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writeonwhiskey · 4 months

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the skz house: ch 6 (18+)

a/n: happy new year, everyone! you guys made the end of 2023 so unbelievably positive for me with your comments, reblogs & likes. thank you sm!! 🩵 huge thank you to @cloverstayy for the below graphic! she's on insta & tiktok under the same name.

Summary: Welcome to Sigma Kappa Zeta, the most popular fraternity on campus. When you, down on your luck and looking for a place to live, see their ad for ‘IN-HOUSE STAY’. You're one of the four girls chosen and find that your duties for the rest of the school year will be cooking, cleaning, and pleasing your assigned house members: Hyunjin & Bang Chan.

[ read chapter five here ] [ skz house photo book ]

Chapter Six: Of Joy Rides and Hot Tubs

You don’t have class on Thursday so you’re free to wake up when you want. Chan is gone by the time you do, and it’s only 10:00am. He doesn’t have class until late afternoon so your thoughts immediately drift to where he may have gone so early. You would have liked to see him. You wonder, if after last night, he would have smiled at you or shown you any sign that things might be different moving forward.

It’s a silly, fleeting thought. Having sex with him doesn’t change anything. Even though he granted your plea of treating you good, he still kept his boundaries firmly in place after your shower. You were curious if he would allow you to sleep in his bed, naively hopeful about it even as you finished putting on your pajamas. However, when he got situated under his sheets and bid you goodnight, he made it abundantly clear you were not welcome there.

Down in the kitchen and still in your pajamas, you snack on a granola bar as some of the others prepare to leave for classes or wherever they’re going—Seungmin has his baseball bag slung over his shoulder and invites you to come watch him practice later. He’s still on your shit list, though, so you’re not overly thrilled about it…but it’s an option if you have nothing better to do.

The house falls quiet again when all the commotion has ceased and you make your way back up to the second floor, to Hyunjin’s room.

His curtains are drawn, keeping most of the morning light at bay as he sleeps. You walk around to the side of the bed and consider waking him up, cocking your head to the side as you gaze down at him. Even with his blonde hair all over the place, he looks so peaceful and handsome and perfect. His plump lips are pouted in a way that makes him seem absolutely adorable. Sleeping Beauty, who?

Without second guessing it, you slide on the bed next to him.

He peeks open an eye at the movement and smiles lazily when he sees you, causing your heart to flutter.

“Mmmm, she’s back,” he murmurs sleepily as he wraps his arms around you—one under your head and the other around your waist—and pulls you close, nestling his face in your hair.

He throws his leg around yours, holding on to you as if you are his own personal body pillow. Your body relaxes in his embrace and you instantly let out a soft sigh. You are content enough to stay in this position with him all day. His steady breathing lets you know he’s drifted back to sleep so you try your best to be still and not disturb his slumber any further.

Laying on your side, staring ahead at the sight of your empty bed, your mind starts to roam and reflect on the chaos you endured over the past week. Seven days ago you were literally sitting on a curb trying to figure out where you were going to live. And throwing yourself into the SKZ house was a well-timed distraction. You were together with your ex for almost three years, and hadn’t even given yourself time to fully process your break up. Maybe because you knew it was coming…your priorities were no longer aligned, and his eyes had started to wander, his attention and affection wavered. In hindsight, you should have been better prepared for it.

You did love him, though. So the pain of him telling you he thought it’d be best if you lived apart for a while (meaning you getting the fuck out of the apartment), is still brewing inside of you. The anger derived from that pain also makes it easier to cut off your feelings for him. But you hadn’t truly considered being with anyone besides him and now here you are…having fucked one man last night and now in bed with another this morning.

You’d experienced more sexually in three days than you had in the past three years. Dominance, submission, lust, need, desire. You were pushed out of your comfort zone and you liked it. But the most troubling thing for you to wrap your head around is the lack of compassion surrounding these new sexual exploits. You’ve never just fucked someone you weren’t in love with. So how do you detach the actions from the emotions that course through you every time you see Chan?

You can’t deny that you’re attracted to him—that you like the way he teases you, the way he makes you yearn for his touch just by looking at you. Yet, you still don’t understand how you feel about him, or if you should bother feeling anything at all.

Cuddled up to Hyunjin—whom you’ve essentially known the same amount of time as Chan, only further adds to your confusion. Clearly it could all be this simple but Chan seems hellbent on making sure you know he views you as an object, a tool at his disposal. Chan very much still feels like a stranger in all aspects outside of sex, whereas Hyunjin feels like someone you’ve known for a long time. Someone that gets you—that respects you. He’s the only thing of comfort you’ve been able to rely on amidst the raging emotions trying their best to consume you when you’re with Chan.

Hyunjin doesn’t even know how much you need him to just exist right now, and he’d probably think you were crazy if you told him. You place your hand on his arm and bring it from your waist to your chest, he squeezes you closer to him in response, readjusting his body slightly.

With him snuggled against you and these thoughts wreaking havoc on you mentally, the rise and fall of your chest quickens and before you can stop it, tears are streaming down your cheek as the weight of the past week hits you like a Sparta kick to the chest. You try to keep quiet, to wipe your tears before they fall to his arm, but there’s too many and your sniffling gives you away.

Hyunjin stirs and lifts his head up, peeking over your shoulder. When he registers that you’re crying, he slowly blinks his eyes open to really look at you. His hand hugged to your chest moves to your face, turning it towards him. You try to resist, shaking your head, wanting to hide your face in the mattress.

“Y/n,” he says softly, voice still groggy from sleep.

He turns your entire body around so you’re facing him and cups your cheek, wiping your tears away with the pad of his thumb. His attempts are futile—each time he wipes, a new trail is formed.

“Gwenchana?” he says, warm brown eyes searching yours. “You okay?”

You don’t know what he’s said, why he’s said it, or if he’s still half asleep and not realizing he’s speaking Korean but regardless, the gentle, caring concern in his tone fucking breaks you.

A sob escapes from your lips as you squeeze your eyes shut and press your face to his chest. He holds you around the waist with one hand and the other strokes the back of your head.

Even with how good Chan made you feel last night—desired in a way you’d never imagined—you still slept in your bed alone, all the while wanting nothing more than to still be close to him after how much of yourself you’d given to him. To be in his arms the way Hyunjin is holding you now.

You can’t hold it in any longer, and here in this room, you don’t feel like you have to. He just let’s you cry, face against his chest, hands pulling at his shirt. You feel safe here. You want to stay in his protective embrace.

You don’t know how long you spend sobbing against him, but he doesn’t let go of you the entire time. When the sobs and tears finally stop and you regain control of your breathing, he leans back to look at you.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

You chew on your bottom lip and shake your head, unable to meet his gaze.

“Not really,” you say, sniffling and wiping at your eyes. “It’s just been a lot—with the breakup and moving here and Chan and you.”

“Okay,” he replies with a simple nod.

He holds on to you tightly and quickly moves you up and over him so you're now laying on the opposite side of the bed.

“That side is for crying—this side is for happy y/n,” he declares.

You can’t help but laugh at his antics. You look down at his tear stained shirt and pull at the fabric.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “And sorry for waking you up like this.”

“Don’t be,” he assures you. And you believe him with ease. “You’re here for me as much as I’m here for you. In all ways.”

His words are sweet and honestly make you feel like you could start bawling all over again.

“What time is it?” You ask as a distraction, realizing you’ve left your phone in Chan’s room.

“Who cares,” he shrugs.

“Don’t you have class?”

“Who cares,” he repeats. “Want to go do something?”

As much as you’d like to stay here in bed, in his arms, it would also feel nice to be anywhere but inside the house right now.

“Sure,” you say after a moment. “As long as you’re back in time for class.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, we will be,” he doesn’t sound too convincing this time. He gives you one final squeeze before sitting up. He grabs his phone from the nightstand and checks the time. “We have four hours.”

“What do you have in mind?” You ask, sitting up.

“Nothing at all—I don’t do plans, remember?”

“You’re gonna make me feel a different kind of crazy these next three days,” you joke.

“You’ll learn to love it,” he winks.

You slide out of the bed and find an outfit for the day. You immediately start changing in the room without thinking about it, but Hyunjin hasn’t seen nearly as much of you as Chan has. You peek over your shoulder and see he’s still sitting in bed, watching you with a smile. He pretends he’s been caught, averting his gaze around the room.

“Stop it,” you say with a laugh, pulling your pants up.

“I’m an artist,” he replies, “I have to appreciate good views. Commit them to memory for my work, you know.”

“Well, this isn’t a live model class—get up and get dressed,” you tell him.

“Yes ma’am.”

You pull on your t-shirt, then tell him you’ll be back in a minute. You make your way upstairs, to Chan’s room. You’re not sure if he’s home so you knock lightly on the door. There’s no response. You enter and retrieve your phone, tucking it in your back pocket. You take a moment to makeup your bed since you have no intention of returning to this room at all for the next couple of days. You also grab your backpack and sling it over your shoulder before turning around to leave.

You stop dead in your tracks when you see Chan, standing between the door frame, startling you. You put a hand to your chest to still your beating heart. How long had he been standing there?

When he takes in the sight of you, you catch a brief look of concern on his face—if you had blinked you would have missed it.

“I just came to get my things,” you say softly.

As if you owe him any kind of explanation.

He remains silent as he enters the room, stopping just in front of you. He leans down a little, his eyes raking over your face carefully. It dawns on you then…how you must look. You can feel the tightness and puffiness of your eyes from crying earlier.

For a moment you think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. His lips are pressed together tightly as he gives a curt nod and steps to the side, allowing you to walk past.

His silence feels worse than anything he could have said.

—————

“Have you ever driven one of these before?” Hyunjin asks, seated next to you in the passenger seat of the navy blue Tesla.

You shake your head, still in shock he offered to let you drive.

“Go easy on the pedal,” he says, buckling his seatbelt.

You adjust the rearview mirror, groaning at the sight of your puffy eyes in the reflection. Even after gently washing your face and moisturizing, they still looked awful.

Hyunjin opens the glove compartment, revealing several pairs of sunglasses. He shuffles them around, holds a few different pairs up to your face before deciding on one and handing it to you. He picks a pair for himself and puts them on as you do the same.

“Now we’re ready,” he looks over to you and you see his eyebrows wiggle above the frame of the sunglasses.

You’re grinning widely as you reverse from the driveway, feeling happy and optimistic for once. Hyunjin controls the music as you drive, curating a soundtrack for your adventure. Neither of you have any idea where you’re going, which annoys the crap out of you. Hyunjin finds it amusing and starts telling you to take a left here or there. At one point he has you take four rights in a row, effectively sending you in a circle, or square rather. He claps his hands together, laughing as you swat at his arm and thigh in annoyance.

When the song “Broken” by We Are Fury & Luma comes through the speakers, you make him replay it a few times in a row—the two of you sing it together, “Give it away, like I always do. Watch you start to fade, one more heart to lose.” The lyrics hit you in special way today, but Hyunjin matches your energy as you both belt out the next part with your whole chest, “Got that sinking feeling like the bottom of the ocean, I’ve been here before, feeling every damn emotion.”

You drive and sing and talk. You’re almost able to forget about your sad, emotional outburst earlier. Almost.

At one point you stop at a shopping center with a recently opened Halloween store to browse the costumes and pick up a few decorative items for the house. Well, it started as a few anyway. Hyunjin alternates between holding your hand and hugging you from behind as you walk through the aisles. He keeps you entertained with his clumsiness—screaming and knocking into displays when something scares him. Being with him makes you feel like a normal college student just hanging out with their crush—joking, laughing, flirting.

When you make a stop for lunch, you mention Seungmin inviting you to watch him practice and Hyunjin doesn’t mind the idea. You grab enough food for the three of you and head down to campus. You’ve never had a reason to venture to the baseball field before, but it’s quite large and empty aside from the players practicing.

You and Hyunjin take a seat in the bleachers—Seungmin waves when he spots you two. You munch on fries and a burger as you watch them. Seungmin is far more serious on the mound than you’ve ever seen him. He looks like he simply belongs there, on the field and in his uniform, striking out a couple of team mates in a row.

“Shit, I have to get to class,” Hyunjin announces, checking his phone.

You hadn’t realized how much time had passed already.

“Go,” you tell him with a nod. “I’ll catch a ride back with Seungmin or wait around for you.”

“You’ll wait for me?” He asks, batting his eyelashes at you.

“Maybe,” you tease with a playful shrug.

He stands up and starts to walk away from you before suddenly stopping. He turns back around to face you, leans down and places a kiss firmly on your lips. You’re startled at the sudden action, but you don’t shy away from it. You press your lips back against his.

It’s quick and sweet, but a wave of heat rushes through your body all the same.

“See you later,” he says when he steps back.

You continue watching Seungmin for another half an hour until practice ends. He comes to meet you in the bleachers and you offer him the food you had ordered for him.

You push your sunglasses down the bridge of your nose to look at him directly in the eyes, “It may or may not be poisoned.”

“I have a strong immune system,” he retorts, tearing away at the wrapper of the burger and biting into it. “Did you like what you saw?”

“You’re okay,” you say nonchalantly, pushing your sunglasses back up. “When’s the first game?”

“In the spring. You gonna come watch?”

“Only if I can root for the other team,” you reply.

“That’s blasphemy.”

“Serves you right, pineapple boy.”

He lets out a loud laugh at your remark.

“Come on, it was a joke.”

“To you, maybe…Chan didn’t find it so amusing,” you tell him.

“He actually does like pineapple,” he shrugs.

“But not on pizza—you set me up.”

“I did,” he agrees. “It was funny.”

“Again…to you, maybe. And Changbin. I’ll get you back for that.”

“Oooh, I’m so scared,” he says, finishing off the last bite of his burger in record time.

“You should be,” you tell him. “Sleep with your eyes open Kim Seungmin.”

“I always do.”

You roll your eyes. His sarcastic ass has a comeback for everything.

You sit and talk on the bleachers a little while longer until Seungmin is ready to head back to the house. He walks you to the building where Hyunjin’s class is before taking off. You sit outside the building and wait, scrolling through your phone for a lack of anything better to do. When you look up and see Hyunjin finally walking out, he’s beaming when he spots you on the bench.

You stand to greet him, only just now realizing he went to class empty handed—no backpack, no notebook or pen, nothing. You could never imagine doing such a thing but for Hyunjin, it just seems fitting.

By the time you get back home, the house is abuzz per usual for this time of night. You and Hyunjin take in the decorations from the Halloween store and get to work putting some of them up with a few others as dinner is prepared.

Everyone throws around ideas for the upcoming Halloween party, and it starts to sound more intense than you could have imagined. It seems like they plan to go all out with kegs, catering, costume contests and more.

After dinner you lounge in the living room, seated around the coffee table with nearly everyone except Chan, Rhiannon, Changbin and Lee Know, playing Uno. Rhiannon and Changbin had excused themselves after making suggestive faces at each other the entire meal. The game causes a lot of commotion and outbursts but honestly it’s the most fun you’ve had in the house as a group yet.

Felix claims to make the house rules, saying you can put a Draw 2 on a Draw 2, which is purely evil as he makes you Draw 12 cards at one point with a devilish grin on his face.

By 8:30pm, Hyunjin is dragging you back upstairs to his room wanting to watch the next episode of the show you started Sunday, saying he’s been waiting forever to see what happens.

You both climb into his bed, laptop in front of you and leaned together as you watch episode two. You’re at ease next to him. You readjust yourselves halfway through watching to get more comfortable, sitting with your backs against the pillows and the laptop resting on your left and his right thigh. He wraps an arm around you and you lean against him. You’re able to get in two episodes before calling it quits for the night.

“You know I can sleep in my own bed if you don’t want me with you,” you say to him as you’re putting your dirty clothes in the laundry and make a note to do some washing over the weekend.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

You shrug in response, as if you don’t know the reason you’re saying it involves the man on the next floor up.

“In case you want your space or something.”

“No,” he replies cooly. “I get my space when you’re with Chan.”

He pulls back the bedsheets (specifically on the right, your happy side) and looks pointedly down at them then back up to you. You can’t stop the smile that creeps on to your face as you climb in bed next to him.

“Fair warning I have to be up for an early class tomorrow.”

“Ew,” he says pulling you towards him and you can just picture the look of disgust he’s bearing.

You turn around to face him, tucking your head in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you for this morning,” you tell him.

“You’ll adjust,” he says. “But I know it’s hard.”

“Did you want to…” you ask, trailing off in the same way you did with Chan but you’re not nearly half as nervous. You can’t let yourself lose sight of the reason you’re in this house.

“We don’t have to rush, okay?” he replies.

You nod.

“You are emotional right now,” he continues, “I can see that. I know this can be a lot to handle in the beginning so I won’t pile more on top of what you're already feeling.”

“I think I can handle it…” you speak up.

“I want you to know you can handle it, y/n.”

You bite your bottom lip as you look at him. His words don’t feel like a rejection, they’re coming from a place that’s putting you first. He’s right. And you know it.

“Can I kiss you?” You ask timidly.

He grabs on to you like he did this morning and pulls you up and over so you’re laying on top of him. You sit up, straddling his waist, and run your hands through his soft, blonde hair before leaning down and pressing your lips to his. You want to communicate just how much spending today with him meant to you.

The kiss starts with slow, long presses of your lips together but soon evolves into more. You part your mouth, and he captures your bottom lip between his, sucking on it gently. His hands roam across your back as you kiss him again, snaking your tongue inside his mouth while your hips grind against him.

He turns his head to the side, letting out a breath as he breaks the kiss. You look down at him with uncertain eyes.

“Don’t think I don’t want you…because I do.” He moves his hips against you and you can feel his hardening cock press against you. “But let’s do this right.”

You realize how easily you could try to push it further, but he seems adamant about wanting you to be in a good headspace. Which, truthfully, makes you want him even more. As if he can heal the part of you that’s been wounded by fucking you.

“We can still kiss though, right?”

He responds by cupping the back of your neck and bringing your lips to his again.

The strict make out session has you feeling like a teenager again—hesitant to move to second base. He stills your hips and grunts each time you grind against him, causing you to giggle. The roles in this room are much different as you get to be the teaser for once.

—————

On Saturday it’s decided to make use of the pool and hot tub before the weather gets too cold. Changbin and Chan man the grill as everyone else is in the heated pool either swimming or lounging on the large floaties. You’re left feeling a little in awe, as you have never seen so much of all the members—the girls in their bathing suits and the guys in their swim trunks. They boys are all varying degrees of physical fitness—some have abs, some don’t, some have defined, muscular arms, some don’t. But the sight of each them makes you lick your lips and force yourself to look away.

When you make your way out of the house, carrying a pan of meat to Chan and Changbin, you feel Chan’s eyes on you. He doesn’t try to hide it either, looking you over in your swimsuit. It’s modest, to some degree—a dark green bikini top with white and yellow flowers and matching shorts for the bottoms. His eyes dip to your cleavage, then back up to your eyes. At least you’re not the only one fighting these urges to keep your gaze up. You really wish you’d brought out a pair of sunglasses to hide your gawking.

He hasn’t said a word to you since that night. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his look. You’re emboldened by the closeness you’ve felt with Hyunjin the last few days. You know that on Sunday, too, when it’s your day to choose—you’ll stay with Hyunjin again.

You push the thoughts of the Monday fast approaching with him aside as you get in the pool to join the others. Hyunjin holds his hand out to you as you descend the steps, pulling you to him once you’re in the water. You wrap your arms around his neck and legs around his waist as he carries you effortlessly through the water, towards the deep end.

He stops against the side of the pool and you lean back to rest against it, hips thrust forward to his. Partially of your own doing, but also because of the water. He doesn’t seem to mind either way. He’s been rather receptive of your sly advances. You find it exciting, how both of you are able to tease each other knowing it’s building up to something more without any sort of timeline or demand.

You grin up at him, letting your arms fall from around his neck down to his chest. You are assigned to him and feel free to stare and touch him as you please. You run your hands down past his lightly defined pectorals, over his nipples (which makes him giggle), then down to his abs. They may not be as toned as Chan’s, but they feel satisfying beneath your fingertips either way.

Hyunjin leans down to kiss you but before his lips meet yours, a wave of water hits you, soaking both of your heads. You both turn to find the culprit—Lee Know. He’s grinning as he flicks more water at you. You push away from Hyunjin and head towards him.

Hyunjin grabs you by the waist, pulling you back.

“Relax,” he says into your ear. “He can’t swim.”

“Good,” you mutter. “I can drown him easier.”

Hyunjin laughs at your remark.

“And then what?” He asks. “You go to jail and you’re kept from me?”

You pout your lips and look up at him.

“But if would feel so cathartic.”

“I agree with you. Everyone’s contemplated drowning Minho at some point,” he tells you.

When the meat is cooked, everyone exits the pool to eat. Chan sits directly across from you and Hyunjin, leaning back in his chair, all nonchalant and unbothered. When you’re with Hyunjin, who’s treating you so well, you’re able to mostly keep your disturbing thoughts of Chan at bay. You wish you could say you hadn’t thought of him at all, hadn’t thought of what he’s doing up in his room when you aren’t there. Does he touch himself? Does he think of you when he does it?

“I call dibs on being the DJ,” Felix announces when the conversation turns to the Halloween party once again.

“If you’re just putting together a playlist, you’re not a DJ,” Seungmin corrects him.

“Don’t over do it with Halloween songs,” Jeongin speaks up, looking pointedly at Han.

“You have to set the mood,” Han defends himself, cheeks stuffed with food.

“No one wants to hear Thriller 10 times in one night,” Jeongin says.

“You don’t know that,” Han mumbles with a shrug.

You ladies are put in charge of getting the virtual invites out, completing the decorations and organizing the catering and keg deliveries.

You push your plate away from you and look at Chan. You notice he’s always so quiet when he’s with the group. For being the leader he doesn’t speak up that often. Maybe he’s content letting them squabble over the smaller details and getting the final say.

After everyone is fed and has put the subject of the party to rest, Hyunjin takes your hand and leads you towards the hot tub where Changbin, Lee Know, Rhiannon, Allie and Seungmin are already inside. You sit next to Hyunjin and relax in the warmth, leaning your head against the outer rim with your eyes closed. There’s a jet at work on your back and the repeated pressure feels good.

Chan and Felix enter the hot tub next. It’s not that big, but everyone moves over to make room. Hyunjin pulls you onto his lap and Chan sits right next to him. Jeongin and Charlotte show up next with shots for everyone. You toss yours back with a grimace—it makes you feel even hotter.

You lean back against Hyunjin and fight the urge to look over at Chan. It shouldn’t feel so awkward. Directly across from you is a prime example. Charlotte is seated on Jeongin’s lap sideways, legs draped over Han and they’re all engaged in conversation with each other.

You chew on your lip and let out a low breath. Maybe you’re the one making it more awkward than it needs to be, letting your confusing feelings about Chan get in the way of something that should be easy. You’ve been living like he doesn’t exist the past couple of days—you can’t keep that up. You don’t want to be the one to ruin the vibe of the house.

You turn to face Chan as Hyunjin rests his arms on the rim of the hot tub, talking to Lee Know on his other side.

“Got any ideas for your costume?” You ask him.

“Not yet…why? You wanna play dress up with me?” He arches an eyebrow and smiles.

You’re caught off guard at his response—both the words and the disarming smile he bears. The bottle of alcohol is passed around again, saving you a response as you fill up your shot glass.

Chan holds his glass out to you and you cheers him before taking the shot.

“You seem better,” he says, placing his glass on the ground outside the hot tub.

It’s the first time he’s acknowledged it.

You feel a hand on your left thigh and tense up for a second. Hyunjin’s arms are still behind you. Chan’s lips are turned up at the side, watching you panic.

With the jets going you can’t see anything beneath the water, but you know it’s him.

“Hyunjin has been great,” you tell him.

“I know,” he replies with an understanding nod, meanwhile his hand has started sliding up and down your thigh. “I’m glad.”

You want to ask him how he knows and why would he be glad about it, but your conversation is interrupted.

“You guys talking about me over here?” Hyunjin leans over to his left side where you and Chan are.

Chan grins and you feel like you’re about to be caught doing something you shouldn’t. His hand doesn’t stop caressing your thigh.

“Only good things,” you reply, turning your head to look at him.

Hyunjin places a quick peck on your cheek and returns to his conversation with Lee Know.

You drop your gaze down to the water feeling happy, embarrassed and confused.

Chan’s hand slides further up your thigh and moves between your legs. With his other hand above the water, he uses a finger to tilt your head back up so you’re looking at him. You don’t know what to say.

“No?” He asks quietly.

You nod your head slowly, spreading your legs just a little further apart.

How could he do this so quickly? He gave you a mere centimeter of attention and now you’re back right where he wants you. This physical touch, though, is the most he’s shown you in front of the others.

Changbin says something to Chan then, so he turns to speak to him but continues rubbing you over your swim shorts. Your hips move against his fingers.

Hyunjin instinctively wraps one arm around your waist to keep you still as he had been doing the past couple of days. His hand bumps Chan’s in the process and he redirects his attention back to you two.

Your pulse increases as you anticipate his reaction.

He fucking chuckles.

With your hair up in a messy bun, Hyunjin has easy access to the back of your neck. He kisses it lightly as he holds you closer to him and Chan resumes his hand movements. Your eyes flutter shut as your brain is on the fritz, trying to process exactly what the fuck is happening right now.

“It’s too hot in here,” Allie blurts out.

To which everyone but you laughs. You’re goddamn right it’s hot in here, but for you it’s due to an entirely different reason.

“I’m getting back in the pool,” she says and stands from the water.

“I’ll come with you,” you say, taking her distraction as a saving grace to get you out the hot tub before these two men send you to a room with padded walls.

You push Chan’s hand away and Hyunjin let’s go of you as you stand.

Allie walks to the steps of the pool but you dive right in. The cold water against your skin shocks your senses, making you feel alert and awake, helping bring you down from whatever Hyunjin and Chan were trying to work you up to.

You take your time, swimming to the opposite end of the pool before resurfacing. You let out a deep breath and wipe the water away from you face. You don’t know how to describe what you had just felt—both of them touching you at once. You’ve never felt that before…but holy fuck do you want to experience it to completion now.

[ read chapter seven here ]

a/n: oh boy. how are we feeling? it was important for her to acknowledge all she's going through. but aren't we so happy she has hyunjin? the yin to chan's yang. 😁

tag list: @iflmho / @skzstaykatsy / @blackhairandbangs / @ayoitschannie / @idunnomanmynamewastaken / @charmer-c / @ihatemen55 / @channiesprincess / @channniesslefttt / @jiwoos-babygirl / @krayzieestay / @kayleefriedchicken / @sunnyhonie / @cotton-candycloudz / @lubsungie / @conwunder / @puckmaidens / @ashleighland /

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gildeddlily · 1 year

Text

finally re-reading stormbringer, first post of a long list (30 photos limit go die) we stan the flags

I read stormbringer this summer, and it was something (it destroyed me and made Chuuya became my favourite character of all bsd- more than anyone else (like sigma, he's my fav in the decay of angels arc), chuuya solos everyone and you know it shut up)

so, like I did with fifteen I feel the urge to share everything cause yeah we all need to suffer more

1. We Stan The Flags

This always makes me laugh, cause Chuuya's like "yeah, it's probably the shadiest and most dangerous role I could have as a non-executive, what's so important ab it? It's cool guys I'm not better than you all" (imposter syndrome sir)

I love Pianoman. I just- I love the Flags, and I will always fantasize ab a world where they're still alive. and them bullying chuuya is my favourite trope alr.

and i just know that in a no powers au chuuya would have been the kind of teenager to befriends people older than him like ten years age gap, cause people his age just weren't for him (in an healthy way guys)

try to not think ab chuuya's inability to accept gifts and love, and just some of the most powerful men in the mafia being excited ab a silly guy (silly chuuya who's stronger than half of them(gotta write chuuya and iceman first meeting))

the... the fruitiness of this sentence is menacing so I'm gonna- just yk

the au where Chuuya takes Lippman place ad the mafia's contact with the light is so beautiful and sad. and that fic where he takes chuuya on set I'm crying stop it

canon chuuya is so mean. Like not mean, just harsh. a lot of people only sees him as someone who gets mad at Dazai and is a peace of cake with everyone else- like no? he send to hell every person he talks to and goes on with "wanna know the power of gravity" every two seconds. he's just chuuya, gotta accept him as our little mass murder with anger issues that needs to be controlled cause the Mafia boss is afraid he's gonna die if he doesn't <333

and this is so beautiful in a way. he always talks ab killing dazai and dazai doesn't help with that, only giving him more reasons to do so, and same with the flag. anger issues maybe, but is he really angry with dazai and the others? we see him really mad, and it is not a pretty thing to watch- and they all know what mad chuuya really looks like and just know when he's yes angry but not really. everyone is ready to fight, and are relieved when things dont escalate (they love chuuya so much stop please)

they comfort him in a way that is heartwarming. they don't offer him useless words or things like "don't worry you have a past and you're human", they don't beat around the bush. Pianoman's like "hey, we know you don't know if you're human, and I'm gonna be super harsh ab it cause we're in the mafia and all of that but listen kid, here we are ab to solve your existential crisis"

even Iceman, the cold blooded hitman who almost killed chuuya a couple of times and was ab to try it five minutes before this, is fucking smiling. they're so happy to help him it hurts (just know iceman called him kid at least some times. he's the real big brother and I just know it)

yes, this is the first time chuuya has real friends- not kids he has to look after and protect without receiving gratitude but just a "it's the least you can do" attitude, not whatever-the-fuck-is-going-on with dazai, just friends. they spend time sìtogether, they give eachother gifts. they're kind with eachother in the ways the know how

an chuuya doesn't know what to do, cause he has never had this type of relationship with anyone, the "give-receive" mechanism that every relationship should have. he doesn't know what to do, and I need to hug him

and then the gag we needed and something I need to draw (Pianoman definitely is the tired mom. Iceman is the dad cause yeah who other. Chuuya and Albatross the sons, Doc the gay emo cousin (what do you mean you wish to be carried by Adam sir) and Lippman the sassy aunt. just see it)

he kind of is sir (he's fucking sixteen just kill me)

something I love ab him is the fact that he's emotionally constipated but like one of the less serious one. he knows that he can be easy to read since he's very open ab his emotions (even if they understand he could just kill everyone, so), but can be serious in a way a teenager shouldn't be able to. he chooses to be so open with dazai, the flags and the people he cares about. the trust king fr

they all know he's gonna come back (and that he's crying) cause he probably wanted them to, or he would have reacted worse to getting understood so easily

and this is the trope asagiri give us so many times and the best one in the history of tropes. bad scary guys having fun with some other bad scary guys and enjoying their time together like normal people.

...kafka, my love, stop it. you were doing do good

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #stormbringer #chuuya nakahara #the flags #bsd verlaine #bsd chuuya nakahara #bsd stormbringer #reading things and making too many screenshots #bsd spoilers

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michaelwriston · 4 months

Note

Hey Micheal what camera would you reccomend to some one starting out taking photos & what’s your set up?

Hey!

I'm a firm believer in buying an inexpensive DSLR or mirrorless setup with interchangeable lenses. You don't have to break the bank on a starter setup — just focus on buying a camera with a robust selection of first- and third-party lenses.

My usual advice is to start simple and only upgrade gear once you run into a physical or technical limitation that stops you from realizing your vision. For example, if you're not getting the shallow depth of field you want with your current lens and body, then maybe it's time to consider buying a lens with a larger maximum aperture (e.g., f/1.8 or f/1.4).

I started out with a Nikon D50 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8. That served me well for nearly five years, before I started running into technical limitations with the sensor that made shooting night photos difficult. That's when I switched to shooting medium format film for a spell, before ultimately settling on a full-frame Canon digital body. All-in-all, that experimentation period took about 17 years (I'm still not done).

That said, shop used for your first camera. Places like KEH or MPB have a great selection of tested and used gear. I personally shop from MPB. Here are a few great beginner full-frame camera bodies. I'll break out lenses later on in this post.

Why full frame? I think you get superior image quality, better depth of field, better image resolution for printing, and phenomenal dynamic range.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III ($714)

Nikon D750 ($774)

Canon 6D Mark II ($884)

Nikon D810 ($819)

Anyone of these are going to get the job done and then some.

The world of lenses is complicated and varied. You'll have “prime purists” that will tell you to eschew zoom lenses and only shoot prime (a lens with no zoom capabilities). You'll have people that say longer telephotos are all you need. The truth is, you'll find your niche the more you shoot. I prefer prime lenses for their simplicity (and the less I have to think about, the better).

I'll break these out by purpose.

Portraiture

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 ($259)

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 ($134)

Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 ($184)

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 ($78)

Landscapes

Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS ($294)

Nikkor AF 24mm f/2.8 ($134)

Multipurpose

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-f/5.6 IS STM ($54)

Nikon AF-P DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ($73)

I could go on and on, but this is enough to get you a start in the right direction.

If I were to put together a beginner kit with the above options, I would snatch up the Canon 5D Mark III with the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and the Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS. Total cost before taxes and shipping would be $1,142. You would have an incredibly flexible kit that lends itself to portraiture, landscapes, and street work, all for the same price as a new “prosumer” kit with only one lens from Amazon or other big box stores. If you don't know which direction you want to go, or you want to save on cost, there's nothing wrong with swapping out the two primes and grabbing the 18-55mm kit lens for next to nothing. That will at least let you dabble with different focal lengths and see what suits you.

I'm happy to answer any other questions here!

P.S. I shoot with a Canon EOS 6D Mark I and usually have a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens mounted on it for street portrait/street landscape work. My other carry-around camera is a Ricoh GR III.

#photography #questions #photographers on tumblr #original photographers #buying a camera

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herehavesomeheadcanons · 1 year

Text

On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… 9 Family Photos! (Part 2!)

Lahar

🤍🪄He takes this shit seriously. Every detail of his attire is perfect, and no doubt he's picked out the perfect attire for you.

🤍🪄He hires a professional photographer and makes sure he has the perfect location. All the details are meticulously planned.

🤍🪄The photos turn out great, just like he planned them.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

🖤🐀Decay of Angels family photos! It's a disaster. Are you really surprised?

🖤🐀Nikolai refuses to take the process seriously, which angers Sigma (who just wants to go back to his casino). Bram wants to sleep. Fukuchi and Fedya are trying and failing to get everyone under control.

🖤🐀All the pictures are chaos. Nikolai is making a different silly face in each one, Sigma is trying his best to smile and look normal when all he wants to do is beat the shit out of Nikolai, Bram looks tired and dead inside… at least you and Fedya look cute together!

Neji Hyuga

🤍👀Hyuga clan family photos are always neat and orderly. Everything is planned and organized to perfection, and it doesn't take that long because everyone behaves themselves.

🤍👀It's kinda boring, but at least it doesn't take five years!

Ling Yao

👑💛Ling wanted to take photos for Christmas cards that he could send to Ed and Al back in Amestris!

👑💛No, it is not going to involve all of his 50 some brothers and sisters. It'll just be the two of you (thank goodness!).

👑💛You take a nice photo, and then of course you have to take a silly photo! (You probably end up using the silly photo, honestly)

L Lawliet

🖤🍰No photos. L can't have pictures of himself floating around! I know, so sad…

🖤🍰I only realized the error of this as I was writing this, so blame the roulette wheel I used to generate these.

Envy

🌴🖤You have to physically drag him to the studio. He does NOT want to do this.

🌴🖤He'll fight you the entire time. It takes forever, and a good bit of bribing and threats, to get him to even sit still long enough for a picture.

🌴🖤Sorry, but I don't think you're going to get him to smile.

Tamaki Amajiki

💙🐱It's you, Tamaki, Mirio, and Nejire. It was Nejire's idea! Tamaki does not want to be here.

💙🐱You have to console Tamaki that everything is ok and that he looks great. He's very self-conscious!

💙🐱The photo looks great! You ended up with a silly one instead of a serious one, but it's all good!

Kenji Miyazawa

💛🐄He's never done this before, but he's excited to send Christmas cards back to his family! He thinks it's such a cute idea!

💛🐄He behaves well. There aren't many issues with him!

💛🐄You guys take the cutest damn photo ever!

Charles Grey

🤍💙Photos were a big deal back in Victorian times, since cameras were relatively new. Taking a photo was a delicate process, and messing up the development of the film would ruin the photo. Anyway it was definitely Charlie's idea to get a photo taken.

🤍💙You'd expect him to be all over the place, right? Well, he's actually very attentive to details, and makes sure you both look perfect before you head to the studio! He definitely booked the best studio in all of England, cause he's just that awesome.

🤍💙The photo turns out fantastic, and Charlie is very eager to show it off to his family!

#sc's twelve days of christmas event #christmas event #fairy tail x reader #fairy tail lahar x reader #bsd x reader #bsd fyodor dostoevsky x reader #naruto x reader #neji hyuuga x reader #fma x reader #ling yao x reader #death note x reader #l lawliet x reader #fma envy x reader #fmab envy x reader #mha x reader #tamaki amajiki x reader #bsd kenji miyazawa x reader #black butler x reader #charles grey x reader

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momobani · 2 years

Text

LOVE IS BLIND (or voluntarily shuts its eyes) - YANG JEONGIN

PART 1 OF THE CURIOUS LIVES OF THE SIGMA KAPPA ZETA - 12.5k

Fashiondesignmajor!Jeongin x fem!reader

Sum: you hadn’t heard of Versace or Armani, but you had heard of Yang Jeongin.

Warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, mention of weed, mention of food, angst, fluff (not proportional to the angst tho sorry), no smut but a whole kith <3

Song rec: (although a little ironic) Versace on the floor - Bruno Mars

A/N: somewhat inspired by the TV series Sex Education, arguably one of the best N-flix shows, give it a watch if you’re old enough lol. As foretold, this may come under the umbrella of ‘idiots in love’, enjoy <3

Sometimes there are certain people you can never remember meeting for the first time. Were you in the same class? Did you catch the same bus that time? Was it a party? Did it matter?

You weren’t sure you cared about the answer to any of those questions as you counted the bills in your hand, the pad of your thumb grazing the paper with a satisfying shuffle sound. This right here is why you were involved with “Young Master Fennec”, or as you knew him, Yang Jeongin, in the first place.

Your cut was juicy despite you only being his secretary or assistant or whatever; you weren’t here for labels either. The red velvet curtain of the photo booth is pulled aside and Jeongin’s latest client walks out. You give the guy your best customer service smile as he exits.

“Come again!” You call loudly, giving him a wave. Judging by his outfit, he might become a regular.

Jeongin emerges from the adjacent, conjoined photo booth, putting the tiny voice modulator gadget in his jacket pocket. It was like a confession booth, he’d told you when you were picking locations for appointments. You had to confess it was a pretty smart idea.

You turn your attention to him. Jeongin is wearing grey jeans, the legs rolled strategically once, twice, and a white t-shirt underneath an emerald corduroy jacket. The tell tale signs of a fashionista were all in the details.

It screamed ‘campus model’ so you had no idea why he even bothered with the anonymity - people probably guessed it was him since he was one of the only people around here who knew the difference between dressing well and just buying expensive clothes. That’s and he was a member of one of the most well known frats on campus. Yeah, that might do wonders for his anonymity. Not.

“And that’s another one saved!” He grins, as you slide your headphones down to hear him. He insisted you kept those on while he was in meetings for the sake of client confidentiality. “How did we do?”

“A fat stack considering he paid you to trash talk his closet. Here,” You hand him a bunch of bills. “Thirty bucks.”

“Thankies, it’s nice doing business with you.” He accepts the money and shoves it in his other pocket. “And clearly the people know that Young Master Fennec is here to help them, that’s why they cough it up.” He adds cockily.

You sigh loudly. “Did you have to choose a fursona for an alias? You may as well just have called yourself Fantastic Mister Fox to the same effect.”

“Uh uh,” he sing songs. “Say that again and I’ll make it sixty-forty for me.” He threatens, the smile remaining. Jeongin liked to flaunt his generosity for leverage whenever you disagreed with him, your current fifty-fifty split always on the line.

“Alright, fine, do whatever you want. I’m just the admin, I know.” You check your wrist watch. “You’re going to be late for your five-thirty, Young Master, let’s get going.”

And so you left the mall basement, going up the escalators twice to reach the rooftop. There was a partial carpark and a cafe to the side of that. You left Jeongin at one end of the parking lot and called the client over the phone.

She was coming up the escalators when you met her, offering her a blindfold (a sleeping mask with a sheep design) as you reached the door leading to the rooftop.

“Seriously?” She asked. You nodded apologetically.

“Seriously.” You confirmed. You helped her put it on and held her arm, guiding her to where Jeongin was waiting. He skipped the voice modulator this time and just picked a voice impression to do. This time it was his grandma nagging voice.

You put on your headphones again, slipping one side off a fraction so you could listen to him. You had to admit it was one of your favourites.

Imagine paying to get lectured by a grandma about your terrible fashion choices whilst blindfolded on a rooftop. Then again, you weren’t going to judge because you were the one getting paid to help this person get schooled by some guy pretending to be a grandma on a rooftop.

Some things you just didn’t need to question. Like how the hell you even ended up doing this with Jeongin of all people.

Maybe it was all those parties.

You’d been headed to the bathroom when you found the door open and some guy trying to roll the sleeves of his flannel while looking in the mirror. You also noticed his hair was slightly damp, presumably with water. You thought you were drunk because surely no one needed a mirror to roll their damn sleeve, right? He told you he was just listening to Jeongin’s advice and apologised for holding up the bathroom. At the time a little bell rang in your head but you couldn’t picture who this Jeongin was.

That same night you met your friend Changbin around the beer pong table, offering him a beer. He had just tied his over shirt around his waist, leaving him in a tight black t-shirt that showed off his muscles. You asked him what he was doing instead of taking the can of beer in your extended hand.

He told you Jeongin said he should wear it like that if he wanted to reel in that hook-up of his, some soccer chick who was definitely looking in your direction. You nodded and left after handing him the beer. You didn’t want to disturb your friend’s odd mating ritual or whatever was going on there.

Those instances a couple months ago revolved around this Jeongin dude and both had occurred in the same place.

The Sigma Kappa Zeta house.

At the time, you imagined he was either in the frat or a friend of theirs. Whatever, so he was just some guy not minding his business.

Except it wasn’t whatever when you were at the next SKZ frat party.

You ran into some girl crying on the staircase because her dress was ripped. Your braincells shuddered, quaking in their boots. What do you do in that situation? Was that really a problem, you asked her. The rip wasn’t obvious or giant. She just wailed harder so you gave her your cardigan to cover it up.

An hour later you got dragged away from your comfy spot on the couch chatting with Changbin and the previously aforementioned soccer chick to a hallway. The girl with the ripped dressed pointed at you.

“It was her!” She said. The guy standing next to her had his arms crossed, his pronounced biceps completely contrasting with his pout while he stared you down. His glare was accusatory and you were suddenly annoyed. Then you saw your cardigan in one of his hands.

“So it was you.” He said, his voice serious. He unfolded his arms, holding the cardigan up to you. “Do you know what this is?” He asked. Was he trying to make a joke or something?

“Um,” you blinked. “My cardigan?”

“Cream!” He replied dramatically. You had no idea what was going on. The colour of your cardigan was cream but that’s where he lost you.

“What about it?” You shrugged. He had the audacity to look offended.

“You do not put cream over fuscia! Oh my god! Take it!” He thrust the cardigan to you. Then he turned to the girl with the fuscia (you assumed) dress. “Okay listen, we can salvage this. All I need is a pair of scissors and a belt. Come with me.”

You were too stunned to speak. Had you had too much tequila already?

All you knew was that your legs carried you forward, following the fuscia up the stairs. You leaned on the doorframe and watched as the guy worked fashion wonders. He made several incisions on the dress, carefully shaping them while the girl just stood still, in shock. Then he pulled a thin belt off the dresser to his left and threaded it through the cutouts.

The girl gasped in amazement, her jaw falling open. She screamed happily and thanked him several times before scampering off to rejoin the party.

You thought you dreamt it. Every part of that incident seemed bizarre to you, so it really would be possible for it have been some kind of lime induced fever dream or something.

And that’s how you met Jeongin. Maybe. You think. It’s a little blurry in your head. You felt his face was somewhat familiar so maybe you had seen him before.

After being hung over for a day or two, you woke up with the the brilliant idea; why didn’t he do this regularly? And get paid for it? The inspiration originated in your bank account, the realisation that you’d need a lot more money for law school soon. You offered to be his manager, every star needed one, right?

His eyes sparkled when you called him a star. You had him hooked.

Another day, another hopeless baby bird that can’t figure out what to wear.

You’re listening to music while Jeongin is with a client at the other end of the cafe booths. They’re sitting back to back and talking, while you sit three booths down and facing the client. You don’t look at her as you sip on your drink, you’d rather not make that awkward eye contact.

You were the business’s face, the first and last point of contact, managing the schedule, the finances and the clients, not the advice giver. It wasn’t that taxing to fit into your timetable and besides, the money you made was completely worth it. You made more than minimum wage in an hour and you didn’t do any hard labour.

The fashion clinic was perfect because you made money while Jeongin got to do one of his favourite things; telling people what to do, well he calls it ‘helping’ but to you it was the same difference.

You’d get clients to send in photos of things they wore, pieces in their closets and give them to Jeongin to assess before each consultation. There he would talk to them about how to use those clothes and when. The process made sense to you even if you didn’t understand a thing about fashion. So you just went along with it.

A couple minutes later the client smiles at you and leaves, making sure not to look at Jeongin, mimicking how you imagined Orpheus walked out of the Underworld without looking back. You smile back, sliding down your headphones as Jeongin slides into the opposite seat of your booth with his iced Americano.

“Done and done. How much did she pay?” He asks, his smiling eyes crinkling in curiosity.

You had both agreed to work on an semi-open tariff basis, meaning that there was a minimum price (twenty bucks) and clients were free to add more if they wished. Depending on the client’s wish, you negotiated raising the price for the depth and scale of the advice Jeongin was giving, like the other day, the guy in the photo booth wanted a full closet evaluation. So he paid for it.

“Forty in total. Twenty for you, Young Master.” You say as you slide the bills across the table.

“You know, I can tell you’re calling me that sarcastically.” He pouts as he pockets the money. Today he’s wearing a white button up and beige sweater vest with black slacks, not missing matching silver chains on his wrist and around his neck that accented the veins protruding from each. Not that you were paying attention, of course.

“What, you actually expect me not to clown you? Pfft.” You sip on your drink.

“I don’t expect anything actually, just don’t call me by my name in public. I have to keep my air of mystery.” He says pointedly, looking around the empty floor of the cafe with paranoia.

“Alright, Jeongin.” You reply, containing a smirk.

“You did that on purpose, YN.” He narrows his eyes slightly but you can tell he’s not annoyed. One corner of your mouth turns up despite your efforts.

“How’s your saving going anyway?” He asks after a moment. You weren’t expecting him to care much about why you’d suggested this business, but he did occasionally ask you how you were managing with money.

Whilst Jeongin was a thriving fashion design major, you were a struggling prelaw major, knowing that this was only the first level of Hell you had to endure. You knew you better start saving money from now so you could manage things when you actually started law school and you’d been very transparent about it when you had made your business proposal to Jeongin.

“Not bad, I’m being careful and putting most of it aside, it’s better than getting a job too since I have time to study.”

“Oh yeah, I forget that some people are actually here to learn something.” Jeongin muses, suddenly deep in thought.

“At least you’re self-aware.” You say, eyebrows quirking.

“Hey, only people in our programme can make fun of it, don’t look down on us. We do learn stuff.” He berates you immediately. You must have hit a nerve. “Just ‘cause you’re a masochist doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t want to have fun in our degrees.”

“‘Fun’ and ‘degree’ in same sentence just sounds absurd to me, but you do you, I guess.”

“It’s kind of good though, when I become a world famous designer, I’ll need legal representation so at least I know someone I can trust.” He says reassuringly. It’s so typical to get comments from everyone asking if you can be their lawyer or wanting free legal advice from you when they found out you were going to law school. You weren’t even there yet for fuck’s sake! What if you failed to become a lawyer?

“Ah yes, Young Master, I’m sure you won’t forget about the little people that you knew along the way.” You roll your eyes.

“Of course not, now let us go, for the fashion peasants of this world need me!” He practically giggles, his eyes sparkling in the LED lights of the cafe. You humour him, nodding and getting up. There was never a day you were bored when you were with Jeongin.

It’s somewhere around midnight and your fifth shot of tequila that you and Changbin are laughing at something soccer chick said, your little group becoming a regular at the kitchen island every weekend at the SKZ house. You’d sent Jeongin to make a couple of rounds whilst he was still one shot in and therefore mostly sober, pointing out clients that might be waiting at particular spots around the house.

The music’s loud, the bass thumping from the living room through some solid looking speakers. There was an aux cord with a whole laptop attached to it, the frat’s president Chan providing most of the music but taking turns with some of the other guys in the house while he ran around making sure everyone was being safe. (You swore he was tallying each shot that travelled from your cup to your mouth).

Jeongin had told you that Chan wasn’t that uptight but judging by the way he locked his actual laptop in a safe, he may be at least stressed in a slightly control freaky way, though you couldn’t fault him since he practically parented this whole frat.

You sat on the counter top, pouring out drinks for the three of you, only half listening to the chatter around you and the music from across the hall. You spot Felix, one of the other Sigma Kappa Zeta guys, coming towards your group and you instinctively pull out another paper cup from the stack and pour another drink out, finishing the bottle to the last drop.

“Hey, you guys,” he directs a sweet thousand watt smile at you. “Did you try the weed brownies yet? I made them fresh today after class.” He opens the Tupperware in his hands, offering it to you. You’re tempted but ultimately pass and so do Changbin and his date. (You had no idea what their deal was, if she was his date or not, but they were constantly together at parties nowadays.)

You offer Felix the drink and he takes it with a quick ‘thanks’ before disappearing to deliver more brownies, stopping by people, Boy Scout style. Your semi-drunk self chuckles at his enthusiasm and you take another sip to finish your cup.

“I’ll be back in a minute.” You tell your friends and hop off the counter in search of the bathroom. They acknowledge your comment but are absorbed in their own world.

As you walk around the house, you keep an eye and ear open for Jeongin, to see if he was with clients or just partying. You don’t spot him so you make your way to your destination. There’s only a slight queue outside and you lean against the wall in case you sway.

You’re at a comfortable buzz-like tipsiness but not properly drunk at this point in the night. You tended not to get too drunk anyway, partially because your tolerance was high but also because you didn’t trust anyone at these parties to put yourself in a vulnerable position like that. Simply, you were a cynic and believed the worst could happen.

Your bathroom trip sobers you up a tad and you head back to the kitchen.

On your way, you hear Jeongin’s voice through all the static of other noise. You’d listened to him talking so much that you could recognise his voice anywhere. You stop and look around, turning in the same spot as if you’re trying to echo locate him. You hear him once more and find the general direction of his voice then follow it. It’s coming from a room down the hall and your legs carry you there.

The door is wide open and Jeongin is sitting down presumably with a client. You hang back not to disturb them and observe from a distance. He’s sitting with a sketchbook, a pencil in his hand, focusing on the page in front of him. You can’t see what he’s drawing but you can see how focused he is. The client is talking about something and Jeongin is nodding and sketching at the same time.

It strikes you how professional he looks even though he’s just some guy giving advice at a party. You feel a faint smile of admiration make its way to your lips. He’s completely in his element and you can feel the gears in his brain turning from here. You had to admit he was pretty cool when he did that. But you would only say that in your current tipsy state, of course.

After a moment, you leave, wandering through the sea of party people again back to the kitchen.

You can hear Changbin’s loud and drunk voice from a few steps away. But you stop short before turning into the kitchen as you overhear the conversation.

“…I can’t believe he won’t tell YN he likes her,” you hear him slur. “My little brother is such a coward. The kid just needs to do it. Like-” you hear the sound of his hand slapping the countertop. “Ripping off a bandaid.”

The sound of your name rings out to you, the sound barely just registering in the cavities of your head. His little brother? Is he talking about Jeongin? Must be, though you were aware Changbin was one of the older members of the frat since he’d taken a gap year so potentially it could be any of the younger guys. You didn’t really know all of them that well though.

But what soccer chick says in return confirms it for you.

“Jeongin seems like the shy type, let him be, he’ll do it when he feels ready. Now let’s go, I have practice in the morning.”

What were they talking about? It was absurd.

Yang Jeongin? Like you? That’s the dumbest thing you’d ever heard, the most prolifically idiotic statement of this century and last. There was no way. They’re bullshitting.

The two of you were just business partners, friends if you stretched, which you would admit, though your definition of friendship was a little rough around the edges.

Surely you would have noticed if Jeongin was acting like he liked you? To be fair he’d always been fairly nice but he’s nice to everyone, except for the sassy quips that escape his mouth every once in a while but even those aren’t supposed to be mean.

To you, being nice didn’t equate to liking someone. Why would it, really? You can be nice to anyone and everyone for no reason.

You decide to ignore it for now. This doesn’t matter, it’s not like he’s said anything so you’ll operate on the basis that you never heard this.

You can hear footsteps coming closer to the kitchen door and you scramble to get back up the hallway so your friends don’t see that you’d heard anything. Even if you had, you’d tell Changbin’s drunk ass not to yell about it so loudly next time.

You stumble backwards and end up accidentally colliding into someone’s back. You whip around startled, and the apologies start to tumble out of you. You see it was Seungmin and his girlfriend and they both look more startled than you and you worry that you might have ruined their conversation.

“It’s okay, don’t worry.” She says to you, smiling artificially, which made you think it was really not okay but you nod politely, say sorry again and scram.

You look back just to see Changbin and plus one leave, not even glancing back.

After about a half hour, you leave the party, not finding the overwhelmingly crazy environment fun any more. You can’t find Jeongin anywhere to say goodbye. You walk home alone, tugging your jacket closer to your frame, mulling over what you’d heard.

Your curiosity was getting the best of you; was it true? Could it be? No one had liked you before, at least to your knowledge.

If he did say something, would you reciprocate? You weren’t sure. You enjoyed being in Jeongin’s company, finding it easy to get along with him but it was probably because you had something to be working on, a clear cut goal of what you needed to achieve through your business relationship.

True that at first you were wary of him after the cardigan incident, he seemed like a wild fox to you, unpredictable and overly passionate but as you got to know him, you adjusted to his volume or he adjusted his volume for you, and you came to respect his passion for what he wanted to do.

Sure you liked him as a friend but could it ever develop into romantic feelings? You hadn’t ever bothered exploring romantic feelings before, your crushes being fleeting and shallow enough to be forgotten after a little while, so much so that none of them really stuck. You’d never prioritised having a boyfriend before, thinking that you had too much on your plate to attempt dating. It might have made you numb to the idea over all this time and perhaps you still were numb to it.

By the time you got home to find your two roommates passed out on the couch, drunk snacked and washed up, you’re still thinking about the same thing. You almost feel silly for the impact this information is having on you. Well, alleged information, you didn’t have solid proof.

Proof.

That’s it!

You needed to get evidence. For that you’d need to observe Jeongin and give it some time to see if his behaviour chalked up to what Changbin said. The cogs in your brain started turning already…

You had a couple of classes, and consequently a couple of headaches as the professors droned on about the exact same stuff that you read in the textbook. You went back home and ate lunch, scheming your plan into existence.

Yesterday you’d booked two appointments at the mall for Jeongin, both on the rooftop instead of the photo booth since the weather was nicer than usual.

You weren’t even vaguely self-conscious, or not yet, about your plan since you had nothing to lose; it’s not like anyone will actually care, sure they might stare at you in the street but embarrassment was temporary and you could survive it while you focused on the big picture - figuring out if Jeongin did in fact have any feelings for you.

So you commenced the plan.

You put on the cuntiest, most horrifically abysmal combination of hot pink crop top and leopard print high waisted lounge pants you could find, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and topped it all off with a pair of crocs that sported a flame design, as if your feet were one of those toy Hot Wheels. (How some of those had ended up in your possession was a long and arduous tale that you did not wish to remember but one part involved making bets and let’s just say you were not a gambler).

You looked in the mirror and decided you belonged in the circus or some kind of institution. In other words, it was perfect. Maybe all those themed frat parties were not so dumb after all - your closet had become a wonderland after each one.

You make your way out, almost killing one of your roommates by making her choke on her orange juice as you walked through the living room.

“YN, what are you we-” you hear but you’re already out the door, taking long strides ahead before you could be dissuaded from this ridiculous idea.

You weighed up whether you wanted to walk or take the bus, but you end up on the bus since you could just sit at the back and nobody would look at you. Not that you cared, of course. You just wanted for the ground to swallow you up, no big deal.

(Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all.)

Jeongin is waiting for you on the rooftop as you walk up behind him.

“Hey.” you say, anticipating his reaction.

“Hi.” He glances at you but does a double take, his eyes roaming over your outfit. You could swear his eyes bugged out slightly but he turns back to the view. “Is the client here?” He doesn’t mention anything, and you’re not sure if it’s the desired effect or what this result even tells you.

No comment at all? No judging side-eye or even a sassy head swivel from him. What did that mean?

This is why you could never be a science major of any sort. You’d bet in your hypothesis that if someone did what you’re doing, he would not hesitate to critique them but you hadn’t really thought about how to gauge his reaction if the outcome was otherwise. Does this mean he doesn’t care about what you wear or about you? Or both?

It honestly felt like both. He didn’t care enough about you to care about what you wore. It made you feel less important than a client. Ouch.

You’d never cared that much about what you wore even though you know it was something people used to express themselves, sure it was great if you wanted to do that but it wasn’t you personally, you just wore what was comfortable and practical and didn’t look horrific on you. Yet, suddenly you knew you were expressing something on purpose and you wanted a reaction.

You didn’t get one. It was cruelly anti-climactic.

Were you disappointed? If you could call it that.

You’d just have to do it again and more often and see if he says anything. You wanted to test what he really thought of you, despite not knowing if it was the right way to test it. It’s not a conversational thing you felt you could bring up. You weren’t blunt enough to right out confront him about what you’d heard from Changbin. It might even cause tension between the two of them, so better do things your way.

Your phone rang and you hurried to go pick up the three forty five client.

After the appointment, which lasted a grand total of five minutes, a new record of speed for whatever reason, you and Jeongin descend the escalators again. You’re happy to go home already since you’re starting to remember to be self-conscious around other people but Jeongin insists you stop by a claw machine game he spotted on the way down.

“You’re not a kid, you can go alone.” You tell him. Jeongin’s mouth forms a pout and you know you’re about to be convinced to stay.

“Yeah, but it’s no fun if you go alone. Besides, it’s weird if it’s just me.” He says. “I’m pretty good at it anyway, it won’t take long.” He adds more cheerfully. There’s a curious part of you that decides to take him up on his word, but you don’t expect anything.

You take that back.

‘Won’t take long’ was an understatement. Jeongin had been right. He was actually good at this.

You’d always thought that claw machines were designed to be a con and were supposed to empty your pockets in the process of frustrating you. But this is the first time you witnessed someone winning with your own eyes.

He managed to win a fluffy ram plushie within five minutes flat. It was basically the shape of a loaf of bread but with a cute face and some curvy horns on either side of its head. Jeongin pulled it out of the little door at your knees and held it up victoriously.

“See!” He grins, admiring his handy work. “Give it a name.”

“I don’t know,” you shake your head, looking at the plushie sceptically. You were waiting for it to make an impression on you. “Hmm, it just looks like a ‘Ramie’ to me but that somehow feels unoriginal.” You conclude. Jeongin turns it around and stares at it too.

“Eh, you might be right.” He agrees. You look at him expectantly, anticipating something brilliant from the creator of fursonas himself. “He’s a Ramie.” Jeongin confirms. You scoff at his cop out.

“You can dish it but you can’t take it, can you?” You roll your eyes. “Can we go now?” You cross your arms, starting to feel impatient.

Every time a kid with their parents or a gaggle of kids walked past, ogling at you, you felt a shred of your dignity wither away like the petal of a flower falling off. You also hated standing there in fucking crocs; it felt like a trespass against your soul.

“Yes, we can. Here.” Jeongin thrusts Ramie at you and you almost drop him in surprise.

“Why are you giving it to me?” You ask, getting a steady hold on the fluff after a moment. Jeongin glances over his shoulder at you with an unmistakable smirk.

“I can always win another one.” He shrugs and walks away.

You stare after him, speechless, your haste to leave forgotten. When did Jeongin get cool?

As your experiment carried on, you varied dressing crazily and dressing what was normally to you, Jeongin not batting an eyelid at either. You were starting to suspect maybe Changbin had been wrong; maybe what he’d said was a drunken, speculative statement and didn’t hold up against sober reality.

You were so tempted to up it to even more extreme looks but you still valued your dignity and you also couldn’t keep asking to borrow your roommates clothes to mix and match with yours. It was kind of exhausting thinking of new things too.

(You’d really put in a lot of effort, sometimes matching a brown jumper with a silver skirt, or a button up with joggers when you felt a little lazy, once going as far as thrifting to find a purple jacket that would be an eyesore with your azure tank top. It worked, though you weren’t sure you should be proud of that.)

You were headed to another appointment with Jeongin, this time giving a special consultation to the younger sibling of your client for her prom outfit. Naturally you bent your practice a little and went to the dress shop to meet the client. You’d cut the anonymity too, making sure the kid wasn’t going to be freaked out or anything.

Today you’d dressed with inspiration (read: a failed cosplay) from the classic Mean Girls; you’d taken to watching movies to find outfit ideas. After a marathon of Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Clueless, you’d picked up a few things, specifically picking out clothing items that would certainly and definitely clash when part of the same outfit.

You’d found a pink polo similar to the one Cady borrows from Damian, some “army pants” (just khaki green cargo pants), and “flip flops” (well Birkenstocks that you had no idea were called that until recently, curtesy of the fashion guru himself) paired with florescent Grinch green socks. You felt as if you had really transcended your deliberate and humble experimentalist beginnings to morph into a fashion menace. You felt powerful, unhinged and unstoppable.

You were so set on pushing Jeongin to snap, it didn’t even feel like your original experiment’s purpose any more, you just wanted him to do something. It didn’t even have to be anything big, just like an eye roll or something.

You enter the dress boutique and call your client. He picks up on the first ring and tells you that they’re waiting on the second floor. You go up and meet them, a brother and little sister looking at dresses that were lined up on racks positioned around the room. You feel a pang of endearment at the scene.

After clarifying the budget for the dress, the brother and you take a seat on one of the tiny couches across the dressing rooms and wait for a mini-fashion show. You’re not surprised when the girl comes out in dresses that are both beautiful singularly but also perfectly suited to her energy, whether it was the right colour, or style or both, Jeongin had picked wisely. She looked so happy trying them on as you all told her how pretty she looked.

For a moment you were glad you’d started this clinic other than the money it paid. Maybe this is what Jeongin found rewarding in it - helping people feel more confident about themselves and have fun expressing themselves. Had you misunderstood what you’d been doing all this time?

You looked over at Jeongin, who sat on a stool a few meters away from you, focused on looking through photos the girl had given him to look at to understand her style further and see a variety of colours on her so he could gauge what else to try.

He seemed so absorbed, his broad shoulders tensed as he hunched over his phone. Today he wore a flannel and t-shirt combo and black jeans, paired with a small baseball cap, possibly one of the most generic outfits you’d ever seen him wear. Must be his attempt of looking as non-threatening as possible.

You watched as he tilted his head in thought, pursing his lips as he came to some sort of conclusion. The girl came out in yet another dress, a lovely lilac piece that had a high low hem, reaching just above the floor, and a boxed neckline matched with some short sleeves. It was possibly the best one so far and she was positively beaming.

The brother gasped next to you when he saw his kid sister and you glanced at him to see him smiling affectionately. This might be the winner.

Except Jeongin takes absolute pride in his work and is very thorough so he asked her to try on a few more before making the decision, thus extending your live viewing of Say Yes To The Dress. You sighed and leaned back to wait for the next series of dresses. You wondered what you would have worn if you’d gone to prom.

While you wait, you decide to have a little wander to stretch your legs and see if anything stands out to you in case Jeongin had missed it.

You walk along a line of racks, trailing your eyes over each dress. A deep bordeaux piece catches your attention and you pull it out of the pile gently, holding up the hanger. It doesn’t exactly scream ‘prom’ but it’s lovely nonetheless. It’s a spaghetti strap almost floor length number, with a slit and some tiny embroidered flower chains along the bodice. You had to admit it was gorgeous.

“That would look great on you.” You jump out of your skin as Jeongin sneaks up behind you, his voice quiet but sincere as he stands a little too close to you. Your pulse is thundering in your ears. Why was he here thinking about what you’d look like? That wasn’t the task you were getting paid for.

“Jeez, you move like a Tesla.” You complain. You collect yourself for a moment, not used to him being in this close proximity. “It doesn’t matter how it’ll look on me, give it to your client to try, she might like it.” You hand the dress to Jeongin adamantly. You don’t wait for him to respond before you make your way back to the couch.

You try and forget whatever the hell that was, fighting the blood rushing to your cheeks and focusing on the myriad of dresses that come next.

Eventually they narrow it down to the lilac number, a dark sapphire strapless cocktail dress and surprisingly the bordeaux dress that you’d chosen. In the end the lilac wins, mostly based on happiness levels and as it should, you think.

The brother starts to pay you while the girl is getting changed back to her normal clothes. You look over his shoulder to see that Jeongin is busy talking to a staff member. The client wants to give you sixty bucks but you tell him you’ll give him a fifty percent discount since they had to buy the dress too so he gives you thirty.

“Thanks for making my sister happy you guys, I appreciate it.” He says as they part ways with you after buying the dress. You smile genuinely and nod. Jeongin is also incredibly happy, his eyes shinning and crinkling with his grin.

“No problem. You know where to find us if you need anything. Have a good time!” He says brightly. The girl thanks you again and they set off.

“Here’s your cut.” You say as you hand him the thirty when you step out of the shop. You don’t know what possessed you to do it, but it felt good, a tiny sprout of serotonin filling your system.

“Thanks.” He accepts the money, his fingers brushing yours briefly. You ignore the way it sets alarm bells off in your head and retract your hand quickly.

“So I’ll see you on Thursday?” You look up at him. “You have an early slot in the library, 11:45, okay?”

“Sure, do you want me to walk you home?” Jeongin asks. It had been a couple of hours since you’d been in the shop and it was getting dark outside already. He’d never asked you before and while you appreciated the gesture, you couldn’t wait to get away fast enough and you’re not even sure why.

“No, no, it’s alright, I’m catching the bus anyway. See you, Jeongin.” And you speed down the street, only realising you’re walking in the totally wrong direction to where your stop was. You end up going to a cafe on your way to get something to drink since you were really parched.

There’s a quiet radio playing in the background as you wait for your order. You recognise the song but it takes you a few seconds to identify it. You stand listening for a moment, utterly still and use it to calm down. What was that at the shop? He shouldn’t sneak up on you like that, it made your heart race and you didn’t like it.

It was unnerving.

You watch as the wind moves the clouds over the horizon, lifting the wisps of white rapidly through the air as the sun shone through their cover. You’re on the library rooftop, standing some distance away from Jeongin’s consultation, contemplating what to have for dinner later. You had already figured out lunch so you may as well move on.

You clearly weren’t going anywhere soon.

You were a little torn between chicken or ramen. You might see what your roommates were up to and see what they wanted or you could just keep debating it alone since you were bored.

This appointment was taking a little while since the client kept flirting with Jeongin. Initially you had had your headphones on, minding your business but it was sort of hard to miss the forced giggle that pierced through your music.

You thought it odd; what could Jeongin have possibly said that was that funny? Like okay he was funny but did it really make her squeal like that? Jeez, it was so loud, you thought your ear drum might burst. Regardless, you slid one side of your headphones to the side and listened, not out of curiosity but out of suspicion.

The girl was trying the most but Jeongin was as awkward as ever.

“So do you think I should wear outfits with more cleavage or should I try to show off my long legs more?” She asked, for a moment it sounded like a genuine question but then she kept sweeping her hands over her short clad thighs. You had to salute her strategy, it was pretty on the nose but unfortunately Jeongin’s nose was buried in the notes he’d made before the meeting. Regardless, something about the situation bothered you.

“Do whatever you want, I’m just here to tell you what clothes go well together.” The reply was as oblivious as ever. You bit back a laugh. Ah, that’s more like it, that’s the Jeongin you know. He’s not smooth, she’s just into him. That was hilarious in itself since she was wearing the damn blindfold and could only hear his voice.

To be fair to the girl, Jeongin had skipped the voice modulator again and instead opted to deepen his voice whilst throwing in the occasional southern dialect phrase in, and that might seem hot to some people if you were into it. Not that you were, of course.

You forced yourself to cover your ear properly again. You didn’t want to hear any more of it.

You hear at least four more songs before the appointment finishes and you send your client off. She gave you fifty in total. You split the money between you and Jeongin does a double take.

“Wow, amazing. I must give really great advice.” He grins to himself. The two of you are standing at the railing, looking out to the skyline of campus. It seemed so vast from here, this little bubble of your university.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” You mutter, thinking she was probably had other intentions but you let it slide.

“What? Did you say something?” He tilts his head at you, the way animals do.

“Nothing, at the risk of inflating your ego, you do actually give good advice.” You look away as you say it, somehow feeling awkward yourself. You meant it but you weren’t exactly the type to say stuff like this out of nowhere, so you tried to be as nonchalant as you could.

You were reserved, especially if you thought highly of someone. Did you think highly of Jeongin? Must be so if you were stingy with praise. That and something about his shining confidence made you want to humble and level him a little; you didn’t want him to spiral out of control and become an asshole.

“Wow! Was that a compliment? Haven’t heard one from you, like ever?” He laughs.

“Don’t make me take it back, Young Master.” You warn jokingly, feeling his eyes fall on you. You keep your gaze on the horizon, tracing the skyline with your eyes.

“No, no don’t! It’s just that you don’t say stuff like that usually, it was refreshing. And besides, who doesn’t love being told they’re awesome?” He smirks happily.

“I never said you were awesome.” You hum, turning to leave. It was getting a little gloomy outside, the sky filling with darker clouds; the weather was giving you whiplash.

“But I know it’s what you meant!” He calls out after you then scrambles to catch up. You allow yourself a smile at his confidence, or was it blind optimism?

You descend to the ground floor and exit. Jeongin follows after you like a stray puppy, his long stride easily making the distance that separated the two of you.

At the bus stop, there are a couple of other people, seemingly from your university. Two girls who side-eye you and start whispering amongst themselves, as if you weren’t standing like four feet away. You knew what they were talking about, your outfit consisting of a jean skirt and a purple puffer vest over a green button up.

You felt a little annoyed whilst they giggled, the whole thing giving you flashbacks to high school where for some reason people wouldn’t mind their own damn business. Who ever said that college or life were any different? You wished the bus would come faster.

Jeongin said nothing.

“You doing anything for spring break?” He asks finally as you wait. The question takes you by surprise; was he looking for work during vacation time?

“Nothing, but listen, you should just use it as a holiday, I don’t think we should have any appointments.” You tell him.

“That’s not why I was asking. I agree though, I don’t feel like working over the break.”

“Oh, okay. Then what is it?”

“We’re throwing a bunch of parties, the one next Saturday is going to be a little fancier so dress nice, okay?” He informs you. You maintain a poker face as the light bulb goes off in your brain. You just couldn’t help doing stupid things could you?

“Aha, sure, I’ll see you there.” You smile.

Were you going overboard? Probably. Were you going to stop your ridiculous mission? No, since you were very much determined to break him. You felt like now you were testing your friendship more than anything else.

Friends looked out for each other if something was off about them, right?

You were kinda over the experiment and hated most of the stuff you wore but it was one of those things like impulsively cutting your hair, or splashing into puddles even though you knew your shoes were going to be fucked when you did.

You knew the consequences objectively, but you did it anyway.

It’s not on your bingo cards when you walk into the Sigma Kappa Zeta house and find every other party goer is wearing super random and clashing outfits, as if they decided as a collective to get dressed in the dark.

What the fuck was happening?

Jeongin told you to ‘dress nice’, so naturally you did the opposite, dressing in the most outrageous pieces of clothing you had. You were wearing a crop top with a cartoon drawing of a monkey which was made with some felt fur fabric and a pair of lounge pants covered in silver sequences, which made you look like a walking disco ball if you walked past a light.

Despite that, you basically blended in. How had you not heard this was a themed party? (Probably because you didn’t have a lot of friends.) And in that case, what was the theme? YN’s silly wardrobe? Fashion disaster?

You walk around to see if you can find any of the SKZs to tell you what you were seeing and end up in the kitchen when you don’t find anyone. You stand at the counter, trying to get a grip. Was Jeongin on to you?

Regardless, it opened your eyes. You’ve been ridiculous this whole time, you and your silly little outfits and playing dress up for no reason.

“You didn’t like it?” You jump at Jeongin’s voice behind you. You whip around to him and your eyes bug out. He’s wearing a black and white spotted button up, black leather pants and a massive fur coat over the top of it all. A pair of sunglasses adorns his face, the glass faded black so you can’t see his eyes.

“Like what? Jeongin, what is all this?” You demand. He hums in thought for a moment.

“A concession? A truce? Whichever you prefer.” He shrugs.

“What?”

“I admit and acknowledge your fashion choices, now for the love of Gucci, please stop being a menace to society and just be you, okay?” He smiles. You look at him blankly.

Was he talking about your experiment? Did he know what about that? You hadn’t told anyone why you were doing it so how on Earth would he know?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You decide to play dumb.

“I think the monkey on your shirt does though.” He scrunches his nose at it. “The YN I know would only ever wear that ironically or not at all.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.” You counter, starting to feel your fight or flight response kick in.

“I think you’d be surprised how well I do know you. Enough to know you’ve been up to something.” He crosses his arms. “Now, why is it that you continue to commit crimes against fashion?”

“What kind of question is that? I’m just wearing whatever I want.” You argue but it sounds unconvincing even to your own ears.

“We both know that’s not true, just tell me what’s going on.” He continues to try and coax it out of you, leaning on the counter like you are. Now that you’re faced with the confrontation, you suddenly don’t know what to do.

“Fine.” You say, your heart thundering in your chest. “I just wanted to get your attention. I wanted you to say something, anything. But you didn’t.” And you feel and sound so desperate as you say it, the tension leaving your body after weeks of this facade.

Jeongin stands still, the smile on his slowly fading.

“You wanted me to say something?” He asks, disappointment lining his voice. “What more do you want me-”

“You care so much about what other people do, but you ignored me.” And now that you say it out loud, you know deep down you’d been a little sad he had. “We spend so much time together and I thought we were becoming friends. Wouldn’t a friend care a friend was getting laughed at?” You pause, not sure where you were pulling the friend card from - this whole thing was to check whether he had feelings for you but all you had evidence of was that he didn’t care about you at all.

“Friends?” You watch his face contort in thought, as if you weren’t in the middle of a conversation.

“It’s not even about that, I heard something dumb from Changbin and I wanted to see if it was true but now that I’m thinking about it, it clearly isn’t.” You can’t help but scoff at your stupidity. How could you have ever attached any meaning to something that came out of a drunk person’s mouth?

You were starting to lose it. You were getting confused too. Was this what you wanted all along? Jeongin to do something? Well he did; he threw a whole party to try and stop your ridiculous experiment even though he didn’t know what it was. So why did you feel so flustered by it?

“What uh, what did Changbin say?” Jeongin looks a little tense, as tense as you feel.

You considered telling him the truth but you didn’t want the humiliation; you’d endured all your silly outfits and people’s stares, but you couldn’t stomach the humiliation that you would feel if you did. It felt like you would be begging him to like you, not just asking what he thought.

And you didn’t beg anyone for anything.

“It doesn’t matter. Just forget anything ever happened between us, okay? Let’s just stop whatever-” you gesture with your hands helplessly. “-this is. Find a new admin.”

Jeongin faltered, one hand coming up to his face to take the sunglasses off. The corners of his mouth flopped into a frown and the expression on his face was suddenly so crestfallen. It made you regret how harsh you’d sounded, an ache appearing in your chest.

“You don’t want to work with me any more?” He looked at you with those sparkly eyes of his, the embodiment of that emoji everyone adores and for a moment you wondered if it was the lights or something else.

“No, I don’t.” You word vomit. “I just-” you pause. What did you want? Wanted him to have liked you? To have reassured you when people stared?

You had lost sight of what you were even doing, aimlessly putting on random clothes, trying to make yourself look crazy enough that he’d react. How could you be so childish? This was like the equivalent of kindergarteners pulling on pig tails cause they liked someone.

Hold up-

You were the one pulling in this context. And for what reason? You didn’t like Jeongin, did you? Did you?

“I don’t know!” You say out loud, breathing out shakily. “I’m leaving.” You can’t bear to look at his face, the disappointment, the pouty kicked puppy expression, it was too much. You weave through the crowd of bodies and disappear into the night, practically running home.

You had looked over your shoulder several times to see if Jeongin had made any attempt to follow you out of the house, but you knew it was selfish to think he might after what you’d said to him. You felt so shitty for making him look like that - the way his face fell replayed in your mind on loop. He was probably really mad at you, for being weird, for overreacting, for quitting so suddenly. All of it.

It had been over a couple of months since you’d started the advice clinic. All that time, you had to admit you’d grown fond of Jeongin and his little voice impressions and that stupid sheep blindfold that you still had on your desk, ready to use at the next appointment. There was no next appointment. Not for you anyway.

You’d become friends, at least in your head, but had your fondness grown into attachment and maybe something more?

Initially you had been in it for the money, but over time and especially after that one consultation in the dress boutique, you’d come to understand something profound about what Jeongin found rewarding in the experience. It was more about the way people felt. Maybe it put Jeongin in a different light that you hadn’t seen before.

You make it home and catch your remaining roommate lounging on the couch with a beer in her hand.

“YN?” She calls when she hears the door open and close. You throw off your shoes and make your way to the sink for some water.

“Yeah, I’m home.” You reply. You grab a cup off the dish rack and fill it, chugging until you feel breathless.

“I thought you were going to that party tonight, what happened?” She straightens up and looks over at you from the couch.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” You sigh. “I’m tired, I think I’ll just have an early night.” You move to take a half eaten tub of ice cream out of the freezer.

“Ah, alright. Come through if you’re lonely, I’m catching up on some shows.” She tells you. You hum in response, grateful your roommate isn’t the pushy, invasive type. “Oh YN! I forgot, a package came for you yesterday. It’s in the utility closet.”

“I didn’t order anything, are you sure it’s for me?” You ask her, ice cream forgotten. She takes a sip of beer, nodding.

“It definitely had your name on it.”

“Okay, thanks.” You mumble and let her get back to her show.

You don’t know what you’re expecting but you go find the package and take it to your room.

It’s a white box, about A4 size in length and it has your name and address on it. It’s not that heavy when you pick it up and you wonder what on Earth it could be. Had you impulse shopped at 3am again? No, you’d remember if you were expecting a package; call it organised or paranoid, but you would.

With a pair of scissors you slice the box open, following the lines and being careful not to ruin the box. You sit and move the flaps carefully and find a layer of tissue paper and folded note on top.

Your eyes scour the note, more like short letter, and your heart physically sinks.

You were the biggest douche you knew right now. You feel like screaming in despair. Why would he do this to you?

You let the note flop to the bed and unravel the tissue paper, your suspicions confirmed when you laid eyes on the bordeaux fabric folded neatly in the box. You let out a groan and lie backwards, except you underestimate your stability on the edge of your bed and tumble down with a yelp.

You hit the floor with a thud and all you can think about is how karmically deserved that was. You just lie there for a moment and your roommate bursts in.

“YN?” She shouts, scanning your room until she finds you on the floor. “Are you okay?” She asks, lowering her voice.

You let the question sink in for a moment, trying to control the influx of frustration, anger, regret, guilt and more, followed by tears.

“Am I ever okay?” You say, your throat closing so you sound like a wheezing cat.

“Um,” your roommate hesitates to answer what was meant to be a rhetorical question.

“I fucked up so badly.” You confess, the tears spilling over the edges of your eyes and falling down the sides of your face. You sniffle and close your eyes.

“Oh sweetie.” You hear your roommate shuffle until she’s sitting next to you and pulling you to rest your head on her lap. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

“Read that piece of paper.” You instruct, pointing to your bed. It might make more sense for her to see that first before you explained everything.

She reaches up on to the bed for it and grasps it, turning it over in her hands.

“‘Dear YN. It’s been almost three months since we started the clinic. In honour of that I’m throwing a party themed ‘opposites’, just like you and I are. I know you’ll probably wear something that is in the eyes of others heinous so I wanted to give you another option, one that matches you better. As Christian Dior once said: ‘There is certainly a red for everyone.’ And this one, I’m certain, is yours. If I’ve learned anything in the past few months, it’s that clothes enhance the beauty that lies beneath them. So I humbly invite you to be the only person who does not come as their opposite, but as themselves. Yours, Young Master Yang.’”

You choke on the sob that reverberates through your chest.

“Oh my god.” She says, blinking. Then she gasps dramatically. “It’s a love letter!”

“And I’m a bitch.” You cry harder. Your roommate flicks your forehead and glares at you. “What? I thought we were just stating what things are at this point?”

“No, we are not and you are not. Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s not that bad.” She reassures you naively.

“Wanna bet?” You sniffle.

You get up and sit on your bed, the two of you sitting on either side of the box, your roommate listening intently to every bullshit thing you did since the beginning while you clutch Ramie the Ram to your chest.

At the end, there’s silence as your roommate digests the information you just bombarded her with. She tilts her head and purses her lips, the action putting her in the most pensive state you’d ever witnessed her in.

“Okay,” she begins. “Maybe it was kinda bad, but it’s fixable. It sounds like a misunderstanding, about the dress and what you said at the party. So you could start with that?”

“You don’t think it’s that bad but you didn’t see his little face, he looked so crushed and disappointed. And I quit too. That was just even worse.” You tell her.

“Listen, I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions, yes or no ones. Ready?” You nod. “Do you want to fix things?” She asks. You nod. “Do you want to keep working with him?” You nod again. “Do you like him?” You find yourself nodding again then stop abruptly.

“Holy shit.” You whisper. You roommate looks just a tad happy with herself.

“Oh would you look at that, you can tell the truth.” She gloats, throwing a smirk your way. You click your tongue at her.

“You tricked me, okay? It doesn’t count.” You reason, shaking your head. At that she groans, a loud monstrous and exasperated sound.

“Would you give it up already? Face it, you’ve fallen for Jeongin and that’s why you kept doing the stupid dressing up thing. That’s why you’re distressed and crying about what happened. Because you care about him.” Your roommate spells it out for you in small words.

There’s a sense of relief in your chest as you hear it out loud for some reason; as if you’d known for a long time that this was the case but you’d been so caught up in petty things that you’d never paid attention to the mounting feelings you had.

“Okay, yes, I care about him. I like him.” It sounds so bizarre as it comes out of your own mouth but also incredibly right. “I like it when he laughs, when his smile reaches his eyes, when he says something snarky but not mean at all. I like it when he does his voice impressions or vows he’ll make me his lawyer one day.”

“Jeez, you fell hard.” Your roommate mutters. “Don’t tell me about it, tell him!” She exclaims.

“What, now?” You ask, dubious.

“Yes! Go!”

“No, he’s probably so mad right now, I can’t go and do that. I should give him time to cool off first.” You reason.

“You’re just being a coward again, aren’t you?” She asks sceptically. “He probably just wants to know you don’t hate him.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t just go and give him whiplash like that.” You shake your head. “It’s not fair for me to say one thing and then another in one night.”

“Love isn’t fair and life’s too short to wait for it to be fair. Now go before I kick you out of the apartment.” She huffs, she looks down at the box between you and seems to get an idea. “Go now or the dress gets it!”

You gasp in outrage.

“You wouldn’t! Don’t you dare hurt my dress. It’s precious.” You threaten back.

“So is your relationship with Jeongin, now leave already, would you.” She gets up and starts to drag your arm.

You let her usher you out the door, not even pausing to let you put your shoes on properly but thrusts them into your hand and shuts the door.

“Don’t come back until you tell him how you feel.” She says, her voice muffled by the door.

You knew she was right. It was just astonishing how terrible you felt about the whole situation and how worried you were about what Jeongin might say if he saw you again tonight.

Well, he already hated you probably, so there was nothing left to lose, was there? You wanted to apologise. You, who didn’t beg anyone for anything, were going to beg Jeongin for forgiveness.

It was getting late now, past midnight, but you speed walked back to the Sigma Kappa Zeta house, forcing yourself to put one foot in front of the other. The party was probably not over yet as the usual end time was around 2am, a Chan imposed curfew on every party goer and SKZ member. He maintained that it was for keeping some kind of sleeping pattern but you knew it was probably ‘cause he didn’t want to keep chaperoning everyone all night.

As the house came into view, you could tell from a distance that the party was still going strong. You made it back in, looking wildly all over for a glimpse of the fur coat.

You hear your name being called out from behind you and you whip around to see Changbin approaching you. He’s wearing a shirt and sweater vest contrasted by a pair of basketball shorts. To his right you notice one of the other SKZ members, Hyunjin, wearing the top part of the basketball jersey and a pair of black slacks to match.

“Where have you been?” Changbin asks. “What happened with Jeongin? He’s been holed up in his room all night. Do you know anything about it?”

You sigh, the guilt rising up in your chest.

“It’s my fault. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” You promise. There’s a hint of scepticism in the way he quirks his eyebrows but Changbin nods.

“I know we’re friends, but that’s my little brother, I don’t want to see him hurt.” He warns. You understand where it’s coming from although at the same time you want to tell him you’d heard what you had from him first and foremost, but you know he’s right. Changbin will stand up for his family no matter what and you respect that.

“Me neither, which is why I’m going to fix this.” You bid him goodbye and head towards the stairs. You heart is thumping at your throat as you go up, each step feeling like it takes you miles forward.

When you get to his door, you hesitate, swallowing down your anxiety as much as you can. The party is still noisy downstairs, the music thumping through the house and chatter filling up the air. You raise your hand, resting your fist against the wood for a moment. Before you can over think it, you rap your knuckles against the door and wait.

You can’t really hear anything but after a moment the door swings open and Jeongin stands on the other side. He registers who it is and a flash of surprise rocks his features.

“Please can we talk?” You ask, your voice quieter than you thought it would be.

He doesn’t say anything but stands aside to let you in. You’d not really been in Jeongin’s room before, maybe that time with the ripped dress girl but that was so long ago you didn’t remember what it looked like. His room isn’t messy but it’s not pristine either; the bed is half unmade, the large fur coat thrown haphazardly over the desk chair, a bunch of sketchbooks and pencils littered on the desk itself.

Jeongin sits on one corner of the bed, looking down at his hands and you stand a few feet away, looking at him, wondering where to start.

“I got your note,” you begin. “And the dress. It came yesterday but I didn’t see it until a while ago.” You shift from one foot to the other. You don’t waste any more time. “I’m so sorry, Jeongin.” You say. “For everything I said. And for quitting on you and for the silly experiment and not talking to you like a normal human being should have.”

Jeongin perks up slightly. “Experiment? Is that what that was?” He asks.

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “I was trying to figure out if you’d comment on what I was doing, whether you would tell me how to dress better like you do with other people. It was stupid and childish, but I did it because I thought it might show if you had any feelings for me at all.” You sigh, realising how random it must have sounded to him. “Anyway, I played myself because I got too caught up in it and hurt you so it was all for nothing.”

Jeongin blinks for a moment, considering what you were revealing.

“You wanted to find out if I had feelings for you? Why?” He asks, a small frown appearing on his lips.

“Because I heard that you might but I didn’t trust it without proof. And I didn’t get any in the end, I guess.” You half shrug apologetically.

“What do you mean you got no proof?” Jeongin stands up suddenly. You’re taken aback at the abrupt action, your heart starting to hammer in your chest. “Was that note not clear enough? Was me putting up a truce nothing?” He questions.

“I don’t get it.” You whisper. Was he telling you that Changbin was right all along?

“You know, for the smartest person I know, you sure are dense.” He shakes his head, a smile breaking over his features. “Of course I have feelings for you! Of course I like you! There, is that obvious enough?” He says, looking at you expectantly.

You swallow, your mouth suddenly dry. Now that you heard it from him, it still didn’t make sense, as if your brain couldn’t compute the information.

“You do…” you trail off, a wave of relief coursing through you. “Then why didn’t you tell me I was being weird and stop me?” You ask.

“What do you mean?” Jeongin tilts his head.

“You should have criticised me the way you would have anyone else, why didn’t you? I thought you couldn’t care less about me.” You explain. Jeongin’s mouth widens in an ‘o’ with his understanding. He hums for a second.

“I didn’t say anything because” he pauses. “To me you were always more important than what you looked like and always beautiful no matter what you were wearing.” He says, finding your eyes and holding them with his.

It renders you speechless and you feel like even more of an idiot for going to the lengths that you did, every action left in vain by Jeongin’s simple explanation. His words make your head spin and your chest feel tight, the symptoms of nervousness zipping over your body.

No one ever said this type of shit to you, not one single soul. If anyone else had said it, you wouldn’t believe them, but because it was Jeongin, you somehow knew deep down he meant it.

“Okay, I have a feeling I know the answer but I’ll ask just in case.” He steps towards you and stops in front of you. “Is it mutual? Or have I just misread the reason why you came here?”

You’re so close you can see the light reflecting in Jeongin’s irises and smell his perfume. He was still wearing his party outfit, the first few buttons of the dotted shirt undone.

You take a breath, exhaling shakily, and steel yourself. You were only telling the truth tonight.

“It is mutual.” You reply. “It is, and I don’t know when it started to be, it doesn’t really matter, because it is.” You say with newfound conviction. It was so much easier to say it and it made you feel so much lighter. Maybe because just being in front of Jeongin, you felt yourself becoming braver.

“I’m really happy it is. It means I can take you out on actual dates instead of appointments.” He beams. You look down when you feel him reaching for your hand. He takes it gently with his slightly larger one and holds it firmly. You can’t help but return his smile, your face muscles moving of their own accord. “So, can we kiss? Because I missed you so much already.” He whines, tone switching in a heartbeat.

You burst out laughing at the sudden change. That was more like the Jeongin you knew.

“God, you’re so dramatic, you saw me two hours ago.” You say jokingly, closing the space between you. “Now, come here.” You reach up to cup his face with your free hand, and bring your lips together.

You don’t know what you were expecting, but it’s a hundred times better. Jeongin lets go of your hand in favour of curling his arms around your waist to pull you even closer, smooshing the two of you against each other and you deepen the kiss, getting obsessed with the feeling of his soft lips on yours. Your hands land on each of his shoulders, fingers scrunching up his shirt and if you weren’t so preoccupied, you’d worry you were messing it up.

Eventually you pull away to breathe, your lips swollen but still chasing Jeongin’s. He holds you close still and looks down.

“Take off your clothes.” He says, his voice gravelly. A thrum of energy runs straight through you but you blink at him.

“Aren’t we moving too fast?” You ask. He chuckles at your question for some reason.

“That’s not what I meant!” He shakes with laughter. You’re confused. “Your disco pants are literally blinding me right now.” He steps back a fraction and you notice how the light coming from his desk lamp is reflecting on the tiny sequences of your outfit. You snort at your lapse of understanding, feeling the embarrassment heat your cheeks.

“Ah, right. Sorry.” You say sheepishly. Jeongin lets you go and walks over to his closet, sliding a drawer open and plucking out an item of clothing.

“Here, before you start attracting ships from over the horizon.” He giggles, handing you a pair of checkered pyjama pants.

“Jeongin, I’m not a lighthouse!” You complain but take them.

“What? You told me to criticise you like other people. I’m saying it because I care.” He says and pulls you closer again, planting a soft kiss on your temple as you pout.

“Don’t make me regret it, Young Master.” You ‘humph’ at him.

“Aha, okay, my Lady. Got it.” He nods. You take a good look at the pyjama and reckon it will fit you. It was kind of funny you were already getting your boyfriend’s clothes. Wait- was he your boyfriend now?

You suddenly feel the urge to ask. “Also, just to clarify, we are starting to date, aren’t we?”

“YN!” Jeongin groans, the answer evident in his voice.

“Okay, okay, it’s official. Just checking.” You hold up your hands innocently, smiling at the conclusion.

A/N: thanks for reading!! feedback is always appreciated <3 i had fun starting the series, though i have to admit i didn’t expect for this one to end up this short lol and it’s probably the lack of smut, forgive me, it didn’t fit the vibe here, but i have promised it so i shall deliver it at some point, please bear with, thank you!

#stray kids #stray kids college au #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #i.n #yang jeongin #jeongin x reader #stray kids angst #stray kids fluff #yang jeongin x reader #jeongin imagines #jeongin scenarios #momobani.writes

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cc-cobalt-1043 · 3 months

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Bad batch headcannons *my Au*:

Hunter (9901), Wrecker (9902) and Crosshair (9904) as well as two others who died earlier were the five original members of the bad batch, later another five members including Tech (9909) and Cobalt (9910) were created, three of this batch died leaving Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, Tech and Cobalt as the surviving original bad batch members

Tech was colourblind and his goggles were modified in such a way they allowed him to see the colours he originally couldn't see

Hunter hates thunderstorms as they constantly mess with his enhancements

Wrecker's eye was damaged in an explosion caused by a faulty grenade during an explosive test, as a result Wrecker had to have a cybernetic eye fitted and this incident also further encouraged Wrecker to study heavy weapons and explosives

Crosshair's eyes are often strained from the bright lights of kamino and often got headaches as a result, same with Hunter

Cobalt was intentionally created to be force sensitive by the kamanions and was assigned to a batch of other intentionally force sensitive clones and didn't see the other batchers as a result, after the project failed Cobalt was one of the few force sensitive clones declared fit for use and was assigned to Sigma squad under the designation CC-1043 due to Sigma squad recently losing a squad member and Cobalt being the only one of the surviving force sensitive clones to have not met his batch mates

The batch wouldn't meet Cobalt until 99 came across him training and secretly using his force ability, that plus his blue eyes (for which 99 named him) reminded 99 of CT-9910 who had both features and after doing some research found out it was indeed him, much to his delight

99 introduced Cobalt to the batch who were thrilled to meet their long lost brother, even setting up a bed for him in their barracks, despite him often staying with Sigma squad

Sigma squad and Cody were the first regs to truly earn the batch's trust

Crosshair and 99 made Lula for Wrecker to comfort him when he had nightmares or was afraid of the storms

When he was younger Cobalt suffered from astraphobia (a fear of lightning) and when he was staying with the batch during a particulary bad storm he'd often curl up with one of the batch, or they'd often all sleep in a giant cuddle pile

Once 99 came across one of these cuddle piles and has a framed photo of it

When the bad batch met Trix during the clone wars the batch saw him as the first reg to properly fit in with the batch, hence why they invited him to join them

#star wars #the bad batch #clone force 99 #bad batch crosshair #bad batch hunter #bad batch cobalt (oc)#bad batch tech #Clone trooper trix (oc)#bad batch wrecker

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dbgdbw · 2 years

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232화

Hyung’s Here (1)

A doll that was the spitting image of Han Yoojin sat propped in a chair. Completely lax with its eyes closed, it seemed as though he were just fast asleep. Looking only at how the chest rose and fell in small motions, it really did seem like a real human. But neither the sound of breathing, nor of a heart pumping, could be heard.

Sigma gazed down at the doll before extending a hand. The unresisting manner in which it swayed to and fro was supremely dull. But that a decoy doll had been the only thing left there, wasn’t boring in the least.

“It appears I vastly underestimated him.”

A smile spread across his lips.

He hadn’t expected the C-rank to obediently stay in one place. But neither had he anticipated that, against all odds, he’d manage to pull off an escape this cleanly.

They’d made certain to verify that he didn’t possess any Skills that would disable the inventory locking collar. But even so, through some means, he’d managed to unlock the collar and substitute himself with a dummy while being surveilled by an A-rank Guard, before fleeing.

As his body had been thoroughly searched and his inventory sealed away, it wouldn’t have been an Item. But that being said, it wouldn’t have been a Skill, either. Nor would he have had outside help.

‘A dead end.’

With the knowledge he possessed, he was unable to locate an answer. At the very least, escaping wouldn’t have been possible with only the abilities the beings in this world possessed. His heart beat slightly faster from that fact.

A lowly C-rank, at most. How had he.

“These items are assumed to have been left behind by the C-rank.”

The belongings an S-rank Guard brought over were laid out on a table in order. A few sub A-rank Items, and a bed roll. Seeing that, Sigma’s eyes narrowed.

“Goodness, it would hardly do for him to catch cold from forced exposure to the elements.”

“...Sir?”

At Sigma’s words, which seemed to sound as though he were concerned for the runaway C-rank, the S-rank Guard floundered momentarily.

“Erm, the Items that disappeared from the S-rank use armory number seven in total. They were confirmed as being five S-ranks, and two SS-ranks.”

It was only when one of the S-rank Guards returning from patrol had gone into the armory for weapons maintenance, that it was revealed that something had happened to the Items within. Receiving a report log of the Items the C-rank had stolen, the corners of Sigma’s lips curled upwards.

In only the span of a few days, he’d industriously gnawed his way through a commendable share before successfully scurrying away.

“We’ll send out the arrest order once more. This time, since we have a photo as well–”

“No. He won’t be found, in any case.”

The first time hadn’t been any different from him walking in on his own two feet, too. An arrest order would be pointless. Moreover, there was a high probability that he had already left Solemnis City.

Sigma cast another glance over the report logging the C-rank’s prior movements.

The call-in that had happened immediately after the arrest orders had fallen had mentioned the C-rank had shown an interest in a Guard with pyromantic Skills, Achates City’s Alpha. And he’d asked after Achates City when he’d visited the barrier wall observation outpost, too. A two days’ worth journey by car, from Solemnis City to Achates City.

‘A scooter with a camouflaging Skill, and sustenance lasting two days.’

It had been part of the C-rank’s shopping agenda. When all of those things were viewed together, it wasn’t difficult to guess where the C-rank’s destination might be.

“He’d be outside the city, then.”

“Come again? But, isn’t he only in possession of C-rank stats, without an attack Skill no less. Even with the camouflaging Skill, a reserve tank of a C-rank that lacks a mana seal shouldn’t be able to go even a day.”

On top of that, it was apparently a camouflaging Skill that was estimated to be S-rank at minimum. As the higher the Skill level, the higher the amount of mana required, it was dubious whether an ordinary C-rank would be able to even make it a half-day, as an optimistic estimation. As the S-rank Guard mentioned that it would be tantamount to suicide, Sigma’s smile deepened.

“If he were ordinary, yes.”

“...you suspect that he had an accomplice?”

“No.”

“Then, why…….”

The S-rank Guard wore an expression that said they didn’t understand. If the C-rank Awakened had hopped the barrier wall on his lonesome, then there was no reason to go looking for him. Since, he would have perished before the time the night was over. But Sigma seemed to think differently. Right as he was about to open his mouth.

콰앙! 쾅!

From not far off, the sound of explosions was heard. It was followed by the groaning of a building caving in, with vibrations that reached all the way to where they were. Immediately afterwards, the door to the room opened to admit a Guard wearing an in-ear piece, who darted inside with a report.

“A bomb is said to have gone off in building B-2! There appears to have been around ten or so successive blasts… As they were all concentrated on one floor, at present, the building is……”

In the midst of collapsing. The Guard, who had been about to report as much, slacked their jaws in shock. Sigma was laughing audibly. A low, subdued laugh diffused into the air, threading between the rumble of concrete chunks raining down.

“Not bothering to hold back on his punches, I see. Quite the stinging blow.”

If it had been an S-rank, or even an A-rank, he probably wouldn’t have felt so entertained. But it was a C-rank, who hadn’t even been established as a Guard, who had managed to merrily frolic his way through and even make a clean escape.

“Contact Achates City. Tell them I’ve agreed to take on their request for aid in subduing Alpha.”

“Sir? Then, you’ll be traveling to Achates City in person?”

“Correct. See to the preparations.”

To tell the truth, he wanted to depart immediately, but leaving one’s home city was far from an easy endeavor. Most importantly, one could only recharge their mana via seal at their affiliate Mana Hole. As the mana itself remained one and the same, no matter which Mana Hole it originated from, it was possible to utilize outsourced fuel tanks–but the problem lay in the potential of being refused access to those reserves.

For this reason, they’d need to arrange for a retinue of fuel tanks in advance, as well as plan to go equipped with sufficient firepower. Especially for a place like Achates City, where Guards were met with an unfavorable reception, an even higher level of precaution became necessary.

“This will be the first time in a while that you’ll have left your post, sir. So long as an anomalous situation, like the one in Goldburg Park, does not emerge, there should be a respite of about a week or so.”

“Submit a backup request to Lanchaea’s Lambda. Inform them I’ll be personally visiting Achates.”

“...though, to tell the truth, I’m uncertain why you’re going to these lengths.”

Even while bemused, the S-rank Guard made to comply with their orders. Both Guards left the room. The other building seemed to have finished collapsing, in the meanwhile, as silence had returned to the area. Within the quietness of the moment, Sigma’s gaze drifted back towards the doll that sat in the chair. In faded eyes that had sunken into dullness, a light was beginning to glint once more.

***

- 삐이익!

I heard the sound of birds. From above where the breaking daylight dappled through the canopy of trees, the flurry of feathers as a flock of birds took off carried over through the air.

‘Would it have gone off, nowabouts.’

10 IEDs, at 20.000 points per unit. I’d made sure to hide each one well when I installed them in their respective locations. I’d set them to go off around sunrise or so, so they should’ve done a good job, right? Though the detonation power contained in each unit didn’t amount to a whole lot, since I’d gathered them all on one floor, with a bit of strategic positioning, they might’ve even managed to cave the building in altogether.

If having to deal with the situation bought me a bit more time, that would be nice.

Taking out a few cans of food from my pack, I popped them open. Using the fork that had come attached to the one that contained what looked similar to meatballs, I chewed on the food. The meat they ate here really did taste pretty alright, as far as I was concerned. Even without being reheated, it was still palatable.

‘Traveling during the day should definitely be safer than at night.’

Though I’d already resolved to stake a few lives if necessary, the world outside of the barrier wall had been surprisingly safe thus far. With my camouflaging Skill bumped up to S-rank through an Item buff, monsters hadn’t been able to find me, and the high-rank monsters were preoccupied with hunting down the mid- to low-ranked monsters as well.

The camouflaging Skill applied to the scooter had been B-rank, and so only came up to about A-rank even when supplemented with my own Skill, which had made me feel slightly concerned–but barely any of the monsters paid any attention to the scooter. Though I’d been on the receiving end of a few S-rank monsters’ gazes, they’d left to give chase to other lower-ranked monsters instead.

Thankfully, I hadn’t run into any SS-rank monsters.

‘During the daytime, the low-ranked monsters disappear, while the high-ranked monsters probably nod off after filling their stomachs. I wonder if a type of ecosystem’s taken hold.’

Finishing off the simple meal, I tossed the empty can and drink container along the road. Littering was bad, of course, but since this world wasn’t real.

Just then, a message window popped up.

[ ☆★ Hidden Quest Complete!! ☆★]

What, again. And after I’d already gotten a hidden quest achievement notification from successfully escaping from the Solemnis Defense Association stronghold and shaking down the armory, too. Was it a hidden quest related to the explosives I’d set off, this time.

‘...that Newcomer, is he observing my actions and adding these quests as I go, or something..’

It was suspicious. They’d mentioned that both the Skill names and descriptions were written up after the fact, too, right. At any rate, it seemed highly likely that the same would go for the hidden quests. Case in point, there were those Leopard Cat’s shoes that had dropped as part of the same set.

Well, though it was still better than getting nothing. With a heart of gratitude for the Newcomer’s hard work, I opened the quest complete window.

[ Brazen Bomber!

You’ve managed to topple one of the Solemnis Defense Administration’s buildings, teeming with high-ranked Guards. Truly a display of boldness that speaks of your clear disregard towards living to see tomorrow!!(1)

Reward: 100,000P, Dragon’s Breath Bomb(SS) x 3 ]

Dragon’s Breath bombs? And they were SS-rank Items, at that. Since they were bombs, they should be single-use only, but to hand over three of them to me, did they want me to blow something else up again or what. Even if this place might not be real, I’d been going about things maybe a bit too gung-ho–but weren’t they just fanning the flames like this.

[ Dragon’s Breath Bomb - SS-grade

An explosive containing the might of the highest grade Dragon’s Breath. Timer and remote control options available.

Single use ]

It felt too precious to use. So long as nothing came up, I should pack it to bring with me when I left. If they told me I couldn’t bring it with me because it was a game Item, I was going to cry.

Safely tucking away the bombs in my inventory, I revved up the scooter again. As I’d ended up staying up the night, a small yawn slipped out. Whether night or day, as resting peacefully was out of the question, running the next forty-eight hours nonstop was my only choice. It was fortunate that my stats were C-rank.

If I had remained an F-rank as before, I probably would’ve been forced to take breaks however I could, out of fear of falling asleep at the wheel. Because the road conditions were so rough, just driving the scooter took up a significant amount of stamina. I wished that, as soon as I arrived in Achates City, Yoohyunie would sweep me up in a welcome while telling me rest as much as you want, hyung.

‘I wish I could see the kids. I really, really miss them.’

It had been a long time since I’d been left alone like this. Since, after I’d regressed, there had always been someone left by my side. My only consolation was that, as everyone other than myself weren’t occupying their real bodies, they weren’t in any danger of actually dying. Otherwise, with my fear resistance rank having dropped as well, I would’ve been distressed by such a prospect.

…if only our world had been able to utilize the virtual reality system too, after all. As that kind of thought occurred to me, I unconsciously grit my teeth. Even if VR had its own set of risks, even then, so many things would’ve been different. Though it might just be a case of the grass appearing greener on the other side too.

‘...let’s concentrate on how to get as much as I can from here instead.’

I’d meet up with Yoohyunie, track down the others as well, then rack up a mountain of points. So that both Yoohyunie and Yerimie could obtain a new weapon each, before leaving. Skills would be nice, too.

Ah, I wanted to see the kids. Hyuna-ssi too, for certain, and it even felt like I might miss Sung Hyunjae. The loneliness felt bitter.

—

Much like Solemnis’ own, a towering boundary wall emerged in my field of vision. Not only the height of the wall, but the watchtowers placed at even intervals took on a similar format as well. Had the cities all been set up around the same time, I wondered. Without releasing the camouflaging Skill, I gazed at the barrier wall under the early morning sunlight.

The distance from Solemnis to Achates was said to be two days by car; so, though the scooter was fairly high-performance, it was unsurprisingly slower than a four-wheeled vehicle. It had taken an additional half day on top of the baseline two, but having left during the night meant that I’d ended up staying up a consecutive three days. My eyelids felt weighted down, and sighs continually climbed up my throat.

‘Should I hop the wall, or go in through the door.’

During the day, the guard rotation for Solemnis’s barrier wall comprised primarily B-rank Guards. That was swapped for A-rank Guards at night, when the new batch of monsters would spawn. Since the monster spawning patterns seemed to be consistent across the board, wouldn’t Achates operate the same way.

‘And if it’s a B-rank, getting away won’t be a problem.’

Taking out the ID I’d kept safe up to this point, I ducked behind a tree before releasing my camoflauging Skill. In order to hide the fact that I didn’t have a seal, I took out a bandana from my pack and tied it around my neck.

It could be that Yoohyunie had already sent word to the Guards in charge of the city entrance in advance. That, if someone called Han Yoojin were to come looking, to welcome me in and bring me to him. He might’ve even ordered them to just notify him once it happened, so that he could come out to meet me himself.

Yoohyun-ah, hyung’s here. With a fluttering heart, I headed towards the comparatively smaller-looking entrance embedded within the larger barrier wall. The door was just big enough to allow passage for a vehicle to pass through.

“Pardon me, please open the door!”

I shouted towards the observation tower while waving an arm, and shortly afterwards, the door opened. An armed B-rank Guard approached me, without ever lowering their guard.

“I’m Han Yoojin, of Medsang City. Here–my ID, and transportation papers.”

“Ah, so you’ve arrived from Medsang.”

At my words, the B-rank Guard’s expression relaxed noticeably. Medsang seemed to produce mostly healers and support-type Guards, so perhaps the reception given by the other cities was easier. It seemed that the Newcomer had intentionally prepared the ID to facilitate the process.

Having verified both the ID and transportation pass with a machine, the Guard expressed a welcome and moved back to allow me through. Yoohyunie… didn’t seem to have sent word ahead. Then again, he might’ve refrained from mentioning anything with my safety in mind, too. Since if it was someone that was precious to an SS-rank Guard, they might end up being kidnapped as a hostage.

“The journey here was long and difficult, so being welcomed like this has been immensely heartening and gratifying. Thank you for the hard work you’re doing, defending the city.”

Wearing a personable smile, I offered them a drink taken from my pack. Expressing their thanks, the Guard took the proffered drink.

“Though you’re registered as a C-rank support, I’ll escort you to the city center nevertheless. The ghettos on the outskirts of the city are inevitably dangerous, you see. Riding a scooter instead of a car, there’s a high chance you may end up being ambushed.”

“Thank you. Then, apologies for the inconvenience, but I’ll be in your care.”

“As it so happens to be the time for a shift change, it’s no problem at all.”

How thoughtful of them. The Guard brought over a military-edition jeep that had a luggage compartment in the back. Putting the scooter away in the luggage compartment, I slid into the passenger seat.

“Seeing how you managed to make it here without incident, the scooter seems to have a fairly high level camouflaging Skill applied to it.”

“Yes, it did cost a pretty penny. Making it here without a camouflaging Skill, would’ve been nigh impossible.”

The amiability seemed to be because they'd caught the scent of money on me. So long as they served as a useful guide, then leaving a generous tip would be no problem at all. I might not’ve had currency, but I had plenty of items. The amount I could get from selling even one A-rank item was far from a pittance. And my dongsaeng was likely leaps and bounds better off than I was. If you managed a good performance, then I had no qualms about leaving a good word with him for you.

“About Achates’s Alpha-nim.”

After talking about frivolous matters for a while, I brought up the topic I was most interested in. Alpha. Almost immediately in response to the word being mentioned, the Guard’s expression stiffened.

“So it appears you’ve already heard the news, in that case.”

News? I hadn’t heard anything, but figured I should play along.

“Ah, yes. Of course I’ve heard. Though, as an outsider, I’m not clear on the details of the matter.”

“Since it was such a big incident, it’s unsurprising that some of the news might have leaked to the outside. But the compromised Alpha was safely subdued, and is being securely monitored by the Defense Association, so please do not worry too much.”

…’compromised’ and then ‘subdued’, what kind of dogshit was this.

-----

(1) 간을 배박에 내어놓은 듯한

#232화 #the s classes that i raised #tsctir #sctir

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