled by the walls. I lean up against the stone wall of the building and fiddle with my phone in my hands.

“Is this weird? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be blunt but, you’re my professor. Do you normally talk to students at bars or was this just a weird coincidence? Or is this not weird, considering we’re not too far apart in age, I guess, and I mean, we’re both adults, right? I’m sorry I’m rambling I just feel awkward I guess I’m not sure what to say, um…” I cut myself off and look away, trying to find solace in the air around me.

He laughs again. Why is his laugh so attractive? “No, I don’t think it’s weird. It’s nice to have a conversation every once in a while, even if it’s with a student. Even if it’s outside a college bar. I don’t find much time to talk about topics that aren’t serial killers or behavioral analysis.” I jump as he uses his hand to bring my face and my eyes back to his. What was that? “I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just don’t want you to feel nervous or like you can’t talk to me. I really do enjoy talking to students, and just other people in general. Most people don’t enjoy talking to me so it’s nice when I find someone that does.” He blushes. Wait, he blushed? Why are his cheeks turning red?

“Well, I enjoy a good conversation too. And it’s okay, I just didn’t expect you to touch me, I guess.” I pause for a second. “Why wouldn’t someone want to talk to you? You must have so much knowledge to share, being a genius and all.”

“I guess that’s why,” he begins, “people find my rambling to be annoying. I want to share the knowledge I have, but that’s not always what constitutes a good conversation in some people’s opinion.”

“Well, not in my opinion.” I say boldly. I feel sober but drunk at the same time. Sober me would definitely not be having this conversation in the first place. But I don’t feel drunk, I feel… grounded. And focused. But I feel tipsy, like this conversation is affecting me the same way as alcohol. Maybe I shouldn’t think too much about it. You’re blowing it, Y/N. Blowing what?

He smiles and looks down at the ground. I find myself reaching my arm out and placing a finger below his chin, gently nudging his head back up to look at me. He looks surprised. I quickly pull away and begin to play with my hands again. I check the time on my phone: 5 am. Has it really been four hours? It barely felt like fifteen minutes. “I should probably get going soon, I have class in, holy shit, three hours, and I would like to get at least a little sleep before then. It was really nice officially meeting you, Dr. Reid.” I begin to make my way back to the entrance of the bar to find Amber and get us both home.

“Please, call me Spencer.” He says and turns as I start walking away. I pause my movements.

“Okay. Spencer.” I smile and disappear into the bar.

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