#but honestly the six days i was there it put both the public transport and infrastructure of london to shame
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also i just got back from a week in barcelona and for some reason i got a lot of inspo for like. holiday/vacation related fan fics. but mostly i was just absolutely obsessed w la sagrada familia and the fact that trains in spain are so cheap and run on time. also i walked into a pharmacy cos i forgot my birth control and i got the same one, no questions asked for the equivalent of about three pounds. so now i want to move to spain
#i'm sure people that live there might read this and laugh cos i see some people say they wanna move to england and i cackle#but honestly the six days i was there it put both the public transport and infrastructure of london to shame
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Day 7 - In Which I Basically Do Exactly The Same Thing
Finally, after a gruelling…six and a half days, the final full day of this year's vagrancy was upon me. One more destination to do and - I could scarcely bring myself to believe - one final fucking Flixbus to get there, on. Before I could depart, however, there was the small matter of deeply petty, low-level revenge to attend to.
If you read the previous entry (and you absolutely should - it is a delight), you'll know that my otherwise blissful night of slumber was disturbed for close to an hour by the incredibly un-neighbourly actions of some floppy-haired vape lord piece of shit who couldn't decide whether he wanted his suitcase to be open or closed, but knew damn well the only way to figure that out would be to try both configurations, one after the other, loudly and for three quarters of an hour.
As per usual, I was awake before my alarm sounded. Normally under these circumstances I simply cancel it before it went off and claim some nebulous victory over the god of sleep. (take that Hypnos. You cuck.) Today however, I did not. I let the alarm run for it's full duration, pretending to sleep straight through it. Following suite when its subsequent follow-up, played, also. I then, now awake both in reality and in this irritating pantomime I was orchestrating, flicked my bunk light on. Then left it on as I loudly arranged my possessions, before heading to the toilet, slamming the door on the way in, scraping his toothbrush against a dirty wall while inside and leaving its light on full glare on my exit. Finally, I collected my bags from the rickety old locker, making sure to shut its door as carelessly as I could and ripped one final, triumphant fart into the dorm before leaving, slamming the door with all my might as I did. Sleep through that. Cunt.
With the wind thoroughly now in my sales (revenge is my primary and possibly sole motivator in life), I set off for my first destination of the day: Lampugnano bus station. Fucking. Again. This morning, however, I had neither the time, not inclination to put my withered, Faberge egg of a body through the hour and a half walk to the station and so, finally, begrudgingly, decided to figure out how to buy a ticket in Milan's public transport system (which, until this point, I had not done and could not be bothered to do.)
It will come as no surprise that purchasing a ticket on Milan’s public transport system (which I had hitherto not done and could not be bothered to do) was really fucking easy. You could literally tap your card at the turnstile on entry and again on exit, if you wanted to. I however, elected to buy a physical ticket, which I like to collect on trips like this, so I can look at them once every two years and remember what a dreadful time I had.
My journey on the metro was…tolerable, if not especially comfortable. It was sort of like what you would get if you bought the London underground from Wish.com, then fill it full of people who don't give a single solitary shit about your personal space. In under half an hour, though, my trip was over and I found myself at that awful bus station once more. As I passed through the turnstile of the station, a woman, who I thought worked there, grabbed the ticket from my hands - I assumed in order to stop me attempting to use it later in the day for a cheeky free ride - before depositing it in a nearby bin. Then she held her hand out. She didn’t work there; she just wanted money, for the ‘service’ of snatching and disposing of a slip of paper that I actually quite wanted to keep. I had and indeed had not had for the entire duration of my trip any jingly, pocketable currency on my person whatsoever, but honestly, even if I did, I would have given her nothing. If anything, I reasoned, she now owed *me* money and I would be well within my rights to demand she empty her pockets or at the very least fetch my stub from the garbage and have it cleaned and then returned to me.
In the end, I didn’t do either of these things though. I simply let the experience pass over me, like water over a duck’s back, vowing, instead, only to write an angry paragraph about her in my blog. God I’m good at being the bigger man.
The Flixbus, while obviously late - it was after all, still a Flixbus - crucially wasn't late *by much*; my seat existed and I had it all to myself and I went through the entire journey without having my bottom molested, even once. The trifecta of acceptable bus travel. I'd almost say I enjoyed it, were such a thing humanly possible.
After a relatively short journey of one hour and also an extra bit of an additional hour, I found myself in Bergamo with four more of them hour-y things I just mentioned to kill before my check in time of - what apparently is just an industry standard in Italy - 2pm. I had heard that Bergamo had a nice Natural History Museum, so I decided to go there; the fact that I went to another, different natural history museum literally the day before being, frankly, none of your business.
The museum, as it transpired, was up the hugest, fuckoffingest hill you have ever seen in your life unless you've seen a mountain or something which admittedly would be bigger. With little else on the agenda and many, many hours to kill, however, I persevered and pushed up that big bastard, grinding what little was left of my shoulders to an ugly, marrow-y paste in the process.
Limping with my arms and screaming with my mouth, I walked into the Bergamo museum of Natural History and thereby into an absolute treasure trove of some of the best (worst) taxidermy I have ever seen in my life. Again, deformed, snarling squirrels and eye sockets bursting with foam will not form the basis of an enjoyable blog post, but my word are there ever some excellent pictures of them to enjoy in the subsequent picture dump.
Hello, beautiful.
My usually insatiable hunger for deformed animalia now, for once, satisfied (and how), I undertook the far-less-arduous-downhill-than-it-had-been-up walk to my final Airbnb of the trip. Quite a nice one, as well. It was a room in a guest house in the city's centre, however, as I was the only guest staying at the time, it did mean that I essentially had the entire penthouse suite to myself, which was cool. If slightly eerie. I'll absolutely take eerie over my digs from the previous night, though.
My body broken and my mind, frankly, done, I relaxed in bed for the evening, sacrificing first my plan to go out to a nice Italian restaurant and then my auxiliary plan to just head across the street for a kebab in favour of making some (actually quite nice) sandwiches and eating them in bed, while groaning loudly (because I was still in pain - it wasn't anything weird.) Before falling asleep in my customary pile of tangled limbs and hair. My vagrancy for this year all but complete.
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runway (m) | jung yoonoh
pairing: model!jaehyun x fashion designer!reader
words: 18.7k
summary: there are some things that come with dedicating your life to fashion: a taste for finer fabrics, a splash of love for art, and an appreciation of the human body. none of these are supposed to include the hottest model you have ever laid eyes on, or the fact that you completely, utterly hate his guts.
genre: enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, light smut, comedy-ish
warnings: sexual content, mentions of anxiety
a/n: woohooooooo she’s finally here!!!! i cant believe this!! everything aside, i do not have first hand experience working in the fashion industry so please do take this with a grain of salt. i’m also going to pass out. good night <3
A list of things you appreciate: colours, satin, comfort.
A list of things you do not appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.
The hum of the car engine has little effect on you; you travel like this almost every day. Tall buildings, scorching pavement, the blare of traffic—it’s Seoul, after all. You sigh, more of a short expression of annoyance, scrolling down with your thumb and back up again. Since when did he get permission to post pictures from pre-fittings? And one of your works, no less.
His feed is so messy. You click your tongue. For a model, that is.
You open the story again and consider messaging him. It’s your cherry red coat, or rather the collar of it, golden thread sewn in swirls of patterns, and a sheer floral shirt extending all the way up to cover Jaehyun’s neck. You frown. It’s meant for showcase, not teasers. Even if the picture extends just from the curve of his shoulder to his parted lips, you can’t stand the sight of it on him. It’s not bias, you try to tell yourself. This is business. You tap your fingertips rapidly against the back of your phone. This is obviously business.
Seoul Fashion Week is the height of your anxiety, which means you have little regard for anything else decorated around you. With a new frenzy arising in every minute of your day—you don’t have time to think, a sense of madness in the way you keep busy. Your Elixir collection is more than what you had hoped for it to be, a twinge of satisfaction sitting at the pit of your stomach. It nicely puts together everything rich and extravagant, humanity’s first love—everything you despise really, so Jaehyun wasn’t a bad choice for a model.
You backspace on your text. Is this rude? Should you care if you’re being rude? How unprofessional, you imagine his voice saying. It wouldn’t be the first unprofessional thing you’d done.
The final text reads ‘Glad you’re enjoying my designs, but they were not meant to be publicly displayed before the official show, as common sense predicts.’
No, of course you’re not trying to be snarky. It’s perfectly formal. All that time writing professional complaint letters to companies for ripping off your designs paid off, you suppose.
You exit the Uber, thanking the driver quickly before you rush into the building, checking the time on your watch. It’s sunny, and hotter than you anticipated. You can only hope it’s cooler tomorrow so the heat doesn’t suffocate your models.
The company building is another madness in its own. Joohyun greets you with a quick smile, a bunch of fabrics being handed to her before she can make any conversation with you, and the rest of the workers bow in greeting before getting back to their own individual windstorms. You step over a few boxes on the grounds, beelining to your workspace so you can settle down your bag.
You’re team leader, you tell yourself, a short breath tumbling out of your mouth. Even so, you don’t do very well under several pairs of eyes on you at once. Some part of you is still the timid fashion designer, packing your entire identity into a small sketchbook.
The sunlight is blaring out of control in the place—it’s meant to be spacious and sunlit, of course, but the heat makes you adjust your collar before you can move forward. The bustle of the style and design team along with the production team in the same place is akin to a nightmare, and you trace your steps quickly.
“Guys,” you begin, fidgeting with the leather strap of your watch as you continue, “Firstly, good job.”
There’s a bunch of short cheers and clapping to interrupt before you can continue.
“As for tomorrow…stylists, I need you to touch up the collars in all the Western-style coats. The detailing needs to be kept clean and sharp. I want the audience to be able to see it.”
You pause, your tone still neutral. “And let’s not start again on the lacing. We had that discussion yesterday.”
There’s some nods and sounds of affirmation.
“Production team…I don’t think I can say much to you without Doyoung getting on my case.”
There’s collective laughter and you crack a smile. With a few more rapid words, you dismiss yourself, walking over to your colleagues to help them out. You’re team leader, the one with the final say in all the designs, but you can’t possibly imagine completing it without Joohyun or the others.
“Good pep talk there, (name),” Joohyun says, walking over to you as her hands sharp and steady as they go through the clothes rack.
“They think I’m an asshole,” you say, breathing out. You know your words are too direct. Drunk co-workers on a Friday night are not the best place to discover facts about yourself. Sometimes even you think you sound bossy. You check the key parts for each item, knowing you’ll be doing this once again before the show.
“We wouldn’t be going anywhere without direction,” Joohyun responds, laughing as if you’d said something silly. “We’re all glad you’re here, (name).”
Words like these are so easing for a mess like you, not that you’d admit it. Joohyun has always been a sort of mother figure to you after you entered this company, followed by Doyoung. A good few years senior to you, she started out as a model before she moved on to designing.
It’s her last year working in this place. But of course, it’s a given when she’s starting her own label (mom clothes and children’s apparel, she’d called her clothing line, rolling her eyes) and one of the most well-known names in South Korean fashion not having her own label is sacrilege (according to your colleagues anyway). She’d said to contact her when you start your own family, and maybe she’ll send a congratulations package for both you and your baby. You’d laughed. Out of all the insults you could ever receive, that was perhaps the loveliest one.
Ridiculousness aside, you’ll miss the comfort of her presence. You were still in school when your designs led you to a showcase in New York Fashion Week, your sponsor more than generous. You stepped into it too soon, too eager. It was breath-taking and awful all at once—and the first time you saw a world outside of your own. It was overwhelming. There are few people in this new world as kind as Joohyun.
The sound of your notification snaps you out of your thoughts. You swear you kept it on vibrate, a little irked at having to search for your phone when your hands are full. The notification itself brings on a stronger wave of vexation.
_jeongjaehyun:
My manager told me it was good publicity
But I could take it down for you
The ‘for you’ adds an unnecessary effect, you think as you hold back a scowl. And what does ‘could’ mean? A miscommunication with the sales team isn’t even on the list of things you need to worry about. Honestly, you don’t have time to fight him, quickly typing out a ‘whatever. it’s okay’ before looking back up.
You jump, the look on Joohyun’s face a little suspicious for what might come out of her mouth.
“It’s not a crime to text people.” She shrugs, shuffling through the rack one more time to take the clothes for transportation.
You’re quick to jump to your defence. “I have nothing to do with him.”
Joohyun looks at you, amused. “He’s not a bad person, you know? How long are you going to keep hating him for one thing he did?”
“It’s not one thing,” you groan, averting your gaze to the clothes so as to help her. “I just- he’s so- so- oh come on. You know how I feel about him.”
“I’m just saying you don’t have any reason to. Everyone’s different from what they appear to be. Especially in this line of work.” Joohyun balances the clothes you give her across her forearms.
“So he’s fake. I hate that even more.” You sigh, pulling out the blue silk overcoat, the colour matching Joohyun’s work dress.
“You mean unreal? Models tend to be that way—don’t be so harsh on him, honey.”
You simply shake your head, words entering one ear and out the other. Joohyun presses her lips into a line but lets it go soon enough. She knows you’re capable enough to separate professional from personal and that should be enough. You’re not keeping a tab on something as warming as spite.
You can’t believe you’d ever been within five feet of him without turning your nose. You can’t believe you’d smiled at his jokes once, even if it was just that one night. He was the godsent Prince Charming, just perhaps not yours. Paris surely had a distressing effect on you that year.
You don’t make the same mistake twice.
You walk back to your desk to take a seat and scavenge through your belongings, most of the people already outside. Fashion Week, which once upon a time was a faraway dream, now is part of life—exciting and exhausting. It’s almost always over in a flash, your love for it whisked in peaks of bittersweet. (“You work your ass off for six months and it’s, what, fifteen minutes long?” your mother had asked after you’d brought her to one of the shows.)
This line of work is a nightmare without mental preparation. You have a degree, you have experience and yet it doesn’t feel enough, confidence easier to drain in a person than blood. And you’re not very fond of pale cheeks.
It came to asking yourself if you really have it in you for a few months—a test of sorts everyone puts themselves through at least once in their lives. At that time, your favourite professor, a bald man nearing his retirement years with the wrinkliest face you’d ever seen, had asked you just one question.
Do you love it?
Of course you fucking do.
You couldn’t say that to his face, sure, but you know he saw it in you—either the effort you put out every day of the semester or the way your hands moved across fabric like a machine, your designs made with the persistence of nature. Your final year project landed you an internship at one of the largest clothing brands in Seoul and your internship landed you a job at the same. Your job, well, lead you to Jaehyun, among many other things.
You scowl at the image of his face that appears when you close your eyes, massaging your forehead—it’s hard to not see it everywhere already, from Cosmopolitan to Vogue.
While you were biting your nails in New York, Jaehyun had flown out to Paris with Saint Laurent, one of the younger male models to show his face for the first time. He’d taken the whole place by storm, you had heard from a friend. To say half the world had fallen in love—either with his dimples or his confident walk—would be an understatement. A privilege, to be gold-plated in a mercenary world.
You’d briefly made eye contact at the airport the first time you saw him, a year later, when you were arriving in Incheon and he was leaving it. It was London, that time. For him, Milan. As much as you couldn’t believe living a fashion student’s dream, Jaehyun’s face was truly, unironically much more unrealistic. Your classmates’ gabs and gossip in sewing class had suddenly made sense. You taught yourself to not be swayed by faces, even if they look like they’re stitched together by Aphrodite and Apollo with their bare hands—friendly advice from seniors at the orientation night ‘party’.
You’d met him formally in Paris, after you’d graduated from fashion school. He was certainly the most beautiful face in the room—and you weren’t the only one aware of it. The entire night you’d been starting conversations you couldn’t relate to, till he came along with his charming dimples and a faux connect. You were naive, and a little tipsy. The attraction was obvious, and it had been you by the bathroom pulling him in for a drunk kiss till he’d snapped out of the daze—as if it were some joke you’d been playing. He’d apologized before leaving, like it wasn’t a big deal, with silken lips parted in a gesture of remorse and a short, firm bow. It didn’t settle very well alongside the merlot in your gut.
You. You’re a big deal.
You were alone in a room full of painted faces and he sat atop the throne they worshipped. Why had you expected any more from him—in the understanding nods or the few kind words that escaped his lips? You felt stupid. He made you feel like smiling for the first time that night and you hated him for it—you’re sure he doesn’t care either way. Or maybe he does, with the wonderfully irked responses he graces you with.
Jaehyun made something out of himself in these nine years, just as you have. Runway supermodel to the face of South Korean men in fashion to an entrepreneur, he might as well have a documentary on him—and he would if he didn’t evade paparazzi and reporters like his life depended on it. Enigmatic, the articles wrote. You scoffed. Conceited, more like. After the initial years, he decided to settle in New York, frequently flying to Seoul and other fashion capitals for business and contractual events. Some of those occasionally include your shows.
Having Jaehyun gets more attention but it’s not like you’re a new, doe-eyed kid. Your works have been featured for popstars and foreign celebrities, and you’ve been invited to several interviews with big magazines. You’ve gone global (albeit under the brand’s name) and you’ve been to places you’d only seen pictures of in the very same magazines you looked up to. They can describe your work as unique all they want—and you don’t mean to sound fucking pretentious—but your job is nothing more than an expression of the self. It’s a part of you; you first started sewing patches onto things simply because your closet lacked colour. And eventually, you found yourself searching for more—colours, fabrics, dreams. You’re devoted to your job because you love it, you want to do it. You’re allowed to be a little arrogant about it.
If only trying desperately to be arrogant did something about your insecurities.
You hope your works redefine themes, your need to stand out contrasting with your fear of it. Eye-catching is always your forte; this time it’s fairy tales and royalty in a mix of East meets West.
D-1. Same feeling, new season.
The press is here, you take note. Photographers. Models. Students. Vloggers. It’s a burst of colours down there.
You hate running late, rushing down the stairs to the plaza through the crowds of people. Some recognize you, as they make their way to you but you end up walking a little faster to minimize your presence. You curse yourself for wearing the jacket. It goes nicely with the rest of your outfit and March isn’t supposed to be this hot. You wipe the sweat from your hairline, hoping the makeup is waterproof like it said.
You consider stopping at the café for a fix of coffee but stop when you notice Joohyun holding a bunch of cups by the venue. She doesn’t look too happy about the sun, or the burdening errand of fetching coffee. You adjust her little red beret at her request, smiling at her annoyance but trying your best to keep it hidden. You don’t want to get cussed out by Joohyun.
“Someone tell Doyoung to get his coffee,” Joohyun complains. “I’ve been waiting for half an hour.”
“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” you say, sipping your coffee. The taste fills your senses with a pleasant dose of energy and you hum out a satisfied note. “Why are there so many students out here? Influencers? Did we sponsor this many kids?”
Joohyun shakes her head. “Jaehyun just got here.”
You suppress an eye-roll. “Wonder why he still comes back for Seoul when he’s booked full for New York.”
“It’s his hometown.” Joohyun shrugs. “I’d come back too. Even if I’m paid more out there.”
You finish your coffee and duck into the fitting room, much to Joohyun’s displeasure as she’s left alone again. Doyoung’s in for an earful, you chuckle thinking about it.
It would look like a hell of a mess to anyone not accustomed to this. Everyone is a flurry by themselves alone but if you mix them with the eclectic crowd you find at a Seoul Fashion Week backstage, it’s more of a disaster. A colorful one, at the very least.
New York was worse. You were too young, in a world that was too big. It’s a miracle you even received an opportunity from so big a name. But, you suppose, it hardly matters now.
You no longer live in a world where Seoul is far from Paris. Fashion and art are things unmarked by place of origin.
It’s easy to spot Jaehyun in a corner, two people adjusting his coat for better fitting at the waist. His makeup’s done, you notice as you get closer. Good, you think. If any makeup were to get on the fabric, you’d go feral (although you do have full confidence in the makeup artists here and their choice of product).
“Jaehyun,” you greet. Your co-workers give each other a look before excusing themselves. You raise an eyebrow, too late to stop them. They didn’t finish the looping of the belt properly, you take notice. You wrinkle your nose. Sloppy.
“(name).” He responds with an equal lack of amusement.
You pull the belt at his waist, Jaehyun stiffening at the contact.
“What are you doing?” he asks, looking down at you with a raised eyebrow.
“My job? What do you think, genius?”
Jaehyun presses his lips together and lets you complete the altercations. The chiffon shirt allows you to see the hazed definition of his core, a rather flustering thing to be exposed to for anyone with eyes. When you look up in a moment’s mistake, you’re reminded of why his face is everywhere. Flawless, almost. You hate it. Averting your eyes, you fix the collar so the pattern stands out more. You can feel his eyes over your outstretched hand all the way to your face, subtle as ever. If Jaehyun thinks you’re bothered by it, he’s an idiot for believing so.
You take a step back to analyse the coat. The golden threads are flawlessly detailed, spiraling in patterns of different flowers and vines around the collar, gradually getting larger as they twine at the base of the neck. They meet the polished rhinestone buttons a little lower. You almost smile. You’d sewn each thread and each button in yourself the first time. It hardly looks the same now.
Bright red is an eyesore if you look at it longer than five minutes, you realize. The frown that’s been itching to show up finally does. Suddenly, you’re glad Jaehyun is modelling this piece. You shake your head and look back at his face, from his deep-set brown eyes to his full, tinted lips before pausing. The little Swarovski pearls line strands of his hair in a starry display, perfect in every angle of it. It’s easy to appreciate the human beauty when you see his face, and even if you claim your vehement dislike for him, you’re not a liar nor an idiot.
How infuriating it is, to let things be. Bad blood can only dry to an ugly, unusable brown.
You narrow your eyes at the thinning layer of glitter on his peach-blushed cheeks. He doesn’t exactly need much more of it but the unevenness bothers you.
“Your makeup needs retouching,” you say, frowning. “Did you touch your face? I thought you were a more...professional model than this, Jaehyun.”
“You walked in,” he replies, casually. “I was distracted.”
You feel your cheeks colour. “That’s- that’s not a reason.”
He smiles politely. “I suppose I’ll leave you then. You must have other work to do.”
You hold back a biting remark. His playfulness doesn’t sit well with you; he’s polite just enough to annoy you and straightforward just enough to make you want to throw something at him. He could’ve directly told you to fuck off maybe—but oh no, it’s Jung Yoonoh, seamless and radiant, with only the sweetest collection of words on his tongue. You think of the first time you met, something warm in the corner of your heart. You’d mistaken it, of course.
He didn’t care for you, or any of the people trailing after him and his silver flute, or the rest of the shallow carcass of a world so undeniably obsessed with him. It didn’t hit you till he’d left you hanging, mangled memories of something close to hurt. You’re glad you didn’t kiss him. You wouldn’t be able to get over the embarrassment, the blow to your pride had it escalated any further.
And of course, the one thing he did to make you absolutely certain of his distaste—was simply choose another designer’s work over yours when given a choice. It seems silly, unprofessional even, but the lack of response to your Fall/Winter ready-to-wear collection had been embarrassingly low, someone else’s designs sold out at an equally awful rate. You—your insecurities—wanted to blame your own failings—maybe it was the lining of the coats, or the colours maybe— the fabric? Perhaps, you hadn’t focused on comfort all too well. But it was clear, a word from Jung Yoonoh could change the minds of a fashion-forward youth as easily as his face and physique scored contracts with the biggest brands and labels. And it was clear he didn’t like you very much.
You walk over to the other models, eyes scanning down to the T. You glance over one of Joohyun’s designs, a modern men’s hanbok. The blood red paired with yellow is certainly easing on the eyes, though the shades vary from top to bottom, like a sunset. The dark grey chunky shoes fitted under dark tights complete the entire future oriental look you suppose she was going for. She’s only showcasing two of her designs this year and they’re just before the centrepiece. You shake your head, clutching the fabric of your jacket sleeve. You hate seeing other designs before a showcase, even if they’re a friend’s.
You turn your head to make eye contact with Jaehyun across the room. It takes a few seconds but you snap your head in another direction to break the spell.
How strange. You haven’t had nearly enough coffee to feel jittery under his gaze.
You’re forced to take a breather away from this jungle of liveliness.
The amount of people outside the venue gives you yet another headache. Excited college students and fashion vloggers stand outside expectantly, and you give a short bow and polite ‘hello’ to anyone who approaches. You desperately want to be left alone. Even if it’s for a few seconds.
You walk quickly, your feet soundless against the floor. Your mask performs considerably (and surprisingly) well in hiding you. You consider visiting the Design Market to enjoy a seat alone and charge your phone before it’s show time.
Open spaces. You need open spaces. Suddenly, the DDP seems to be suffocating you despite its tremendous size.
“Hey!” You’re greeted with a sudden force to your right side, an arm wrapping around you. You look up to see Johnny, a wide grin on his face and you let yourself mirror it, shaking your head.
“Big day,” he says. “Want me to take some pictures? I’ve got some time between shows—lovely outfit, as usual.”
It’s strange how Johnny’s the photographer and not the model—you’ve heard he receives a lot of requests to get on the other side of the camera though he always refuses. He doesn’t visit Seoul as often, but he has much to do in uplifting the mood with his strangely effective sense of humour. The coffee-coloured shirt he’s wearing goes well with the plaid grey coat, reminiscent of Fendi’s Spring collection, and sometimes you wonder whether a job as a fashion photographer ever had much to do with his style. Johnny has always been effortlessly impressive.
You politely decline, your mind still focused on the smooth running of things. Nothing’s ever on time when it comes to Fashion Weeks—yes, it’s called fashionably late but it just makes you annoyed. You consider ducking back to your venue, adding some final final touches and any more last-minute altercations. Years have passed and you’re still not used to it, fingers itching to do something about everything. You’re grateful the company gives you your creative space but it only makes you wonder just how far the limits are.
Johnny accompanies you to the charging station till he’s distracted by some of the children in the latest Fendi kidswear and you make a mental note to never bring your kids to Fashion Week, if you ever choose to have them.
You breathe in and out for a few moments, feeling lightheaded before the sense of reality touches on you. People walk in and out of the stores lining the pathways, a soft buzz of conversation in the air as your eyes follow their movement. You wonder if you’ll have your own stores opened in plazas like this—here, in Seoul, and on brightly lit streets of the world outside. After all, colourful dreams are the hardest to get rid of. You sit quietly till you get a text from Doyoung asking you to get your ass over there quickly with several exclamation marks. You smile to yourself. Joohyun might have had a sour effect on him.
You arrive back at the venue, trying to tear your eyes away from anything that might want to make you fix it. You avoid Jaehyun’s eyes even more so, like you’ll jinx something right before it’s showtime.
The buzzing reaches a peak before everything is drowned out.
The show finally starts. And it’s over. Twenty-two minutes, this time.
That’s the way it goes. You hold your breath till you’re sure it’s safe to let go, blind to everything that goes on in between. Sometimes it’s underwhelming, sometimes you can’t give a fuck when you love doing this anyway.
You breathe a sigh of joy when everyone gathers backstage, Johnny making all the models pose together for one giant group photo. It’s like a ritual for him, always finding time for a backstage picture with the models goofing off.
Jaehyun looks at you instead of the camera, a nervous shiver running through you. His gaze is not something of inconsequence, eyes piercing into you with words hanging in the air that you don’t care enough about. You think he sends you a smile, cockier than you’d like. Despite your efforts, you have to look away.
Now, what should your dear Fall collection look like? You exit by yourself, relief humming through your veins when you think of getting back to your apartment, papers to be sketched on in your hands, soft fabric to be sewn on your table. Maybe they’ll display your works in the front rows of the stores, maybe you’ll even have displays outside of Seoul. You’re not a student anymore and your job has taken you enough places.
Even so, Paris and Milan sneak into your dreams often. You used to dream of them so much that it was hard to consider them reality—finding yourself in those streets, in between all those beautiful picture-book monuments.
You prefer Seoul, you decide after conscious thinking. You don’t have to worry about the world outside.
Afterparties are not your thing.
You somehow still find yourself in them, hoping to catch a drunk video of Doyoung for blackmail or make eye contact with an attractive stranger only to stop at exchanging numbers because you never find the time.
It’s a social event. You’re supposed to be doing social things. It’s exhausting.
The last person you expect to bump into is Jaehyun, drinks in hand as he looks down at you with a greeting of surprise on his tongue. He’s wearing a simple dark Oxford button-down, two buttons at his chest undone, and tucked neatly into his pants. His hair looks untouched since afternoon, parted in messy waves, minus the pearls. The music changes to something with slower beats as you stare at each other for a few moments.
“What are you doing here?” You raise an eyebrow. There are other afterparties he could be attending. Big ones.
Jaehyun tilts his head, cracking his neck before smiling. “Charming, as always. I’m here because I want to be here, obviously. So does everyone, I’m sure.”
“Fucking narcissist,” you mutter to yourself. You think Jaehyun might have heard you because you get a dirty look thrown your way, masked with the signature apathy across his relaxed lips.
“That’s a little rich from you,” he mumbles.
The muscle by his mouth twitches but he doesn’t say anything more. This is probably the most emotion he shows, you think. Wouldn’t his lovestruck magazines relish seeing him riled up like this? They’d still find a way to fall in love with him.
You could have, too.
No way. You tell yourself that’s ridiculous.
You’re aware he’s booked for at least three other shows this week. It’s a miracle he agreed to yours, considering your mutual distaste for each other. You suppose it had more to do with his agency than himself but it wasn’t like you were the keener one. Jung Yoonoh is the face professionals look for and your company loves the publicity, although you keep telling yourself your designs would still shine without him.
Jaehyun excuses himself before you can get on with any unpleasant conversation you might have. At least you have something in common—that is, trying to avoid each other as much as possible.
A few minutes (and uncomfortably snaking through swarms of bodies) later, you find Doyoung, unfortunately sober and intending to remain so, people congratulating him with claps on the back for securing the position of PR Head. You think it was supposed to be a secret, but someone higher in the ladder must have spilled early. Joohyun never attends these, and honestly, good for her.
Afterparties are not your thing.
You shouldn’t have taken those shots but you’re on the dance floor now anyway—what more could happen? It’s easier when you’re not paranoid about all the eyes on you, dancing against a stranger with a lion tattooed against his neck. Maybe you’ll go home with him, maybe you’ll leave at the first signs of attraction. Romance isn’t quite on your to-do list, but an occasional intoxication with the skin works just fine. You could live like this for a few moments.
Your back runs into someone else’s rather forcefully and you turn around, apology bubbled up to your tongue already, mixing with the alcohol.
“Oh look.” You roll your eyes. “It’s the prince of high fashion. What can I get you today, sire?”
Jaehyun drives his tongue over his lips, quite definitely over your antics. Soft breaths leave his mouth in a rhythm irrelevant to this box of laughter and blaring music called a party. You love how he never knows how to respond—what new words will he choose to keep false dignity? If you think about it, he’s the embodiment of why you always thought everything was so out of your reach—big names, exclusive parties, not for kids like you. They were never for fashion students too honest to know their own worth.
“Jealousy isn’t a good colour on you,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear.
You scoff, a pang of annoyance sizzling through you. “Jealous? Of who? You?”
You sneer at the last part, Jaehyun’s frown deepening. Some days you just like to think you’ve won. A few moments pass between you two, the sound of pop music filling in the gaps.
Jaehyun presses closer to you, your chests almost touching as your breath hitches in your throat.
“Do you know what makes success?” he says, head dipping lower to look you in the eye. The smell of alcohol disturbs you for a second before your heartbeat gets loud enough to drown it. You try to not focus on how his mouth is so near yours—and perhaps if you were drunk enough, you might commit a mistake against the very core of your being, something you’d been dangerously close to once.
You stay quiet, the pulsing in your ears too loud in the shallow distance between the two of you. You swear it’s always the two of you pressed up like this once you’re drunk enough, the dislike growing stronger and stronger with every breath exchanged. You’ve intertwined each other into a strange garden of contempt, easy to forget when you're facing him. Jung Yoonoh has the prettiest face in the industry, and the only one you can’t bear seeing.
“It’s confidence,” he answers, as slow and steady as ever. “And there’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance I intend to keep. I’m not so sure about you.”
The rest of the night passes without conflict and you retire early, Jaehyun’s breath still hot against your face. Only when you collapse on your bed do you get an urge to shout, yell, anything that doesn’t make you call him up and scream at him. You have your precious dignity too, something he seems to look past. The effect he had on your breathing, the crawling over your skin—God, you hate him. You’re too stubborn to not continue doing it.
“What’s this?” you ask, your eyes darting in between the director of design and Lee Taeyong.
To say you were surprised to see him would be an understatement. You note the simple dark rimmed glasses in contrast with his light dyed hair, the mellow blue of his cashmere sweater sporting his own label’s logo—Lee Taeyong is a household name. You feel yourself shrink the tiniest bit.
This industry’s all about names, you think miserably. You meet people and you remember the ones who can get you ahead. It’s tiring.
Taeyong started his career even earlier than you did, and before he had changed his major to fashion. He’s a little older than you, though he doesn’t look it and he had begun with working exclusively on jackets. Several rejected designs later, he had popped up as one of the designers to look out for in Seoul Fashion Week. Now he has his own global label slowly turning brand, several worldwide stores and everything dreamers in the same place as you look up to. You think you’re fine here, you tell yourself despite that.
The director smiles at you, her hand gesturing rapidly at you to come forward.
“You’re going to be so happy,” she says, signalling Taeyong to continue.
“Uh, hi,” he greets.
A little awkward for a world-class designer, you think.
“I’m Lee Taeyong. You might have heard of me—”
“I know who you are,” you interrupt, ignoring the disapproving look of the director.
“Oh, that’s good!” He smiles. “I’ve seen your work—I’ve been following your work for a few years now…and, well, I’d love for you to work under my label—in a collaboration of sorts. You’ll have full creative freedom, of course! I’m just there more or less for supervision, really…”
You think you feel your heart stop for a few moments, Taeyong’s sudden stream of information fading out. The pinnacle of your career, you believe, had been Paris Fashion Week four years ago and you’d been dreaming of it ever since. This is a business contract, you’re sure, and you don’t know if you have a real choice but maybe you could take that step forward you’ve always wanted to.
“Isn’t that great, (name)?” The director interjects. “You get to work under the Lee Taeyong label. And…surprise! You’ll have your work presented at New York Fashion Week in September. They’ll hit the stores a week later.”
You freeze.
“New York?” you manage to squeak.
“Yep!” Her voice a notch away from annoying. She’s not the first person you’ve met who sounds so goddamn manufactured. “Pack your bags, darling. You’re flying next weekend.”
You must be looking like a deer caught in the headlights because Taeyong opens his mouth to say something, alarmed. You speak before he does.
“Okay,” you say, more to yourself than them. It should be a good thing. It’s supposed to be a good thing. Even so, you feel the anxiety in your ribcage threatening to overgrow into thorns.
“I’ll- I’ll do it,” you clarify. Looking from your manager’s bright yet stern face to the hopeful smile on Taeyong, you don’t think you have much of a choice.
New York, huh. How long has it been? You shudder at the memories, your focus a little off for the rest of the day.
Joohyun visits you a day before you leave. She places the box of chocolates on the coffee table, that Doyoung apparently sent for you.
“You know, I’m really happy you’re getting this chance,” Joohyun says, crouching down beside where you’re splayed, trying to count the travel essentials and everything else on your messy checklist.
“He gets promoted and now he can’t even come visit me, huh?” you say, shifting to grab the box and tear off the clear wrap.
Joohyun laughs. “He’s certainly enjoying his duties. I can’t wait to boss him around again after I leave.”
Your shoulders hunch, a sigh leaving your lips. “Great. You’re leaving. Doyoung’s too busy to annoy. And now I’m a part of this godforsaken project for almost six months.”
Joohyun softens a bit, running her hand through your hair. “I heard you accepted it. All by yourself. You’ll do just fine, don’t worry.”
You feel yourself turn pink, a feeling of warmth you’ve been missing for a week. It’s cozy in your apartment, always the right temperature with a tinge of happy memories. You wish you could find comfort in people as easily as others do. Everything happened so fast, you can barely remember the conversation you had with Lee Taeyong. A few moments pass, Joohyun and you picking out chocolates before you can rummage through your suitcase again.
“I hate New York, Joohyun. Just what else can you throw into the mix to make me hate it even more?”
She freezes for a fraction of a moment, pressing her lips together before clearing her throat. “Oh. Uh. I probably shouldn’t tell you what I was about to tell you then.”
You turn your head to her, eyes narrowing. “What?”
She shrugs, eyes not meeting yours. “You know. New York. Fashion capital of the world. Lots of things to love.”
“What are you not telling me, Joohyun?”
She sighs, defeated. “A certain someone might be on the same flight as you. I was about to give you his number in case you needed help.”
You pause to think, curling your lips. “It’s Jaehyun, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
You groan, dropping your head back and yelping when it hits the coffee table. Joohyun moves to rub your head and ease the pain as you let out a stream of complaints.
“You really thought I’d call him for help?” you yell. “Him? Of all people?”
“I think you’d rather have a known face there. Besides, he’s a good kid,” she reasons, looking you in the eye. “And stop yelling.”
You quieten a bit at her glare, gulping. She adds the number to your contacts, saving it with a professional ‘Jung Yoonoh’ before she helps you clean up, advising you on how to manage your finances abroad. You know she’s trying to ease you, but how could she—after dropping this awful news on you like it shouldn’t matter at all? She doesn’t even know what happened—almost happened in Paris, or the fact that your honeyed feelings had turned bitter so easily. She’s worked with him before, you know this, when he was a much younger model and she trusts him more than you ever could.
But maybe, just maybe she can’t see what you see—after all, she’s also part of the elite, crème de la crème of this industry, more so in this country. It’s frightening, and so vague what goes on up there, at the top of the chain; and whatever you have—it might never be enough.
You’re you. Sometimes, that isn’t enough.
You jump at the water rushing from the shower, too cold for skin and scramble to twist the knob the other way. This time, the water’s too hot and you yelp, shutting it off altogether.
You press your hand against the shower glass, breathing heavy. You’re trying—you’ve been desperately trying ever since you landed a week ago. Change is not something you can take lightly. You miss the dim lights of your apartment in Seoul that Joohyun always warned would get you some brand new prescription glasses. You miss walking down the streets to your favourite convenience store at three in the morning to get honey butter chips. You miss picking fights with Doyoung over which detail to scrutinise during your project discussions. This project seems to have torn apart several things that belonged to you.
You can’t seem to get your head into it either—even spacing out during the meeting you had with Lee Taeyong among several other things. You can’t remember a single design detail he’d specified or what the theme was even supposed to be—a bunch of bright foggy lights replacing whatever fuzz was growing in your head. A twenty-something-year-old shouldn’t be letting homesickness affect them like this.
You finish the rest of your shower with a heavy heart and a clouded head.
Taeyong booking a luxury suite for you was a bit…much. Not that you’re complaining, but it gives more fuel to the profound sense of emptiness you keep drawing. There’s no intimacy to this place, no love. It’s a little hard to create things without love, and comfort.
Still, you grit your teeth and get dressed into something more comfortable for the night. If not today, then tomorrow. Something will have to give, even if it costs you—whatever the hell your parents keep telling you when you’re going through problems. What if you don’t want to be cost things? Compromise isn’t as delicate as it sounds. You try to comfort yourself, rocking yourself on the much too large couch, hugging a pillow close and trying to think of things that don’t immediately make you want to throw up.
The memories of your first visit are a little less than pleasant. You think you cried after the entire ordeal because you thought you did a bad job of talking, socializing, the most ordinary things. There are some people who are good at wearing masks—good at making copper look like gold, good at shining under dim lights, and good at using words that don’t have much meaning to their existence other than being pretty.
You were not one of them.
The intense need for everything to be perfect was still there, even when you couldn’t possibly have achieved it. You wanted to make things and show them to the world—what was so wrong with that? Why did being there make you feel like you could never even touch your dreams? You were so out of place, feeling completely out of touch with yourself. There were people from the top there, established and famous. It felt out of your grasp. You felt fake.
The city lights twinkle with life but there’s no sound, the windows shut tight. The ambience of the room is kept to a caramel minimum—the best you can do to honour your sweet little home back in Seoul.
The hatred for everything pretentious was born with your first step into this place, into the game that the big boys play. It showed in your designs, your choice of fabric, your distaste for certain people. You wanted reality—you wanted a taste of life in your everyday clothes. You wanted that flavour you feel on your tongue in a room full of strangers or the one on a quiet night by yourself at your apartment rooftop. You didn’t want dignified fur coat ensembles, you wanted the naive chaos you feel every day and you wanted to make it look good. It’s driving you insane just how much you feel like you’re losing now.
You take out your phone after what seems a few minutes of contemplation.
Jung Yoonoh. Your finger hovers over the call button. What would he say if his night is interrupted by your voice?
You’d met at the airport after landing, though you were only two seats away in the plane. You’d made no error in acknowledging his presence, browsing through the inflight magazine half-heartedly. Truth be told, sometimes you couldn’t really seem to get over him. Sometimes the thought of him made you so pissed, you had no idea what to think of it.
“Welcome to New York,” he had said shortly after you’d exited, a giant crowd of people greeting out-goers, holding up placards with names of people, in numbers you’re unaccustomed to. Or, used to be accustomed to.
You hadn’t talked since—and really, you weren’t expecting to.
You press your home button, any lingering thoughts of him vanishing at the force with which you tell yourself it’s not worth it. How is Jung Yoonoh better than anyone else you know here? He might have been living in New York for quite a few years now, and he’s probably the only one you’d feel comfortable enough to swear at—that doesn’t mean you’d actually ask for help. That doesn’t mean he’d actually help. Joohyun must have had her hopes far too high to have convinced you for even a moment.
The couch feels colder all of a sudden, and you turn down the air conditioner. This place will never adjust to you, and your stubborn little self won’t either.
You think of Jaehyun from the afterparty, loose shirt and knowing eyes, and you wonder if he feels just the same frustrated agony, if not more. You think of his parted lips and breathing words close enough to be provocative, discomfort growing at the base of your stomach. Who does he think he is? He might have the airs and dignity of someone way up in the hierarchy of society but you know what people can be like. You know envy, you know malice, and you know lies. He has to fit in there somewhere—and perhaps you would have hated him less if he did.
Even if you’d scoffed at the idea of jealousy, that might very well be the closest to what you feel, what you keep hidden in the darkest corners of your locked chest. When you first met at that star-spangled dinner, you’d felt what it’s like to watch a fireworks show or a big musical opening; but the fireworks are being blocked by skyscrapers and you’re only the helping staff at the theatre, watching from a balcony at the very back. Jaehyun was impressive with barely any words. It annoyed you so much and somehow, the only solution you arrived at was the tremendous need to understand him, pick him apart and see what made him.
No. That’s wrong. You were annoyed because you still wanted to kiss him after he’d pushed you away, his dislike steaming clear. It strikes you as gently as lightning that the only reason someone would have to hate Jaehyun is being attracted so violently to him. God, you hate making a fool out of yourself.
You pass the night in quiet contemplation, promising yourself a better tomorrow. After all, no one else is going to do it.
You walk with your chin up as if you don’t feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. You picked out your black Harrington jacket to look at least a little more professional, but you might have miscalculated the size and the material in the equation because you look completely and utterly ridiculous in it. No one would look at you and think you even work in fashion, much less be competent in that line.
(To be fair, you wear the same beige sweater and black corduroy pants to work and if your coworkers choose to judge you, you wouldn’t blame them.)
It’s only been a month and somehow, it translates to forever to you. You think you’re adjusting better now, and you pat yourself on the back for it. It’s not raining today at the mercy of the skies, a tidal wave of sunlight splashing through the buildings every time you take a turn. The city doesn’t scare you all that much anymore. It’s a good day, for once.
You lean your head against the car window, eyes trailing up and down the reflective blue of each skyscraper. You can barely see any clouds, and the sky’s endlessly the same, comforting blue. Just like back home, you think for a moment. Your eyes move back to the sidewalk, people passing by—mothers with their babies in strollers, kids clutching the strap of their school bags as they run, men and women in all levels of professional clothing. No one stops in this city. Except the fucking traffic apparently.
You sigh, glancing at your watch. Only moments ago, you were moving and yet again, you’ve stopped. The cycle keeps repeating and you’re trying to keep patience focusing on things around you that you can appreciate.
Maybe you jinxed it when you said it was a good day.
You reach Taeyong’s studio just in time (not that you’d get yelled at or anything, he’s too nice of a guy). Your eyes fixate on the numbers that light up on the elevator one by one till it finally reaches the first floor.
You walk right into someone’s chest, an apology tumbling out of your lips as you bow out of habit.
“(name)?”
You look up to find Jaehyun in the elevator of Taeyong’s building, a casual white shirt clinging to his frame that’s tucked into his jeans to look somewhat formal. A pink overshirt hangs at his forearm and from the windswept styling of hair and his perfected dark locks, you’ll assume he’s here for a shoot—even without it, he looks like something from a teen magazine, someone people would see and instantly daydream of. Best known for high fashion, Jung Yoonoh is still a spectacle in casualwear.
“I can’t believe I have to see your face here too,” you mutter, getting into the elevator. You’ve had your share of moments with him.
“Good to see you too,” he says, bemused.
You make a sound of acknowledgment, taking out your phone to turn the damn notifications off so you don’t feel it vibrate in your pocket every few minutes. You feel eyes on you for a moment and snap your head to the side.
Jaehyun has his eyes focused on the door, quiet breathing fresh against his lips and you hesitate before concluding you might have been mistaken in your perception.
“You’re here for a shoot?” you ask, curious about his relationship with Taeyong.
“What else can I be here for?” He says nonchalantly.
“Sarcastic. Very nice.”
“It’s a little weird, you trying to make conversation with me. You’re usually raving about me too much to actually talk to me.” He smiles, the dimples provoking and eyes the familiar beguiling brown.
“I’m not trying to make conversation,” you hiss, crossing your arms. “I’m sorry, I forgot you’re only a person in front of cameras.”
Jaehyun takes a sharp breath before turning to you, a not-so-happy look on his face despite the calmness over his features. You’ve seen it enough times.
“How long are you going to keep up the pretentious this and pretentious that before you face it, really?” He looks at you with tight lips, poisonous implications in his question. “Why you love to get up in my case all the time?”
The words take time to settle in. You shake your head when you realize, a sardonic laugh leaving your lips. Of course he’d think that.
“Oh my god,” you scoff. “You’re so full of yourself. You think I’m interested in you? Don’t let what happened years ago get to your head.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Oh, what did you mean then? Pray tell.”
“First of all, stop cutting me off,” he says, taking a step towards you. A certain feeling of uneasiness runs through you when you detect annoyance in his quiet statement.
“Secondly,” he says, taking a another step forward just as your back hits the wall of the elevator, “Stop treating me like I’m the bane of your existence. I have nothing to do with you.”
He’s right, of course, but the words sting where they hit. Asshole, you think. He has no business telling you what to do and what not to do. But in this moment, you can’t fish for the correct words—you don’t have the strength to when you’re so close to each other like this, the scent of his cologne syrupy and sickening. His tall stature is intimidating, with his straight shoulders and proud jawline.
The elevator dings at the seventh floor, Jaehyun stepping away from you without a glance or care, striding out just as smoothly as on a runway.
You take a moment to breathe, unsaid words burning holes into your tongue. You wish you could’ve said something better, anything that didn’t make you feel so pathetic. Maybe you should’ve told him to stick his words up his ass, sounding vulgar being the least of your worries. You wait patiently to reach the last floor, each ding souring your mood little by little.
You are so glad you didn’t call him that night. To think he’d ever help you knowing it’s mutual, the whole hating each other’s guts. You just can’t believe the audacity of him—to accuse you of, what, romantic feelings? In an industry where you can’t tell apart gold from copper? Where all the people warming up to you are fair weather friends and competitors? He must have let all that attention get to his head. Runway faces aren’t as easy to fall in love with as he thinks.
“(name)! Come quick!”
Taeyong’s voice urges as soon as you enter and you settle your bag down, rushing to him. His smile drops when he sees your seething figure place your bag on the desk with a loud thud. You turn to him, without a hint of sweetened formality and ask him the day’s schedule.
Taeyong gulps before responding, undoubtedly afraid of your lips, a twitch away from a scowl, but he explains nicely nonetheless.
“Can you do a rerun of these designs for me?” he says, arranging the papers on the desk. That’s how he says these need improvement. No wonder the interns love him.
Taeyong’s in his usual attire, still too chic for you but strangely comfortable to look at. You nod, immediately scrutinising them, your (almost pointless) years of training trying to give you hints as to where you went wrong. You’re not really expecting to find big flaws or anything—just details you can enhance. You’ve learned enough about Taeyong in a month and it’s that his sense of style encompasses comfort, even in the most abstract of concepts. You respect him for that. It doesn’t change the fact that you think it’s a little overdone maybe.
Taeyong laughs, breaking you out of your daze. You raise an eyebrow.
“Is- Is something wrong?” You look at him, perplexed.
“It’s just that- It’s just you remind me a lot of the fashion students.” He smiles at you.
Your shoulders droop. Amateur. New. Unprofessional.
“Oh.”
Taeyong rephrases himself quickly, waving his hands about. “I don’t mean it as a bad thing! It just means you still…love doing it.”
It sticks with you longer than you’d expect, as you work throughout the day. You think Taeyong is too nice to criticize you properly but he eventually gets the point across—stick to the theme, written in Taeyong’s dainty handwriting and pinned to the softboard.
Secrets.
What an atrocious concept. Firstly, it makes no sense apart from sounding like a fucking lingerie collection. Secondly, when you went over Taeyong’s designs with the layers and patches, you supposed he wanted to focus on the inside of things because everything he’d drawn was inside out. Thirdly, when you heard him explain it, you were a little taken aback to hear it was going to be all about you, us. The designers, the models, the photographers, the magazine editors—there are millions and millions of people working to make sketches come to life, for a few items of clothing in someone’s closet. It feels nice to hear that from him. You promise you’re going to perfect it.
And perfection is your dear old friend.
It’s what you always strive for, but end up with something else that’s a little less beautiful. You take slow breaths, removing and adding details (after all, art is in the details). But perfection can easily grow tiresome. It makes you increasingly frustrated and you don’t think you have the heart to tell Taeyong everything in his studio stresses you out.
“So, you’re working with Jaehyun?” you ask, trying to look less antsy.
Taeyong blanks out for a moment before responding. “Yes. Why? Is he- Is he making you uncomfortable?”
Uncomfortable wouldn’t even begin to explain what he makes you feel.
“No,” you deny. “Just curious.”
Taeyong smiles. “We usually work on summer shoots together. It’s like tradition.”
“That’s…nice,” you say, trying to reciprocate his smile.
“Oh, but we’re having terrible weather so the shoots keep going longer than planned. That’s why I’m having to compromise planning time with you. Sorry about that.”
You try to keep your posture despite the mild annoyance brewing at the back of your head. Great. Now you have to see Jaehyun’s unbelievably annoying face every time you walk in. Maybe if you plead enough, you’d get permission to leave early and not want to throw some insults at him.
You decide to walk, despite Taeyong insisting his driver help you get home. He doesn’t act like it but he’s a busy man, with side projects and interviews coming up so often you lose count. It’s no wonder he had to, and you hate using this word, hire someone for the label’s next venture. You think articles like Lee Taeyong loses touch and hires designers instead of doing his job would make him upset but he seems to genuinely not let it bother him. It’s about ideas to him. His label, almost large enough to be a brand, is for ideas; what a pretty thing to base your business around. While you thought you were a big shot back in South Korea, you’re almost nothing more than Lee Taeyong’s co-designer—assistant here.
You feel drops of what you felt years ago trickling down your throat. Overshadowed. Powerless. Imposter. Something about New York makes you want to pull all your hair out. You wish you hadn’t been here in the first place, maybe then this would seem more of a fun trip than memories weighing you down. But then if you hadn’t been here, you might not have even started.
You hug yourself at the sudden downpour, clouds kind enough for it to be nothing more than showers but you’re soaked anyway. Kind, but still a little cruel. Running under the eaves of a store, you curse yourself for not bringing an umbrella the only day you needed it. You stand there for a while, just breathing.
Real life is never like movies, is it? Cameras lie. Pretty faces lie. Sometimes you end up stuck in New York rains without an umbrella or a friend to call or a lover to protect you. You end up getting an Uber, taking awfully long to arrive due to the traffic the rain had ensued and try your best to ignore the disgruntled driver mumbling about you wetting his seats.
You still don’t know how the goddamn shower works.
You manage to complete without either scorching your skin off or freezing it to Greenland and back—a feat much more successful than whatever you had going on for today. You slip into the absurdly soft mattress, pillows and covers swallowing you into a state of sleep.
You start the day almost pouring coffee onto Jaehyun’s spotless white shirt. And you might have were it not for immense self-restraint, and the fact that Taeyong’s eyes were trained on the two of you.
“So…are you two…a thing or something?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“No,” Jaehyun responds calmly while you sputter it out.
Taeyong apologizes, a laugh following. “You seem to have worked together before. Jaehyun, you never told me that.”
“I…I thought you knew,” he answers, leaning back against the tabletop.
“Ah, well,” Taeyong shrugs. “Thanks for helping me out with this, (name). Maybe- maybe we can draw some inspiration for the collection from outdoors.”
“Of course,” you say as you smile wide, trying hard not to break the coffee mug in your hand.
If you’re being honest, you had a gut feeling you’d be asked to help with Taeyong’s (apparently) infamous summer shoot. He walks into his studio every morning with hair in a disarray, talking to more people than he might enjoy and the entirety of New York weather against him. There’s only so much time a man can have and under pressure, he’s going to have to choose. It’s easy to feel sorry for someone like him.
This should be the stylist’s job. Jaehyun stands with his chin up as you adjust the fitting, smoothing out creases and making sure the cerulean shirt is pinned right, satin feeling cool and nice under your fingers. Sleeveless is back in trend this summer, and so are low-cuts.
“Careful there,” he says when you hand brushes a little lower, just below the full-grain leather belt.
You hope your face isn’t steaming from the rush of heat but you manage to limit your emotions to a sound of discomfort, remembering the horrendous accusation he’d thrown at you. “I don’t care about your dick, twit.”
Jaehyun laughs, bending a little to whisper. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
“You look like you’re having a wonderful time making me uncomfortable.”
“You’re just so easy to work up.”
His dimples are getting on your nerves. You reach up to button his collar, perhaps a little too harsh because he chokes, an uncharacteristic sound leaving his mouth as he winces. You suppress a smile, glad you managed to do something about the look on his face.
The sunlight over this park feels like Christmas come early, with the way Taeyong is flitting from model to model and stylist to stylist with the intensity of a five year old after an ice-cream truck.
“Is he- Is he usually like this?” you ask, eyes on the makeup artist getting directions from Taeyong.
“I just assumed all of you are this way,” Jaehyun, responds looking at the same sight.
You roll your eyes. “We’re not all crazy.”
Jaehyun raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe a little bit,” you correct yourself, watching Taeyong almost trip over someone’s bag in order to greet the magazine’s style director.
Jaehyun chuckles, eyes meeting yours for a moment before the two of you go about your own business.
You like magazine shoots for the most part. You never find a glass of water anywhere, but some intern or the other will definitely be there to fetch you Starbucks. There’s at least three people fussing over each model and at least two exasperated photographers trying very hard to snap clean shots. The stylist and designer look as though they might explode any minute, although the relief on their faces after it’s all over is something worth looking at. The skies are so bright and blue, you think, for a cosmopolis. The trees and shrubs lining the park are in a state of tranquility compared to the chaos it encircles.
Magazines might not be as important in an age of social media advertisement, almost part of nostalgia now—but maybe some of you are not yet willing to deny kids the thrill of reading a magazine under their blankets in the middle of the night. It often gave hope to little boys playing dress up and little girls sewing their own clothes.
You’d forgotten just how exhausting shooting with magazines is. The models must be having it worse but their masks don’t come off easy. If you had ever underestimated their job difficulty, it comes back to throttle you at full speed every time you’re at a shoot.
Looking good in front of a camera is pretty damn hard.
They don’t even get to keep the clothes, unless some asshole of a designer decides to pay them in apparel instead of actual money. Most models leave New York in debt. Men are paid even less than women. You’re surprised Jaehyun is as celebrated as he is—or the fact that he was clever enough of a businessman in launching his own high fashion-themed restaurant. You’ve heard he barely visits it, like a careless afterthought. But you’re not one to get carried away by sketchy articles on the internet. All you’ve needed are more reasons to hate him.
You sip the iced coffee, its effect pretty much worn out during humid afternoons. It’s time for a break, but no one’s willing to break momentum. You find yourself feeling a little awkward, as nothing more than a guest with creative advice, and so you sit under the comforting cool of the giant green umbrella at one of the tables. You could sink into your chair were it not so damn uncomfortable.
Jaehyun takes a seat right beside you to your surprise, offering you a box of diced mango before you fervently decline. You still think he’s an asshole. It doesn’t make any sense—why accuse you of unsaid affections and then flirt with you like he never said it? It’s not like you’re even friends, how ridiculous. There are quite a few jerks you’ve met in your life, but Jung Yoonoh really takes the cake.
“What?” you snap when his gaze gets on your nerves.
“I didn’t say anything.” He raises his hands defensively, eyes still on yours. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“I enjoy the air conditioned suite Taeyong booked me more than this, yes.” You sigh, leaning back. “I don’t really have anything to do.”
“I’m assuming he booked you the luxury suite on the fifteenth floor,” he says, chuckling.
You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not impossible that Jaehyun knows Taeyong’s favorite suite to book for guests.
“The view’s pretty nice from there, right? Oh, and you must be enjoying the silence.”
“I actually like the outside sounds,” you defend. “It’s calming.”
“Not when you’re on the third floor,” he says, shoving a piece of mango into his mouth with a fork. “All you hear is middle aged men screaming.”
You rest your elbow on the table, placing your chin against your palm. The shade is separated from sunlight by a thin line against his chest, pale blue satin glimmering where the sun meets it. Jaehyun’s eyes shine a darker hue of honey under the shade, moving to the box in his hands occasionally before trailing back to the background noise again. Taeyong really does love pretty fits, but this might just be one of the most gorgeous pieces you’ve seen this summer (and you’ve already been through all the ready-to-wear lookbooks you possibly could). A thought passes you in a breeze, that maybe it's the model making it seem that way.
“You’re talkative today,” you note quietly, the sun harsher on your cheeks than before.
Jaehyun shrugs, hurrying to finish all the pieces. He suddenly pulls a face, one you don’t see very often in high fashion websites and Instagram pages. It’s almost cute.
“Sour.”
You find yourself laughing, a gentle influx of peace filling the inside your chest. You quickly recover, looking back up to see Jaehyun simply staring at you, breathing. He looks caught off-guard, no camera to warn him. You straighten, your cheeks flushing with heat.
“Is- Is something wrong?”
He immediately shakes his head, more to himself than you. There’s a pause before the two of you are happily distracted. The style director appears to be gesturing at him from the other side and Jaehyun responds with a curt wave.
“You’re doing two different concepts today?”
“Three, actually.”
You raise your eyebrows. Well, they’re definitely taking advantage of the good weather. They could just photoshop it, in your opinion, but authenticity is everything when it comes to magazines nowadays.
“Well, don’t let me hold you back,” you say, your tone dismissive. “Go get changed into whatever pretty shirt Taeyong has up next in his collection.”
“The next shoot doesn’t have a shirt,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirked upward.
You almost choke on your coffee, blaming the heat for your weak state of mind. You’re just having one of those strange days—just that, nothing else.
You finish the rest of the coffee, cup resting in your hand till you find the energy to get up and find a trash can.
Jaehyun was right. This time the shoot’s a little too wet and a little too much skin for you to enjoy. The only thing added to Jaehyun above the waist are a dainty red scarf knotted over his neck and a small, flat hoop earring on his left ear. The velvet fingerless gloves, although you’re not very fond of them, complete a rather rugged yet soft look. You didn’t expect Taeyong to come up with something like that.
Jaehyun’s well-developed physique, while you’ve seen it in other shoots and online articles, is completely different when you’re a few feet away from it. The dark blue cargo pants, silken, are a signature style of Taeyong but the details don’t distract you easily enough. Funny, this is the first time you’re feeling somewhat flustered in a place full of half-naked models.
You suddenly think of reds and oranges, lilac shrubs and a hint of Burberry men’s perfume. In a way, it reminds you of the strums of the guitar your roommate used to play while you stayed up late, coming up with concepts. Cherishing, soothing—and special, just enough. The corner of your lips twitch and you take out your pocket sketchbook. It’s never too late to add a design to the collection, right? After all, you have secrets too. Maybe Taeyong was right about the outdoors for inspiration.
Something sets into motion, subtle but sharp.
The next time you walk into Taeyong’s studio, you feel the sun on your face better. Everything seems to be fitting into place, as you smooth through designs at a pace your student self would be jealous of. When Taeyong praises your work, you feel a rush of pride smearing the inside of your chest and you finally feel like everything’s not falling apart. It feels good. It feels like you’re someone.
The days go by in what seems like barely seconds—you know what they say about New York minutes. The mustard cloth draped over your desk to the cottage blue of your curtains, the colours around you change as quickly as the wind. Sometimes they’re abstract—and other times, well, they have more to do with a stranger’s eyes, or the swirls within a coffee cup. It’s the way in which transition occurs around you, that you often forget it moves something within you too.
You’ve put together some samples with Taeyong, most of them by yourself; the process of making is ever comforting, fabric even more so. You’ve sent the revised designs for production, feeling giddy about whatever is to come like it’s something new. (It shouldn’t be.)
You fucking hate how different this is. Seoul is nothing compared to New York. The anxiety is nearly ten times worse, the streets are far more attractive when it comes to inspiration and the figure of Jung Yoonoh is no longer as easy to ignore.
Even after the summer shoot’s over, Jaehyun often comes by to hang out at the studio, dressed in what you would call the simplest fucking thing you’d ever seen and still managing to look just as gorgeous. He blends in well with university students, often wearing the ugliest baseball cap you’ve ever seen, and the look of his face feels much, much worse than ever before. It’s at ease, smug even, but never failing to smile at you when you’re trying to focus. You don’t care how good of friends Taeyong and Jaehyun are—you want to tell him to leave.
But you just can’t bring yourself to. It’s not that you don’t trust yourself, you certainly do, but whatever New York has done to you, includes making you feel a different way about him. Sometimes you find yourself pressing your legs together harshly, stiffening at any proximity with him and a pool of warmth at the base of your stomach you’d rather not feel.
It’s embarrassing to even think about it—the fact that he makes you feel that way, so hot and bothered like it’s your first time. You blame your lack of going out these few months because after all, anyone could fall in love with runway faces. It doesn’t have to mean it’s him you want. You carry on doing what you’ve been doing for the most part of your career, your best to avoid him. There are more pressing matters, and your head might just implode if you keep on worrying about things (a man, of all) you need not.
Time passes even faster when all your thoughts revolve around the same thing.
One month. D-30. Whatever the hell you call time before the end of the world.
Your palms sweat a whole lot easier here. It’s a little weird, considering you don’t find much difference in humidity between Seoul and New York. Your heart often catches up in your throat too. Not a great feeling, your heart choking the breath out of you, but you’re used to it. You cope and you learn, that’s what it means to be human.
You pull your hand down before it reaches your teeth. The day ended in a meeting with Taeyong’s production team—everything’s running smoothly so you need not worry, he said.
Why are those the words that make you worry the most?
You check the time on your phone. 23:05 and a whole month to go. You better get some sleep for all the meetings you have scheduled tomorrow. You close your eyes and for a while, everything falls quiet.
You dream of New York Fashion Week. People come here to feel included. Everyone wants to be a part of something they don’t understand.
The models walk down the runway in increasingly uncomfortable outfits. You didn’t design any of them. Where are the ones you worked on? You can’t move from your seat, or turn your head from the runway, anything at all. Something’s wrong, everything’s wrong. You don’t belong here. Thunder strikes outside the venue and you wake up with a gasp caught in your throat, and the clock on the bedside table flashing 2:14.
You’ve had enough. You swear you’ve had enough.
You get up out of bed, pacing the giant bedroom, the empty spaces making you feel more and more miserable. The city twinkles with innumerous stars beyond your window, curtains half drawn so they can comfort you whenever you need—but these lights don’t shine for you, or anyone else. They shine for themselves. That’s what it means to be in New York again.
What time is it in Seoul? Could you call your mother? Joohyun? Everyone must be busy right now—you don’t know what to do. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt so helpless. There’s a reason you’ve been avoiding New York for this long and now it’s come crashing down on you.
This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake.
You look down at your phone, the light hurting your eyes despite being set to the lowest brightness. You think a little, and then some more. There’s no one else you can call. Even if he’s busy charming all the other employees whenever you see him, even if half the world is in love with him, there’s no one else you can call. This time you don’t stop yourself.
You tap the call button beside the Jung Yoonoh saved neatly. Tapping your foot against the floor nervously, your mind goes blank for a few seconds or so. He answers when you’re just about to hang up, breath hitching in your throat at the sound of his voice.
“Hello? Hello? If this is a reporter—”
“It’s me, Jaehyun.”
The line goes quiet for a moment and your voice overlaps his before he can begin.
“I- I didn’t mean to call so late. Sorry…uh.”
You scrunch up your face at your own voice. This is not getting you anywhere.
“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice lower.
You fall silent, unable to answer without breaking down into tears. You did not call Jung Yoonoh for that.
“Yeah,” you choke out. “Fine. Completely fine. I just…”
You trail off, trying to get yourself to breathe.
“I’ll send you an address. Be there in an hour.”
You blink back tears, confusion adding to the burning pile of worries inside your head.
“What?”
“Address. I’ll text you. Be there. One hour.”
“I’m not stupid, Jaehyun,” you snap, strength refilling your voice. “Why?”
“I’m not answering questions, just be there.”
With that, the line goes flat and an embarrassing amount of ‘hello’s get you to realize that he hung up. A notification pops up a minute later and you’re too groggy to decipher it, logging it to Maps instead so you can follow. It’s fifteen minutes away, you realize with a sigh of relief, so you can at least present yourself within the given constraint.
You can’t grasp what you feel in the moment, the night air and warm streets beckoning you to leave the clamped apartment soaked in fear. You think this is unlike Jaehyun, what he’s doing, but you’re too shaken to care. You need some respite, even if it comes from somewhere you can’t picture.
“You…wanted to meet me at a Korean barbecue restaurant?”
Jaehyun’s ears turn red, as they often do when he doesn’t know how to respond to you.
“I-It’s not that I…Never mind,” he tries to explain, fidgeting with the cloth over his shoulder. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”
We? You think, eyes scanning his face in confusion. If you want? Where’s the uncaring Jaehyun you’ve known, foreign eyes and impassive lips? He hardly looks the part he’s meant to play—a billboard face with a confident jawline and nothing more behind it. Outside of work—you don’t even know what else to call this—Jaehyun looks hardly intimidating, or abrasive. He seems different, gentle almost, although the dark circles under his eyes might have something to do with it. Maybe he’s too tired to say anything more and that’s it.
But he still came all the way here.
“Aren’t you a little…overdressed?”
There comes the remark you were hoping to not hear. You just wanted to look nice; you’d hardly call this overboard. The loose, mustard-colored chiffon shirt cinches at the waist, paired with your nicest (only not faded) pair of light blue jeans and shoes that haven’t seen the light of day since you arrived here. You barely ever design clothes for yourself anymore but you thought you looked good in this.
“No,” you defend quickly, feeling your face grow warm. “You’re underdressed.”
You say that, but he clearly looks good in anything he wears. Could you expect any less of a supermodel? He doesn’t seem to have dressed in as much a hurry as you had. Clad in a plain black T-shirt that’s half tucked into skinny jeans, he’s added his hideous baseball cap and a pair of navy blue shades which looks just as ridiculous as it sounds. You really think he shouldn’t be leaving his house without the help of a stylist.
“I…I just mean you don’t wear anything other than the same sweater and pants combination to work, so… please excuse my surprise.”
Jaehyun's eyes flicker over your figure before masking it with an awkward cough. You reach out and pull the shades over his head, the look bothering you more than anything else. He doesn’t respond to it, at least not in a way that’s obvious, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to do—you fixing his hair and unquestionably awful sense of style.
“There’s a soju place a few blocks ahead. Or if you’re not into that, there’s a noodle shop just at the edge of K-town,” Jaehyun rambles on, not meeting your eye. “If you’re looking for something inexpensive—"
“You came all the way here to give me directions?” You raise an eyebrow. You might even be enjoying this, although your inner voice bites back at you, denying it.
Jaehyun shakes his head, the red in his ears pulsing back up. “No. I…I needed some fresh air.”
“You…have someplace to be then?”
Jaehyun might not realize it, but the answers he gives always have room for teasing. Aloof. Vague. Yet somehow sweet.
“And you’ll go alone? At this hour? No, I’ll accompany you,” he says out loud, trying to play off the sudden vocal inflection. You sigh. Boys will be boys, as they say. Even if they’re twenty-six.
You let him keep you company. Though the first few minutes are painfully quiet, neither of you knowing quite what to say without starting a disagreement, you continue your walk through a city that never sleeps. It’s awkward even, being side by side without you seething at his charming, (undoubtedly) fake smile. He feels real, for once, and you don’t know how to react. There seem to be some gold-tinted cracks appearing in your reality, slowly but surely, and you’re not very good at patching anything other than fabric.
“You know, it’s actually a little relieving to see Korean letters here,” you say, sighing. You never thought you’d be so corny, but it really does feel good being here.
Or is it him?
“Thanks,” you add quietly, hoping he doesn’t hear. No, maybe you do. You can’t tell at this point.
“I…I know what it’s like,” he says, so softly that it almost gets carried away by the wind. He clears his throat, an ‘ah’ escaping his lips as he stops abruptly.
“We…We missed the turn,” he declares, a little sheepish as he scratches the back of his head.
You look at him in disbelief. “Jaehyun, how long have you lived here?”
“Oh, I was born here actually,” he says, tilting his face to look at you, blunt sarcasm evident on it. “How many times have you lost your way to the convenience store in Seoul?”
“Literally zero times.”
Jaehyun puffs a cheek before going back to normal and turning a hundred and eighty degrees down the street.
“Hey, wait up!” you huff at his increased pace, half jogging to keep up.
You reach the acclaimed noodle shop, your breath barely within your lungs and swearing at Jaehyun who looks like he wasn’t bothered one bit. He reaches his hand out to help you and you swat it away, chest still heaving with your hands on your knees.
“Dickhead,” you hiss.
“I don’t think I deserved that,” he responds with a widening smile.
“Asshole,” you say, standing up straight to glare at him.
“What would Seoul say hearing their beloved designer swear like this?” Jaehyun looks almost amused, as if you hadn’t shared an awkward time together, like two teenagers who were forced to walk home together from the bus stop.
“They can go to hell,” you retort. “As can you.”
Jaehyun laughs, a strange sound to hear and you blink a few times, unsure of what to do. You wonder if it’s the night playing tricks or if Jaehyun really is an actual person, not the basket of preprocessed insults you were used to. The cracks are widening—you’re not sure if they’re meant to be patched.
Perhaps you were a little eager to enter someplace warm, but you feel immense relief in this little shop, despite the smell of chili paste and noodle soup wafting through the air. It’s a little empty; in fact, you two seem to be the only people there apart from some students at the other corner, but you sit there in your own bubble, talking with Jaehyun of all people about which singer is better. He laughs occasionally, still managing to catch you off-guard with how honest it sounds and you wonder for a moment, how nice this feels. For the first time in a month, your heartbeat seems to have settled at a normal rate.
“What?” you enounce, a little offended. “What’s so wrong about my love life?”
“You just- You just don’t seem that type,” he explains, his ears as red as the bowl.
“I don’t have time for commitments, Jaehyun,” you sigh. “It’s what happens when you’re good at your job.”
Jaehyun nods, something akin to agreement in his response.
“So, your, uh, what is it? Training camp? What’s that about?” you ask, in between blowing your food.
“You could really Google things once in a while, you know?” he replies, bringing his chopsticks close to his mouth.
You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not one of your creepy stalkers, Mr. Jung.”
“Nothing to do with that,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s for kids interested in fashion, modeling, photography—stuff.”
“Oh? How so?”
“I just sponsor them. You know how difficult it is to get noticed in…this industry,” he explains, like it’s not a big deal. Nothing ever seems to be a big deal to him.
You nod, unable to help the smile. Maybe it isn’t a big deal, but you’re sure now that you were mistaken. Just a little bit.
“I was lucky,” you mumble. “I can’t believe they saw those ugly embroidered patches and decided to sponsor me, oh my god. That sweater was hideous.”
Jaehyun laughs loudly. “They saw me cleaning outside my school and decided to pick me up and ship me straight to Paris.”
“Nothing’s worse than the first day.” You take another mouthful, the taste savoury and filling.
“You know, I’m pretty sure they photoshopped my ears out in the first magazine shoot I had.”
You laugh, leaning in a little closer. “Your first year was rough, huh?”
He hums, his eyes flickering from your nose to your lips. It makes you a little self-conscious, blood rushing to your cheeks at an unexpected pace. Who knew Jaehyun could have such an effect on you?
Your eyes flutter over his face once again.
He’s handsome. But it’s the sort of handsomeness that tells you, you don’t know much beyond it. You look back at your bowl, sobering up and completing the rest of the noodles.
It’s still midnight blue in the faraway sky as you walk down the streets. Most of the people you see out and about are those drunk off their faces from club hopping or a particularly enthusiastic group of tourists. The watermelon soju, while better with budae-jjigae and arguably the best soju flavor, somehow had little effect on you with the bitter aftertaste still settling in. The crowds in other places would make for great people-watching but you walk in a lonely street that calls for proximity. Beside you, Jaehyun sneezes, the sound of it making you jump on the quiet sidewalk.
“Jesus Christ, Jaehyun,” you huff, wincing at the sound, “you sounded like a fucking tractor.”
Jaehyun laughs, looking down at the pavement. When he looks back at you, the circles underneath his eyes seem to have darkened and you wonder if yours are the same. Yours can’t possibly be as important as his, though, and you wonder if it’s appropriate to laugh at how dorky he looks.
You find yourself not wanting to walk back into the safety of your suite. Jaehyun has a look of calm across his features, drawing over the landscape around you. New York lights don’t faze him, they only reflect in his eyes.
The way his soft breaths fan out against his lips remind you that he is human, after all—he has a soul and body, thoughts and its beautiful intricacies. When he turns back to you, you feel those criminal feelings all over again, except this time it’s even louder. It feels so wrong, and yet you can’t help but think of the liberation that could come with his lips on yours.
You could swear out loud, all the colorful words ready at the tip of your tongue.
“Your collar’s…”
Jaehyun’s voice trails off, his hand moving to fix your flipped collar, and when the heat of his skin brushes your neck, you try to not think of where else his hands could be, his lips could be.
In fact, there’s a moment within where it’s perfectly reasonable for him to kiss you, the taste almost on your tongue. But Jaehyun moves away, an indecipherable look across his face.
“I should get going,” he says, “I have a- I have a shoot early tomorrow—today.”
You nod, cheeks coloring at your own unsaid thoughts. Just what have you done to yourself? Why is your skin searing, why does your stomach feel upside down and why were you so ready to give in to him? To Jaehyun? You’ve never felt want like this before, this need to press skin against skin in a manner so illicit.
You part with a short goodbye, the sudden loneliness in your path making you want to backtrack, ask if you can go somewhere else again—maybe there’s a club nearby so you can see him through a round of shots as you usually do. Maybe the bitter feelings will return then.
When you think of the words you exchanged over the course of so unusual a night—your former unforgiving words contradict you. You hate the realization but being so obscure in front of a camera doesn’t have to mean he’s pretentious. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe someday you’ll even admit it.
You feel a flash of heat in your face. You are not running to Jung Yoonoh—what an embarrassing thought. If the very core of your being isn’t repulsed by it, there’s something wrong with you.
There’s something definitely wrong with you, love.
You breathe sharply, trying to organize your thoughts. As if the paparazzi wouldn’t have a treat out of this meeting you had with him if they got to know. You’d better limit it to the only one.
You bite your nails out of force of habit. It’s not going to help. You know. But there’s hardly anything else to cool your nerves.
Front row tickets to New York Fashion Week—the most mortifying dream out of all the ones you’ve ever had. The way Taeyong fidgets, you want to believe he’s in the same boat as you—it makes you thankful even.
Even outside of New York, Lee Taeyong is known for booking out exclusively intimate spaces. There are some props for the pre-show photography, including inked sketches on giant vertical banners stuck to the walls and tables with a messy collection of coffee cans, pencils and a sewing machine. Diverse types of fabric roll off the table in long strips, gently lining the floor till they end midway to another table. It’s a mess—a mess you made look good.
You’d left that and the backstage behind now. All eyes are on the sparsely lit runway, your aspirations coating the air in a thick veil. Are you ready? You won’t know till the first model steps out and till you can elicit a response from the audience.
Jaehyun’s at another venue—career before friendship, or, heaven forbid, attraction. You’d seen the fitting, cape skirt doing daringly well with his long legs clad in black pants, and a classy vest over a ruffled white shirt. You hate seeing other designs before a show, but god, were you glad you’d visited Givenchy to meet Johnny.
But you’re relieved even, that Jaehyun isn’t here. You don’t have the strength to face him anyway, all your energy directed into this chasm of whatever you’d call six months of effort. You want to call yourself accomplished. You want to be proud of yourself.
So this time, you remember all twenty-six minutes of it.
God, they look so beautiful up there, when they’re being looked at, seen for what they are—you’ll never get over it. There’s still hardly much to remember, except this time you’re happy to do it all over again. Effort only exists if it’s acknowledged.
It settles in quite a while later, the weight of all you’d done. You could almost cry, but that’s better left to pillows and the unrelenting skies above a midnight-coated rooftop. This is your moment. For once, you’re anything but afraid.
Afterparties are still not your thing.
However, you had your nicest outfit picked out and Lee Taeyong’s fancy, themed afterparties are something notorious among your colleagues. You’ve heard designers tend to go all out, wearing the best things they’ve designed even if it makes them a little embarrassed to be wearing their own work.
You feel a sigh leave your lips as you finally find a place to sit, your earlier conversations leaving you drained of social energy. You don’t feel alien—it’s strange—and their compliments feel almost warm. The music playing over the speakers is something, you’re sure, from a 60’s American movie, and while it has its own strange allure, the champagne gives you a larger dose of relief.
In fact, if you’re not mistaken, it’s quite like the ballroom in Paris, although significantly smaller. Burgundy wallpaper and lit up crystals hanging in hexagonal shapes across the ceiling—it’d look lovely on a dress too.
Taeyong’s speech, of course, gives you a spike of anxiety with the sudden announcement of his label’s future, a brand now. He smiles on the small podium, everyone admiring his radiance when suddenly he gestures at you, the glass in your hand feeling hotter and hotter.
“…I couldn’t do this without the only designer I felt was up to this—the first designer to work under my brand, as of now…”
You try not to blush under all the pairs of eyes that turn to you.
“(name), thank you.”
Success feels good. Gratitude feels even better.
Everything feels natural, as if a dream gone right. You’re no longer afraid of the world you stepped into, or the accumulation of feelings that molded you into the person you are now. The confidence you so chased after as if it were morphine, you’re going to be keeping an eye on it before it can run away again.
There’s still one little problem to your night of triumph, though.
Jaehyun hasn’t taken his eyes off you ever since you entered, a conversation yet pending. You already know he looks good in the plainest of T-shirts, so it might be a no-brainer that he looks absolutely stunning in a suit. The crystals lining the lapels of his coat glimmer amidst the crowd he’s gathered. It’s hard to come in contact, however. He’s magnetic, almost formidable in the way he attracts attention, and you know it’s something that comes with being a man of few words.
“You’re not enjoying the party?” you ask, taking in Jaehyun’s figure on the veranda overlooking the garden. He sits on one of the mahogany chairs, swirling the glass of champagne with a look of indifference coating his eyes and lips.
“I am,” he says, turning to face you. “Needed a short break.”
“I suppose being the most attractive man in the room needs a break,” you say, taking a seat beside him.
A wry laugh leaves his lips, as he lays his eyes on you. “You don’t seem bothered by it though?”
“I believe that pretty is as pretty does,” you say, your lips twitching.
Jaehyun smiles, furrowing his eyebrows yet still. “You think multimillionaire companies are built on things like inner beauty?”
He’s right. What’s inside is beautiful—it’s too idealistic a phrase. You sigh, adjusting your sleeve. It’s a difficult life, walking the runway no one dares to step on.
I think you’d make that cut too, you want to tell him.
“You know the best thing I got told today?” you ask, diverting the stream of conversation. You think he’s a friend. Even if it could be the champagne talking. Even if you want something more than the innocence of friendship.
Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “Did Cristóbal Balenciaga’s ghost show up to compliment you?”
“No,” you emphasize, laughing at his pronunciation. “It was this girl. A student. Said she wrote an essay about me.”
Jaehyun hums, dimples marking his cheeks. “I didn’t know a student could get you so giddy.”
You laugh, looking down at your hands before resting your gaze on him again. He leans forward in his seat, strands of hair falling over his face from the rest and a contemplating look over his features. He looks much, much different from when you first saw him, and even handsomer, if that were possible. He’s grown up from the awkward boy you saw in the press release pictures of the Saint Laurent Fall Collection—he looks sharp and valiant on front covers, his shoulders broad and his eyes darling. Jaehyun is still unironically the most breathtaking man you’ve ever met. He might even be one of the sweetest, inside out.
You look to his lips, full as ever. Perhaps you have something to confess. Secrets aren’t meant to be kept so long.
“Jaehyun,” you call, bringing his attention before faltering. It’s not like you’re the only one fawning over his smile. You get up instead, excusing yourself. “I’ll see you inside I suppose.”
“You know I like you, right?”
You turn around. “What?”
Jaehyun gets up, brushing his suit and fixing the lapels. The gentle night haze and the contrasting calls of the brightly lit party inside brush over an effect you’ve never felt before. “I…I like you. It’s pretty straightforward, I think.”
You deny it, or rather, some repressed little emotion inside you denies it vehemently. “Jaehyun, really. I admit I was a complete asshole to you and- and...it was…kind of you to accompany me that night but—”
“Stop. Don’t- Don’t call that kind. You’re not seeing the full picture.”
You stand there, unsure of what to do as you feel your chest grow warmer. Jaehyun turns his head upwards, letting out an audible breath. You can see conflict on his face, the struggle of someone still mulling over the perfect words.
“I don’t hate you. I never really hated you even if I wanted to.”
You suppose it wouldn’t be the right time to say that you might have indulged in that.
“I did,” you confess. “I hated you for a very, very long time, Jaehyun.”
“I know,” he whispers, looking straight at you. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging—”
“Jaehyun, I don’t care about that,” you say, your voice rising, “You told me you felt suffocated in bow ties and laughed when I asked if you wanted to run away with me. I just ended up thinking you were a goddamn liar.”
“Fine,” he says quietly in his baritone timbre, sounds of the chatter from inside numbing away. “Then let me be honest.”
“When I met you, I thought there was someone like me doing just the same—so…suddenly in the midst of everything. Even if you were a complete asshole to me. You were still real.”
He phrases it delicately, lilting, as if that hasn’t been your whole purpose here. He’s only a breath away from you, but you don’t want to push him away this time. There’s a moment’s pause.
“Between work and myself, which is more important? For once, I thought I could answer that question.”
Your breaths are soft and shallow as they fall, trying to understand his words.
“And then you just fucking stopped. You stopped flying out and I’d barely see you outside of Seoul like you- like you gave up or something. I didn’t understand—what happened to you?”
Jaehyun looks at you with a hardened expression, ears turning red as if he hadn’t expected this outburst of truth. He gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. It’s not like him to open his mouth and let out words that are raw and honest; it makes you feel the weight even more. You were still kids that night. You’re not anymore.
“Jaehyun,” you whisper before reaching your hand out and placing it against his cheek.
It’s so hard to not take in the details. The prominence of the muscle by his mouth when he speaks, the fine lines by his nose which appear sporadically or the look of complete reverence in his eyes when he’s staring at you like this—everything those runway shots can’t possibly capture. Your eyes trail to his lips, your own drawn to it with a desire you don’t know how to comprehend—and don’t quite wish to, either.
You want to believe he made the first move but you give in so easy, it’s alarming. Your lips move against his in a rhythm new and frantic, his hands gripping you with full strength at the waist and you part your lips to allow a deeper kiss. Your hands are free to roam his perfectly styled hair, tousling it in a fashion that makes him groan, only to push you harder against the wall.
“I should’ve- I should’ve let you kiss me that night,” he mumbles against your lips. “Maybe I…I wouldn’t have made you hate me.”
“Maybe you should shut up and kiss me right now,” you respond, your tongue pressing against his, effectively doing the job.
It’s not difficult to see stars when his hips press against yours, his hand resting on one thigh to pull it up slightly. You feel the impact of it head-on, almost moaning out loud when his fingers press harder against the back of your thigh.
“Tell me- Tell me you want this,” he breathes out when he breaks the kiss.
You respond with reconnecting your lips, your tongue sliding against his in fervent affirmations. You’ve already forfeited your modesty, there’s no reason to stop.
You leave early, getting into the car you’d booked for the night. It would be far more embarrassing were it not for the separation between the front and backseats, when Jaehyun’s hands are up your clothes and his lips rough against your neck. The lip colour has smudged by the side of Jaehyun’s lips, a short giggle escaping you when you notice. It’s not enough to halt the kissing, or feeling each other up —something that feels long overdue. You try to keep your sounds to a minimum but Jaehyun seems to not care about things as worthless as shame, at least for the moment.
“Well, you’re about as graceful as a sea lion when you’re off the runway,” you hiss when Jaehyun’s teeth prick your skin.
“I haven’t done this in a while,” he responds in a low tone, the rest of his retort pushed away by his lips against your mouth.
You don’t have time to take in the details of Jaehyun’s apartment because he’s already carrying you to the bed, your legs around his waist and continuing to kiss you as if making up for something. All those years, you could have been doing this. Maybe you do have some regrets.
The material of his dress shirt feels expensive but clothes are not what you need right now. His phone rings once but he drags a finger over it to reject the call, his mouth still pressing against your collarbone. The only sounds you hear are rugged breathing and you fumbling with the buttons of his shirt as you pull it over his shoulders. The city lights below you reach through the drawn curtains, all the unrelenting complicacies left behind in those faraway streets.
Jaehyun makes a sound of annoyance at the phone ringing yet again. He breaks apart from you, receiving the call while his fingers massage his temple.
“Hyung, I’m fine. I’ll talk to you later—”
“I was just wondering where you disappeared and you don’t even grace me with a hello?” Johnny’s voice rings clear in the all too silent bedroom.
“Hyung—”
“Wait a minute.” There’s a pause within which Jaehyun seems to tense up. “Are you fucking? Like did you leave the party to get la—”
“Hyung. I’m hanging up.”
The coral pink spread over his ears is almost as pretty as the look of pure annoyance over his face.
“That—”
“Didn’t happen,” you complete, giggling. If someone were to tell you’d be seeing Jaehyun like this a few months ago, you wouldn’t know whether to be embarrassed or exhilarated.
You place your hand at the nape of his neck, pulling him into another kiss.
Sex is barely ever beautiful—even if it’s Jung Yoonoh over you, planting kisses from your mouth to jaw, neck to chest and whispering sweet, delicious words against each part. He certainly knows how to use that tongue of his, better than you’d expect from a boy so pristine.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not beautiful, when it’s just like a slow dance—in shared solace and love out of time. You bite your lips to stop smiling too often for it to feel as serious and indifferent as all the other times. Sometimes you feel Jaehyun grinning into the crook of your neck, the giddiness of love taking over the movement of your hips against his. The perfect anatomy of his, paired with his candied words makes you think that maybe you do fit together.
Jaehyun pushes into you at a steady pace, your fingers digging into his back and over his shoulder blades only to draw out sounds more pleasing to your ears. You let someone else take charge for once, his praising whispers of ‘that’s my baby’ or ‘you just look so good’ far too teasing but he follows through, your body barely able to respond apart from shaking and shuddering till you reach your high.
The sound of skin against skin dies down well into the night and you get cleaned, still blissed out from making the summit of all your senses. It’s warm inside, despite turning the air conditioner on.
“Jaehyun,” you call, lowering yourself to press a quick kiss to his lips.
“Hm?” He gives you a drowsy smile, arm under his head and hair sticking to his forehead funny.
“Did you really not hate me? Not even once?” You rest your cheek against your palm as you lie beside him.
Even under the dim lights, it’s not hard to spot the blush on him when he positively glows. Jaehyun reminds you of warm auburn and the touch of cool satin—it’s easy to make things, find inspiration in love.
“Oh my god, you were lying!” you accuse, sitting up straight. “There’s no way you didn’t hate me. I called your modeling as good as a coconut’s!”
“As you so love to remind me,” he mumbles.
There’s a brief moment before the two of you crack up, his deep laughter perfectly mismatched with yours. There’s hardly many sounds on the eighteenth floor, but maybe you’ve always been yearning for this privacy—this proximity in shared laughter and warm touches.
“No, I didn’t,” Jaehyun answers your question after it’s quiet once again. “I thought...I think you’re…”
Jaehyun trails off, his eyes flickering over your face before fixing on your lips as his own tug into a smile. He gulps. “I think we’d be in trouble if the paparazzi saw us throwing choice words at each other, don’t you think? You were barely out of school then.”
“Me?” You laugh. “You were thinking about me?”
“And a little bit about me.”
You fall asleep against Jaehyun’s chest with the certainty of kinder tomorrows, a thing he teaches you through whispers against the pillow and fingers playing with your hair. There’s something private in the way he holds your face, something delicate and homely running from his long fingers to his flushed knuckles and the rest of his hand as it presses against your cheek. It’s warm here, and safe, and maybe home is where the heart is, after all.
“Really? You’re not even a little bit sad I’m leaving?” you ask, placing your hand over your heart. “Who’s going to help you when you’re getting bullied in the workplace now?”
Doyoung huffs in annoyance, placing the box down beside the moving truck. “You’re the only one who bullies me in the workplace.”
You adjust the ugly baseball cap on your head, the one Jaehyun had pulled over your head in an attempt to stop you from complaining about his messy apartment. You hadn’t realized you’d worn it all the way to Seoul till the articles about your questionable choice of accessories had surfaced.
“Your boyfriend’s calling,” Doyoung says, making a face as he picks your phone up from the box near him. “I can’t even believe this. All those years of flirting and—”
You snatch it from him, glaring at him for the choice of words. He raises his hands defensively, rolling his eyes at your sudden movement.
“Are you sure you don’t want me flying to Seoul?”
“Unless you’re planning to work in a truck rental.”
You hear Jaehyun laugh on the other side of the line. Is it normal to have blood rush straight from your chest to your ears at the sound of laughter? You hope that doesn’t change.
You’d visited him a day before your flight. It hasn’t been all that long but Jaehyun certainly makes it out to be, just so he can use his cheesy one-liners. You try not to smile thinking about how he had flung his hair band out, immediately tousling his hair back into a pretty mess and struggling to keep a straight face when you’d visited out of the blue. Jaehyun wakes up at one in the afternoon when his schedule is empty and it had appalled you enough to help him out with basic chores before you left. (It didn’t end well. He kept putting his chin on your shoulder and sneaking his arms around you while you did the dishes.)
“(name)? (name), are you daydreaming again?”
You sigh. “You can’t wait three more days, Jae? It’s, what, one in the morning there!”
“Do you want me saying something cheesy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I don’t think I can sleep without waking up to your face.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose, unable to grace him with a response. The dreamy languor in his voice is more than recognizable and if you’re not mistaken, he’s going to be saying something highly inappropriate.
“Do you know what dream I had last night?” he asks, the smile almost evident with how suggestive it sounds.
“Jaehyun, no,” you warn before lowering your voice. “I swear if it’s another dirty dream—”
“Come home and I’ll tell you all about it. With demonstrations.”
This time you can’t help the laughter, trying to mask it with a cough only to fail. You push the back of your hand against your cheek in order to soothe the involuntary blush. Your perfume smells just like him, and you realize suddenly why he’d gifted it to you.
“That definitely makes me want to leave faster,” you quip.
“I certainly hope so.”
It’s different now, especially if you remember your feelings just last February. Change feels easy for the first time in your life. You check off your list of items, counting the boxes as they’re lifted onto the truck. It took a good amount of thinking, and a bunch of fights before you could decide. New York isn’t so bad. Not when you have reason to be there. You’d like to call it love.
A list of things you do appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.
#jaehyun scenarios#nct scenarios#neowritingsnet#cznnet#jaehyun smut#nct jaehyun#nct imagines#jaehyun imagines#nct 127 scenarios#nct fluff#nct smut#nct 127 imagines#jaehyun x reader#nct x reader#jaehyun fluff#nct 127 x reader#really nervous about posting this bc it's so out of my comfort zone#anyway shoutout to bestdressed on youtube aka the only fashion vlogger who wouldnt bully me#reader has 'feminine' qualities but they have no explicitly stated gender so make what you will#moonwrites#tw: anxiety
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I love Kit's and Izuku's friendship. They're my BROTP. So could I bother you to write some headcanons based on their friendship and the shenanigans they get into?
Kit and Izuku shenanigans
These headcanons belong to this story!
✨ Let me just start out by saying they've definitely committed arson.
✨ Kit is the only reason Izuku had any confidence and if anything ever happens to him Izuku is probably going to shrivel up like a piece of month old broccoli and never move again.
✨Tenya is deathly afraid of leaving Kit and Izuku alone together but can't do much considering how close they live to each other. He's never considered himself religious, but by god does that boy pray everytime he sends those two off on their own.
✨Kit somehow managed to get into a fist fight at least once a week on their way home but Izuku has learned to just sit back and watch it go down rather than try and intervene.
✨They both chill at the Midoriya apartment all the time and talk about theoretical plans to overthrow the hero commission and revamp it from the inside.
✨Izuku has written "adopted by All Might" fanfiction and yes Kit knows and will forever hold it over his head. He's printed out four copies and has sent it to fifteen different emails.
✨They try to start a quirkless mafia but it's literally not working and Kit is irrationally angry because most of Japan's quirkless population is made up of old people. Old people with knee problems. As the mafia, they should be the ones causing the knee problems, not experiencing them!
✨Izuku is inspired and decides he absolutely must know how to seduce people. Kit forces Tenya into his demonstration and Izuku has like, half a notebook worth of notes.
✨He practices on Katsuki, naturally. Kit is all for it because Katsuki always comes home looking like he just got blasted in the face with a stream of ice water: shivering, flushed cheeks, wide eyes. It's fucking hilarious.
✨ They're low-key constantly insulting each other. Like all the time. And yet their self-esteem never stops growing? How can they be putting each other down and lifting each other up at he same time it doesn't make sense. Quirkless unity?
✨Kit tried—really, honest to fuck tried—to get Izuku into anything other than one of his weird shirts labeled "pants" or "flannel". He made a gargantuan effort and it just didn't work. Izuku could be a fashion icon if he just let the shirts go. He could be on the runway, and Kit is in agony.
✨They DIYed their own Tenya shirts to irritate him because what else are they supposed to do if not annoy him? They also run an Iida family Stan account on Twitter and worship Tensei like he's some sort of saint. Which I mean, he may as well be.
✨Izuku has never had alcohol so they dressed Denise up in their stolen Endeavor costume and sent him in to go illegally purchase them whatever the nomu could get his hands on. It was white claw but they made do.
✨Izuku starts a blog about Kit and Tenya's relationship and Kit knows this yet can't find a way to permanently delete it. It just pops back up and Izuku rags on them publicly for their PDA. It's brutal. The commenters are so cutthroat.
✨They stole a minivan once because Izuku used his pay to buy a rare, life-sized All Might statue off of eBay and they had no way to transport it. Where did Izuku even learn how to hotwire?
✨Denise does have a crush on the statue and they're not going to tell All Might this nor are they going to do anything about it. It's comedic relief at it's finest. Plus Inko really enjoys setting up fake dates for the statue and Denise because it makes the Nomu so impossibly happy. Who are they to get in the way of that?
✨They make a Chad shrine in every public bathroom they find and there's sort of a thing about it on Reddit that's slowly growing in size. I.E., they accidentally made Chad his own cult. They're both too afraid to tell Tenya.
✨They bully Katsuki on purpose and it's so fun. He gets so scared. Kit is already teaching Izuku how to take him down in a one on one fight without a quirk and by the time Izuku gets to UA he will be unstoppable.
✨They like to dress Luis the Chihuahua up in little outfits and post them on the Instagram he made for them. They're both way too invested in it. It's a miracle that dog isn't dead with own old and decrepit it is, honestly.
✨They have six different secret handshakes and they all mean different things.
✨Kit is GOING to give Izuku a haircut one day soon, even if he has to knock him out to get it done.
✨Why does Kit literally make Izuku livid what the fuck. Izuku used to be fine. Docile, if you will. Now he's just irritated and drenched in sarcasm that he can't stop from pouring out. Yet he also adores him. Where is the line and when did they cross it?
✨ Izuku's still too afraid to ask for ketchup at a restaurant. That's what Kit is for, Izuku supposes.
✨Izuku writes down any kink Kit alludes to ever for the sole purpose of later shaming him. Oh, and giving Tenya a heads up. Poor guy has no idea what's going on.
✨ They kill it at dance dance revolution
✨Kit is always trying to hook Izuku up with anyone hot they come across. He just knows Izuku would thrive in a relationship.
✨ He's sort of eyeing Shoto Todoroki for the role, actually. He and Izuku would be cute, right?
✨Izuku knows all of Kits passwords and sometimes breaks into his Instagram just to screenshot all the thirst messages the other boy gets and sends them to Tenya. Tenya gets so offended and Kit is left to deal with the aftermath. Absolutely hilarious.
✨Izuku knows how to disarm pretty much any type of bomb you can think of and teaches Kit all he knows. In return, Kit takes him to a casino and shows him the ways of poker
✨Kit is really good at poker and that makes people made and yes they are now running for their lives
✨Izuku always carries a pair of emergency shoes for Kit even though he knows they'll just be lost. Better safe than sorry.
✨Kit, in parallel, has a variety of fidget toys hidden on his person at any given time in case Izuku finds himself feeling anxious
✨Kit once sat on Izuku's shoulders and they wore a really longe trench coat to break into Best Jeanist's main fashion department building to steal his runway plans so they could know what they were up against
✨They outclassed him in every imaginable way
✨Izuku literally dissociates anytime Kit opens his mouth to talk about Tenya. He doesn't want to know. TMI. Time out. No.
✨Kit dared Izuku to go up to Endeavor in disguise during his patrol and pretend to ask for an autograph and instead knee him in the balls.
✨Izuku's chosen disguise was a full sonic the hedgehog costume and he did in fact knee endeavor in the crotch. And yes, it's a meme now
✨ They have an Endeavor hate chant
✨Izuku really wants to add All Might merch to the Suzuko line and Kit just thinks he's a nerd and a suck up. All might is already his teacher and now he wants designer clothes with his face on it? Too far, man. Too far.
✨They have matching jeans that they definitely didn't steal when they broke into Jeanist's fashion depot.
✨Overall they're an unstoppable and rather irritating force to be reckoned with and will stop at nothing to wreck havoc, much to Tenya's disdain.
#bnha#fanfic#mha#my hero academia#midoriya izuku#boku no hero academia tenya#tenya iida#touya todoroki#bnha oc#wattpad
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20 Questions
Pairing: Derek Morgan x Reader
Summary: “Howdy there! I wanted to request a cute imagine with Derek. The basic idea is that they're playing 20 questions or something and it gets really personal and cute and they express their feelings for each other.” - @dirty-pan-goblin
Word Count: 2.2k
“So now the wait begins” you said, leaning back into your seat.
You and Derek were on a stakeout outside of a suspect's house. You were both sitting in the SUV, just waiting. “I know a way we could pass the time” Derek said, smirking at you.
You cursed yourself because the first place your mind went was somewhere dirty. You couldn’t be blamed for that though, Derek Morgan was like most attractive man you had ever seen. So maybe you had developed a crush on your coworker, so what?
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” You asked him, looking over into his eyes. “20 questions?” He suggested. You thought about it for a second. You thought about the possible risks of playing this game with him. The benefits outweighed the risks, and besides you were really going to be bored if you didn’t play.
“Alright, I’m down. Hit me” you told him, embracing the challenge. “Okay, I’ll start easy. What was your first impression of me?” He asked you, curiously.
You thought back to your first day at the BAU. It had been a few years, then it all came back to you.
“Well I remember I walked into Quantico on my first day, and I was so lost. I was trying to find Hotch’s office, but I had no idea where it was. Then, I bumped into you and you asked if I needed help, and you showed me where to go. I remember thinking that you seemed like just a really good guy, like someone you could always rely on” you told him, smiling. Even on your first day, you felt like a school girl again when you were around Derek.
“So how does that first impression measure up to how you know me know?” Derek asked you, smirking. “Nope, only one question allowed. My turn. What is your ideal first date?” You asked him, raising your eyebrows.
“Nothing super fancy, maybe just seeing a movie or making dinner together. But like my absolute perfect date would be going to a carnival together” he told you, honestly.
“Who knew that you were such a romantic” you teased him. You were starting to get nervous, now that you guys were talking about dates. What if Derek asked you if you had your eyes on anyone?
“What do you value more, platonic relationships or romantic relationships?” He asked you, smirking. “Well if you’re doing it right, I think your significant other should also be like your best friend. I mean, you shouldn’t like ditch your friends because you like some guy. But you significant other should be someone you would be friends with, if you weren’t romantically attracted to them” you said, being completely honest.
“You are such a hopeless romantic, of course you would say that” Derek said, laughing and placing his hand on your forearm for a second. You felt the heat rush to your cheeks. “You asked, don’t judge my answer” you said, sticking your tongue out at him and giggling.
“No judgement here, so what else do you want to know?” He asked you, giving you that million dollar smile. “What’s your favorite thing about me?” You asked him, giggling to yourself.
“Well that’s hard, you’re kind of a horrible person” Derek joked, chuckling. Your jaw dropped and you hit his arm, offended. “I cannot believe you, you are so rude! Give me a good answer” you said, pretending to pout.
“Probably how compassionate you are. You always make everyone feel supported, whether that’s victims or their families or even the rest of the team. You always know just how to comfort someone” he told you, giving you a small smile. “Awww Derek, you bit softie” you said, leaning your head on his shoulder.
You were touched that he thought so highly of you. It’s really nice to get a compliment, every now and then. Especially from the guy you were head over heels for.
You picked your head back up and looked at him, waiting for your question.
“Have you ever been in love?” He asked you, sincerely. You thought about your answer for a second. “Yes, I’m somebody who falls in love really easily. I wear my heart on my sleeve and sometimes that’s been bad and sometimes it’s good. What about you?” you told him, honestly.
“Once for sure, and then I kind of put up walls to protect my heart. I haven’t been truly in love since then. But I’m open to it and I don’t think it’s impossible, especially with the right person” he told you, looking into your eyes. For a split second, there was a certain sparkle in his eyes. When he mentioned the right person, it felt like he was talking about you.
You felt absolutely crazy for thinking he could be talking about you. There was no way, right?
“So are you currently in love?” Derek asked you, and you saw the same twinkle. “No, but there’s someone who I could see myself falling in love with” you told him, hoping he would get the hints.
“Can I ask a follow up question?” Derek asked, smirking at you. “Of course” you told him, smiling. “Am I that person?” He asked you, and you felt the butterflies in your stomach.
Then you saw the unsub come out of his house. “Derek look” you said, pointing towards the house. He looked away from you and towards the direction you were pointing. “Hotch, we got him. Y/N and I are going after him” Derek said, over the microphone.
You both jumped out of the SUV and pulled out your guns. “Daniel Sullivan, put your hands in the air” Derek called out, as you both pointed your guns at him.
The man saw you both and froze, and then he turned around and started running. “You still have to answer the question, when we’re done, Y/N” Derek said, as he started to chase the unsub.
“I’m going to cut him off in the alley” you told Derek, and then started running.
You made it to the alley and you could hear the unsub running. You could tell he was about to run out in front of you. You stopped and waited til he got closer. Then, at exactly the time, you kicked you leg out. Successfully knocking the unsub off of his feet.
“Nice one, L/N” Derek said to you, holding up his hand for a high five. You smiled and hit his hand, but Derek closed his hand so that your fingers were interlaced. He just smirked at you. You giggled to yourself and then pulled your hand away.
You grabbed the handcuffs off your belt and locked them around the wrists of the unsub. By then, the local police had arrived. One of the officers took the unsub from you, and transported him to the station.
“Come on, let’s go” Derek said, putting his arm around your shoulders. You both walked back to the SUV. You saw the rest of the team waiting there.
“The police just started to check the house, but they already found the victims. They’re safe” Hotch told you two. “That’s a relief” you said, sighing.
“We’re going to meet back at the police station, we’ll see you two there?” Rossi asked you both, smirking. You tried to ignore the smirk and just nodded your head. “Yeah, we’ll be there” Derek told him.
The rest of the team got in their SUV and left the scene. You started to walk towards the SUV. “Woah woah woah, you’re not getting off that easy, babygirl” Derek said, grabbing your hand and pulling you back towards him.
“What?” You asked, pretending to be clueless. “Listen, if you were talking about somebody else, that’s fine. We can both move on and be the good friends that we’ve always been. But, if you were talking about me, just tell me. Because I think you are amazing and one of the kindest and bravest people I’ve ever met. But I just need to know” he told you, honestly.
You looked down, not knowing what to say. Derek was still holding your hand in his and you could feel your cheeks heat up. Of course he was the person you were talking about, but you didn’t know how to tell him that.
But, Derek interpreted your hesitance as rejection. You saw a look of hurt in his eyes, as he slowly pulled his hand away. “I— I’m sorry that I asked” he said, starting to walk away.
“No, Derek wait!” You called out, not wanting to hurt him. He turned to face you. “You don’t have to apologize for how you feel, I understand” he told you, but he just looked like he was in pain.
“Two years, four months, and six days” you told him, only thinking of one way to tell him how you felt. Derek looked confused, to say the least. “You gotta help me out, L/N” he said, asking what you meant.
“That’s how long it’s been since I fell for you. It was the first time that your eyes sparkled when I looked at you, and the first time that I got butterflies when you called me babygirl” you told him, with a smile on your face. He started to walk back towards you, slowly.
“Are you saying?” He asked you, almost not believing it. “Yes Derek, you’re the person I was talking about. You are the most caring person I know. Any time that I’m ever feeling down, you always make sure I know that you’re always there for me. You are selfless and compassionate and the only person I never get sick of talking to” you told him, honestly.
Derek closed the distance between the two of you and cupped your face. He leaned in and kissed your lips. It felt magical.
You rested your hands on his forearms and kissed him back, with all the love you had in you. It felt like it the years of pent up feelings, were poured into this kiss.
And just before the kiss could become too heated for being in public, you pulled away. The smile on Derek’s face was contagious.
You both looked a young, teen couple. You both had the biggest smiles on your faces, and expressions of pure bliss.
“I’m glad I asked you to play 20 questions with me” Derek said, truthfully. “Yeah, so am I” you said, kissing his cheek. He moved his hands from cupping your face to wrap around your waist.
“We should probably get back to the station, before the team starts to get suspicious” Derek told you, looking into your eyes. You giggled to yourself, knowing that the whole team was definitely already aware of crushes the two of you had. They always knew.
“Yeah, I guess duty calls” you said, as you both pulled away and walked to the car. You both drove back to the police station and Derek’s hand didn’t leave your thigh for the whole ride.
When you both pulled into the police station, you both got out of the car and walked inside. You were both met by Spencer standing right in front of you.
He looked like he was trying to say something. “What’s up, pretty boy” Derek asked him, curiously. “Rossi and Emily told me to ask if you two were dating. They figured you two would be most likely to tell me the truth out of everyone” Spencer told you.
You both laughed, that sounded exactly like something Emily and Rossi would do. “Come on Reid, let’s go talk to them” you said, starting to walk towards the room where the BAU was set up in. Both Spencer and Derek followed you.
“Hey” Emily said, when the three of you walked in. “Are you using precious, little Dr.Reid to spy on us?” You asked, leaning into Spencer’s side. “I have no idea what you’re talking about” Emily lied.
“So I guess if Derek and I were together, you wouldn’t care?” You teased Emily. “Wait! You two ARE together? I was right” Emily said, cheering for herself. Then, Rossi took out his wallet and handed Emily a twenty dollar bill.
“Were you two betting on us?” Derek asked them, shocked. “Nope, not all” they both said, in unison. “Reid?” You asked, looking over at Spencer. “They had a bet going about how long it would take you two to start dating” Spencer said, truthfully.
“Spencer” they both groaned in frustration. “I can’t believe you were betting on us” Derek said, chuckling. “Are you kidding? That sounds just like something they would do” you said, giggling.
Hotch entered the room and said “It’s time to go, we’re leaving for the airport”. You all got up and got into the SUV’s, to drive to the airport.
Once you were on the jet, Emily pulled you aside and demanded that you tell her every detail of how you and Derek got together. As you were telling the story, you kept glancing up and making eye contact with Derek. He was playing chess against Spencer, and losing badly.
Every time you two made eye contact, he would wink at you or wave. And every time, it left a smile on your face.
You had worried about how dating Derek would affect the relationship of the team. But now, you had no doubt that nothing would change or be awkward.
taglist: @reniescarlett @thelovelyrose @shyinadarkplace @azghedaheda @meowiemari @millipop18 @airiloveskuromi-chan @k-k0129 @ssareidbby
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#Derek Morgan x reader#Derek Morgan#criminal minds#criminal minds imagines#fanfiction#Derek Morgan imagines#Derek Morgan imagine#derek morgan fic#derek morgan fluff#derek morgan fanfiction#Derek Morgan request#Derek Morgan reader insert#criminal minds imagine#criminal minds fic#criminal minds fluff#criminal minds fanfiction#criminal minds request#criminal minds reader insert#reader insert#requested#requests open#fluff#Aaron hotchner#Emily prentiss#David Rossi#Spencer Reid
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Driving Home For Christmas
Word Count: 3.8K+
Author’s Note: we’re back bitches, and with new stories every day until the 25th!! and we had to start with our favourite star herself, julie molina, because of course! i loved writing this, we love brother alex, we love having last names for the fucking characters!!!
Pairings: julie x reader - brother!alex mercer x reader - willie x alex
Warnings: fluffiness!!
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The Mercer children hated spending their Christmas holidays in Aspen. In fact, there wasn’t anything the siblings hated more.
The luxurious ski resort cabin certainly had charms: the hot tub on the porch, the on demand hot chocolate, the fast passes to get on the slopes ahead of the general public, and that was all before you got to the world renowned chef, Portia, that was on-call twenty four hours of the day, seven days a week, able to make whatever their hearts desired. Anyone else might have thought the resort, covered in snow and holiday decorations, like a scene from one of those Hallmark Christmas movies that are always just on in December, was the perfect winter wonderland, and the sort of place anyone would die to spend the end of their year.
But Alex and Y/N Mercer didn’t hate Aspen; they hated their passively-homophobic parents and extended family that always showed up to ruin the festive cheer. Whether it was by berating the heir to the family fortune about his boyfriend back home in California; or their consistent pestering of Alex’s younger sister Y/N about when the girl would find herself a decent, upstanding boyfriend, like she hadn’t spent her entire childhood until the last year stuck in an array of all girls’ boarding schools across the great United States.
With the pros of the cabin weighed out by the con of their family, it came to be that on Christmas Eve the brother and sister sat amongst the slow-moving traffic on some interstate between the Colorado ski lodge and home, in sunny California, already ten hours into their drive.
“I still can’t believe… Dad is going to kill us, you know?” Alex said, swaying along to the song playing softly from the beaten up car’s stereo, his knees pulls up to his chest thanks to the bags that sat in the footwell. The car was overflowing, a mixture of luggage and gifts for those waiting on the other side of the sunshine state’s border.
Whatever snow adorned the old red car roof had been melted away the closer they got to the coast, the driver more and more grateful with every slow passing mile that she had saved up to buy her own mode of transportation. She hadn’t followed in her older brother’s footsteps of taking dad up on the offer of a car: the high-tech monstrosity Alex drove around Los Angeles was the sort of car that would be shut down remotely if stolen: Y/N’s car could barely get a radio signal.
“Dad will kill me; he needs you to complete some masterplan. Wanna theorise about what private institution he’ll send me to next?” Y/N asked with a smile to her older brother, the pair sharing a laugh in the glow of red brake lights.
Their relationship had always been easy: Alex was his little sister’s best friend, and he hers. Whether that was because money led to lonely children, or because they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company beyond their sibling obligations, the pair didn’t bother to find out. They were close, and that was what mattered to them.
“He’s running out of them now, you know. How many was it before you convinced him Los Felix was the answer to all your problems?” Alex asked with a raised eyebrow and smirk, leaning an elbow on the central divider of the tiny car, avoiding the sharp edge of a ski blade to tease his sister with a knowing look. “Was it seventeen or-”
“Twenty-four… I made a point to average it out to one every four months or so. Keeps mom and dad on their toes, makes the disappointment even more apparent when I show up on the doorstep again.” Y/N cut in, correcting her brother, the blonde boy taking her free hand and squeezing it.
“At least we keep disappointing them together…” He offered as words of solace, their hands breaking apart upon the movement of traffic, red lights dimming as the cars began rolling forward at a steady pace. “Thank you, Smalls… For this whole thing.” The nickname he used so often rang in Y/N’s ears and made her smile.
Her brother meant the words, she knew it: he had pleaded with their parents before they left to stay in California, with Reggie or Julie or Luke, but the mention of his bandmates had ended the conversation and turned it into their dad reprimanding Alex for his ‘fanciful’ mindset. The drummer never stood a chance against the united front that was their parents: they knew he wanted to stay for Willie, of course he did: the two had been planning their Christmas vacation together since Halloween, dates to the ice rink at Santa Monica Mall, to the university for lectures, to the movies to catch old Christmas movies on the silver screen. Half the reason their parents had forced Aspen onto the kids once again was because Alex had found his person, and Willie found Alex, and Mr and Mrs Mercer would do a fair amount to convince the general public, themselves, and Alex that he wasn’t gay.
The other half was because Y/N was pretty sure she had found her person too.
“Don’t sweat it, Alex.” She shrugged, moving up a gear as the traffic finally began to move towards an expected speed for the freeway. “Hearing mom and dad shout at us once they sober up enough to realise we’re gone? Priceless.” She let a regular smirk rest on her lips, indicating to take the upcoming turnoff, hopeful she might hit easy driving instead of the stop and start. The sun was setting before them, the sky painted shades of yellow and orange and pink and purple into the deep blue of the encroaching night, despite the time on her car dashboard only reading 16:42. It would be gone within the next few minutes, and the driver switched on her headlights in response.
“Alexander Washington Mercer! How dare you defy me in such a way: you know better than to follow your little sister so blindly!” Alex yelled into the cramped space, impersonating their father with the gruff voice the man in question used, like he constantly had a cough in his throat he couldn’t dislodge.
“Y/N Y/M/N Mercer! I expected better from a young lady of your fine standing! How are we meant to find you a good husband if you run off with your brother like you haven’t a care in the world?” IT was Y/N’s turn to impersonate a parent: the shrill shriek of their mother, Y/N raising a hand a messing with the locket around her neck the same way their mother fiddled with her pearls when she was distressed. The two shared a look through their chuckles.
“It’s just a phase!” They said in chorus, the line their parents most often used in arguments against either of the pair. The laughter died away with the words, both letting out a soft, melancholic sighs, and falling into a comfortable silence. They were just skirting the outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, with at least another six hours of driving left by the state of the road, Y/N joining the back of another queue of cars all headed somewhere.
“Driving home for Christmas. Oh, I can't wait to see those faces, I'm driving home for Christmas, yea. Well I'm moving down that line. And it's been so long, but I will be there. I sing this song to pass the time away. Driving in my car, driving home for Christmas…” Alex turned the volume dial, letting the song play out, beginning to sway along to the radio once again, humming a harmony line over Chris Rea’s raspy lyrics.
Y/N always like that: that her big brother was so musical. She had spent so long away form him, at every other boarding school in the country, she forgot how talented Alex was sometimes. IT was only getting to see him and his band perform the year before that she really clicked to her brother’s undeniable star power, and that ability was shared amongst his friends. But it wasn’t just his talent that made Y/N happy, but that fact that she never saw her brother happier than when he was performing with his ‘other’ family.
In truth, they were hers too… One of them was why she was racing home so eagerly, why she had masterminded the entire escape for her and Alex. Neither of them would have been able to survive another minute with the monsters they unfortunately call relatives.
By the time they had passed Las Vegas and were closing in on the California border, the dashboard read 19.53. The countless games of ‘eye-spy’ and ‘would you rather’ grew old quickly, replaced for an hour by Alex reading out the pages of the closest book they could scavenge amongst the piles of presents and luggage, one of Y/N’s art textbooks. That then turned onto Alex recovering his drumsticks, tapping and singing along with the radio as Christmas song after Christmas song played.
“Smalls, what if we don’t make it?” Alex posed the question for the first time that night, and Y/N was honestly shocked it took her big brother so long to reach his usual state of worry. “What if we drove all this way and we don’t make it in time?”
“Relax, Alex, honestly… Look, we’ll get there when we get there. No-one even knows we’re coming, it’ll be fun, a surprise!” Y/N suggested, stopping herself for continuing to press down on her car horn, honking in anger at the dude who just cut in front of them. “Fucking asshole.” She muttered, looking back to her brother to be met with a face of surprise.
“How is it that I am always labelled the emotional one?” The question made Y/N smile, reaching over and patting on the blonde locks atop her brother’s head.
“Because rage isn’t emotion, it’s power.” Y/N quoted their dad again, putting on the gruff voice Alex had portrayed hours before, letting her neck roll and crack out air pockets once the words hung in the air. “With your little bandmates, it may not be true, but in this car? It most certainly is.” She reminded turning her eyes back to the road and putting the car back in gear to drive, following the car in front as the traffic began to move again.
--
“You know, I never thought church would be that fun! Is it always like that, or do they just ram up the wow factor for the holidays?” Reggie asked as he followed close on the footsteps of the Molina family, Luke to his right as he received glances from those surrounding him. “What?! I’m not exactly the person you’d expect to head on over to midnight mass every year, dude.” Reggie defended, Ray unlocking the front door of the house before turning around and placing a hand on the bassist’s shoulder.
“Well, we were glad to have you along with us, Reggie. Glad to have you for the holiday too, both of you, in fact.” Ray opened the statement to Luke, whose eyes darted up and were followed by a bright grin.
“Glad to be here, Mr Molina.” The guitarist responded with a dashing smile before rushing inside, his destination quite certainly the fridge, where Carlos was already searching for snacks before bed.
The Molina family had kept the tradition of midnight mass ever since Julie was little, a chance for some spiritual connection to the holiday season as well as familial. That year, with the Peters and Pattersons off on a Bahama cruise, Ray had welcomed Julie’s best friends and bandmates with open arms. The only thing that would have made it better was the Mercer kids.
It seemed to be why, while the boys all gravitated to chocolate chip cookies and warm milk before bed, Julie had idled over to the window, her eyes drifting out into the front yard, searching for someone who wasn’t going to show up.
“Mija…” Ray said softly, watching his daughter from across the room, a soft smile tracing his lips as she let out a yawn. “Mija, you should be going to sleep. Papá Noel won’t deliver his gifts if you stay awake all night staring out a window.”
“But dad…”
“I know it sucks, honey, but we’ll see them at New Years, right? And tomorrow we’ll have Flynn’s family and tía and Willie all over for food.” Ray reminded, and Julie let out a sigh, finally diverting her eyes from the window and up to her dad, his hand outstretched for her to take. She took it, and Ray lifted his daughter to her feet and into a hug. “I love you sweetie, now go get ready for bed. I have to round up your friends before they eat all the food in the house.”
With that, Julie gave up on the sliver of hop she had held for that night, shuffling up the stairs somewhat defeated. She knew it wouldn’t happen, in the back of her head she knew it wouldn’t happen, but she had really hoped Alex and Y/N would just show up, out of the blue, and surprise them all by spending Christmas back home, with them, with her. Of course, Mr and Mrs Mercer were far from nice people, far from unwealthy people: the idea of their kids spending Christmas at the Molinas was probably something they flat out refused to even think about.
It didn’t take long for Julie to get into her Christmas-themed pyjamas and brush her teeth, tying her hair into braids and tidying them back with a cap for the night: her night time routine was one she knew well, and was efficient in doing. Her makeup washed its way down the bathroom sink, her glasses perched themselves onto the slight dents the pads had carved into the sides of her nose, her blue monster slippers kept her feet warm as she shuffled back to her room and into her bed. She tried to focus on the better parts of the day: of making gingerbread houses and rehearsing Christmas songs with the guys, of putting up the final decorations on the tree in the living room while trying to avoid her father’s cries of anguish over another badly wrapped present from the other room.
But she couldn’t help but think about how much better it would have been had Alex been banging on his drumkit, how much happier he would have felt spending Christmas Eve with Y/N by her side…
The thought had Julie grabbing at her nearest pillow, squeezing it under crossed arms as she scrunched her eyes shut and willed sleep to come. At least if she slept, she wouldn’t be thinking about Alex and Y/N being trapped with their not-so-nice family in some snowed in cabin in some mid-west mountains, not consciously anyway.
tap.
A noise, one Julie excused as a creak of the house floorboards or a falling branch from the tree outside, seemed to echo in her near silent room, save the girl’s breathing.
tap.
This time, Julie’s eyes darted open, though she refused to move. Two was a coincidence, there were plenty of explanations for two almost identical sounding taps spaced apart almost perfectly.
“JULIE!” A loud whisper sounded from outside the girl’s window.
Now, that wasn’t coincidence.
The girl jumped out of bed, rushing over to her window in a blur of sequined candy cane pyjamas, muddling with the latch on her window before opening it up wide to the chill of LA winter air, her eyes darting across the grounds below to find the source of the noise. A part of her wondered if she might be dreaming, if it might have all been the saddest and happy dreams because she’d wake up any moment and the sight would be gone.
But there they stood, Alex and Y/N, in her driveway, the latter’s car parked behind them and looking like it most certainly drove for nineteen hours straight.
“Dad!” Julie called back into the house, the smile on her face brighter than any of the Christmas lights Y/N had seen on their drive through the residential district. “Dad, we have some extra guests.” She finished, her calls waking Carlos, Luke and Reggie in the process of alerting Ray, the windows of the house suddenly lighting up and the household woke for good news.
With a final grin out the window, Julie disappeared from Y/N’s sight, to no doubt meet her and Alex by the front door, and the pit in her stomach Y/N had tried to ignore for the entire car journey from Colorado seemed to only get bigger, louder, more persistent, now they had finally arrived back in California, in LA, at the Molinas. She had initially pinned the feeling to adrenaline from disoberying her parents, from packing up her car and driving almost a full day to arrive three states west of her original destination.
Looking at the house’s front porch, a muddle of Christmas gifts in both her and her brother’s hands, Y/N came to the conclusion that the pit wasn’t because of leaving Aspen: it was because of arriving in LA.
“I’m not going to ask how you made it or why you are here, but we are happy to see you all the same.” Ray’s kindly tone and words brought Y/N from her thoughts, blinking away the haze to find the door now open, Alex, Reggie and Luke in a tight embrace with presents scattered over the driveway, and Ray standing in front of her with Carlos by his side. “I would suggest one of you text your parents’ that you are safe though.” He added with a chuckle, opening his arms for Y/N to rush into, the pair embracing in a tight hug.
“Nice to be home, Mr Molina.” She replied with a smile as the pair broke apart, only for Alex to take the next slot of hugging Julie’s literal, and the four other teens’ figurative, dad.
“I made up the spare room just in case, you know. Julie’s request.” Ray added, gesturing with a thumb back to the front door, forcing Y/N’s eyes to follow.
She was so beautiful, every time Y/N saw Julie Molina her breath escaped her body, her limbs became heavy, her mind fogged: her heart began beating at a pace too fast for her body and her lips lost any real words.
“I thought you’d be in Aspen until the day after Boxing Day.” Julie said with a shy smile, the five guys in the front yard glancing amongst themselves before Carlos cleared his throat.
“I think we should put the presents under the tree!” The ten year old declared, scooping up some of Alex’s dropped gifts and marching inside, prompting Ray and Luke to do the same. Alex rans back to the car, retrieving the last straggler gifts from the car’s back seat while Reggie relieved Y/N of the stacks of presents in her own hands, save one. The two teens shared a smile, Reggie going the extra mile to pass on a wink of good luck to the younger Mercer before the bassist and drummer both disappeared into the house, leaving Julie and Y/N alone.
“I uh, I made a decision… A decision to kidnap my brother and drive a day across country.” Y/N managed to get the words out without too much difficulty, trying to get over the cotton mouth she was experiencing. “Because I didn’t want to spend the holidays without the people I love most.” She added, finally reconnecting her leg movements to her brain and walking across the driveway to meet Julie at the foot of the porch steps.
“Without the people you love most?” Julie questioned, taking a step closer, the girls standing toe to toe, Julie looking up at Y/N with doe eyes that could melt diamonds.
“Without the girl I love most.” Y/N corrected herself, tucking the small gift box she held into her back pocket. The words were seemingly sufficient enough in hello, as Julie launched herself onto her girlfriend, their lips crashing together in sweet harmony for the first time in weeks, thanks to the Mercer parents.
Y/N’s hands cupped Julie’s face as they shared in the sweet, intimate moment, Julie’s hands pulling Y/N closer by her t-shirt. Their lips colliding was the action required to dissipate that pit in Y/N’s stomach completely, her senses in overdrive finally being close to her girlfriend again. The smell of Julie’s perfume, the minty taste of toothpaste still on her lips, her glasses brushing against Y/N’s cheek. For Julie, it was much the same experience: the kiss made her head spin, overcome by the smell of Y/N’s car air freshener and the taste of red vines on her lips.
The pair broke apart after a few moments, their foreheads pressing together as peaceful silence washed over them, the cool breeze counteracted by the red heat that had risen to both girls’ cheeks.
“I wouldn’t want to spend Christmas with anyone else.” Y/N breathed out softly, one hand taking Julie’s in hers, the other retrieving the gift from her back pocket. “Mostly because I missed you like crazy, partly because I wanted to give you this.” She explained, the girl before her grinning and taking the gift box offered with bubbling excitement.
“Can I open it now?” Julie asked, and Y/N glanced at the watch on her wrist.
“I mean, it’s technically Christmas so…” Y/N giggled when Julie let out a shout of joy, pulling off the ribbon holding the box shut and shimmy-ing the lid off, to reveal a small potion-looking bottle amongst tissue paper. Julie lifted it out of the box, a small key glinting in the porch light within the bottled, caught in mid-air by invisible strings withing the decorative gift.
“It’s so beautiful… What is it?” Julie asked, pure curiosity in her words as she looked at the bottle in wonder. In response, Y/N pulled her locket out from beneath her shirt, gesturing to a small keyhole on the front Julie had never noticed adorning one of the girl’s most essential items before.
“That, Miss Molina.” Y/N started, grinning from ear to ear, exuding a shaky confidence that seemed like it might falter at any second. “That is the key to my heart.”
“Y/N…”
“I love you Julie.” They had never said it so directly before, ever. They always skirted round the actual words, always knew what the other meant without need for clarification. But under the porch light of the Molina residence, unaware of Alex, the guys, Ray and Carlos watching from the living room window, after having driven through so much traffic just to try and get to her on time for Christmas, and with Julie standing there in her festive pyjamas and blue fuzzy slippers and looking at her like that, Y/N had never felt more sure of something in her life.
“I love you too, Y/N.” Julie promised, pulling her girlfriend close again, the kiss shared this time chaste, though no less sweet.
“Merry Christmas, Molina.”
“Merry Christmas, Mercer.”
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Tags (some people I think might like this festive nonsense): @reggiesleatherjacket @parkeret @calamitykaty @crybabyddl @delicatelukepatterson @lukespatterson @kcd15 @siennanoelle01 @eries45 @lolychu @lazydaisy19 @reggieandthereggies @writerinlearning @mjflower @uhmitstori @walkingonshunshine @kristencoontz @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @ritz-hell-hotel @mishappend @dovegranger @dmcfarland1 @cherrymaybank @oswinsleaf @only-here-for-jatp @jatpfan99 @n0wornever @bookdealer5
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Twelve Days Of Christmas: 2/12 will be released in 24 hours! Who will our story focus on? Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint: we’ll be going back to 1990s...
#abby's twelve days of christmas#julie molina x reader#julie x reader#brother!alex x reader#julie and the phantoms#willex#jatp#alex mercer#reggie peters#luke patterson#jatp fanfic#fluff
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off the grid | six
summary: it was as simple as swapping places with a stranger from across the world to get away from everything back home. that is - until you meet Jimin. things become more complicated as he unfolds a new chapter in your life that you were initially trying to avoid.
pairing: reader x pjm
genre: post-college au, christmas/holiday au | angst, fluff, smut (to come)
words: 3.7k
chapter warnings: smut chapter! unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, fingering, oral (f. receiving), slight dirty talk, cussing, possible inaccurate depiction of transportation, events and whereabouts in South Korea since i only did my research thru the internet, fluff
notes: will be wrapping this up in the next few chapters!
> series masterlist <
Jimin was going to be busy for majority of the day with his parents, which left you feeling a little sad. But, you knew he had to do what he had to do and he had offered to come by and spend time with you tonight. As you were about to head out and explore on your own with the tips he had given you, a call from an unknown number popped up on your screen.
"Hello?"
"Y/N!" Jungkook's voice came through on the other line. "I hope you don't mind, I asked Jimin for your number not too long ago."
"No, you're good." You chuckled. "What's up?"
"Wanna hang out with me and Tae? We're gonna head to Common Ground."
"Sure!"
"Sick!" He exclaims. "I'll send you our address. Do you think you'll be okay heading over?"
"Yeah, I got it." You responded, remembering Jimin's directions to his place in the event you ever needed anything.
"Okay, just let me know if you get lost and I'll come find you." You chuckled before responding with a simple 'okay' to end the call. You were confident in your memory of the directions, which led you to their place in a matter of minutes. They didn't live too far from Yana, and you remember Jimin saying so since Yana doesn't drive and would simply take public transportation to and from places.
Upon your arrival at their apartment, Taehyung was cleaning up in the kitchen while Jungkook was throwing on a jacket. Jungkook gave you a little tour of their apartment, which was surprisingly clean and smelled of vanilla birchwood. Sooner or later, the three of you were off into town to visit Common Ground, which was considered Korea's first cultural space that was made out of shipping containers. The view and the entirety of it was pretty neat, and you kind of wished Jimin was here, but Jungkook and Taehyung were just as great of travel buddies. They talked a lot about their hometowns and what it was like moving to Seoul, plus how they truly value Korea and it's culture. You were coming to learn what a truly spectacular and beautiful place it was, and it was even more refreshing to hear from the boys themselves how much they loved being from Korea.
After navigating through the crowds and having spent more money on souvenirs and clothes, the three of you decided to eat up and grab some grub. For a minute, you lost Jungkook because he ran into some people he knew, leaving you and Taehyung to eat together.
"This place is neat isn't it?"
"Yeah, it's really cool. Thanks for taking me along." He nodded as his lips poked out while eating his food. You thought it was the most adorable thing.
"You know, Jimin's been really happy since you guys started spending a lot of time together."
"Oh yeah?" You giggled. Yes, Taehyung. Expose him.
"It's actually really nice to see." He chuckled. You knew him and Taehyung had known each other the longest out of their group, but he still held a very tight relationship with Jungkook, Hoseok and Jin. "He's always been the one to take care of people. I just wanna see him happy. He does a lot for the people he cares about."
"I know, he's really the sweetest person I've ever met. He's an angel."
"He was really destroyed over his ex." You continued to listen. "He loved her, a lot. He did everything for her and sacrificed a lot to keep her happy. But she couldn't reciprocate it 100% and that killed him time and time again."
"How long ago was that?"
"About a year ago? Even then, he tried not to have any bad blood with her after she had mistreated him. He has a good heart and mind. He deserves someone good who can take care of him." Your stomach fluttered with the countless butterflies, but most of the happiness you felt, also turned into anxiety. The days were counting down and you wouldn't be here for much longer. "He really, really likes you Y/N."
"I-I do, too. But-" Taehyung looked over at you, concerned. "I'm not going to be here for much longer." You shrugged. "It really sucks."
"Why don't you stay for a little more?"
"Work. My life is back in LA." He nodded. As much as it hurt you to say that, it was true. You wished it was easy to pick up your things and move around the world, but part of you felt silly for even thinking that over a holiday-solo-vacation love story.
"It's gonna be hard, but I honestly don't think Jimin cares. I think he'd make this work with you."
"But is that fair to him? Our time difference and-and, who knows when I'll get to physically see him again? Hearing what he went through.. what if I can't give him what he deserves?"
"I know all of it sounds like a mess and like it would never work, but don't you think you two meant for a reason?" He wasn't trying to be Jimin's right-hand at the moment, he was doing this because he truly could see how the both of you genuinely felt for each other. He hadn't seen Jimin have this glow, this type of genuine happiness to him in a long, long time.
"I don't know, I guess I'm just scared, and I would never want to put Jimin through anything he doesn't deserve."
"I get you." He replies. "But I do hope you know how much he cares about you. Like, I'm really not doing this because he's my bestfriend and all." He laughed. "But because I want to see the both of you happy."
"Thank you." You smiled at him toothlessly, the thoughts now flooding your head. All you wanted to do at this point was run into Jimin's arms and never let go. It would be your new safe haven. All you wanted was Jimin.
The rest of the day with Taehyung and (finally, again) Jungkook was chill, as you grabbed some desserts and played around at a nearby park before heading home to rest. You felt a sudden wave of exhaustion hit you, so you took a quick shower, threw on an oversized tee and shorts before retreating to the bed for a nice, late afternoon nap. You quickly texted Jimin that you'd leave the door unlocked so he could just walk in case you were deadass knocked out and couldn't hear the knocks or phone ringing.
Jimin had been helping his parents do a ton of revamping at their café, while also holding down the fort and doing what he can to help during peak hours. He was exhausted, nonetheless, but was excited to see you. He jetted off to the loft with food from the café to for some dinner, all while chuckling at the text you sent, wondering what the hell Jungkook and Taehyung had put you through today to knock you the hell out.
"Y/N?" He calls out softly. No response. He gently shuts the door and chucks his shoes to the side befofe laying the food out on the kitchen counter. It's peacefully quiet, even as Jimin climbs up the steps to the bedroom area. He smiles to himself as he sees you deep into the duvet covers, sleeping deeply like a baby longing for their afternoon nap. He sits on the edge of the bed, his fingers brushing through your hair, thumb softly caressing your cheek. You slowly open your eyes and smile, immediately sitting up to throw your arms around him. He laughs into your hug, pulling you in closer and running his hands down your back.
"Miss me?"
"I did."
"Aw." He chuckled. "Come here." He cups your cheeks and places a kiss on your lips.
"What a nice way to wake up."
"Yeah? What did TaeTae and Kookie do to you today?"
"Nothing, we just walked around Common Ground." He nodded.
"That's it?"
"We may have played around at a nearby park before going home."
"There it is." He laughed. "Are you hungry?"
"Starving, actually." You stretched.
"I brought some food from the café. Mom said I better feed you well." You chuckled.
"She's the sweetest." He had quickly brought you over to the café the other day, his mom and dad being the sweetest, and most loving people you have ever come across. You could immediately tell where Yana and Jimin got their mannerisms from. His mom couldn't stop holding onto you and telling Jimin how pretty you were, almost like she was telepathically communicating with her son and telling him to stop fucking around and get with it. You couldn't help but giggle at the look on her face.
"Come on." He nodded for you to follow him downstairs. He had paninis laid out, freshly toasted, with chips and more dessert. You pushed the coffee table in the living room forward a bit so that you both could sit on the floor and enjoy a good movie while eating the food. He had asked you more about your day and if Taehyung or Jungkookie had talked shit about him while you guys were out. You couldn't help but chuckle, remembering the serious conversation you and Tae had.
"Mm, actually," You finished up your sandwich and quickly washed your hands before heading back to the living room area. "Me and Taehyung had a pretty serious talk."
"About?"
"You, what else?"
"God, what did he say?"
"Nothing." You laughed, seeing his facial expression change.
"You can't say that you had a serious talk then not talk about it."
"Aw, is someone upset?" He pouted.
"Yeah, cause I'd like to know and I thought you cared about me." He dramatically responded. "I see that you don't, since you'd rather keep me hanging on a string like this."
"You're so dramatic, Park." You pinched his side, making him laugh. His laugh was certainly becoming a weakness for you. "He just told me that you've been really happy since we've been spending time together." He nodded.
"I mean, he isn't wrong."
"He also said that you really cared about me." You looked at him blankly, trying to read his expression and body language. He smiled at you, his cheeks getting hot and rosy.
"He also isn't wrong there."
"Taehyung really knows you, then."
"Since high school." He shrugs.
"That's about it, though." You spared him the rest of the details being that you really didn't wanna spoil the evening with such sad and negative thoughts about how your time was coming to an end here. Frankly though, you knew you had to deal with it sooner or later. That talk was coming either way.
"Hm." He says, pushing the coffee table up more towards the tv and throwing a blanket over both of your legs. He silently swung his arm over your shoulder and kept watching the movie on the tv. It was awhile before he broke the silence again with a sigh, his eyes still glued ahead of him. "I really like you, Y/N. I like you a lot. It's a little scary, but you don't know how much you drive me crazy with everything you do."
You held onto his hand that was hanging loosely from your shoulder and looked over at him. "I really like you too." At this point, you feel his eyes on you. They linger from your eyes, down to your lips and back up to your eyes.
"Then will you let me take care of you?" All self-control had gone out the window after seeing the look in his eyes. It was full of passion and lust, but nothing dark. He just wanted to be close to you and make you happy. He cared, and he wanted you to see that.
"Yes." You say breathily as his face edged closer to yours. He cupped your face with his free hand, instantly pressing a kiss onto your lips. The kiss began to deepen quickly, with Jimin tracing your bottom lip with his tongue, asking for entrance. You gladly let him proceed as your hand rests against his jawline. You took the initiative to pull yourself onto his lap and straddle him, your breathing slightly hitching when you feel his hardened member through his grey sweats. Your tongues are beautifully dancing around as he holds you tightly while you grind your hips against his.
"Hey, wait. Are you sure about this?" He pulls away, knowing the moment is intensifying by the minute. "You know I wanna do right by you, Y/N. I don't wanna do anything you aren't comfortable with."
"I'm sure. I want this. I want you." You respond almost at a whisper, your lips slightly grazing his. He simply nods and brings you back with a kiss. You gently palm his member, making him hiss and groan slightly at your touch. You continue to grind your hips onto him, slowly humping him into insanity.
"Fuck Y/N, honestly, you're going to make me cum if you keep moving like that." You chuckled.
"Don't." You plant kisses along his jaw line, watching as he shuts his eyes and tilts his head back. "I'd want you to do it inside me." You whisper in his ear.
"Y-You can't say things like that." He moaned.
"Or what?"
"You're an instigator, you know that? A really cute one." He says as he chuckles and gently lays you back down onto the ground. He whips your shirt and shorts off, quickly unhooking your bra and tossing it aside. His eyes widen at the sight of your exposed breasts. "So fucking pretty." He curses under his breath as he lightly sucks on your neck and around your breasts, before grabbing a nipple in his mouth and toying around with it with his tongue. You grip onto his hair as you slightly arch your back in pleasure. He bites onto his bottom lip before placing a trail of kisses down your stomach and down to your inner thighs before rubbing your covered clit through your soaked panties. He gently presses his lips onto your covered clit, making you yearn for more. "You're so wet."
"J-Jimin." You weakly call out. "Please."
"I got you, baby." He slips down your panties and inserts a digit into your throbbing pussy. You let out a small moan as he pumps his digit in and out of you, before inserting another two, with his thumb circling your clit.
"Ohhhh, fuck!" You squeal as you continue to feel his fingers stretching you out. You feel your wetness dripping out with every pump and covering areas of your inner thighs before Jimin releases his fingers and has you lick them clean. He lets out a small grunt watching your tongue circle and suck onto his fingers. He then latches onto your clit with his mouth. You feel his tongue swipe down your folds, teasing you with an in and out motion. You jut your hips upward but Jimin does a hell of a job preventing you from moving up any higher. You squirm in his grip, feeling your high coming close. "Jimin, fuck! You're gonna make me cum." You see his eyes look up at you, this time, full of lust. He simply nods as he continues to let his tongue suck you dry and explore the insides of you - the sight being enough to tip you over and make you climax. "Jimin!" You yell his name as your body twitches from underneath his grip. He gives your pussy one last lick, causing you to tremble at the sensitivity.
"You're so fucking pretty when you call my name." He says almost at a whisper. "How else can I make you feel good, baby?" He places soft kisses along your neck and jaw. You tug on his pants, causing him to chuckle and toss his shirt and pants off to the side.
"Please."
"Please, what? Use your words, beautiful."
"I want you deep inside of me. I wanna feel you." He bites onto his bottom lip and smirks. You run your hands down his chiseled abs and his V-line, completely in awe of how beautiful this man truly was. He was driving you crazy, everything about him. His eyes, his soft hair, his scent, his body. Good god.
He removes his boxers, making his hardened cock spring out. It was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen - perfectly long and thick, with veins running upward in various places. You pump him a few times, causing him to let out small moans, before placing your thumb on his reddened head to spread the pre-cum around his tip. He lowers his body back down onto you, his member teasing your entrance and gently grazing your folds. He kisses you passionately before you watch him grab his cock and place the head at your entrance. He inches in, lowering his body back down and bringing the blanket over your bodies while watching your eyes roll to the back of your head.
"You okay?"
"Mhm." You let out, your nails already digging onto his back. He kept a steady pace and slowly eased you into it. Your moans became breathy as he picked up the pace, his hands now keeping your legs opened wider for him. "Mmmmff, Jimin." You pleaded. "Just like that."
"Fuck, babygirl. The way you call my name." He quickly tilts his head back before ramming his body into yours as he became a little rough with it. Your thighs were folded up near your stomach as he held it there and continued to thrust in and out of you. With him picking up the pace, you felt yourself about to reach your climax and cum again.
"God, I'm gonna cum." You continued to moan loudly, until you were gripping onto the blankets and your eyes were rolling back once again. He greatly slowed down his pace, letting you ride out your high once more while placing kisses along your breasts and your lips. He wraps his arms around you and brings the blanket over while he sits back against the couch and lets you straddle him once more. The blanket comfortably sits below your waist, your eyes locked with his. He simply smiles at you, tucking a strand behind your ear and caresses your cheek. You gently and slowly ride him as you lean into his hand and place a kiss on his palm. His hands drop down to your waist, gripping onto them as you kept a steady pace while resting your hands on the couch behind him. You pick up your pace as you watch him squirm underneath you. He begins to call out your name, his hisses and groans accompanying the sound of your wet pussy riding him into the sunset.
"Y/N, fuck. Y-You're gonna make me cum." He tilted his head back, his hands losing grip around your hips as you rode his cock faster. "L-like that." He stutters. "Ugh, god." He hisses. You can tell he's about to let go with the way he's holding back his moans.
"J-Jimin, hmmmmph." You tilt your head back as you feel yourself about to cum for the third time tonight. "Please cum with me." You plead as your moans get louder.
"Oh shit, I'm gonna cum." He spits out as his fingers deep into your hips. You feel him fill you up completely as you ride out the rest of your high, Jimin's head now resting against your chest as you hold him close. You both stay in the position for awhile to catch your breath. After a moment, he looks up to meet your eyes and smiles, kissing you on the lips before helping you off his lap. He helps clean you up a bit before cleaning himself up and throwing his shirt and sweats back on. You fix the blanket onto the floor and drag some pillows down from the couch so you could lay on your stomach somewhat comfortably on the floor.
"You don't wanna get up to the bed?" Jimin laughed as he kneeled and rubbed your back.
"No, I'm too comfortable now."
"That good, huh?"
"Shut up, Jimin. Leave me alone." He laughed louder.
"I'll go grab another blanket." He says, going into the storage closet to grab another thick blanket to drape over your bodies. He lays next to you, his back resting against the couch as he propped his elbow up and rested his head on his hand. He continued to rub your back as you both looked over at the TV, the movie now nearing the end.
"I have to rewind the movie." You pouted, making Jimin chuckle.
"Go ahead." He watched as you flipped the remote up and brought the movie back to the last place you remembered seeing. You sunk your body into Jimin's, his lips lightly pressing on your head. Not even 5 minutes back into the movie, you felt your eyes getting heavy.
"Ah, I'm getting so sleepy though."
"You took a nap earlier. What do you mean?"
"I worked out a lot today." He laughed and lightly tickled you, making you hit his hand away.
"I see that. Go to sleep."
"Are you going to stay?" You mumbled.
"Only if you want me to."
"Of course I do." He smiled. "But what are you going to do?"
"Watch anime or whatever is on Netflix. Don't worry about me."
"Mmkay."
"Goodnight, baby." He whispers in your ear before kissing your cheek. The word baby made the butterflies come back (and the pussy throb, yet again, but you shoved that in the back of your mind because you definitely didn't have energy to go another round, as much as you wanted to).
Jimin watches as you quickly fall asleep, smiling to himself while he continues to play with your hair. He was happy. So happy. More than he's ever felt before and he wasn't sure how you were doing it. He was caught in your spell and he didn't even see it coming. You had him so undone. All he wanted to do was make this work with you and he was willing to, more than you knew. He didn't care about the time difference, he didn't care about your life being back in LA, he just didn't care about anything you've worried about because he believed you were worth it and he was going to put in this effort. You could figure everything else out later, but he just wanted this to be.
youtube
Alexa, play: Vibez x Zayn
#bts#bts fanfiction#jimin fanfiction#jimin#park jimin#pjm series#pjm x reader#jimin x reader#jimin fluff#jimin smut#bts smut#park jimin smut#off the grid#otg#writing
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A New Life #1
in which a domestic fluff Kid!Bam and Khun AU
story under the cut
Part 2 >
Khun lives a decent life, he has a good house, a good job with a good salary too. He lived alone in a small yet comfortable house, he can do his job at home though he still need to come to the office once in a while. But honestly he's starting to get bored with his daily life.
He had been thrown away from his family anyway, not that he's unhappy about it, because he's the one who ran away from them. He had no exact reason in his life, no family to return to, no friends to have fun with, no people to trust.
The world is grey as always, but he still keep on living.
Until one day, his life changed.
----------
It's a cold rainy day, Khun just got out from his office and on his way home. The rain is pouring outside and he thought it's not really wise to go with public transportation because he didn't trust the driver, so he walked home with his small umbrella.
In the narrow alleyway he accidentally saw a boy with a messy long brown hair, curling himself under a small roof so he won't be soaked by the rain nor cold by the wind, even though it's rather a useless gesture.
It's on that brief moment Khun saw himself, a long time ago when he ran away from his home. He unconsciously approached the boy and brought the umbrella closer to him but immediately regretted it as he realized what he's doing.
There's no coming back now, it'll be weird if he leave without saying anything right?. He asked the boy, "Are you lost?". The boy seem hesitant and scared, he curled on himself more and slightly moved away from him. "I'm Khun, what's your name?", somehow he's getting softer because he kept seeing the figure in front of him as his past self, 'why am I like this?!', he blamed himself and sighed internally.
The boy remained silent so he asked again, "where's your parents?", the boy looked away with a. . .sad eyes? Or maybe a confused look?, he wasn't sure. "want me to take you to the police station? They might be able to help you", the boy winced on the word 'police' and immediately shook his head then moved slightly away again. To be honest Khun didn't trust them too but what else can he do? Oh yeah there's one.
"how about I take you home with me?", Khun said without thinking, and regretted it again after he realized the words already came out from his mouth, he facepalmed internally. Suddenly a lightning struck followed by rumbles, and it reminded him again on the day he ran away, the day when the rain poured heavily and lightnings strucked like a world war, the wind didn't help either as it made his wet clothes even more colder in a chilly night.
"I guess a storm will come soon and it'll be really cold outside", he thought out loud. Even though Khun was a bit reluctant to help, he still has a sense of humanity left in him, "you can come home with me, if that's alright with you of course", he offered, 'well, as long as you didn't make any trouble', he thought to himself.
The boy looked up to him and Khun saw a 'yes I want to, but I don't want to bother you' look on his golden eyes. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the pleading stare the boy gave him, how could he resist that look? maybe a change in his life won't be so bad, "it's okay with me", and after a few moments the boy nodded reluctantly.
They both walked in silence, Khun didn't dare to touch the boy yet cause he seems really wary along the way. Meanwhile the boy didn't seem to notice that Khun slightly tilted his small umbrella towards him so he won't get soaked more than he already was. Khun didn't mind his clothes got soaked anyway, he already expecting it since the time he decided to walk instead of taking public transportation.
When they got home, Khun immediately go for the towels and back to where the boy was waiting. Khun put a towel on the chair and gave another one to the boy and then pointed at the said chair, "stay there and warm yourself first, I'll take a bath real quick", he immediately went to the bathroom.
The boy just kept the towel on his hands, didn't dare to do anything with it. Honestly he doesn't really know what to do, having no one to teach him anything. He only understand the basic everyday words that he learned himself by experience and he still can't spoke fluently because he rarely talks.
After Khun finished, he approached the boy with a new towel on his hand, he noted the still dry towel that he gave the boy earlier but didn't make any comment about it. "it's your turn, I've prepared a warm bath", Khun guide him to the bathroom and the boy gingerly took a step in, still feeling awkward. "can you do it yourself?", he asked just to be sure, the boy nodded after a few seconds, the response was less convincing but Khun didn't push it. "take your time, just yell if you need me", though he had a feeling he won't do that even if something happened, he seems to be the quiet type.
The boy closed the door and approached the bathtub filled with warm water, he stood there for a while. He never had a warm bath before, is this really okay?, he touched the water surface with his fingers, just imagining in it must feels really good, does he deserve this?, he turned his head towards the door and back to the tub before he finally started taking a bath.
Meanwhile, Khun felt like he was forgotten something, what is it exactly? Ah yes, clothes, how could he missed that. It's already dark outside and the rain doesn't seem like it was going to stop anytime soon, he certainly didn't have anything that fits for the boy nor he would let the boy wear that soaked dirty clothes again before he washed it. He had no choice but to search in his wardrobe.
Khun found a dark blue T-shirt and a black shorts that barely fit him anymore, it's the smallest one that he had. He then went to the bathroom and knocked twice, "hey, I brought you some clothes, it might be too big but at least it's better than the wet one, I'll put it here near the door", and then he went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
He took a few pieces of spiced chicken fillets from the refrigerator, dip it in the egg and flour then fried it. He took three pieces of bread, one for the boy and two for himself, smear them with butter and toasted it. After the chickens are ready, he cooked the egg that he used earlier into omelets.
At that time the boy had finished taking a bath, he smelled something delicious and followed it into the kitchen. He approached Khun slowly, curious what and how something can smell like that, but he still keep a distance between them.
After everything is finished, Khun stack the bread, vegetables, omelette, ketchup and fried chicken to makes two sandwiches. When he turned around to put them on the table, he saw the boy with the oversized clothes that he gave, Khun smiled, "that clothes sure are quite big compared to you", the boy just smiled shyly and looked away.
Khun put the plates on the table, "here, you must be hungry, I made sandwiches". They gathered around the table, Khun sat on the floor and told the boy to sit on the cushion. The boy kinda hesitant at first but relented, so then they ate. It's the first meal after weeks or even a month for the boy that could make his stomach full again, he really thankful for that. His happiness is radiating and Khun somehow felt happy too.
"come on, let's fix your hair", Khun said after they finished their dinner. He put the dirty clothes at the washing machine first before they went to his room. They sat on the bed edge near the window, Khun took a comb and started combing the boy's hair.
"hey, are you okay if we talk about it again now?", a hesitant nod. "so, what's your name?", the boy kept silent.
'maybe he won't talk about it or. . .', Khun thought. "well then, if you didn't feel like talking just answer me with yes or no", the boy nods, 'okay'.
Khun thought for a moment, "do yo have a home?", a moment of silence then a no. 'homeless?', he then asked one more time with a different question just to make sure, "do you have any place to return to?", no. 'hm? were you like that all this time?', he doesn't know what to feel, "do you know where your parents are?", a shrug and a no. 'he doesn't know?', Khun felt a strange connection between them, being homeless and has no family. 'this boy really is troublesome', he thought, he must've been through a lot more than himself on this age.
Anyways, Khun just realized he hadn't heard any words from him, "can you speak?", yes. 'oh good at least he's not muted', it'll be more troublesome if he can't. "how old are you?", the boy shrugged, but by his look, Khun assumed he's around five or six.
There's still a thing that he wanted to ask since the beginning, "do you have a name?", Khun asked for the third time, the boy answered with a no and Khun internally facepalmed. He decided not to push on 'why', considering that he haven't spoke yet, "okay then, do you have something in mind or. . .?", the boy pointed at Khun and he sighed, "so you wanted me to give you?", the boy nods.
"well, let me think of something", he began searching for an inspiration while combing. He looked at the window; 'moon, stars, rain, storm, cloud, night', he noted. Then he looked back at the hair he's combing; 'soft, long, brown', and suddenly a word crossed his mind.
"how about 'Bam'?, It means night. Unlike the day who only has a sun, there's a moon and lots of stars to keep the night company, I hope you'll find yours too one day", Khun silently cringed but he continued, "Though 'Bam' can also means chestnut, it's brown just like your hair".
The boy look up to him, his golden eyes shining with satisfied look, he nods with a big smile on his lips. "B-bham", he said with a beaming smile.
'W-what is this feeling?!', he's confused, that smile, just by looking at him smiling could warm his heart and just by hearing him said that made him really proud. Khun never felt this way before, this all still new to him. 'Why did I became like this all of the sudden?', Khun was confused with his own feelings.
It's weird, really, he never been interested in children before because they're loud, annoying, fussy and complicated, heck he never even thought of having one. But this boy, Bam, he's the type of child that somehow he couldn't hate, he was the opposite of what he always thought. He doesn't want him to experience the same thing like he did. He's getting soft and honestly he didn't like it, but still, he smiled, "glad you like it, Bam".
"Bam", he repeated one more time and giggled when he said it right. It's a cold rainy day but strangely, they felt warm.
After Khun finished combing Bam's hair, they brushed their teeth -luckily Khun has a spare toothbrush-, then they're getting ready to sleep, but the bed obviously can't fit for both of them.
"you can use my bed, just for tonight", Khun suggested. Bam shook his head then went to the dining room and back with the cushion he used earlier. He showed it to khun then put the cushion on the floor near Khun's bed.
"but-", Khun tried to argue but Bam shook his head again, "you sure?", Bam nodded with determination. Khun gave up and sighed, "okay fine, let see if I can find some blanket for you".
Khun found two small but thick blankets, though its sizes should be enough to cover Bam. He arranged the blankets and cushion into a temporary bed. And they're ready to sleep.
It's a long night, hours passed but Khun can't fall asleep. Several minutes later he heard a whisper, it's from Bam.
"ar hyu, ah-sleep?", Bam whispered slowly as not to wake him up.
"yes", he joked but Bam fell for it, "just kidding", Khun shifted his position so he could see him.
"tank yhu", he whispered shyly, avoiding his gaze.
"you're welcome", Khun whispered back and closed his eyes. There's that warm feeling again, blooming in his chest.
They slept shortly afterwards.
#yay finally posting this here#i made this exactly a year ago#so apologize in advance for grammar errors#cus im too lazy to fix em#anyways part 2 tomorrow#tower of god#tog#khun#khun aguero agnis#khun a.a#bam#baam#25th bam#25th Baam#Kid!bam#my fanfic#my art
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990
survey by starsareonly2nd
Have you ever been to Las Vegas?
No. Doesn’t sound like my type of city. I wouldn’t mind visiting the rest of Nevada though.
What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Just a cup of coffee; I skip breakfast except on Sundays, when we actually sit down at the dining table and eat as a family.
Do you have any loose change in your pocket?
I don’t have any pockets right now but I do have very few coins in my wallet. I used to have plenty, but I’ve given most of them away because I usually give tips to the nice people who help me get out of parking spots.
Do you like Taylor Swift?
I like some of her songs, especially the ones from 1989, but I have no idea why I just can’t get into her as a person.
What's your favorite Disney Channel movie?
I haven’t tuned in to that channel for a very long time now, but the movies that I got the most excited about as a kid were Twitches, Wendy Wu, Camp Rock, The Cheetah Girls, and High School Musical 1 and 2.
If you met your favorite celebrity, would you be calm or star struck?
I’d be starstruck in a calm way; like I’d most likely be too shocked to get more than a few words out. I’m sure I’d come off as shy or boring haha, which is why I’ve refused to meet or interact with my favorite celebrities even if I’ve already had the chance to.
Are there any lights on in the room you're in?
I have a ceiling light and a desk lamp, but both are turned off. My only light source at the moment is my laptop screen.
What's your favorite subject in school?
History.
What's your favorite holiday?
My birthday, if that counts. Christmas can also be great but only for the food, the reunions with extended family, and the freedom to guiltlessly cut off contact with colleagues for a couple of weeks. All other aspects of it make me miserable though.
Do you ever have to do yard work?
I’ve never had to do that before.
Is your school close to your house?
I mean, it wasn’t a 10-minute walk away but it’s relatively close and driving to my university objectively doesn’t take too long unless there’s heavy traffic. If there’s absolutely no barriers I could get to school in 15-20 minutes, but this is really only just for weekends where I have to go to school for some reason. If there’s traffic (and there always is), I take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
Speaking of school, how did you get there today?
I haven’t been to my school since the first week of March, and I’ve already graduated since then.
Do you think Bad Romance is a catchy song, or an annoying one?
I can honestly tell you that I have genuinely never gotten sick of that song. It’s a late 2000s classic, man. Of course it was too explicit for my 11 year old ears when it first came out, but I found it catchy nonetheless.
Do you use perfect grammar online?
I always try to be correct, yes. When I use improper grammar it’s usually because I’m joking.
Are you currently using a laptop?
Yup.
Do you have any live versions of songs in your music software?
I haven’t used iTunes in a while and Spotify, which I do use, doesn’t work that way.
Did/do you listen to Britney Spears songs?
I’ve never skipped her singles whenever I caught them on the radio and I’ve always fairly enjoyed the music she puts out, but I normally don’t voluntarily listen to her i.e. look up her songs myself on Spotify.
Is it a windy day?
It is now that it’s nighttime, but it was a little humid all day today.
In the past week, have you ridden in a taxi?
No. I’m not actually sure if that’s even already allowed...the possibility of public transport is still pretty murky where I live.
What shorthand do you use the most?
I have no idea what this means. I did try looking it up but I dunno if I’ve ever had to use shorthand at any point in my life.
Do you ever wish on stars at night?
Every now and then, but it’s just the little kid in me.
What color are your eyes?
Dark brown. I feel like I answer this at least once a week.
What album is the current song you're listening to off of?
Not listening to music but the last song I heard is from an album called Petals For Armor.
What are you doing after you finish this?
Try not to cry/break down. Find something to watch on YouTube. Maybe play with Cooper to destress and forget about my problems for a bit.
In your opinion, what song is the most overplayed right now?
Other than songs I occasionally put on repeat, I have not heard any new music for a while now.
Are you in a band?
Nope, never been.
How clean is your bedroom?
We just tidied it up and rearranged a few things last month so I’d say it’s clean - at least tidier than it used to be. And I’m a little proud that despite how rough life has been, I’ve managed to keep it clean. It’s the little things.
Is there a pen within reaching distance of you?
Yeah, there’s one on my desk and I can easily reach out and grab it.
Are you sitting at a desk?
I’ve moved to my bed for now. My back does not appreciate sitting at a desk all day.
Does your favorite band have a male or female lead singer?
Female.
Do you normally shut your bedroom door before you go to sleep?
Yesssssssss. We have a light source by the stairs that extends to the hallway and reaches my room, so it gets super annoying if my door is even just slightly ajar because my eyes get distracted by the faint light. My door has to be completely shut for me to feel comfortable in the privacy of my room.
Have you seen the movie Moulin Rouge?
I haven’t. I loooove Lady Marmalade, but I’m just not sure if the movie itself is my cup of tea.
Would you ever dye your hair a different color?
I’d love to have the chance to do that, yeah.
Are there any framed pictures in the room you're in?
There are a couple.
Have you ever been to a Broadway show?
Nope.
Do you watch So You Think You Can Dance?
I don’t think so but I do remember watching a few episodes of Dancing with the Stars because a wrestler that I liked was one of the contestants for one season. I’m just not sure of SYTYCD also featured wrestlers in their shows; if that has been the case in the past- and I’m just not sure because my memory is a little hazy - I would’ve given it a watch.
What's your favorite movie soundtrack?
The Twilight Saga churned out some bomb ass soundtracks. Other than that, I also enjoyed Interstellar’s and Requiem for a Dream’s.
Do you prefer group or individual work?
Depends on what kind of work needs to be done. If a task is graphic design or video editing-heavy, I would prefer to work with other people; but if it’s gonna be heavy on something that’s already my forte, I like to work by myself.
Do you have a key to anything besides your house?
Just my car.
Are you wearing anything with stripes?
Not at the moment.
What time did you go to sleep last night?
9:45 I think? A little later than 10? Somewhere along that range.
Did anyone tell you you were beautiful today?
No.
What show did you last watch?
Friends.
Do you think you'll do anymore surveys today?
I doubt it. This one is already quite longer than the surveys I usually take.
What's your favorite ice cream flavor?
Cookies and cream; and more recently, chocolate chip cookie dough.
When was the last time you stayed home from school sick?
Sometime in February last year. I developed a fever the night before but wasn’t able to start feeling better by the next morning, so I had to skip the one class I had that day.
Could you ever complete a 500-piece puzzle?
Yes. I’m actually planning to buy a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle; it’s one of the items I’ve put on my cart recently. Depressed Robyn is also spend-a-lot-of-money-on-artsy-craftsy-supplies-Robyn, so.
If you could run a red light and not get caught, would you?
Hell no.
Do you like to listen to music as you do your homework?
Not usually, but sometimes I’ll put on lo-fi since that’s the only kind of music I can listen to and still keep my focus.
Did you think Adam Lambert's AMA performance was really that controversial?
I’ve never encountered it, but I doubt I’ll have a problem with it if I do get to watch the performance. I love Adam Lambert and I've never found myself shaking my head at whatever he’s doing.
Do any bands flat-out annoy you?
They’re a boy band more than anything but The Vamps has consistently irritated me through the years.
Do you have a mirror in your bedroom?
No. I used to, but I gave it to my sister.
Was today a birthday for any of your friends?
I don’t think so. With all my social media being deactivated I never get notified about birthdays anymore, but I’m fairly sure none of my friends blow out their candles every October 22nd.
When was the last time you rode in a limo?
I’ve never been in one.
Do you take naps daily?
No. I can’t really do that anymore since I have an 8-hour shift on weekdays, lol.
Do you still make Christmas lists?
No.
Do you watch the show Dexter?
I tried getting into the show because it used to always be said in the same breath as Breaking Bad, but I never got invested. I heard later seasons sucked too, so that also turned me off from continuing to pursue the series.
What's the background on your phone?
I have a motivational comic that says “You’re doing really well given the circumstances” as my lockscreen. Cooper smiling is my home screen.
When were/will you be a a sophomore in high school?
That was six years ago.
Are you scared of any animals?
Any flying insect or bug, and I find them scarier if they come with a loud buzz.
Have you ever been to any sort of convention?
YouTube Fanfest, if that counts as one. I’m not really sure what counts as a convention haha, but that’s the closest thing I’ve got.
Which song did you last listen to on repeat?
Why We Ever by Hayley Williams.
Where do you want to live when you grow up?
I’ve stopped thinking about that for now. My focus has since shifted to asking myself if I’ll still even be alive in a few years...ugh, how far we’ve fallen.
Are you currently using a blanket?
No. It’s not cold enough for a blanket yet, but maybe in a few hours.
Are there any songs that make you cry?
A lot.
How many siblings do you have?
Two.
What are you doing this weekend?
I have no idea.
Do you prefer swimming at the beach or in a pool?
BEEEEEEEEACH. Once I took my first dip in a beach, I never wanted to swim in a pool ever again.
When was the last time you had a haircut?
March.
Which musical instrument do you think sounds the prettiest?
Piano, saxophone, and violin. Can’t pick a favorite; I think they all sound beautiful.
Are you in band or chorus at your school?
I was never in either.
Do you know what you want for Christmas?
Yeah but they’re all intangible. I want to be happy, be at peace, normalcy, etc. I’ve stopped pining for presents, especially now that I can afford my own shit.
Do you watch fireworks on New Year's Eve?
Always.
Is your birthday within the next three months?
Nope. You’ll have to add three more months to that timeframe.
How long is the song you're listening to?
No music.
Are you anticipating anything this week?
I’m waiting for a couple of very specific emails to come in, and I hope they do before the week ends.
Is your mom or dad the older parent?
My dad, but only by 8 months. They were born in the same year.
Have you taken the SATs yet?
I never had to take them, but I heard they’re triiiiiiiicky.
Do you watch anything on E?
We never had E! in our cable service but I like tuning into that channel whenever we stay at hotels because I get to watch KUWTK, hehe.
Are you going to get off the computer now that you've finished this?
Most likely.
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x Within the Days The Bombs stood still [Au Lore/Plot]
x Whaaat another god damn au? Yes...Yes....Because my mafia au and historical lady in waiting au isn’t enough for me. I love making aus, it’s my drug honestly
What’s this one about Cev?
x Cold war era, androids, falling in love with the wrong person, trying to stay alive, and a bittersweet ending! Is it all historically accounted for? Nah. But It’s a funny little idea.
Sit back, relax and get ready for this. It’s gonna be good.
x Okay so while watching an ASMR where the listener was a robot and the YT was repairing them I had the idea of what if I/my sona was an android created by the Americans during the end of ww2 but wasn’t activated during the 70s in the middle of the cold war between America and USSR.
x America was working on a a big top secret that only England knew about to basically create the perfect robots to air drop into the USSR in case there was something going on and they needed to basically blow up the nation before the USSR blew them up. Or simply to have them be spies they send over that could automatically report back to them.
x Alfred, one of the lead sophomore scientist of the project R.A.B (Radioed Automatic Bombers) was in charge of programming and designing the human covers for each robot. Against the orders he was given Alfred too the creative freedom of tweaking each bot into having it’s own made up personality and back stories. He believed that if this robots were going to pretend to be human then they needed to fit the bill. He was stumped on what to do for one of the bots so he used inspo of the female black mathematicians he met at NASA that past summer and created M.E.L (Multipurpose Electronic Locator)
x Luckily for Alfred most of the bots were going to stay in the states to catch any Russian spies that happen to slip in. So creating M.E.L wasn’t that big of an issues considering who he based her after. Alfred had the idea of keeping two of the bots to himself for assistance anyway.
x But was put on a halt when a couple of KGB manage to break into Alfred’s unit and destroyed some of the robots and stole most of the documentation. M.E.L wasn’t completely finished like the other bots and she was going to end up like the rest until one of the spies said they should take one and send it back home to be studied so the Russian would have a lead in whatever the American's were doing. And that became the fate of M.E.L
x When M.E.L arrived in Russia (imma flip back and forth between Rus and Ussr bare with me) the scientist try to take her apart for the information but then its noted in a stolen document that Alfred in coded all his secrets into a trust data base. In order for them to get anything they would have to turn her on and "befriend" her. Only then if they ask her something top secret would she automatically give them what they wanted.
x At first they weren't going to put up with it and destroy her but the junior lead scientists Ivan saw it as a challenge and told them he would deal with her. And in due time Ivan puts M.E.L back together, puts her human covering on and turns her on and M.E.L boots up, what they forgot to look for was to see if she spoke computer or human. So when M.E.L powered on she only responded in English and it seemed that she had a mind of her own instead of being programed to do as she was told. Ivan had more work on his hands than he was expecting.
x Ivan had to rewire her so that she understood and spoke back in Russian. When he was successful that's when things got tricky. M.E.L didn’t see the world in 1s and 0s she saw the world as if she was a real human who happen to take a nap in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ivan being the blunt person he is constantly reminded her that was false and that just made things harder.
x Ivan wasn't dealing with an robot, he was dealing with an android that thought it was human. M.E.L wanted to go home, she wanted to see her "family" but she was stuck in Russia. So Ivan lied to her and said the American left her there and that he was a simple scientist who wouldn’t mind helping her get back home as long as she followed his rules.
x M.E.L didn't like the sound of this but she had no choice but to give in and work with Ivan to get back home. And thus Ivan's rules were simple: 1) No going outside without him 2) She wasn't allowed to wonder each and anywhere in his house 3) if she didn't mind, having something to eat ready by the time he got home and 4) no asking him questions about what he did at work.
x At first M.E.L hated it, and she broke the second rule very offend when he wasn't around. So much in fact Ivan would turn her off before he left the house and have a timer to turn her back on an hour and a half before he was suppose to be home. M.E.L would ask him questions about the difference in American teach and Russian teach and Ivan had to turn her off and reprogram her to be unable to ask those questions. It was a lot of fucking work but eventually they came to an understanding and found an easy way of life to the point Ivan was happy to come home to company.
x But then Ivan started getting to comfortable and failed to report in sometimes. He started seeing M.E.L less of a robot and more of an actual person. The only thing that made it noticable M.E.L wasn’t human was the barcode on the back of her neck and the few times she would glitch out and fall to the ground. Alfred did an amazing job putting her together and if someday Ivan met the man he would taken him in secret.
x That's when things start to take a turn, Ivan isn't reporting as much information about M.E.L and it's been six months. The government starts to think Ivan is actually an American based spy trying to hide the secrets so they start investigating him and spying on him. Ivan isn't dumb and he knows they are and he is trying to cover his footsteps as best as possible.
x This even happens when Ivan is sent on a month mission to Ukraine to overlook the construction and stability of the new power planet that’s being built. He powers off M.E.L and very carefully dis mantels her to store her somewhere safe while he is away.
x But a few weeks after he returns from Ukraine he slips up one night while drinking and he kisses Mel and confesses he might actually be in love with her. And the spies catches that and the next morning Ivan's house is raided, lucky for Mel, Ivan had a feeling something was going to happen and relocated them to the other side of the house near the back where in case of anything they could escape.
x It's honestly a fight for their lives and Mel gets hurt and so does Ivan but they make it out and have to figure out how to get out of Russia and get into Ukraine then down into Poland and over into Eastern Germany. They can’t take public transport like a plane while still in soviet areas because they would be easily captured. Ivan was now an enemy of his country. It takes a year of having to hide, lie, steal and cheat to get all the way to Eastern Germany. But when they make it Ivan can no longer walk and Mel pushes him around in a wheelchair. They make it to safety and Ivan turns himself in to the Americans and Brits that have control over the Western side of Germany. Mel stays with him the whole time when it’s revealed she's an American product.
x Of course wind word catches wind and the American government is contacted and Ivan and Mel are taken back to the states where Alfred finally gets to meet his creation after two years of thinking only of his bots (Matt) survived. He tells her she’s even more human than he ever imagine her to turn out. That’s when it finally dons on Mel that Ivan wasn’t lying she really wasn’t human. Alfred reinsures her that as long as she's willing to help her country he can push some documents to have her a real identity made. Mel accepts as long as she can stay with Ivan.
x But even that was tricky bc now the government is holding Ivan under wraps from both the public and the USSR for questioning. Ivan is really good at giving very little and taking a lot. He told them a few hints of information but not enough to truly do any damage. Eventually the Americans allows him to live in the public but he is under watch. Ivan doesn’t care as long as he can live an honest life with Mel.
x Come to find out Alfred knew all about Ivan since he started his job, Ivan was the one who was always deflecting the American messages in American air space and Alfred had to change the messages to something stupid to throw them off. Alfred offers Ivan a job at the company and they become friends (even with their constant bickering).
x In the end Ivan and Mel stay in America for the rest of Ivan's life, even getting married (that was a weird one for Al but he keeps his mouth shut)
x Ivan ends up dying of old age and Mel doesn't wish to live on without him so she goes to Alfred who is also a very old man and ask him to finally turn her off for good. He asks her if she sure and she tells him to make sure where Ivan is buried she is buried right next to him.
#🌻Optimistic Tragedy🌻#Cold War au#hetalia self ship#self ship#self shipping#self shipping community#this post is long#au lore#my writing
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I know for questions, you're probably talking about Far From Home, but what about William, the fish guy? What was he like in the early days of character development? How has he changed since you first thought of him? And I guess, same question for the FFH folks. Thanks in advance.
I was honestly so excited to receive this question because I LOVE my boy William! Plus it’s fun to talk about character origin stories.
Buckle up. This is gonna be a long answer.
Up until 2014 my art largely consisted of fanart or fan characters, so I had never produced content that was truly original. During spring of that year, I stumbled upon and quickly become enamored with some original characters on deviantart, many of which were ‘monsters’ (vampires, mermaids, werewolves, etc.). Seeing these characters inspired me to create my own story with characters that catered to my own interests.
William is the first original character I ever created, so he has a special place in my heart. This is my very fist sketch of him! (Sorry for the low quality.)
My initial idea for his story was disorganized and had a lot of missing pieces. In the early days of character development, William was nothing more than a character I liked for his design and personality. I had very little experience with character creation, so I put a lot of myself into him. He was shy and timid and anxious at times, but he also had low self-esteem and didn’t feel like he fit in anywhere. And for good reason — his backstory was one of confusion and grief. Originally, he was an orphan that had been kidnapped by scientists and genetically modified to resemble a fish, all while retaining his previous characteristics and a humanoid shape. The scientists raised him and were training him for some unknown task, of which I never decided before changing the direction of the story entirely.
William and his story turned six during March of this year, and both have changed A LOT since then! He’s no longer a chemist, nor does he have any experience in the sciences. I also gave him some glasses and a nice argyle sweater (which now serves as his classic look, haha), and I’ve decided he’s of Asian descent for reasons explained in a few paragraphs. Not only have I refined his story to be more practical and understandable, but I’ve also given William a purpose, something to pursue. He’s still anxious and feels like he doesn’t belong, but he doesn’t stay that way forever.
I always liked stories about monsters, in the sense that something not-quite-human longs for a place among normal people. Society views these ‘monsters’ as unnatural or potentially dangerous, and yet the monster displays more humanity than the humans themselves. I really want to lean into that idea as I tell William’s story. He may not be your typical monster, but he certainly feels like one. Different, unnatural, out of place. Yet he has a kind heart and a childlike fascination with the world. The road is difficult, but with a bit of help he eventually finds his niche.
Here’s my most recent sketch for comparison, and a lovely depiction of William by my pal HareSoup!
Besides the few changes mentioned above, Will hasn’t changed much design-wise. He has fins in place of ears, gills on his neck, scales scattered across his face/trunk/limbs, and a bit of webbing between his fingers/toes. He can breathe underwater and on land, but his scales and gills have to receive moisture every 1-2 hours or he’ll develop health issues/fall ill.
I don’t remember when I decided I wanted to write a full-length book telling Will’s story, but it’s still a goal of mine! To give you a brief synopsis of the current story, now titled “Fish Out of Water”, it takes place some years after the signing of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which officially brought the Arms Race to an end. During the Arms Race, nuclear weapons were tested without concern for radiation and the effects it had on nearby civilians. In one particular scenario, Asian civilians were evacuated from a small town-turned nuclear test site, but they were not properly protected. The offspring of these civilians developed unnatural deformities/features, such as extra limbs or feathers, as a result of exposure to unhealthy levels of radiation. Worried that this development would mortify the public, the government hid the children in a science facility stationed in a secluded part of the ocean, and they remained within its walls for years. After 28 years, William escapes the facility with the help of his guilt-ridden caretaker and is found unconscious on the shore of a coastal city by marine biologist Martha Collins. The story follows Will as he attempts to shake his government pursuers, but it’s really a story about friendship, self-worth, and discovering what it truly means to be human.
Though unfinished, William’s story is very special to me, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with the world someday :>
As for the Far From Home folks, they came from simple beginnings. It all started with a sketch — this one to be exact!
Back in the spring of 2017, I was stressed and tired and frustrated with school, so I thought it’d be fun to create some new characters. Specifically, comfort characters that fit my favorite tropes. I took a lot of inspiration from the movies “Ernest & Celestine” and “You Are Umasou” when it came to personalities and character dynamics. I loved the idea of a tough, grumpy man who is completely unqualified to be a father stumbling upon and eventually adopting a small, bright-eyed child. There’s just so much you can do with that concept!
I specifically remember sitting in the library at school and just…drawing. I had no initial designs in mind besides something big and sharp, and something small and soft. Two opposites that would become a makeshift family.
I liked the designs enough to digitalize them, reworking aspects of their designs in the process. This was the first ‘accurate’ drawing of Baz and Toko. (I don’t like it too much anymore, but it’s a good color reference!)
I never like leaving a character without a story, so I eventually came up with a couple ideas that adequately described their relationship. In fact, my first idea presented Toko as some sort of child princess and Baz as her assigned bodyguard! That one obviously didn’t stick, but it did allow me to gain a better understanding of what I wanted.
Over time, I did a bit of world building and expanded upon the FFH universe, which opened and closed doors for potential storylines. I realized I wanted to add more characters too, leading to the creation of Gerdie and some other important figures. Gerdie looked quite a bit different than he does now — in fact, he was originally supposed to be an android! I played around with that idea for a while before eventually discarding it.
Here’s my most recent size chart featuring all three main characters!
I honestly never expected Far From Home to expand beyond a simple idea, and yet here I am, thinking I can turn the story into a trilogy someday. There’s still a lot of work to do if I want to reach that goal, but I genuinely enjoy these characters and their dynamic is really fun! They’ve grown very dear to me over the past three years. So I think that’s reason enough to try, anyway.
To give a bit of background on the story itself, it’s set in a fictional version of outer space where humans don’t exist. Intelligent, technologically-advanced aliens from neighboring planets/galaxies have established contact with one another, leading to the gradual formation of an intergalactic government and melting pot mega-society. Due to the unforeseen complexity of this endeavor, strict rules were put in place to regulate the selling/purchasing of certain goods and services, transportation between galaxies, and other related activities. This system is not without complications.
Baz and Gerdie work as intergalactic merchants, but that’s just a cover for their job as smugglers. Together, they travel to different galaxies and exchange goods for the designated currency, as well as deliver illegal substances to specific planets. Baz is the captain and pilots the ship while Gerdie is an engineer and works as the mechanic. They’ve known each other for quite some time when the story first begins. Baz has quite the interesting history, much of which ties into important aspects of the story.
Toko is a young alien who gets separated from her family and wakes up in the storage unit of Baz’s ship, with no memory of how she got there. Baz finds her and suspects she’s a thief, but she quickly explains her predicament and asks that he help reunite her with her family. Baz is reluctant at first and denies her request, only to discover there’s more to her story than he originally thought. Unintentionally dragging Baz into a frightening adventure full of old friends and all-too-familiar foes, Toko eventually inspires a change of heart in the smuggler. The story explores themes like forgiveness, what it really means to be good/bad, and the idea that family isn’t defined by blood.
I know that was a lot, but I hope it was at least somewhat interesting! Thanks for asking about my characters and sticking with me through this <3
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Perfect Targets
Steggy Week 2k19, day 1
Prompt: Endgame
Summary: Steve and Peggy are accustomed to being interrupted.
AO3 link here.
It takes a strangely long time before a certain group of Hydra agents realizes that Margaret Carter provides too much of a stabilizing influence, that she is the lynchpin for so much, and that a neat "accident" would be very helpful.
(Perhaps the semi-anarchic "two more shall take its place" model is helpful in making the organizational spread hard to control or catalog, but it doesn't exactly lead to good collaboration, and it hasn’t gotten easier since Zola was found out and imprisoned before appointing a successor or passing on much of the organizing information.)
Once Carter has been identified as a prime target, an opening domino to continue in their efforts, things do move a little more quickly. It's decided that she isn't a particularly good candidate for an outright assassination: she spends too much time in heavily guarded SHIELD headquarters and even if a friendly agent could be found it would be apparent, too obviously revealing of Hydra’s underground efforts. (And finding a friendly agent would be very difficult. Somehow recruitment is getting harder and harder - is the current generation simply not as eager to join the cause? Obviously the Zola thing was bad publicity, but doesn’t it speak well that they still have their roots sunk deeply enough into society that they can continue onward, causing discord until they are in control?)
Without much of a social life - she seems to like staying in with her husband, so no standing engagement with a lover, no bowling league - the obvious place to eliminate Carter would be in her home. There is the small matter of said husband: surveillance shows him to be a well-built man, though it's nothing a sedative and a well-trained operative like Damian Ford can't handle. According to the tail they have on the husband, he spends a lot of his time chatting to old biddies as he walks them across the street, running volunteer art classes at the local community center, and helping to reach things down from high shelves at the grocery, so Ford figures he'll be a soft target. Nice people always spend too much time begging, or having faith that things will just turn out for the best.
Carter’s a busy woman and her schedule varies from night to night and she even goes into the office on weekends sometimes, but she’s always home for Sunday dinner. Ford arrives at the cute little house at ten past six. Twenty minutes is plenty of time to do away with the husband and fix up any mess before Carter pulls up. By all accounts she’s canny, and it’s always easier when you can get the drop on people. He'll take out the husband, wait for her, then pose the bodies and burn down the place, make it look like a house fire. A practically foolproof plan.
The neighborhood’s tightly packed, but Ford hops a few fences and is in the Carter backyard with no one the wiser. He congratulates himself as he goes over to the back door and jimmies the lock. It clicks, and there’s a little rush, that little bit of thrilling control that always reminds him of why he got into this business in the first place. People think they’re safe, that life has rules that they understand, but he’s there in the background, steering things in ways that most people wouldn’t understand.
He imagines the man inside, cooking the pot roast he can smell even through the still-closed door, listening to some radio program. He probably thinks that he has a say in his own fate, that he’s protected by playing housekeeper for his little wife. There will be just enough time for the realization that everything he ever believed was wrong before Ford strikes the final blow. Ford allows himself a bit of a smile as he begins to turn the doorknob.
“You’re finally coming in? I thought the potatoes were going to burn before you actually did something.”
Ford has never actually heard the man’s voice before. He has only a moment to register it, though, before a fist is swinging directly into his face.
"I'm home." Peggy closes the door, delighting in the solid sound of the lock clicking that signifies that her alone time with her husband has begun. She slips off her shoes and leaves them by the door, puts her case on the console table, and unbuttons her suit jacket. Her hair is sweaty, stuck to the back of her neck. She lifts it up and twists to offer herself a bit of circulation as she walks through to the kitchen. "I know that you've said that we're meant to have air conditioning in cars soon, but soon isn't soon enough."
Dinner is clearly ready - meat, potatoes, beans, salad, and rolls resting in serving dishes on the counter, the table set for two - but Steve isn't there when she arrives. She raises her voice a bit and asks, "Steve?"
"Basement," he calls, his voice distant.
She hadn't even wanted a cellar - too prone to flooding, too musty and damp to really store anything well - but they'd fallen in love with the house regardless. She hadn't thought about the other reasons she wouldn't enjoy it, but now she dreads even opening the door.
"Oh, bloody bollocking hell," she says as she comes far enough down the stairs to see. "I mean—good gracious, we’re back to this again?" They both know that children aren't in the cards for now - it's too dangerous at the moment, and they’ve been taking as thorough care as possible to avoid such an issue - but they've agreed to both try to clean up their language in preparation.
Steve, reading a book on the bottom step, snorts and stands, tucking the paperback into his rear pocket. "At least this one brought drugs. Some of them just show up thinking that they had all it would take—it's a little insulting, honestly."
"Yes, how dare they underestimate your muscles. But I'm sure the sedative will be very helpful." She eyes the man tied up on the chair they've essentially set aside for this purpose. "Not very polite of him to take the backyard route considering the way Mr. Lansing has deduced that his garden has been repeatedly crushed only since we moved here, but I appreciate him not making a mess - it would have been difficult to clean up considering how you broke the broom on the last one's face."
"He interrupted me while I was sweeping," Steve says unrepentantly. "I improvised."
"Hmm, you think they'd learn at least something about you, but I suppose communication and adaptation aren't strong points of theirs." She starts to button her jacket again, but then changes her mind. It’s too damn hot and she’s in her own home. "I should call in to request another transport, but I think we can eat while we wait - I'm absolutely famished, and the transportation team is practically part of the family now."
"I did make some chicken soup for John's mother - I know the treatment is really taking it out of her, and she gave us that great jam a few months ago." She starts up the stairs ahead of him.
"Perhaps I should start scheduling another night for them to be certain I'll be home? It would be nice to have a peaceful Sunday evening every once in a while."
"No one showed up last week. Or the week before," Steve reminds her, though he doesn't have to. She vividly recalls just how they'd celebrated both the lack of interruption for once, and also the apparent disorganization and dissolution of Hydra. "Besides, you wouldn't want to ruin a tradition, would you?"
She turns at the top of the staircase, facing him where he still stands on the step below her. "It doesn't bother you that these are our traditions, that this is what you came back for?"
He holds her face in his hands, fingertips smoothing over her cheekbones. If she blinked, her eyelashes would brush against them. "This is exactly what I came back for. I wouldn't have it any other way."
She thinks about the other men she might have been with instead, men who would have warned her off this type of charade, told her not to worry, that they would take care of rooting out Hydra from inside her agency and the others, men who would have come up with more grandiose plans for massive, public arrests and ignored her words about the way Hydra was a virus. She thinks about what could have been, and how lucky she has been with what is.
She kisses him. "I suppose I wouldn't either," she says, and goes to call the retrieval team.
#steggyweek2k19#Steggy#Steggy fic#Steve Rogers#Peggy Carter#the summary makes it sound like a sex thing but I'm here to swerve#start of another great Steggy Week - let's do the darn thing!
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({No trigger warnings for this, and it’s hella late, but here’s an overview of that time Janus and Cowboy slept over at o5verthinking’s place.})
“O5ver, can you come get me? I’m scared.” Words typed half joking, not expecting a serious answer. O5verthinking read it, and weren’t sure if it was serious or not, however, and, after some deliberation, they decided the best move would be to offer safe harbor to their friend ally, and leave a good impression. They wanted to be good friends. Well, they were pretty sure they were friends, and if they were, they had to be good friends, it’s only proper. Besides, no one deserved to receive that message.
They asked if Janus still needed to be picked up, and Cowboy was more than happy with the offer, since they were both pretty distressed by the nuclear waste that had been presented to Janus in the form of a terrible pickup line. Immediately upon confirmation, O5verthinking set about stabilizing a room in Tamlin House for their guests.
While the room was being readied, Cowboy was picking up his office that he’d torn apart in a fit of rage, and Janus was scouring their skin to the best of their abilities. The moment they were given coordinates, though, they both jumped to the ready so they could get out as soon as possible. While getting out was the obvious main focus, Janus also genuinely enjoyed O5ver’s company the last time they had been together in person, which bode well for this, or any future interactions. They wouldn’t show that, though, and anything would be an improvement, really.
And so they met up with O5verthinking’s O5-7, who transported them quickly to the selected room. Even at the best of times, Tamlin House was an experience that could leave individuals confused, at best. Odd or not, though, the room they were in was safe, and the others present were enjoyable, in as much as Overseers can enjoy others, or be enjoyable as individuals. Even, or especially, Overseers are often lost in the nuances of their interpersonal relations.
Whatever nuances existed between those present, everything went off with a fairly decent start. Sure, nerves were high, and the circumstances were horrible, but it didn’t seem to dampen things near as much as expected. All fifteen present had been prepared for it to go far worse, between the problems Janus and Cowboy tend to cause and the five usual suspects on O5verthinking’s end, but everyone was mercifully well-behaved, a fact everyone was grateful for.
The event’s tone was really set when the guest Cowboy’s cats came out from hiding in his clothes. This was met with approval that had to be shared with everyone, “Their Six brought his cats. I repeat, there are cats,” O5-3 announced to the server at large. Janus frowned about it, always one to find a reason to be cranky, at least in public.
“It’s fine, we love them,” O5ver responded in the collective. The cats, none the wiser, wandered around the room curiously, taking in the new sights and smells. They checked out all the new entities, greeting them all in different ways, but the most interesting new friend was Marimo, another cat.
The kittens started goading each other into play, and pretty well everyone, including Mx. Professional Wet Blanket, was willing to contribute to the cats’ antics. Playful kittens became the ongoing background for everything. They also served to distract from some subtle note passing between members of O5verthinking.
After everyone had time to get settled in, O5ver’s Five began to get restless. He’d spent time preparing food for the guests, but the guests hadn’t yet tried any of it, and the cats had distracted everyone from him trying to offer some. That, on top of his usual nervous energy, was not shaping up well for him. Two took notice, thankfully, and she got the guests’ attention.
It was a bit awkward to have to ask, the Nazarene knew this, but it was important to Forward, “Janus, can you please try the lemon meringue, if only to pacify Five a little? He's getting antsy.”
Janus nodded slowly, agreeing to try some, despite lacking an appetite. It was a small price to pay, they figured. The pie was good, it probably would have been better were they in the mood to eat, Forward had a knack for cooking, which would have been surprising, had it not come up before. Bastardverse’s Six took some as well, out of politeness. Forward was satisfied well enough, but Nazarene knew she’d be having some careful words with him later.
More notes were scribbled down and passed amongst members of O5verthinking Command.
The guests noticed a bit of the writing, but there were other things to focus on, still. Besides, taking notes wasn’t the most unusual thing, and they were still in the “getting to know you” stage of friendship.
Janus was starting to panic internally that they were being a poor guest, since most of what they’d done was yell at their boyfriend, and awkwardly take food they weren’t in the mental place to enjoy. That was far from ideal, so they went through their phone to pull up some photos.
“O5ver, how do you all feel about stingrays?”
“We love them,” again with the jarring collective voice.
“Good, then come look at these,” they showed everyone the pictures they’d taken from the date at the Sonora Desert Museum, where they’d petted and fed the stingrays. Cowboy pulled out his own phone to show the pictures he’d taken. This proved popular enough that the letter passing slowed, and it would be a fondly shared memory for all involved.
More pictures were shared, this time by Code in the Server. The majority were appreciated and enjoyed, but, as Code is wont to do, some managed to set the Overseers off.
Other interactions in the Server were largely updates, or affections shared behind redactions. Right up until Mahina showed up, when Cowboy decided to take his allotted PDA hour, much to Janus’s embarrassment. They’d asked him to be affectionate earlier, but they’d not factored in that they were easy to fluster.
The Server wasn’t even the half of his gushing, which prompted more note passing, and some whispering, as well. They weren’t being as slick as they thought they were, but thankfully, there was another distraction from calling them on their bizarrely energetic note passing.
“Give me new skin,” Janus joked, due to the combination of pain caused by scouring their skin, and the slimy feeling left from Sleazebucket Supreme’s message.
O5verthinking were all pretty sure it was a joke, but weren’t certain, “Tamlin, where do you keep the skin?” They asked at the same time that Bastardverse’s Cowboy asked “Is that possible?”
“Well, how much skin, and what kind?”
This was followed by an explanation that they might have some, even if they don’t have as much skin as they do bones, and “We are good hosts who give our guests spare skin on demand.”
Janus couldn’t argue that point, so they explained they needed skin like their own, and enough for their entire body.
Janus rubbed their nails anxiously, waiting, and talking with their not-boyfriend. Just as O5verthinking returned, a few crossed wires lead to a panic, and a brief moment of death threats and fear directed at, yet again, the cause of the sleepover in the first place. By comparison, the fact that the hosts had returned carrying a good amount of human skin wasn’t nearly so horrifying.
Of course, everyone still needed to figure out how to actually successfully do a full body skin graft, leading to more exchanges between the couple, and even more hushed whispering between O5verthinking about their opinion, interspersed in the discussion of logistics.
Janus was awake and somewhat talkative throughout, though they were, again, trying, and struggling, to put words to emotions that they were, admittedly, not overly familiar with, it’d been so long. Words were hard for them on the best days, at least for emotions. Their company all understood, though. They were all Overseers, they understood.
They were all not sure how to process the fact that they really, truly did just perform a full body skin graft, but it was what happened. Janus and their not-boyfriend exchanged more words, about a lot of meaningless things after O5ver offered to house them as long as they needed. Meanwhile, O5verthinking Command gathered in a corner to continue their discussion that had been started in notes being passed.
The discussion was a bit more animated than perhaps necessary, and it drew the attention of the guests. They both looked at them in confusion.
“Are they alright?”
“No idea, honestly. I have ideas on what they might be talking about, though.”
It didn’t take too terribly long for one of the Overseers to notice they were being watched.
“Guys, he’s staring at us. They’re both staring at us.”
“Are you sure? He could be staring at the wall.”
“Why would either of them be that concerned about the wall?”
“I made sure the wallpaper was nice and everything! Isn’t it nice?”
“Evidently it’s not.”
“Guys I really think it makes more sense tha--”
“Shut up. I think it’s nice, Joey--”
“They’re from a different construct, maybe they have different tastes over there.”
At some point Janus turned back to talk to their Cowboy, but he was still trying to puzzle out what was going on with O5ver, “Six, are you trying to imitate your cats, now?”
A few more minutes of staring, and O5verthinking came to the conclusion that they were okay with this Six, but they were still suspicious. It would take a lot for them to drop suspicion of him, if it was at all possible. Maybe some time in the future, but not that night.
Getting the opinion mostly out of the way, though they were still taking notes on everything, left them with a lull in activity, which made Janus antsy, which they’d never admit fully. They asked O5ver what they usually would do when all together, with little else to worry about.
They weren’t sure what they were expecting, but a list including “varying kinds” of games, “Soap opera Contain Protect,” and sleeping was not what they expected.
“I read soap opera as soap. My eyes do not want to read.”
This set O5ver off on a tangent about how they could make soap if they wanted to. Then, some bickering among themselves, “Do any of us know how to make soap?”
“I do.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t either.”
“We don’t even know if they want to.”
“We need to be prepared in case they do.”
“They’re right there, we can ask.”
And so on.
Janus did want to make soap, but they didn’t want to do so at the expense of their hosts. They decided to take this one to their therapist who, despite their paranoia, they respected, and believed the word of in most cases, “feel free to correct me here, Glass, if you are awake, but I'm relatively certain that multiple person activities should typically seek to be ones that all involved are interested in on some level, aren't they?”
“That’s the case, yes.” Glass responded relatively soon.
“Generally, yes, why?” O5verthinking responded, somewhat clueless.
“Because you seem to be disregarding this?” Janus sighed. They had to try to explain, again, that they wanted to do something most, if not all parties agreed on. They also conceded that they weren’t great for ideas, having very few extracurricular interests.
After a brief discussion, though, the consensus ended up being minecraft, with mods that added reptiles, for some reason or another, probably above everyone’s clearance level, including those who selected them. Regardless, they built a few things, and generally wound down playing minecraft before Overseers started nodding off, and everyone arranged themselves so everyone felt watched and protected by those around them, and they all got some very rare sleep. They would, of course, never admit to this sleep, nor how long the guests stayed for, especially since time is highly relative in this case, but they were grateful for the stay on both sides, very grateful.
#the right words#sleepo5ver (I hate this tag not its namesake)#lethal enforcer#the other overseers#o5 cowboy#o5verthinking#({whoops this took 5524543 years but now everyone knows about The Skin Graft})
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✘ last goodbye ✘ oneshot ✘
His face was void of emotion as he walked the busy streets of Six. Those that couldn’t afford to take the public transportation system -- which consisted mostly of buses and trolleys -- either rode on bikes (if they could afford them) or walked. Of course, the vehicles that the citizens were allowed to use were either unreliable, unstable, or the prototypes of the models that were sent directly to the Capitol. Overhead, the occasional roar of a hovercraft could be heard ripping across the sky. Walking around in District Six was like experiencing constant sensory overload. Nobody was safe from the sounds, smells, and sights of the overcrowded city.
This was Francis Belle’s preferred method of travel. He could have easily afford to take any of the aforementioned forms of transportation, but decided against it. He was determined to get to his destination on foot no matter how long it would take. Perhaps this was a form of punishment he assigned himself. It was only fitting. He was, after all, visiting Shay’s fiancé.
Those that recognized him watched him walk with lingering eyes. It wasn’t uncommon to see Francis walking the streets of Six. He did, after all, visit every day and help his family with its business. Besides, staying away from everything, all cooped up in his quiet mansion, was no way to live. He longed for his family every single time he had to sleep in that mansion. He had Hugo, which made it bearable, but he couldn’t imagine doing it without him. He was his rock, he was his world, he was his everything. The clear plastic that enveloped the flowers he carried crinkled noisily. Hugo was Shay’s Hemi. How was she going to live without her?
He had picked out a set of tiger lilies whilst in the Capitol. There weren’t many florists in District Six. The ones that did exist carried only weeds and fake flowers made from spare mechanical parts. It was... sad. No, none of those would do. Only the best would work for Shay. She deserved only the best. He had gone right before he left to go back home. The flowers caught his eye almost immediately. They radiated strength, determination, and were beautiful to look at. They reminded him instantly of Shay. He had bought every last one they had.
Gulping, he found the apartment complex that the family was supposed to live in. Shay had mentioned where Hemi had lived briefly. She didn’t even mention an address or anything, only a street and the color of the building. That was all Francis needed to know. He had committed it to memory when she had first told him just in case she didn’t come back. Of course, he didn’t, well, he didn’t think he would need to make this stop. He had been devoted oh so utterly to Shay. She was meant to win -- he knew it.
He took the time to climb each and every stair. Eventually, he got to the correct floor and traveled the halls until he found the right number. He stood there in front of that door for probably about fifteen minutes. The whole thing had a sense of finality about it. He still had to visit Shay’s immediate family but, for some reason, he had chosen to do this first. He needed to see Hemi, the love of Shay’s life.
So, he knocked once, twice, thrice.
---
it'd been a week since hemi had watched shay die on live tv. since she'd been stabbed by that bitch from twelve (hemi knew, logically, that the girl from twelve seemed sweet. that she had things to live for too. but... she'd killed shay), and hemi hadn't left the apartment in that time, not even to water her plants on the balcony. they were probably dying, and she couldn't bring herself to care. she'd stayed in her bed, under the blankets, sleeping and staring at the ceiling, empty. they were going to get married. actually married, not just a quick ceremony in five minutes before the peacekeepers escorted hemi out. and now... they weren't.
they lived in one of the busier apartment complexes in the city, so the knock on the door wasn't a surprise. what was a surprise, however, was the knock on her bedroom door minutes after. "hello?" hemi asked, and her mother walked in, a man hemi vaugely recognized following her.
"this is francis," her mother said, and, after an uncomfortable glance at her daughter, added, "i'll leave you two alone."
--
Francis, who was standing besides the mother with his eyes pointed directly at a random part on the wall, lifted up his hand in an awkward wave. When the mother left and closed the door behind her, the older man sort of backed against the wall to keep himself grounded. He let out a long, slow sigh and finally got the courage to let his eyes look at Hemi.
She was exactly as Shay had described. Beautiful and with a delicate air of caring and nurture about her. Still, she was just a teenager, so it wasn’t like she was motherly. It was... just sweet. He stood there for perhaps a second too long, taking in the environment and looking around the room. He wondered how many times Shay had been in this exact room.
“Uh... I’m Francis-- but you know that, your mother just said. Uh...” he broke off awkwardly and took a step toward the center of the room. “I don’t know if you know -- and it’s fine if you don’t -- but I was Shay’s mentor.” It was one of the first times he had said her name out loud since she had died. It left his lips broken and tinged with a deep, dark sadness that would snuff out any form of light.
“I, uh, I just wanted to stop by. I wanted to give these to you,” and here he handed the tiger lillies to Hemi, “because they reminded me of Shay. It’s hard for me, so I can only imagine how hard it must be for you. You might even hate me and, honestly, I wouldn’t blame you. I just want you to know that I tried. I really, really tried. Shay was...”
His voice caught in his throat and the tears that had begun to pool in his eyes spilled over onto his cheeks.
“I saw a lot of myself in Shay. I saw the same little gay kid that was scared, desperately trying to make sense of it all, and, most importantly, I saw the love she had for another. For you, Hemi. She loved you a lot. She--” he coughed loudly, the years of smoking and tears were not kind, “She will always love you. No matter what.”
--
hemi bit her lip to keep from bursting into tears as francis talked. "i don't..." she paused, taking another breath, twirling one of her curls around her finger in an attempt to keep herself calm. "you did the best you could. shay would've..." she paused, looking at the ceiling and blinking to keep the tears from flowing. "shay would've died for that little girl no matter how good her mentor was. she's got four siblings, and..." hemi blinked frantically. she didn't want to cry anymore, damnit. "and she saw all of them in that little girl."
she took the flowers, and she couldn't stop herself this time as the tears began to flow down her face. "and i don't blame her, but.... it's just not fair!" she whimpers. "we were supposed to have the rest of our lives....and now she's gone!"
--
The two just stood there, crying, filling the bedroom with all of the negative energy that they had mustered in the last few minutes. Francis raised a hand and covered his mouth as he watched Hemi bemoan Shay’s fate. If only Shay had just let that little girl die. If only she would have just left her there -- or, better yet, not even found her at the lake all those days before. But, that was all those thoughts and regrets were: ifs. Shay wouldn’t have left her like that. Hemi was right. He couldn’t waste time thinking about who Shay wasn’t. He needed to remember her for who she was.
“Uh...” Francis muttered shakily, not knowing what to say. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There was a lot of things he wanted to say. He just couldn’t form the words to do what he wanted. “... I know. I know, I know. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. But, and this is how I try to stay sane, you can’t focus on what’s not fair. You have to focus on what Shay wanted. And, even though I only knew her for a short time, I know that she would want you to be happy. She would want you to-- to, uh, to just keep living for the both of you.”
“Uh, I brought something else for you, too. Here. I had to put in a few requests to get it but I knew I had to do it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring that had adorned Shay’s finger up until her final hour. He held it out with an open palm, trying his best to avoid getting it covered in tears, too.
--
hemi stared at the ring in francis's hand. she'd never thought she'd see it again. not after shay had — she blinked the tears away again, wiping them away with her blanket. she reached out, hand shaking, to take it from him. she wrapped her fingers around it, feeling the metal heat up as it took in her body heat. "thank you," she said shakily, and she hoped he knew — it wasn't just for this. it was for everything. "thank you, francis."
--
As the ring traveled from one to the other, Francis felt his fingers brush against Hemi’s. Instantly, he felt uneasy. He had to get out of there. Gulping down all of the other things that he longed to say, he uttered one last “goodbye” before walking out of the room. Her mother was waiting at the door -- obviously eavesdropping like any good mother should -- and she tried to speak to him. Unfortunately, he was walking too fast to be stopped. His bloodshot eyes ached as he opened and quickly closed the door. He let his back lean against the cool surface and slowly slid to the ground.
God... this was goodbye, then.
He inhaled deeply and let out a shaky breath as he became drowned in the hustle and bustle of District Six once again.
Goodbye, Shay.
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hhhhhi can i get jey and/or jael for the oc headcanons pls
hi yes you can have them both woo
jey1. Has your character ever done anything illegal? welp he’s broken his brother out of a mental ward, has pick-pocketed/hacked into atms, and used illegal drugs buuuuut other than that he’s clean
2. Favorite mode of transportation! either the bus or walking. he’s not really fond of cars so they’re the last resort for him, especially since he doesn’t drive, so the only time he’s really in them is when someone else is going somewhere and they want him to tag along
3. Are they a good cook? he very much is. between his mom working a lot and jael being a really bad cook, he really had to step up and take over, mostly to stop jael from making god knows what for food
4. Is physical health a major concern for them? not really? he’s not exactly the best with taking care of himself lol
5. Would they last a day in the wilderness alone? Elaborate! i think he could. he’s pretty adaptable with life situations so i’m pretty confident he could last a day out there
6. Are they good with kids? Do they like kids? (This can apply to child characters, too!) he’s not bad with kids?? he’s not very experienced with them so as long as they’re potty trained and can do basic things he’s good lol. he doesn’t really mind them, but he wouldn’t want to be around them for long periods of time
7. Is your character good at hiding their emotions? he has his moments. some days he’s really good at hiding it all, but other days it tends to slip out more
8. Can your character keep a secret? oh yeah he’s really good at keeping secrets
9. Rate their verbal communication skills on a scale of one to ten, one being the worst and ten being the best. maybe around a five or six? he’s adequate with talking about minor things and not so personal things, but he’s downright awful when it comes to personal things or things bothering him
10. Does silence bother your character? If so, what would they do about it? he doesn’t mind it for a certain amount of time, especially for a destress and such, but after a while of prolonged silence it starts to get to him so he’ll flick the tv on or put on some music
11. How do they feel about spiders? i don’t really know if he even cares? if they’re not near him or making themselves known he doesn’t really care, but if they’re crawling next to him or on him he’ll squish them
12. Is your character prone to picking fights or non-confrontational? oh no he hates confrontation. he’ll purposefully back out of conversations if they start getting heated as it makes him super uncomfortable
13. Which is worse for your character: intense heat or freezing temperatures? heat. he can deal with the cold rather well, as winter/colder weather was what he first got accustomed to on earth so he’s learned to deal with it better. plus he’d rather wear too much than be around in barely anything
14. Does your character prefer home remedies or over-the-counter medicine? i don’t think he even knows any home remedies so over-the-counter definitely
15. Is your character politically-charged? i don’t think so? he definitely has feelings about certain things and will make it known when he doesn’t care for them, but he still doesn’t quite understand politics so he tries to steer from that sort of thing
16. Is your character artistic in any way? he very much wishes he could be lol, he’s started to play the piano and wants to learn the guitar at some point but that’s really it
17. Can your character read? Do they like to? oh yes lol, he’s usually seen with a comic/graphic novel shoved in his face quite often
18. What would a typical day-dream of theirs be about? i’m sure a lot of them would be about if their little group still lived where they used to, or if he and jael hadn’t left alex. just a lot of what ifs he thinks about
19. How does your character act when they get sick? he honestly gets way crankier than he usually is and just hibernates away from everyone else for the day/however long he’s sick
20. Is your character flexible? i’ve always headcanoned that he’s quite flexible. he’s very lanky/long limbed and i’ve imagined that he and orion would do yoga so i’m sure that’s helped a bunch with that
21. What always pushes your character’s buttons, without fail? other than his brother and his dumb boyfriend lol, just in general stupid comments. like he’s gotten a bit used to the ones about his appearance but they do still get to them. or when jael still treats him like a child, just jael really tbh
22. Pants, shorts, or skirts? (Or nothing at all.) pants first, skirts/dresses more than skirts second, and shorts never. the only time he’d wear shorts is with knee socks to cover up his lanky ass legs
23. How does your character feel about making a scene in public? this also a very big nope for him. he doesn’t like strangers’ attention on him in public so he tries his hardest not to be around public scenes or trying to be quiet about certain things
24. Is your character easily scared? not really? he’s a bit jumpy, but thunderstorms/certain loud noises are the only things he’s really scared of off the top of my head
25. Do you feel that you as person could be close with this character? Elaborate. absolutely. i’ve unknowingly thrown a lot of me/my personal life into jey so i’m very close with him anyways, but yeah he’s one of the few that i’d actually make real and want to be around ~
jael
1. Has your character ever done anything illegal? welp he’s broken out of a mental ward with his brother’s help, has stolen things before, including a car, aaaaaand has committed murder a few times so yeah
2. Favorite mode of transportation! definitely car. driving’s become one of his favorite things so he’ll take a car/vehicle over any other mode, besides walking as that’s a way for him to destress
3. Are they a good cook? noooooooo. he could survive, but it wouldn’t taste very good lol
4. Is physical health a major concern for them? not really? he has gripes about his body, mostly chubby areas and his “boobs”but there isn’t any real concerns for him
5. Would they last a day in the wilderness alone? Elaborate! i want to say yes? i mean the alone part would probably be the worst for him as he’s very social and doesn’t do too well with loneliness but i have faith he could make it
6. Are they good with kids? Do they like kids? (This can apply to child characters, too!) oh yeah, he loves kids. he’s been around kids most of his life so he has really good experience with them and taking care of them and such. he’s wanted to be a dad for a long time so he’s more than happy to be around them ~
7. Is your character good at hiding their emotions? eh? kinda not really? he tries and can for a bit but usually he ends up being an emotional mess over whatever
8. Can your character keep a secret? kind of? it really depends on the situation but he can keep a secret if it’s a really important thing
9. Rate their verbal communication skills on a scale of one to ten, one being the worst and ten being the best. either a seven or an eight. he’s a pretty good talker but there’s always the chance where he has an awkward moment or doesn’t really know where to with a conversation
10. Does silence bother your character? If so, what would they do about it? oh yeah, which is why he talks so much lol
11. How do they feel about spiders? i’m not really sure if he has any feelings on them? they’re just kind of there and if they’re in the way then squish
12. Is your character prone to picking fights or non-confrontational? a bit of both really. he has his moments of picking fights, but he leans more towards being non-confrontational
13. Which is worse for your character: intense heat or freezing temperatures? probably more heat. he’s not one for taking his shirt off much anymore and he barely owns tank tops so he just suffers and bitches with the heat where the cold is much more bearable for him
14. Does your character prefer home remedies or over-the-counter medicine? i don’t trust him with home remedies so over the counter definitely
15. Is your character politically-charged? i think it confuses him more than anything so he just sticks away from politic related things
16. Is your character artistic in any way? nooooooooo, he didn’t get any creative genes tbh lol
17. Can your character read? Do they like to? he can, though he doesn’t do it very often. just kind of here and there if there’s a book he’s interested in or a magazine/paper around
18. What would a typical day-dream of theirs be about? i’m not sure?? i haven’t really thought about him day dreaming very often, though i’m sure if he did it would just be like goals he’d like to achieve in his life, or things he wish would happen
19. How does your character act when they get sick? he’s a big baby when he’s sick honestly lol, just milks every little thing to make it the worst it could possibly sound
20. Is your character flexible? oh no, he’s not at all lol, it’s amusing to watch him try but it always ends in failure
21. What always pushes your character’s buttons, without fail? offhanded comments, when people/jey don’t listen/take him seriously, things like that
22. Pants, shorts, or skirts? (Or nothing at all.) pants definitely, shorts very rarely
23. How does your character feel about making a scene in public? i mean if push comes to shove he’ll make a scene if needed. there’s regret afterward but he’ll still do it
24. Is your character easily scared? not really? if he’s not paying attention he can get jumpy but that’s about it really
25. Do you feel that you as person could be close with this character? Elaborate. possibly? i mean i’ve shoved a lot of me into jael as well so i’m sure we could be close. his personality might be a bit much for me, but i’m sure we’d be friends at least
thank you so much for asking!!oc headcanon questions
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On the Comparative Value of Labor
A few people have told me recently that I should pick up x or y thing and make money with it on the side: knitting, cross-stitching, so on and so forth. “You can sell little embroidered key chains for five bucks some weekend and make some pocket change!” they say, completely unaware that that’s nowhere near the right amount of money to even break even with the cost of material and time that I put into it.
Especially considering that I’m slower at these tasks than most people.
This is, largely, because knitting and cross-stitch are tasks with extremely fine motor control--tasks I struggle with on a daily basis due to both the strain it puts on my joints and my general lack of fine motor control in the first place.
I’m familiar with the basics of both trades. I’ve knitted (though the most complicated thing I’ve ever managed is a scarf, because uneven yarn tension doesn’t matter so much there) and I’ve done a wide variety of embroidery (my current project is a set of throw pillows for a cousin’s wedding gift--a project, that despite the low surface area of the pillows that’s being covered, has taken me six months and I’m still not done).
One of my roommates can pick up crochet and make a scarf in a matter of days.
And yet the scarf that I spent four weeks knitting non-stop to get done in time for Christmas and the scarf my roommate made in a week would be valued the same--if not hers as a higher worth, because she’s able to control the yarn and make for a smoother finished project.
Despite the fact that a keychain-sized cross-stitch item would cost me materials and about four hours of time, it would be valued at five dollars.
My work, at a detail that causes me pain, is valued at $1.25 an hour.
You might be able to see the problem here.
This applies to more than the physical crafts.
It applies to "The market price is crap and also based on people who work faster than you do because they’re not in pain.”
I do digital art. I do it when I have the time and a subject in mind, which means it happens less often than I’d like. I’ve done commissions before, too, and contracted work.
The thing is, even though my commissions are “too expensive,” they’re honestly not costly enough. Not only is someone paying for a digital product, but they’re also paying for my time, for the experience I have in digital work, my style, and the physical effort it takes for me to actually complete a piece with intensive feedback. A total of three (3) people have ever commissioned me, and while I’m glad one of them has repeatedly come back for more, it’s disheartening to see the vast majority of people aren’t interested in paying a still-too-low wage.
As for that contract work I did--legally speaking, I’m not allowed to divulge details, but know that because “it’s a lot of work you’ll get paid plenty by the time it’s all over” I did intensive pieces and got paid under half of what I should have been. By the time I found out how much work there really was, and the changes the other party demanded months after getting a final piece sent to them, I was locked into a contract that didn’t give me any hope for improvement. (Also, they wouldn’t pay me for months at a time and got upset when I refused to hand over the final products until I got paid.)
By the time everything was said and done, I was getting paid about $3 an hour.
Somehow, because some people can draw faster than I can for the same product, that means I get paid less than a fair wage.
It’s one of the reasons commissions haven’t been open in a while. I can’t handle that again--both the mental strain and the physical damage caused by both working a regular job and drawing for another 4-6 hours a day to get stuff done.
It applies to “Other people have more time to do things than you do, and yet you’re held to the same standard.”
I record videos and put them on YouTube for fun. There was a period of time, about two years ago, when I was able to put out a video nearly every day. It was expected of me, so why wouldn’t I? And then, very suddenly, videos stopped for several months. Why?
Well, because I was taking 15 credits of college classes and working.
I would get all my homework done on my commute on public transport to and from college and in the breaks between classes. On particularly rough days I’d do a few more hours of it when I got home.
Then I’d have an irregularly-scheduled job where I’d work two 8 hour shifts back to back (either on sequential days or, on a few notable occasions, on the same day--you read that right, 16 hour days) and then a single 4 hour shift and then I wouldn’t be allowed to work more because then they’d have to start paying me benefits.
Because of this, money was so tight that some months I could barely pay rent, much less afford to eat.
I’d have chores I needed to do, ranging from the basic “clean room” and “dishes” and “laundry” (a task that takes several hours, assuming all the washers and dryers at the laundromat are working properly) to the more technically complicated “grocery shopping” (since I didn’t and still don’t have a car and had to rely on public transportation) and “scheduled appointments”.
I didn’t have time to put out videos, and yet I still felt I had to. My mental health was suffering to the point where my physical health was suffering (something I’m still dealing with the ramifications of to this day), and the only thing I could cut was videos.
So I did.
I stumbled through my last semesters of college (and I graduated with a GPA lower than I’d wanted but above a 3.0 so really that was nice) and got a new job--one that works me regular hours, even if those hours start at 4:30 in the morning.
And for several months into 2018, that was all I could do.
Sure, I managed to get out a few videos in that time, but I wasn’t really happy with them, and judging by the analytics on my channel, neither was anyone else.
It applies to “There’s a lot of invisible work that goes into this.”
I know I write fanfic for free. I’m planning on keeping it that way. It’s a good way for me to clear my mind and get creative, without the pressure of having a “final product” to show off at the end. I mean, I will have a final product, hypothetically, but I’m not really expected to show it to anyone in a professional context.
But then there are those comments--comments at the ends of chapters and in articles written by “professionals” and “experts.” The ones that say “Anyone can write. You’re just making things up for the fun of it, of course it’s not difficult” and “It’s been so long, when’s the next chapter going to be out?”
Except that it’s not so easy as that.
Yes, absolutely, I do it for fun. I do it for fun all the time. I do it for the satisfaction, and for the enjoyment of writing.
But the final product you see? Is not just something I tipped out onto the page.
In Royal Flush, for example, each and every chapter is started with a specific purpose in mind. A thing, a very specific thing, needs to happen. Maybe someone needs to learn information, or an aspect of 1920s culture needs to be showcased to better explain someone’s motives and actions.
All of this requires research. Research into clothing customs, and into social greetings and actions out in public and the customary ways to do such and such. Research into the vehicles of the time. Research into the medicine of the time (which is a particularly tricky one). Research into politics and public opinions and real-life historical figures.
The average chapter of Royal Flush takes me a week to a month to write.
This is a call to remember that just because a job looks easy, it’s probably not. If you think you can do it better, feel free. If you’re going to be That Person, then I don’t want to work for or with you. If you approach me on social media, I will block you.
Remember: for the vast majority of the “easy work for easy money” I perform, the work begins as soon as negotiations open--not as soon as I actually sit down and start working on the art, or the chapter, or the cross-stitch.
By engaging in someone’s work, you are agreeing to THEIR terms, to THEIR labor, to pay THEM a fair wage for the time and work THEY put into it--not your neighbor, not yourself, not a robot in a factory.
You are hiring a person. Rates may vary.
#value of labor#work is work#that's what it is#even if you don't think it counts as work#i promise#it's work#long post
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