#he was like ‘i’ll give it to you cheaper because i’d like to see you again buying around here :)))’ and i was like haha (you are 40-50 y/o) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamescapeswriting · 3 years

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Rent An Oppa ~ HHJ [Request]

WORD COUNT: 4.5K

PAIRING: Hyunjin x Reader

GENRE: non idol AU, strangers to lovers, rent an oppa, fluffy, a little angst but nothing too major, pining for one another, first kiss,

A/N: I made this one a fluffy one without smut hunny, I hope that this is okay hunny

Moving to South Korea was one of the best decisions you'd ever made. It had been your dream for years to move somewhere that wasn’t where you were from. You’d finally made it happen, you were here. Sitting in your new apartment staring out at all of the sights that you could see. The apartment you’d gotten was a loft apartment which was something you’d never thought of having before, but it was perfect. The ground floor was open plan, besides the bathroom of course and you had large floor to ceiling windows that looked out at the city of Seoul. Your bedroom was just up a flight of stairs and it looked out at the ground floor, it was unbelievably perfect for your first home in Seoul. There was only one thing wrong with everything and that was that you didn’t know your way around. Sure there were maps and people you could ask for help but you wanted a tour guide.

You’d seen an app being advertised on your plane ride over which you were tempted to use. “Rent an Oppa.” It sounded like it was straight out of a K-Drama but it was real and monitored wonderfully. Everyone had a screening test, background test and everything is done before they were allowed to become an “Oppa” for the app.

“Let’s see what this is then,” You mumbled to yourself as you sat down on your sofa, pulling your knees up to your chest as you began to scroll through the app. Everyone had profiles set up with verification photos to prove that they were who they said they were, then there were some small descriptions about the boys or girls there.

Endlessly scrolling and swiping through profiles you couldn’t find anyone you thought you would get along well with. You wanted someone that you had things in common with, if you were going to be paying them for their time you might as well do something you both enjoy doing it.

About to give up hope and go at it alone a profile popped up. A new profile that caught your eye. The photo was of a boy around 21-years-old standing on top of a rooftop, dressed in a smart shirt and tie aiming a camera at whoever was taking the photo of him. Photography-nut was written in his profile making you giggle a little as you flicked through his images. In each of them, it began to reveal his face and mid-length blonde hair. He looked as though he was really sweet and kind, the kind of boy you took to meet your parents.

“Hyunjin,” You smiled as you said his name, swiping onto his profile to see what rates he was charging. It wasn’t expensive and just in your budget range so you messaged him. There was no harm in seeing if he was free that day.

[12:03] Y/n:

Hi there, I’m not entirely sure how this thing works 😅😅 but could we arrange a meetup? I’m new in Seoul and need a tour guide 🥰

Staring at the phone you debated with yourself if that was the right way to start a conversation with someone on the app. There was no tutorial on how to message them or if you had to wait for them to message you first.

[12:07] Hyunjin 🍀

Hey! I would love to arrange a meetup. I can meet you anywhere you feel comfortable! Welcome to Seoul! 💞🌺

Smiling to yourself you gave him the address to the shop right beside your apartment building. It was the only play you really knew so far and you wanted to meet him somewhere you knew the exact location of. Rather than wandering around lost trying to find somewhere to meet him you didn’t know yet.

Dressed in a long-sleeved Beige shirt-dress and some black leggings you waited outside the shop, acting as though you were busy on your phone so you didn’t look as though you were staring out for Hyunjin. It was already going to be awkward enough without you looking around gormlessly for him.

“Hey,” A voice called out making you jump a little as you looked up from your phone to see him. He was identical to his photos though his hair was a little longer now.

“Hi, I’m Y/n.” You shook his hand and he smiled nodding his head,

“I’m Hyunjin and I know this is probably going to be awkward for a while so I hope we can become friends throughout it,” He smiled as he let go of your hand. This time you looked at him you took in his whole appearance, he was wearing a black and white striped turtle neck and some black jeans.

“I’m new to the app so we’re both doing firsts here,” He smiled as he looked around you both, taking in everything around him as he tried to figure out what you could do for the day.

“It’s still quite early in the afternoon...I can show you around, show you all of the shops, shopping mall and just around Seoul itself if you like?” You were completely taken by his voice, appearance and how sweet he was being with you.

“I would love that, the only place I know is the shop and my apartment.” You laughed weakly as he nodded his head.

“Would you mind if I linked our arms?” You shook your head and you linked arms with one another as he began to lead you down the road.

“So what brings you to Seoul?” He questioned as he tried to break the ice. It was nice that he was trying, you had rented him for the rest of the day and you were going to have to get to know each other.

“I fancied a change in pace. I’ve always loved South Korea and the culture,” You admitted as your eyes glanced around at all of the people you were pacing. Everyone in their own worlds as they went about their daily lives. Each person you saw looked as though they had been plucked out of a fashion magazine, their outfits were so effortless yet stood out in the large crowds.

“When did you get here?” He asked as he waited at the side of the road for lights to change and you could cross without being in any kind of danger.

“About two days ago...I’ve been locked up in my apartment eating Ramen. I was so worried I’d get lost.” You groaned thinking back on it while Hyunjin laughed a little, shaking his head.

“I’ll add a shopping trip on our list of things to do. I can’t have you living off only ramen.” He chuckled and your whole heart seemed to swell up when you saw the smile on his face. It was honestly one of the prettiest smiles you’d seen and his dimples were so deep you wanted to reach up and poke them. But you didn’t.

The rules of the app were very simple. No inappropriate touching, no exchange of social media or phone numbers. Once the dates were over that was it unless you rented another one but only through the app.

“I should take you to see Cheonggyecheon River, a small walk down and we’ll be at the nicest cafes,” Hyunjin explained as he seemed to be enjoying this almost as much as you were,

“So why did you join the app?” You questioned as you looked at him, it had been a question on your mind since seeing him on the app.

“I needed the extra cash for art supplies...I’m studying at the moment so this seemed to be the perfect side job.” He explained as he began heading down some stairs towards a small river that ran through the city.

“Cheonggyecheon River,” You whispered as you looked around, it had only been something you’d seen in photos but now it was real.

“So you do art?” You questioned as you went back to looking up at Hyunjin while you walked.

“Yeah. I try to, I’m learning to draw, I thought it would be fun.” You smiled wanting to know more about it.

“Do you have any pictures?” He nodded as he sat down on an empty bench with you, pulling out his phone to show you photos of the drawings he’d been doing in his spare time.

“These are amazing! You did these?” You were truly shocked to see someone who was just learning to draw create amazing pieces as he had done. Some were anime characters, others were drawings of himself and another was a drawing of a dog.

“This is my favourite,” You told him as you looked at the Chihuhaha drawing he’d done,

“My little Kkami, I missed him so I drew him from a photo.” You smiled at the drawing again,

“Do you not get to see him much?” He shook his head as he looked out at the water.

“I live in a dorm with seven guys who are studying, Kkami is at home with my family.” Your heart clenched at the thought of him not getting to see his dog much,

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head at you, you had nothing to be sorry for.

“Don’t be, it makes the time I have with him all the more special. Shall we start to go?” You nodded getting up from the bench once more and heading in the direction he was leading you in.

The two of you had gotten to know each other more on your walk over to the supermarket, getting to know about him and all his roommates that seemed adventurous.

“Felix came here at 2 am once just to get baking ingredients.” He laughed as he pushed the trolley around the store, adding things he thought you would enjoy as well as ingredients to make Kimchi with.

“Why was he baking at 2 in the morning?” You laughed adding some pasta products into the trolley, looking around at everything in shock. It was so much larger than any other supermarket you had been in and it was empty. Hardly anyone besides you and Hyunjin was around and there was soft music playing through some speakers.

“It’s Felix, who knows why he does what he does,” He laughed as he watched you. You were standing in front of ramen packets and he smirked a little,

“You could get the cups. They’ll be better for you and cheaper in price.” Thanking him you added a bunch into the trolley and smiled a little,

“Noodles are the only thing I can successfully cook.” You chuckled while Hyunjin shook his head at you,

“I need to give you cooking lessons but we’re almost out of the day...I can send you some cooking books if you like.” The thought of the day almost being over made you sad to think you’d never see him again.

“I could book you for another day? I would love to learn to cook from someone who’s lived here their whole life,” Yes. That was the reason. Totally not because every time he smiled or laughed your heart fluttered. Hyunjin’s heart seemed to flutter at the thought of getting to meet you again, although he was getting paid to hang out with you it didn’t feel forced. It felt natural to be around you as though he had known you for years and he couldn’t wait to do it all over again.

“Sure! We should get some ingredients to cook with tomorrow. Your Kimchi will stay good for three to six months if you keep it in the fridge and once you know-how. You’re pretty much great for everything,” You smiled before nodding. Both of you grabbing more and more ingredients for recipes you could freeze and add to the freezer.

Laying in bed that night you couldn’t help but smile to yourself at the day you had. Hyunjin bought you home in a cab, helping you in with the bags before he helped you put everything away. You’d already paid him before he got home and booked another day together but none of it felt like a job or obligation to either of you. Hyunjin went home with a giant smile on his face having enjoyed the day much more than he had expected to.

“I told you that you’d have fun,” Chan said as he walked into the kitchen later that night to see Hyunjin couldn’t stop smiling.

“I had a lot, she’s amazing Hyung.” He explained as he began to pour himself some hot chocolate and get ready for a few hours of studying before bed.

“Just don’t get attached. The rules were simple Hyunjin.” He nodded as he headed back to his dorm room to find Felix sitting there waiting for everything that had happened that day.

“Felix made cookies.” Was the first thing Hyunjin said to you as you opened the door to see him standing there. Today he was wearing a white t-shirt, a grey jacket and some shorts. It was the hottest day of the year.

“His famous ones?!” You asked a little too excitedly as you saw the Tupperware box filled to the brim with cookies all of different shapes and sizes.

“He was baking last night and he thought I could share them.” It was a lie. Hyunjin had practically begged Felix to bake you some the night before. He’d told you so much about them and he’d seen the look on your face when he mentioned them. He wanted you to try them.

“Tell him I said thanks,” You hummed as bit down into one of the cookies, instantly rolling your head back at the taste of them.

"He could run his own bakery, oh my goodness," Hyunjin smiled as he walked into the kitchen pulling out an apron he'd brought from the dorms and getting ready to help you cook.

"We'll start with the Kimchi, it'll be the best thing to start with and then whatever you're planning for your dinner." You nodded at him, finishing off the cookie before you washed up and pulled on an apron you'd gotten from the store yesterday.

While you were chopping and washing up the ingredients Hyunjin was telling you everything you needed to do.

"You know you should be a chef...Or give out cooking classes." You told him as you began adding all of the ingredients together.

"I would give you five stars," He laughed softly as he looked at you,

"Like a Michelin chef?" You nodded at him as you continued to add everything together. Hyunjin laughing a little as he began to stir some of the stew he'd been making, scooping some up for you.

"You've reached the peak of taste, you'll never go back to normal food I promise." He laughed as you hummed at the taste of the stew.

"You'll have to take some home with you, there's no way I'll eat all this to myself." You mentioned as you stared at the huge stew pot he was cooking with.

"I'm sure the guys would love it," Hyunjin said before adding a little more spice to the stew and leaving it.

The two of you camped out on your sofa for hours just spending time getting to know one another. He told you all about his life at the dorms while you told him about life back at home.

"Do you miss it?" He asked as he bit into one of the cookies and looked at you,

"Sometimes. I miss the people more than the place but it's home." You frowned thinking back on your time, it wasn't as though you were never going to go back again, but this was your life now.

"I suppose that's how it is with many people." He smiled weakly putting down his plate and looking at the time, he only had an hour left with you before he had to head home for the night.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" You shrugged your shoulders as you thought about it. Nothing was planned for at least a month, your job was waiting for some final paperwork to be done.

"Nothing that I know of,"

"Do you want to go to Seoul Tower, it's one of the best tourist spots. I think you'll enjoy it there," You smiled while nodding your head, wanting to spend all of the time in the world with Hyunjin. For as long as you could at least.

"Sure!" You smiled at him before going over to the stew to get everything put into smaller tubs for him to take home. The subject of payment was growing closer and neither of you wanted to feel awkward about talking about it again.

"Hyunjin. You're growing attached," Chan warned as soon as Hyunjin stepped through the door that night. All eight of the boys were on the app to earn some extra cash and for them, it had been routine days out. A cafe, a shopping spree here and there but that was it. None of them ever spent so much time getting to know their clients or even cook with them.

"I'm not. She's just being a nice friend Hyung," He complained as he placed the stew down onto the counter. Calling out to the boys that there was food if anybody was hungry for it.

"She's a client Hyunjin. Nothing more." He rolled his eyes as he listened to Chan bring up the subject of the rules again.

"No exchanging numbers, social media or inappropriate touching. I know Hyung, Gosh what do you think we're doing? Fucking in some park?" He grumbled taking a cookie and heading for his bedroom. He didn't want to hear the same speech over and over again reminding him that he couldn't have you the way that he wanted. There were feelings growing between you and he knew he was never going to be able to act on them and it killed him inside.

The days you spent together began to grow more and more and you forgot that this wasn't just friends hanging out together. That you were paying him for spending time with you. That was until the end of the night when you would wire transfer him the cash when he left leaving you both feeling awkward the next morning. Only for that to fade whenever you got on with the day that you had planned together. You'd seen almost every tourist attraction there. Hyunjin took you to Nami Island, ice cream dates, cafe dates, Seoul Tower and today you were going to Gyeongbokgung Palace.

"Everything okay? You seem quiet." He chuckled as you waited in line together to get tickets for the palace. Your eyes wandered up to him as you smiled weakly.

"Fine...I just can't wait to get in there." You lied not wanting to make anything between you more awkward than it had to be.

The palace was beautiful and filled with history Hyunjin couldn't wait to tell you about it. Explaining everything and tell you all of the facts he knew about the palace.

"Did you come here a lot?" You asked as you both sat down on some grass patches by one of the lakes. He'd brought along a picnic basket and a blanket for the two of you. The basket was filled with food he’d cooked and baked goods Felix had been forced to make once again,

“When I was a kid. I love history so I used to beg mum into taking me.” He laughed as he remembered all of the weekends he would spend there, learning about everything that he could.

“That’s amazing,” You smiled as he held up a spoon to your lips, spoon-feeding you some yoghurt he had bought along with him. You hummed letting him feed you when you looked around at different people around you. Lots of couples were doing the same thing as you both. Sitting together on the grass as they fed one another.

“Hey I was-” Hyunjin stopped speaking when you turned to look at him, neither of you realising how close you were to one another until your lips almost touched. Neither of you moved. You just stared at him, eyes flicking from his lips to his mouth your whole body aching to lean in and kiss him. But you didn’t. You sat there looking at him as he looked at you.

No one would have to know, he could just lean down and kiss you right now and no one would know about it. It wasn’t as though there were guards on the apps that tracked their every move. Placing down the spoon he looked at you, scooting closer to you as he watched to see if your facial expression changed at all. His right hand slowly rose to your face and he cupped your face in his hand, running his thumb along your bottom lip as you let out a small whimper.

“If I do this, there’s no going back.” You shrugged your shoulder. You didn’t want to go back. You wanted his lips on yours, you didn’t care about anything else.

Hyunjin pressed his lips against yours and instantly it was sweet yet filled with passion, your arms wrapped around the back of his neck as you kissed him back. Lips moving in sync with one another as he pulled you closer to him. The world around you faded away as you made out on the small patch of grass together, forgetting that he was paid to be there and you were renting him for the day. None of that mattered when you felt the way you did. Your whole body prickling with tingles as he kissed you. Lips parting and tongues touching. Everything around you was gone. All you cared about was this moment.

After taking you home Hyunjin came in to have hot chocolate with you, well over his intended time limit and continued to kiss you. Cuddle you. Only making you yearn for him to stay longer but he had to go home. He had classes the next day.

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” You admitted as you stood by the front door of your apartment. Neither of you moving as you stared up at him. It was your last week before work and you could no longer afford to pay him. Though the subjects of paying for dates had gotten too weird for you and Hyunjin to talk about.

“I’m sure we’ll see each other around,” He sighed knowing he couldn’t give you his number or any way of contacting him outside of the app. He’d hoped he’d told you enough about his personal life for you to accidentally bump into one another somewhere.

“Hyunjin I think-” He kissed you softly not wanting you to finish the sentence. He was getting feelings for you too but admitting them out loud would make him stay and he couldn’t.

“I will see you around,” He whispered putting an emphasis on the “will” before he leant down to kiss you one last time. His hands on your waist as he smiled against your lips, pulling away and leaving you alone.

Weeks passed by and Hyunjin saw no sign of you in any of the spots he had told you about, he even made an effort to walk by your apartment building every night home from classes but there was no sign of you.

“You’ve been so weird lately. Why haven’t you been going to see Y/n?” Felix grumbled as he rolled over in bed one night to see Hyunjin laying wide awake at almost 1 am. Just sitting there and staring at the top of the bunk bed he was under.

“I can’t...I have feelings for her and I didn’t want to keep taking her money.” Crawling down from the top bunk Felix came to see Hyunjin. He was fully dressed and staring at the ceiling still.

“It’s creepy. Stop staring like that. Just go and “accidentally” bump into her...What’s the problem?” Hyunjin sat up and shook his head,

“You don’t think I’ve been trying that? I’ve been walking by her apartment building almost every night. Sitting in cafes...Maybe I was reading into it wrong.” Hyunjin’s phone flashed up and he darted toward it only to see it was an email from the Rent an Oppa app telling him that his account was deactivated.

“You quit?”

“I didn’t want to do it anymore.” He mumbled before getting up from the bed and grabbing a jacket,

“Where are you going? It’s almost 1:30?” Hyunjin said nothing as he left the bedroom.

The account was gone and all that was left was a stupid message telling you that Hyunjin has left the account. Staring down at your phone you hated yourself for not messaging him sooner to arrange something. You had to see him again. For the last two weeks, you had been going to what he said was his favourite cafe and waiting for him. You’d do the paperwork for work there, read books. You’d been in there so much the owner knew you by name.

“I’ll make you some goodnight tea,” The elderly owner whispered as she walked over to your table. They were open 24 hours which was nice at times like this when you couldn’t get to sleep.

“Thank you,” You whispered as you went back to looking through the paperwork you had to finish. The job wasn’t what you expected it to be so you were trying to file paperwork whilst look for something else to do there.

“Nightcap for you too?” The elderly woman called out to someone who had just walked through the door. Frowning to yourself you glanced up to see a hoodied boy walk through the shop and stand at the counter.

“You’re not alone tonight. Someone else who can’t sleep,” The hoodied boy began to turn and as soon as you locked eyes your heart lept to your throat.

“Hyunjin?” You whispered to yourself as he began heading over to your table, eyes wide as he saw you sitting there.

“Fancy meeting you here,” He laughed as he sat down beside you, both of you just as happy to see each other.

“I-I’ve been coming here almost every day,” You admitted as he looked at you, hands finding yours and holding onto them as tightly as he could. He never would have thought you would come here, he’d only mentioned it once and how much it meant to him.

“I only told you about this place once,”

“I could see how much it meant to you...I thought I might catch you here and then we could...Go on a normal date.” He let out a breathy chuckle as he nodded his head.

“Sounds good to me. I’m paying.” He told you as he kissed your lips softly. All of a sudden all of those weeks away from one another melted into nothingness. It was just the two of you together once again giving you the freedom to date, exchange numbers and hang out without some pesky app or their rules in the way.

Tagline: @minholuvs @taestannie @sw33tnight @acciocriativity @mwitsmejk @taeechwitaa @justbangtanthingz @stillwithlix

#skz #skz x reader #skz x you #skz imagine #skz imagines #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagine #stray kids imagines #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin imagine #hyunjin imagines #hwang hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin imagine #hwang hyunjin imagines

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a-singleboat · 3 years

Text

His Shirt

Word Count: 1533

A/N: I literally have no excuse, but I’m back!

Request: Can I request something where the reader and Shayne have been seeing each other for a little while and she unknowingly wears one of his shirts to work and the whole day goes by like normal but towards the end of it, someone like Noah or something ends up questioning it like “how has no one noticed this, or mentioned it all freaking day?!” And Shayne gets shy about it but the reader just laughs it off and it’s all cute and fluffy af💕💕- Anon

Over quarantine, you’d seen very little of any of your friends and coworkers. Working from home was tough, especially since you and your partner had just made the decision to move in with each other a week before the entire country had been submerged into a lockdown that stretched over a few months. The days blended together and eventually dragged on, which made you excited to return to work if anything.

The morning of your official return, you woke up extremely early, not having been able to sleep the night before due to pure excitement. You wanted to get back to filming, to doing all the things you did before going into quarantine, you missed the hustle and bustle of set life.

You were dressed before Shayne was, throwing on a button up from your shared closet as well as a pair of dark-wash jeans that only felt a little tight at the waist. You weren’t concerned, seeing as you were never really on the skinny side of fitness, you figured it was just early morning bloating that would go away as the day went on.

“Are you driving or am I?” you asked, bouncing on the balls of the feet as you waited for Shayne to pull on a thin jacket. It wasn’t fully winter yet but it also wasn’t cold enough to constitute a full coat. You had a thinner track jacket on as well, the zipper zipped only part of the way up in your hurry.

Shayne paused by you to pull up the zipper the rest of the way before pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Calm down,” he advised, pulling his mask on over the bottom half of his face. “We still have to grab breakfast before heading to the offices, Courtney asked if we could stop by that bagel place by us she likes.”

“Is it even open?” you asked, patting down your pockets to make sure you had everything. Once you were sure you had your phone, keys, and wallet, you then realized that you had completely forgotten your purse inside. You whirled around to head back inside when Shayne handed you the black bag, a knowing smirk on his face.

“They’re open for pickups only,” he told you, pulling your keys from your pocket, “and I’ll drive, I don’t feel like getting pulled over by the cops today.”

“I’m not that bad at driving,” you tried to defend yourself, hurrying after him as he walked off to the parking lot. “I just take the speed limit signs as suggestions but that doesn’t mean I’m bad at it.”

He didn’t respond, instead holding the passenger seat door open for you. His action was answer enough. You slid into the passenger seat and buckled in as he shut the door tight, running around to the other side and sliding into the driver’s seat.

“What are we going to tell them when you roll up driving my car, huh?” you questioned. “Our friends know we moved into the same apartment because it was cheaper as roommates, not because we started dating. If you roll up driving my car they’ll have questions.”

“It’ll be fine,” he tried to parlay your worries. “Besides, if you’re that concerned about it I can just say you had a headache or didn’t feel like driving after we got to the bagel shop. Not the end of the world.”

You sank back into your seat, coming to terms with the fact that Shayne was not going to let you drive. He pulled out of the parking lot as One Direction played softly in the background, the aux cord trailing from its socket to the connector on your phone as you dictated what you listened to on the way to the bagel shop.

Shayne got out of the car when you got there, heading in to pick up the order you had called ahead for on the way there. He was back before Temporary Fix ended, handing the bagels over to you as you switched over to Alec Benjamin for the rest of the ride in.

You ate your bagel on the way in, putting the vegetable spread evenly over the toasted bread and eating it as Water Fountain played. You held out a bit of your bagel, silently asking if Shayne wanted any. He took the bite, smiling when he realized you accidentally got cream cheese on his cheek. You reached out with a napkin and wiped it off before finishing the rest of your bagel.

You arrived at the offices shortly after, unplugging your phone from the aux and exiting the vehicle. Luckily, no one was outside to see the two of you enter the building. You would say you were walking a little too closely for it to be considered friendly, especially during a pandemic, but everyone knew that the two of you were close friends anyways. Walking close together wouldn’t give anything away.

“What do you have to film today?” you made small talk in the elevator, getting to your working mindset. You knew what you had to do, film a gaming video with Ian, Noah, and Courtney, as well as take a look and collaborate with the writers on a new skit idea for when production went back to being fully up and running. It would be a short day for you, which wasn’t ideal but at least you got some camera time.

Shayne looked up from his phone. “I’ve got the meeting with the crew and then some gaming videos, I think. We’re also planning for the Christmas video soon, so I’ll probably be with Wardrobe for most of the day.”

You hummed as the elevator doors opened, Shayne tucking his phone away and then sending you a wink. You felt your face burn hot as you scrunched up your nose. You reached up to fix your mask as you waited for the elevator to go up to the main office floor, heading straight for your desk where a pack of Lysol wipes and a temperature gun were waiting.

Proactive, you thought, using the wipes to clean off the surface of your desk before finally setting your things down. You took your jacket off, draping over the back of your chair before sitting. You had about thirty minutes before your call time so you checked your email and went over a few of the new safety regulations that were put in place for filming.

The most notable were the fifteen-minute COVID tests you would have to take before and after each section of filming, meaning you couldn’t enter or exit the filming area without a negative test. Honestly, that was a good thing if any. At least the company cared in that way.

Filming took up the rest of your day and when you finally finished with your writer’s meeting, it was six pm. Not as early as a day as you would have hoped but you’ve definitely stayed in the studio for longer so you weren’t going to complain.

You were sitting at your desk as you waited for Shayne to finish up his meeting, casually chatting with Noah to pass the time. You were sharing one of your quarantine stories when Shayne walked in, heading straight for your desk with his things already collected.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, adjusting her jacket. “Also, what do you want for dinner tonight because I was thinking we could have lasagna but if we want lasagna we have to stop by the market on the way.”

You laughed, pulling your jacket on. “I could go for lasagna.”

Noah looked between the two of you, slowly connecting the dots. He pointed at you, a grin on his face as realization crossed his features. “That’s Shayne’s shirt.”

You looked down, realizing that, yeah, you were wearing Shayne’s shirt. You looked over at Shayne who’s cheeks were as red as a tomato. He started stammering, offering reasons as to why you were wearing his shirt.

You just shrugged, quickly thinking for a way out. “The laundry must have gotten mixed up. Not the first time I’d accidentally worn his shirts.”

Noah gave you a look that read that he didn’t quite believe you. But he let it go, taking note of Shayne’s red cheeks and your flustered looks. He smirked, patting your shoulder as he got up.

“I’ll believe you for now,” he said, leaving the two of you to stew in your minor embarrassment.

“How long until everyone knows?” you asked Shayne who looked only mildly mortified that Noah was the first to find out. “We weren’t even keeping it a secret either… I’m proud of us anyhow.”

“I guess that means we don’t have to worry about who sees us now,” he said, looking on the bright side. “And yeah, keeping it a secret any longer would have been kinda dumb, wouldn’t it have been.”

You headed to the elevators, linking your arm through Shayne’s.

“Not excited for the fans to find out, though.”

Shayne looked at you and then looked back at the opening elevator doors. “We don’t have to tell them. It can be Smosh’s little secret.”

TAGLIST

@beautiful-holland @toms-order @starlightfound @positiveparker @bippity-boppity-boopa @caswinchester2000 @andreasworlsboring101 @imladylunaticbitch @paige0103 @theofficialzivadavid

#shayne topp #shayne topp x reader #shayne #topp #reader #shayne topp imagine #shayne topp fluff #fluff #his shirt #Noah Grossman #Courtney Miller #ian hecox #one direction #alec benjamin #smosh #smosh games

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wri0thesley · 3 years

Note

Hello Nat! It's me! The same anon who sent the Househusband Risotto asks a few weeks ago. Could I request a fic of Risotto with no.21(a Househusband au) and some pregnancy fluff? Congrats on 5k (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

brand new - risotto x reader

you have something to tell your husband.

warnings: soft fluff, sfw. afab reader, no pronouns. pregnancy, talk of children, brief allusions to risotto’s past life.

You’re surprised by just how easily Risotto falls into a domestic life.

You’d thought that his past would haunt him more; the fallen comrades, the Mafia business, the blood on his hands – but he’s surprisingly pragmatic about it, when you hesitantly bring it up.

“It happened,” he says. “I miss them. But I’ve been given a chance that they didn’t get, and I intend to take it.”

It’s more than your stoic, quiet husband usually says at once, and you feel it pierce your heart like an arrow. Your hand brushes over his broad shoulder in as much comfort as you can give him, and Risotto looks at you with the lightest smile on his lips that makes you feel like the luckiest person in the whole universe.

Risotto becomes the house-husband as if he’s been waiting to be able to do it for his whole life.

Oh, he makes some mistakes – some little things, like washing a pair of your red underwear in with some shirts that you wear for work. Planting the wrong kind of seedlings at the wrong time of year – trying to fix the plumbing himself instead of calling a plumber.

You two muddle along, but as a whole Risotto seems to be thriving, and that makes your heart leap in your chest like a prima ballerina.

Your heart thumps double when you come home after a long day of work and he already has dinner simmering on the stove, an apron wrapped around his broad frame – it’s emblazoned with the legend; “Hot Stuff Coming Through (and I don’t mean the food)”. You breathe in the scent of his cooking; something deep and rich.

You come up behind him and wrap your arms about him, resting your cheek on the centre of his back.

His muscle has gone a little soft now that he’s not working out so often or in as many life-or-death situations, but he’s still broad and amazing and perfect for holding onto.

“Smells great,” you say, sighing, kicking off your heels in kitchen to be put away later. Risotto’s eyes stray to them all higgledy-piggledy on the floor, and he frowns;

“Nonna’s recipe,” he says. “Aren’t you going to put those in the shoe rack?”

“I’ve only just gotten home,” you pout at him, but your pout quickly breaks into a smile as you see the exhaustedly fond expression on his face.

Now that he’s not an assassin – now that he doesn’t need to hide everything he’s feeling under the guise of being cool and cold and collected – Risotto’s face seems to move more. He finds it easier to express his emotions. It’s still little things; twitches and furrows, instead of his entire face transforming – but it’s more than before.

He’s comfortable. He’s happy.

You, and him, and the little world that you’ve build all around you two.

You bend over to pick up your heels, opening your mouth to say something over-dramatic about his newfound house pride – but you’re stopped by an ache that shoots down to the centre of your back, a noise of pain escaping you before Risotto can turn lightning quick and wrap a strong arm around you.

“Are you alright?” He’s asking, brow creasing slightly in concern. Panic flares in your stomach – you don’t want to tell him like this.

“Y-yeah,” you laugh it off, straightening up with your shoes in your hand, the other going to massage your back where you can reach. “Guess I was just sat in the wrong position at work for too long, huh?”

Risotto looks sceptical, but he can’t leave his boiling pots for too long. With a searching look at you, he returns to the stove, murmuring low;

“I’ll give you a massage later.”

You smile at his back as you walk towards the shoe rack in the hallway. You know that saying that will have made him blush; despite how long the two of you have been married now, he’s still nervous about things like that. His hands still shake a little when he goes to hold you. He still licks his lips before he kisses you, murmuring in a deep voice;

“Is it really alright?”

You always wind your arms around his neck and pull him in as your way of reassuring him that it’s perfectly fine. It’s hard, you think, for him to accept that he deserves all of this – but you’re eternally glad that the two of you get to share it together.

Little reminders of your shared home and life are scattered all about your home. A picture of you and Risotto at your wedding, framed and hung in the hallway; his suit is a little too tight, because he left it too long and it couldn’t be tailored properly to address the fact that he’s built like a superhero.

A bookshelf that has your romantic novels next to his own gothic horrors; a skull candle that burns red from its eyes as it melts perched on top. Also perched on top is a trinket dish that he made and painted for you at a pottery class he attended to try and get him out of the house whilst you were at work – you use it to dump your keys in.

It’s supposed to be a heart shape, but it’s more of a very uneven kidney.

The carpet you two had chosen together; you’d wanted something cheaper, but Risotto had insisted you could afford this one – he’d been right, and it’s soft beneath your stockinged feet.

You love him so much.

Your hand cups your stomach protectively now that you’re out of Risotto’s sight. You think of the tiny life inside of you; half Risotto, half you, already loved more than they’ll ever know even without Risotto knowing that it’s there. You can’t wait to tell him.

His hands are gentle on your shoulders, big and warm and softer than they once were. They’re still a little calloused from the garden work he enjoys doing, but he no longer handles weapons and you buy him sandalwood-scented hand cream instead.

They feel so good as they slide down your shoulder blades, brushing the notches of your spine, soothing circles pressed into your skin with his thumb. You sigh, relaxing into him. The feel of the palm flat against the small of your back – where the ache is the most pronounced – makes you relax even further into him, toes curling, a sigh escaping your mouth of relief.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” He asks you, his voice measured. Your eyes flicker open from where they’ve closed in comfort.

“W-what’s wrong?” You ask him, nervously, and Risotto makes an ‘mm’ noise in the back of his throat. His hands do not stop the massage as he goes.

“You’ve been out of it for days,” he tells you.

(He’s right. You’ve been out of it since Monday, and it’s now Thursday; Monday is the day you’d woken up with your stomach heaving, remembered how long it had been since your last period, and bought a pregnancy test on your way to work. You’ve done three more since then, and all of them have showed the exact same result.)

“Have I?”

His hands move to your shoulders, gently twisting you around.

“You have,” he says, his red-and-dark eyes fixed firmly on you. “If there’s something wrong, I’d like to fix it.”

“It’s nothing you’ve done!” You say, all in a rush, but Risotto has successfully caught you nonetheless; his eyes narrow.

“So it is something?”

Heat rushes to your face. You forget, sometimes, because he cooks dinner and does the gardening and goes to his pottery class, that he was a battle-hardened mafia assassin who has done more interrogations than you will probably ever know (you never bring up his former employ unless he brings it up first). He’s an expert at gently needling the truth out of people.

“It’s not something that’s wrong,” you say, weakly, but his eyes are still pinning you in place.

“Tell me,” is all he says.

You think, in the back of your head, you’d had some kind of grand plans to reveal your secret – maybe involving balloons, and a cake, and a little party hat perched on top of Risotto’s silvery pale hair. You think you wanted to make a big deal out of it; one more reminder that the world he left behind is well and truly in his past now. But now you’re on the bed with him and he’s looking at you so tenderly in a soft grey shirt for sleeping and a pair of loose boxer shorts, all ruffled and sleepy and domestic . . . Now feels like a good time too.

“I’m pregnant,” you tell him.

You swear that you could hear a pin drop.

He blinks at you, as if he can’t properly process the statement.

“You’re—”

“We’re having a baby.”

“Oh my God.” His voice is very small. He reaches out, hesitantly, eyes wide – big hand hovering over your stomach. “Can I . . .?”

“Yes,” you say, breathless as his hand rests on it. It’s not curving, yet; the fancy test you’d bought today and done in the bathroom at work had said it thought you were well past three weeks, but that’s still early days. Your eyes stare down at Risotto’s scarred, huge fingers – so careful with you, despite what he’s had to do to survive.

“I can’t believe it,” he tells you, and your throat feels tight.

“Me neither,” you admit. “But . . . I’m happy.”

He meets your eyes. There are tears brimming in his – you have never seen Risotto Nero cry. You’ve seen him sad, of course (a sad downturn to his mouth when a dog dies in a movie, or when the rosebush he’d been carefully cultivating had failed to achieve a single bloom) – but there’s an actual tear rolling down his cheek, sparkling in the bedroom light.

“Me too,” he says, and it seems entirely natural. Entirely true. Your heart aches with how much you love him.

You two don’t say anything for a few minutes, content to just look at each other, the warm knowledge of what you’re sharing making the air seem hazy and unreal.

You think about the pitter patter of little feet. The spare room you can turn into a nursery. Going to pre-natal classes with Risotto, choosing baby clothes, seeing him out and about pushing a fancy perambulator (you’ve always wanted one of those tacky, over the top ones that look like a Victorian nanny’s contraption, and you know that Risotto will agree to it--).

You think about him in the delivery room, your nails making crescent moon cuts in his palm. You think about his encouraging tone; you think about the hand-grown flowers he’ll no doubt bring you.

You imagine him cradling a little bundle of joy; tiny in his huge arms. His lips leaving gentle kisses on tiny foreheads. Him reading to your baby, him tending to scrapes, him and you and your child and the life that neither of you ever thought you’d get to live together.

His face is shining, fully transformed. He sees you looking at him with droplets shimmering in your tear ducts and he wipes them away with one big, warm thumb.

“I know,” he says. “It’s not just for me. It’s for all of them, too.”

“Yes,” you say to him. Your voice breaks, pitches, as you manage to get out: “I’m so happy we get to spend the rest of our lives together.”

He looks at you, so tender you feel like you’ll come apart under his gaze.

This moment is going to shimmer in your memory forever, you think. You’re glad that this was how the reveal went. This is much more like the two of you than any fancy reveal or ribbon or cake (you might still get a cake, anyway – Risotto has a sweet tooth).

“I love you,” he says, like warmth that wraps about your heart. And then; “What about naming it Formaggio?”

There’s a beat. You stare at him.

Both of your mouths stretch into a smile, a soft huff of laughter escaping his lips that makes you feel like you’re listening to a symphony.

“Maybe we should workshop names a bit more,” you tell him.

He agrees.

#risotto x reader #risotto nero x reader #risotto fluff #jjba fluff #sfw #writing #jjba x reader #risotto nero #jojo postin #afab reader #neutral pronouns #5555 event fic

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utopianvoices · 3 years

Text

past, present, future → b.chan

synopsis: Your best friend drags you to his high school reunion against your will, and never have you encountered such chaos. Alternatively, you go on the journey of making more friends, and a potential lover.

genre: high school acquaintances to lovers au; fluff, one second of angst

pairing: bang chan x reader

word count: 14.4k

warnings: explicit language, alcohol consumption, kinda dialogue heavy (oops)

note: i am BACK with this mess of a fic. it took me too long to finish this, and i apologise for any shitty writing :3 thanks to my little babie @curanonemu for making sure i finished this and supporting me as usual muAH. new formatting on posts too weeeee (new year, new me fsdhfgs jk no)!! also, synopsis kinda sucks i’m sorry :P hope y’all enjoy! x

You did not want to go for your high school reunion dinner.

High school is a time for many that is either the best, or worst time of their lives. Forever friends are found there and painstakingly embarrassing memories are made in run down buildings with people you care about. Except, you didn’t have any such attachments.

Those three years were nothing but a filler for you as you studied, helped out in the library, and hung out with one person you called your best friend.

And on top of it all, it wasn’t even a high school reunion dinner meant for you.

The night the bomb is dropped on you, Changbin walks into the living room of the apartment you both share just outside the grounds of your university, and goes straight to the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal because cooking and Changbin did not get along well. The apartment was way cheaper than the dorms your school provided, and it definitely did not have any nosy RAs who were just out there to torture students for their own viewing pleasure.

On top of all that, you could live with your best friend and not some random stranger who might very much as well be a psychotic killer. Perhaps, Changbin could have some questionable habits, like talking to himself in a baby voice while looking in the mirror, but nothing that threatened your life.

You hear Changbin’s phone ringing from the kitchen as you aimlessly flip through the shows available on Netflix, deciding which new show you should watch and commit to, when your best friend’s boisterous laughter fills your ears. Used to the noise, you roll your eyes before increasing the volume of the TV, finally deciding to rewatch Sherlock.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re about to solve the known mystery together with Benedict Cumberbatch when Changbin walks in front of the TV, automatically eliciting a whine from you as you crane your neck left and right to catch a glimpse of the screen.

“What the fuck, Bin?” You finally yell, frowning at the boy in front of you. Realising that he probably wanted something, considering the fact that he wasn’t moving till you asked him, you switch the TV off and settle back into the sofa, throwing him a death glare. “What do you want from me, pest?”

Something’s definitely amiss when you see Changbin shuffling his feet and looking at the ground, a guilty smile ever-present on his face.

“Whatever it is, my answer is no,” you say distantly, leaning back into the sofa with crossed arms. “So give it up.”

“Oh c’mon Y/n! At least hear me out?” Changbin cries out loudly, dropping onto his knees with clasped hands.

Heaving out a sigh, you slowly unfold your arms and lean forward, eyebrows raised as you nod at the poor boy in front of you. “I’ll hear you out. But don’t expect me to say yes.”

“Um...” Changbin starts, eyes darting around the room as he tries to find the right words. “So my high school friends are having a reunion dinner next week and I told them I’d go, but I also said I’d bring you along and they were too happy and so now I think you’ll have to come with me but-”

“Woah woah woah, a high school reunion party? Absolutely not.”

It’s not like you had anything against his friends. You did have brief interactions with a few of them in high school and you knew they were pretty decent lads, but there was no way you were following Changbin to what was meant to be a friends’ gathering.

“But why not!” Changbin whines, waddling over to you on his knees. “It’ll be really fun!”

“Yeah, fun for you,” you deadpan, staring at your pitiful best friend who has now resorted to throwing you puppy eyes. “They’re your friends after all, not mine.”

“That’s right. But they could be. Don’t you think it’s time you start finding more friends who are not me?”

Changbin’s once pitiful eyes held something other than desperation at that moment; they held concern.

It was true that you had no other friend other than Changbin. You knew lots of people, sure, but you wouldn’t call them your friends. With no friends to your name other than that one, it also wasn’t hard to guess that you never dated too. But all that mattered is that you were fine with it, right?

“You know that I don’t need any other friends. You’re more than enough for me. Truthfully, I don’t think I could deal with another Changbin in my life.”

Your words incite chuckles from Changbin, but that doesn’t stray him from his original goal.

“How about this,” he starts, opting to sit cross-legged on the floor because his knees were starting to hurt way too much. “You come to the reunion with me, and the moment you feel uncomfortable, we both can leave no questions asked. Deal?”

As tempting as that sounded, you knew it was not fair to cut Changbin’s precious time with his friends just because you did not want to hang out with new people. “That’s not fair to you.”

Shaking his head, Changbin stares at you, the fire in his eyes clearly visible, and you know that he had made up his mind. “I don’t care. It’s either you follow me and we can leave whenever, or I don’t go at all.”

There was no turning back now. You knew that in the end, what Changbin wants, he gets.

You sigh numbly before nodding your head in defeat, dreading the day that was to come where you had to leave the comfort of your apartment.

With no warning, you’re engulfed in a tight hug by a nuisance chanting “thank you” a million times. You ease into the hug, wrapping your arms around him and giving him a light squeeze, before pulling back to see that he had a smile similar to the one on your face.

“I guess you’re right about me needing more friends. I can’t be annoying you for the rest of my life, right?”

ii.

You’re once again reminded why you don’t go for social gatherings as you take in the various clothes strewn all over your room.

“Hey- Woah, what happened here?” Changbin asks, bewildered at the sight in front of him. “It looks like a hurricane hit your room or something.”

“Yes, it’s called Hurricane Y/n Is Screwed,” you reply sarcastically, before sinking down into your bed in defeat. Looking up at your best friend, you decide to give it a shot and put on your most pitiful face. “Do I really have to go?”

“Yes, you really have to go,” Changbin replies without sparing you another glance, as he sifts through the heap of clothes on your bed. “And get that ugly look off your face, please. It makes me want to barf.”

Flipping your best friend off, you manoeuvre yourself such that you’re facing Changbin, and look upon him in curiosity.

After what felt like forever, pieces of clothing are thrown at you, along with a reminder that you had three hours before you had to leave.

“Three?!” You screech, causing Changbin to wince and cover his ears. “You should’ve told me earlier so that I have more time!”

“What are you so loud for, you damn pterodactyl? And three hours is more than enough. We’re just going to a cheap restaurant a few blocks away because we’re all broke college students.”

Huffing at your insolent best friend, you grab the clothes he threw at you and make your way to the bathroom, not bothering to contemplate his decision because you knew he had pretty good taste in fashion. In fact, half the clothes you had in your wardrobe were bought with him as your advisor, so you’re really in no position to criticise his choices.

You stare at your reflection and let out a nervous breath; you weren’t used to meeting new people, and there was no way you were going to be able to handle a hoard of newly turned adults. The last thing you wanted was to cut Changbin’s time short with his friends, and as you stare at yourself in the mirror, you make a promise to yourself that you’ll get through the night by whatever means. Even if it meant hours of torture.

Changbin, with absolutely no urgency, is sitting on the couch watching the fourth Harry Potter movie, when you walk into the living room, makeup half done and still dressed in your stay-at-home clothes. Boys, you think.

“I think I need to know who and how many people will be there,” you finalise, watching Changbin pick up the remote and pausing the movie at exactly when Cedric dies; poor chap. “ So that I can, you know, mentally prepare myself.”

“You really don’t, but okay. There’ll be nine of us, including you. Minho, Hyunjin, and Felix from the dance team, Jeongin and Seungmin from the baseball team, Chan from the swimming team, soccer team, and honours board, and Jisung who was pretty much useless like me.”

“Wow.”

“In my defense, you’ve seen all of these dudes at least once,” Changbin says, shrugging his shoulders. “Anyway, they’re all really nice and fun so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Says you,” you mutter under your breath, before returning to your room to prepare for your doom.

iii.

The sign of the restaurant flickers periodically as you stand in the middle of the street with Changbin by your side. People brush past you as they hurry to meet their friends and families in the various restaurants lining the street, excitement evident in their steps.

Taking a deep breath, you push open the door. Immediately, a gush of warm air welcomes you, causing you to let out a content sigh.

“Hey Changbin!” A loud voice calls out from behind you, and the both of you turn in your place. The sight in front of you gives you equal amounts of anxiety and fear, as you wonder how you were going to handle the table of one, two, three… seven boys, including the embarrassment standing beside you, who was now busy doing some sort of weird wave in favour of a greeting.

“Changbin, please,” you plead, burying your face in your hands as you willed for someone to transport you back to your apartment so that you didn’t have to face reality and stand next to your shameless friend.

Chuckling sheepishly, your best friend finally stops, patting your back before walking towards the table at the back of the restaurant. “Oops sorry. Let’s go meet the rest!”

Here goes nothing.

Reaching the almost-filled table, your eyes dart from face to face, trying to see if you could remember anyone currently seated in front of you.

“Guys! This is Y/n, my best friend,”—at this, a few complaints erupt from around the table—”Gosh, fine. My other best friend.”

Immediately, at least three people shout their greetings your way.

“Hi Y/n! Nice to meet you!”

“Yo~ Changbin’s told us lots about you.”

“Y/n, sit beside me!”

Exasperated, your eyes flit around the table, trying your best to smile at all of them (which honestly turns out to look more like a pained grimace). Luckily, there was one seemingly sane person present.

“Shut up, everyone.” A boy with blue hair and sharp eyes shushes everyone. “Hi Y/n, it’s nice to have you here. I’m Jeongin.”

At this, the once quiet table is back to chaos as complaints are directed towards Jeongin for sneakily introducing himself first. Taking advantage of the mess, Changbin guides you towards the empty seats and finally settles the both of you down. Now all the seats were filled, except for one empty seat left beside you.

You’re about to ask Chanbgin about the empty chair, but before you can, he claps his hands, attracting everyone’s attention. “Okay, everyone will take turns introducing themselves. Seungmin, you start.”

The sandy haired boy seated on the right of Changbin waves both his hands while bouncing in his seat, reminding you of a puppy. “I’m Seungmin!”

Next is Jeongin, who just gives you a small smile.

Beside him, you see a blonde haired boy, what is up with the hair colours, who just smiles brightly, eyes shining brightly and freckles visible. “Hello, I’m Felix. It’s great to meet you!”

Taken aback by the deep voice, which was a total contrast to his cute appearance, you’re unable to hide the shock from your face. This triggers a bout of chuckles from the table; it was probably common for people to display similar reactions when meeting Felix.

Before pretty boy (that’s what you decided to remember him as) could introduce himself, the black haired boy resembling a squirrel interrupts him. “I’m Jisung!”

You recognise him as the one who shouted when you and Changbin entered the restaurant, and you’re about to acknowledge him when you’re cut off.

“Oi Han, it was my turn to introduce myself! Who allowed you to skip the line?”

“I do what I want,” was Jisung’s response, and pretty boy looked like he was one push away from murder.

Just as you’re sure that you were about to witness a murder, Changbin chides the two boys and breaks up the petty argument. “Just introduce yourselves without any nonsense, please.”

“I’m Hyunjin,” pretty boy mutters sulkily, giving Jisung a death stare. “And I can dance better than Jisung.”

“You motherf-”

“And I’m Minho,” the last person introduces himself, successfully cutting off Jisung’s profanity mid-word. “Sorry, don’t mind those two. They’re like Tom and Jerry.”

Smiling weakly, you muster up the courage to introduce yourself to the four pairs of eyes staring at you. Hyunjin and Jisung were busy having a staredown, while Changbin was eyeing the meat sizzling on the grill. “Hi, I’m Y/n, Changbin’s friend. It’s nice to meet all of you. Thanks for having me here.”

And just like that, everyone is back to their own conversations, with Changbin piling the perfectly done meat onto his plate. You take in a deep breath and look around the table at the happy faces.

This isn’t so bad, you thought, a little chaotic, but otherwise entertaining.

“They’re overwhelming huh?”

Any effort to mask your bewilderment vanishes as you catch the knowing look on Minho’s face. A guilty smile blooms on your face and you nod your head. “Just a little.”

“I get that,” he starts, but soon enough, there’s a content smile on his face that shows his love for his friends. “But at the end of the day, I know that these monkeys will be there for me no matter what, so I guess it makes it all worth it.”

Smiling softly at his words, you almost coo at the light blush dusting Minho’s face as reality catches up to him.

“Ahem anyway. How’s living with Changbin?” He clears his throat before changing the topic, instinctively putting some meat on your plate before helping himself, earning a grateful smile from you.

“It’s not too bad,” you start, feeling Changbin’s gaze on you after having overheard Minho’s question. “Except sometimes, he talks to himself in the mirror and it’s pretty scarring.”

“Y/n!” Changbin whines as Minho guffaws beside you, nodding his head to your answer, clearly having witnessed that side of Changbin before. “Wait till Chan comes. At least he’ll support me.”

At the unfamiliar name, you furrow your brows and the name in the form of a question tumbles out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. “Chan?”

“He’s not here yet,” Minho addresses your confusion, having heard your little slip up. “He had to oversee the training for the upcoming soccer match, being the captain and all, and apparently he had a tutoring session after. He should be here soon though.”

That explains the empty chair beside you.

“Oh, he needs to get tutored after training?” You ask, feeling bad for the unknown boy. Having to absorb information after physical activities is torture. You couldn’t even focus after 40 minutes of gym. “That’s rough.”

At your assumption, a cat-like smirk spreads across Minho’s face. “Oh no, darling. He tutors after his training.”

There’s no way you’re to be blamed for the first thought that pops into your head after discovering that said Chan was responsible and smart. You’ve seen people struggling with just one extracurricular, and begging teachers for extra credits because of poor time management.

So, it’s really not your fault that the first words that enter your head is, that’s hot.

Just then, the bell situated above the door rings, indicating that someone was entering the restaurant. You’re not bothered by it, until Felix’s deep voice fills your ear.

“Chan!”

It’s almost comical how slowly you turn towards the sound, blush threatening to fill your cheeks at your first impression of Chan, without even meeting him. And as Giovanni Torriano has once said:

Talk of the Devil, and he's presently at your elbow.

Your eyes follow the figure of the devilishly breathtaking boy walking towards your table. He’s still dressed in what you assume was his soccer jersey, black hair tousled from the wind and practice. Shaking your head, you rid yourself of that inappropriate thought and opt to stare at the bowl of radish that looked the most interesting to you.

“Hey guys!” Chan smiles widely at the group of friends, as a few of them immediately get up from their seats to greet him with their usual bro hug. He sets his things down beside Minho, and is taking his seat when he spots you. Confusion clear in his eyes, he looks around the table, silently asking for an explanation as to what a stranger was doing at their usual table.

You realise his staring and try to introduce yourself, but you find yourself unable to form sentences as the reality of who Chan was hits you.

The star swimmer of your high school’s swimming team, and the top student of every single year. He was the epitome of popular. Everyone knew his name, and apparently he had never missed one day of lessons or training. On top of that, he used to regularly tutor in the library.

“Oh, this is my friend Y/n!” Changbin pipes up, slinging an arm around you. “Same high school as us, and my roommate now.”

At this, the confusion clouding Chan’s hazel eyes clears up, and he turns to face you, extending a hand. “The one who used to carry thick books everywhere and helped out in the library right? I’m Chan!”

Being the complete opposite of your best friend, you’re sure no one has ever noticed you in the library. You blend in perfectly with the shadows and shelves, and you didn’t usually help the students out, opting to arrange the books in the storeroom—the one small thing you could do to help out the aged librarian who brought you mouth-watering brownies every Thursday.

The thick books, in your defense, was your attempt at trying to finish the Harry Potter series whenever you had the spare time. You never had to explain yourself because you never expected anyone to notice. Especially not the most popular guy in school who had a million other friends.

But there he was, in all his glory, eyes crinkled into crescents as he waits for you to shake his hand, seemingly remembering you when nobody else did.

A small nudge to your side from Changbin breaks you out of your reverie and you grab his hand, silently noting how soft they were. “Nice to meet you.”

Smiling at you, he gently shakes your hand before turning to the other boys, immediately making jokes and laughing along.

“What was that about?” Changbin whispers harshly, eyeing you and Chan suspiciously.

“What was what?”

“Chan remembering you! You’ve never even met before.”

Looking at your best friend, you shrug before reaching out for another piece of meat. “Beats me.”

Changbin opens his mouth to interrogate you more, when he’s successfully cut off by Seungmin.

“Y/n! Tell us more about yourself! I’m bored of hearing about these idiots.”

Jeers sound from around the table as you let out a nervous chuckle, aware of how everyone’s attention was on you. “Me?” You ask, pointing to yourself for extra confirmation.

Yea!” Seungmin replies, nodding vigorously. “What are you doing now, and how was high school for you, and just everything!”

Noting your hesitation, Changbin is about to step in to save you, but your hand on his thigh stops him. Looking at you curiously, he realises from your expression that you’re finally about to do what he had been nagging at you to do since day one of becoming your friend.

iv.

‘Is it possible for a stomach to burst from too much laughing?’ is what runs through your head as tears stream down your face from laughing uncontrollably at another joke Jisung was saying.

“Wait, I remember Changbin telling me that people used to refer to you as Baby Photos when you all played at the school shows,” you ask after you had recovered from your laughing fit, curiosity piquing. “What’s that all about?”

At the mention of the familiar name, the boys let out groans and Hyunjin starts hitting Jisung. “It’s all Jisung’s fault!”

“Basically, he somehow got ahold of all our baby photos and submitted it to the administration on behalf of us,” Changbin explains, rolling his eyes at the memory. “So if you see our yearbook, all eight of us have our baby photos instead of the actual photo we were supposed to submit.”

How is that even possible?!

“We still don’t know how he managed to do that.” Chan answers your unasked question, shaking his head fondly at the ridiculous memory.

At this, Jisung pipes up. “Everything is possible when you’re charming and handsome. You lot won’t be able to relate!”

And you finally agree that the beating Jisung gets after was well deserved.

“Restaurant’s closing in ten!”

The owner of the restaurant, a nice old lady who had a soft spot for the boys, calls out from the back. She had already let all of you stay past her usually closing time, and even gave you some free side dishes, together with a loving chide about how the boys don’t come and visit her anymore.

The screech of the chairs fill the place as everyone gets up, stomach and heart full from the meal and company. You smile to yourself, glad that you let yourself be convinced to follow Changbin because you had one of the best days in your life.

“Did you have fun today?” Your best friend asks with a smug smile, already knowing the answer.

“Shut up,” is all you can say—a clear sign that you were admitting defeat. “It was okay.”

“That wounds me,” someone speaks up from behind you, having heard your conversation with Changbin. You whip around to see Chan clutching his heart and wearing an exaggerated hurt face. “I thought we had a connection.”

“I-you, no, that’s not-what” you splutter, horrified at the thought of Changbin’s, and now apparently your, friends thinking that you didn’t have a good time with them. There was no way you could let them think as such when they had made you feel so comfortable, and have so much fun.

Your stuttering and horrified expression does it, and Chan bursts into laughter. “I’m so sorry, it was a joke. But your face!”

The guilt and regret is replaced with relief and irritation, and you smack his arm out of habit, something you always did to Changbin when he was being a pain in the ass. But as soon as you do it, you’re once again filled with regret because Oh my God it’s only been two hours, you’re not supposed to just smack people.

“Stop overthinking it, idiot,” Chan cuts you off, adding in a low tier insult to make you feel a bit better about your reflexes. “We’re friends now; all of us.”

Friend to friends. Now that’s an upgrade.

You’re about to say something, when you’re cut off by Changbin screeching unceremoniously as he glances at the time displayed on his lockscreen (it’s a picture of the two of you making ugly faces—he refused to change it).

“Shit, we’re going to miss the last bus that leaves from here!” He almost shouts, grabbing his and your things. “Adios bitchachos!”

A snicker or two echoes through the empty restaurant at Changbin’s farewell, together with requests of bringing you the next time they meet.

“Make sure Y/n comes for the next dinner! Doesn’t matter if you’re here or not!”

Jisung earns himself a string of vulgarities from Changbin for that, as he guffaws and hi-fives Hyunjin.

You’re barely able to say your farewell to the boys with Changbin dragging you out of the restaurant, but you manage to shout out a few words while waving. “Thank you for today! See you soon!”

The bus arrives just as you reach the bus stop, and Changbin all but collapses on one of the empty seats from the running you both did.

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re foul.” You’re staring at your best friend in disgust when he starts questioning you about the dinner, nausea forgotten.

“So…” he starts, pivoting in his seat to face you, cheek leaning against his hand which rested on the seat in front of him. “For someone who was dead set on not coming, you sure looked like you had lots of fun.”

Rolling your eyes at his words, you turn to face Changbin. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Me making more friends?”

“Of course, of course~” he drawls, smirk ever-present on his face. “And who do we have to thank for that?”

“And you ask me why I don’t listen to you or ask you for favours.” Turning your attention back to your phone, you open up Temple Run in hopes of keeping yourself occupied for the bus ride back; but Changbin had other plans.

Whining, he snatches your phone from your hands and slips it into his pocket. “Y/n! Tell me everything!”

“What do you want to know?!” you ask, exasperated. “You were there literally the whole time.”

“Yes I know, but I want to know what you think of all my friends!” Changbin claps his hands in excitement, leaning forward in anticipation. “Well, our friends now.”

You can’t help but sigh as you prepare for the long bus ride ahead—but somehow, you don’t miss the sudden warmth enveloping you as you recalled the past few hours.

“First of all, Jisung and Hyunjin are hilarious, it’s like…”

Two weeks later, and you’re knee deep in shit. Not literally, of course, but you might as well be.

It’s the infamous hell month in your university, where every student (regardless of major) has a shit ton of assignments and tests to complete, and the library is open 24 hours for poor souls like yourself.

It’s two in the morning when you’re working on your second essay of the day. There are crumpled balls of paper all over your desk and surrounding your bin, courtesy of your pathetic aim.

“You’re cleaning everything up later,” Changbin speaks up from across the dining table you both were sharing to get work done, tapping away on his equipment as he works on some new beat. “I don’t expect every ball to go in, but to miss everything? That’s some serious talent.”

“Shut your mouth, Seo.” Flipping your best friend off, you finally push yourself away from the table, stretching a bit before making your way to the kitchen to fix yourself a bowl of ramen in hopes of satiating the beast growling in your stomach.

As you open each shelf, you slowly come to the realisation that you were completely out of snacks and food. Even the single frozen bag of peas and empty ice cream tub stares back at you in pity as you scan the fridge.

Taking a breath to calm yourself, you slowly turn around to face your unsuspecting, so-called, best friend. Walking towards him, you knock the table a few times to get his attention.

He notices your presence, and removes his headphones to look at you quizzically, his full attention on your blank face.

“When were you going to tell me that you had consumed every single food item we have?”

It’s almost comical how quickly the blood drains from his face, as his eyes dart all around the room, skillfully avoiding you. If it were any other situation, you would’ve definitely laughed while falling onto the floor. But this wasn’t any other situation.

This was war.

And honestly, it would have been a war that you would’ve definitely won—if not for the loud sound your stomach just produced.

Narrowing your eyes at the accused seated a few feet away from you, you walk over to the countertop with your wallet, eyes not leaving Changbin for a second.

“I will deal with you when I am back from the convenience store.”

And with the sight of Changbin gulping imprinted in your mind, you slam your apartment door behind you and make your way grumpily to the 24-hour convenience store located seven minutes away.

vi.

The electronic chime sounds throughout the store as the part-timer throws you a friendly greeting from the counter. “Welcome!”

Reciprocating with a smile of your own, you take slow steps towards the shelf with the various assorted packets of ramen, and your hand automatically reaches for your favourite one. Just as it comes into contact with the plastic, you can feel yourself salivating and your stomach growls in appreciation. It’s a myth, you think. There’s no way food like carrots and asparagus is what gets students through school. The only saving grace you have during this period is packets of ramen and chocolate milk. Countless numbers of assignments and tests are already torturous enough; healthy, tasteless food on top of that? No, thanks.

Clutching the ramen packet in your hands like it was the treasure of your life, you walk towards the milk section to complete your meal with your favourite carton of chocolate milk. There was something about the combination of milk that combats the spice from the ramen, and you’re about to drop onto your knees right there and then to worship the people who invented ramen and chocolate milk, when you see the last carton being taken away right in front of your eyes.

Without any second thoughts, you rush towards the person and grab their arm, already getting ready to pull out the sob story of how you absolutely need the chocolate milk to survive. Surprised by the sudden contact, the man holding the carton whips his head towards you, eyes wide.

There’s a fleeting sense of familiarity that passes through you when you see the hazel peeking out from above the mask that covered the rest of his face, but you’re too preoccupied to dwell on the thought. Just as you’re about to open your mouth to beg, you’re cut off by an all too familiar voice.

“Y/n?”

Huh?

You stare at each other for a few seconds before the realisation of who you were holding, no, clinging onto dawns on you.

“C-Chan?”

In a lively city that thrived at night, there were a thousand other 24-hour convenience stores scattered all around in every corner. It also wasn’t everyday that you decided to go to the convenience store for food, opting to go to the grocery stores instead. So, if you calculated correctly, the chance of you bumping into Chan at 2:30 a.m. at that very particular store should be close to never.

Yet, there he was standing right in front of you, chocolate milk clutched in one hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh I came here to water my plants.”

Plants?

You’re more than confused, till you hear the soft snicker that escapes his mouth. Narrowing your eyes at his antics, you decide to bite back with a “Ha ha, very funny.”

“So… Are you planning to hold onto me forever?” Chan teases you, eyes gesturing to your hand that was still clutching onto him, before looking back at you with a twinkle in his brown eyes. “Because I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”

With the whole bumping-into-Chan thing that happened, it had completely slipped your mind that you were still holding onto him. You snatch your hand away in horror, eyes widening as you feel the heat creep up your neck. “S-sorry.” And before you could stop yourself, you also continue to spill why you had grabbed his arm in the first place. “I was just craving for chocolate milk, and the one you took was the last carton left.”

Looking back and forth at you and the carton, you start to feel like an absolute idiot, until he reaches out and pushes the carton into your hands. “You can have it then,” he says, and walks away. “Stay right there, let me grab some ramen and we can have supper together!”

You stare at the carton for a few seconds, the droplets of water that formed on the outside cool against your fingers. On a normal day, you would have refused the milk vehemently, telling the other person not to worry and to have the last carton. But today wasn’t any other day.

And Chan wasn’t any other person.

We’re friends, after all, is what echoes in your mind as you look up at the boy walking towards you, two packets of ramen in his hand and a carton of strawberry milk. Smiling at him, you finally express your gratitude for his kind sacrifice.

“Thanks for this,” you say, waving the carton in front of him. “I don’t think I would have made it through the night without it.”

Nodding with a smile, he tears his two packets of ramen open and pours in the hot water that was situated at the back of the store, grabbing yours from you in the process. “What brings you here at this hour? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be craving ramen and chocolate milk in the middle of the night on any other day.”

“You’re right about that,” you reply dejectedly, recalling the big pile of assignments waiting for you back at the apartment. “It’s hell month in school, and I’m drowning in work. On top of that, Changbin exhausted every single food source we have at home!”

Chan does his very best to hold back his laughter at your expression; he knew you were angry, but you looked as threatening as a kitten. And thankfully he succeeds, because he really did not want to be on the receiving end of your wrath. Although, he thinks, you really are not going to be able to do much damage.

“How dare he,” Chan agrees, finally taking a seat beside you, the steam from the ramen warming his face up. “Hey but, if he hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have bumped into each other here.”

You nod your head in agreement, thinking about how to start a casual conversation, when you are suddenly hit with the realisation that you knew essentially nothing about Chan. You didn’t know what university he went to, what he majored in, and what he was doing in the convenience store that late at night too.

One question at a time, you decide.

“What are you doing out this late anyway?” you ask, slurping the noodles and breathing out in relief at the taste of the ramen against your tongue.

“I come here often,” is what he replies, before taking a sip of his milk. “My uni’s about fifteen minutes from here, and I usually work the best at this time. Being a music production major, there aren’t very strict deadlines, but I’ve still got to get my shit done.”

Oh. That’s all your questions answered.

You know the trouble of trying to get questions out, especially for you, who has never really made the effort in going the extra mile in interacting with people. It’s annoying and nerve-wrecking, and probably the biggest reason why you refused making new friends. The whole process was just painful. So, when Chan answers your unasked questions, you feel the hypothetical weight lifting off your shoulder, and you open your mouth to express your gratitude. At least, that’s what you had planned to do.

“Are you a mind reader?” you blurt out, before immediately clamping your mouth shut and facepalming. “Ugh, sorry. I have a really bad habit of blurting out whatever comes to my mind.” You groan at your inconvenient habit, and Chan pats the top of your hand in hopes of comforting you.

“I just meant to say that I was thinking of asking you those questions and you answered them even before I asked.” Chan looks at you with a smile, intrigued by your personality. You clearly didn’t have any other friends other than Changbin—but you never looked as if you were upset about it. It was also clear that you were content with not interacting with people, but when you did, you were never rude about it and you really did try your best. Never in a million years would he have thought that the student scurrying around the library with tons of books would turn out to be someone like you.

“At least that means you’re an honest person!” Chan says, beaming at you. “C’mon, learn to look at the brighter side of things.”

Shrugging your shoulders with a tired smile on your face, you turn back to your ramen, which has now gone soggy due to your little chit-chat with the boy beside you.

There’s a comfortable silence that hangs between the two of you, until Chan speaks up again. “What’s your major? I realised I never asked.”

At the mention of school, you pull an automatic stank face before replying. “English Lit with a minor in Philosophy. The worst decision of my life.”

“And why’s that?”

“I never knew there’d be this much essay writing!” you cry out, throwing your head against the table. The rest of your words come out muffled, but somehow Chan manages to catch it. “I mean, I knew there was going to be lots of essays. But not this much.”

“In the major’s defense, that’s kind of a dumb move on your part, Y/n.”

“Yes, I know. Please don’t remind me of my idiocy.” You finally sit up, before sadly chewing on your noodles. “At least I have ramen and chocolate milk to keep me going.”

And as the night went on, both of you continued the conversation back and forth, you learning more about him and him about you. You talk about your assignments, how annoying some of your professors were, and how living with Changbin was. All the times you had to chase him to clean up after himself, or all the times he stayed up with you until ungodly hours just because you had procrastinated too much and was rushing an assignment in the last hour. You also learnt more about Chan; how he was studying music production because that was his dream since he was young, and how he actually roomed with Jisung, who was equally as messy as Changbin. The only difference was that Chan couldn’t be bothered about the mess.

“Changbin, Jisung, and I actually used to make tracks and post them on Soundcloud,” Chan says, smiling as he recalls the three high schoolers cooped up in his room with the bare minimum equipment that wiped out half their savings. “We even had rapper names.”

“Ooooo~” you tease, nudging his shoulder as his ears start to turn a bright red. “What was yours?”

“What’s in the past should stay in the past, Y/n. Let bygones be bygones. No point talking about it now.”

“Awww, c’mon!” You plead, fidgeting in your seat. “Was it something embarrassing like Cheminem, or something?”

“I can’t help but feel more relaxed when your standards are that low,” Chan says, with some form of relief in his voice. “Uh, mine was CB97.”

“Don’t tell me…” you mutter, eyes wide as the laughter threatens to escape your lips. “Did you really just use your initials and your birth year? Talk about bare minimum!”

“Hey! It’s better than Meminen, or Cheminem, or whatever you said earlier.”

Sticking your tongue out at him, you decide to probe further. “What were Jisung’s and Changbin’s?”

Chan stares at you with wide eyes, your mischievous eyes giving away your evil plans. “No. Changbin will kill me.”

“Don’t be a party pooper! I’ll treat you to ramen next time if you tell me.” You try tempting Chan with food, with no hopes that it would work. But somehow, you see his resolve crumbling, and realise that you just needed one final push.

“I’ll get you chocolate milk and two packets of ramen.”

At that point, Chan regrets telling you his habit of eating two packets of ramen with chocolate milk almost every night when he stays up. “You shouldn’t have given me the milk then!” is what you said while chiding him, and he just claimed that “you looked like you needed it more than me” while saying that he really wasn’t picky about the flavour of milk.

So when you tempt him with his cravings, he has no choice but to give in.

Twenty minutes later, you walk into your shared apartment, a mysterious smile playing on your lips as you drop the keys into the little holder by the door. It was made by yours truly during a random pottery workshop you signed up for. The shape was slightly off, and the colour wasn’t bright or vibrant—but it worked and that’s what mattered.

At the sound of the keys clinking in the holder, Changbin’s head shoots up to gauge your mood from your expression. Surely you would be at least a little less angry after your little run to the convenience store, he thought.

But instead of seeing a blank expression, or even an angry one, he sees the smile on your face and his heart drops. Why were you smiling? The fact that you were smiling made him feel a hundred times worse, and he had already started saying his prayers.

“So, Changbin…” you start, leaning against one of the chairs at the dining table. You weren’t even angry about the empty shelves anymore, but you just could not pass on the opportunity of teasing your best friend. “Or should I say, SpearB?”

And you’re more than content with the way his face morphs into that of horror, as he grips the edges of the table. “How did you know?” he asks, his voice strained and barely above a whisper; one would think that the whole world had found out about his darkest secret from the way he was reacting.

Shrugging playfully, you go back to your seat and sort out the papers scattered around the table, grabbing your laptop to start working on your assignment again with a full and happy stomach. “Who knows~”

“Y/n, tell me,” he starts to whine, making his way to you on his roller chair. “No one knows other than the boys-”

And the realisation of who the culprit was hits him.

“It was Chan, right?” he asks, already reaching for his phone to scold the older boy. “You must have met him when you went to the store—he’s always getting ramen there.” Typing furiously on his phone, he pauses to look up and whine again. “I can’t believe you two gossiped about me! And it was me who made you both become friends. The disrespect!”

Finally the laughter you had been holding in breaks out and floods the living room, the sound bouncing off the walls. “I can’t believe,” you start, trying to catch your breath as you continue laughing. “SpearB! What do you do? Impale people with your sharp flow and rhyme?”

“Just shut up, please,” Changbin pleads, plugging his ears with his fingers. “La la la, I can’t hear anything you’re saying.” He rolls back to his side of the table and grabs the headphones, shoving it over his head to drown out your laughter.

Your laugh fest is cut off by your phone vibrating, signalling that you had a new text message. Grabbing it, you tap your phone a few times to open up the messages page.

chan: can’t believe you outed me to changbin chan: traitor y/n: drama queen y/n: i said nth, he figured it out on his own chan: ఠ_ಠ

Giggling at the emoticon Chan used, you unconsciously lean back in your seat as you search your gallery for an emoticon to reply with, assignments forgotten.

“Who’re you texting?” Changbin asks, having heard you giggle at your phone. He’s eyeing you suspiciously, and you knew it was better to answer him, because a curious Changbin is a dangerous Changbin, and he’ll probably stomp over and snatch your phone to see who you were texting anyway. “It’s Chan.”

“When did you two exchange numbers?!”

“Earlier, when we met at the convenience store.”

It was right before the both of you parted ways; when Chan had proposed something that was pretty much impossible to turn down.

“I had fun today,” he said, one hand stuffed in his pocket while the other swung the plastic bag containing some chocolates to add to his secret sweet stash. “You said you’re having hell month, right? Hit me up whenever you need an emergency ramen run.” And with that, he pushed his phone into your hands, signalling for you to do the same.

Smiling to yourself, you keyed in your number into the phone clutched in your hand, saving yourself as “Y/n”, and before you could regret your decision, you quickly added a smiley after your name and tossed the phone back to Chan. “Here you go.”

The cool metal is being pressed into your hands, and before you know it, you’ve said your farewell to Chan and were on your way back home.

“Look at you socialising out of your own will,” Changbin states proudly, wiping an imaginary tear as he gives you a fatherly (or what he thinks is fatherly) smile. “Albeit, at the expense of my shame, but if it means my little Y/n making more friends then why not!”

“Please stop, you’re an embarrassment to me, yourself, and literally everyone around us,” you deadpan, clearing your side of the table up. It was time to call it a night, because God knows you’re not going to be able to do anymore work. “Besides, it’s really not that big of a deal. I doubt we’ll continue talking after tonight. It’s probably a one-off thing.”

“Hmmm I wouldn’t be too sure,” Changbin muses. “I feel like there’s something that’ll come out of this.”

vii.

Seo Changbin isn’t a lot of things.

He isn’t tidy, opting to throw his clothes all around his room instead of folding it; he isn’t patient, always screaming at you to “Hurry your ass!” when he had been waiting barely three minutes; and last but not least, he definitely isn’t punctual. “Changbin is my name, and being late is my game” is something you’ve heard way too often from him that it was a wonder you hadn’t murdered him yet.

Changbin isn’t a lot of things—but what he somehow is, is intuitive when it comes to you.

So when you find yourself back at the convenience store at 12:30 a.m., ramen and chocolate milk in front of you as you laugh over some stupid story Chan was saying, you can’t help but curse at how right your best friend was.

You were reaching the end of your hell month, which also indicated it being four weeks since you and Chan had developed the routine of pigging out at the convenience store at terrible hours.

“... and he just fell off the tree!” Chan concludes his story of how Hyunjin fell off a tree in high school, words coming out breathless due to how much the both of you were laughing. “Ah, that brings back memories.”

“I can’t believe I never talked to you guys more then,” you say, shaking your head slightly. “It would’ve been hilarious.”

“Someone was too busy with Voldemort,” Chan teases, pushing his nose down flat in what you could only describe as a Voldemort impression. Laughing, you swat his hand away while rolling your eyes at the boy you’ve grown so fond of in a span of four weeks. “Why’d you never talk to us?”

Thinking back to high school, you ask yourself. Why didn’t you ever bother talking to them?

“I guess it’s just cause I already had Changbin,” you start, pausing to think back to the past few years. “As much as I complain about him, he’s really one of the greatest best friends anyone could ask for.”

It was true; Changbin was there for you during high school like no one else had been, and for that you were eternally grateful for him.

“So you were scared to take any other chances since you already got the best?”

People always asked you why you didn’t make more friends in high school. Hell, even your mother kept asking, when other parents struggled to keep their children at home just because they were spending too much time out with friends. But the answer to that question was something you never thought about, and you can’t stop the feeling of shock spreading through your body at what the boy in front of you had just so casually uttered.

You were scared.

“I-I…” you stutter, eyes wide as you stare at the boy in front of you. Chan can’t help the worry that seeps into his face at his words, and he’s starting to wonder if he said anything wrong. “I’ve never ever thought about it. But, oh my God, that makes so much sense.”

After years of waving everyone who asked you why you never made any other friends away just because you yourself didn’t have the answer to the question, you’re hit with a huge realisation of just why you didn’t want to find more friends. And it wasn’t even you who figured it out.

This boy sitting leisurely in front of you, skin pale and soft, with messy black hair framing his face that he never bothered brushing away. This boy, who was as kind as he was hardworking, always willing to help out anyone, even with his own responsibilities. This boy who had been readily there for you at the devil hours for almost every day in the past four weeks, always checking up on you to make sure that you were surviving.

Never in a million years would you have expected someone to figure out something that was locked away so deep inside of your heart, and for it to be Chan, out of everyone. The thought makes your heart race a little, but you decide to blame it on the conversation the both of you were having. It was definitely not because of the boy seated beside you.

“Shocking, huh,” Chan starts, laughing slightly as the worry he had felt earlier replaced with something he could only describe as fondness. “It’s a pity though.”

You look at him questioningly, and what he says next makes you realise a few things that maybe you were better off not realising.

“We would’ve been much happier in high school with you there. I would’ve been much happier.”

As much as you regretted not befriending the other seven boys in high school, you were starting to regret bumping into Chan that very first night even more. If you hadn’t bumped into him, you would’ve never spent so much time with him, never realised how great of a person he was, and lastly, you would’ve never started falling for Bang Chan.

viii.

It’s like déjà vu.

With your exams and assignments completed, you find yourself watching the latest season of Haikyuu when Changbin enters the room, waltzing towards your reclined figure.

“Y/n~” Changbin starts, poking your shoulder to get your attention. “Whatever your annoying ass needs now, it’s a no,” you say without even turning to look at the boy beside you.

“Oh? Even if it was an invitation to dinner with the boys later tonight?”

And when your head whips to the side to look at your best friend, you’re so tempted to just wipe that smirk clean off his face, because the bitch knew you would have said yes.

“I fucking hate you,” is what you can mutter, before switching the television and throwing the remote to the side, choosing to ignore Changbin as you walk towards your room to pick an outfit. But you’re forced to stop in your tracks when Changbin casually utters the next few words.

“Chan’s especially excited to see you.”

You’re not sure what Changbin means by that, but there’s no denying the increase in your heart rate at the mention of the dimpled boy.

“What?” You try your best to sound as nonchalant as you could, hoping that your best friend wouldn’t pick up the slight quiver in your voice. But, of course, he wasn’t your best friend for nothing.

“I said, your little boyfriend’s excited to see you.” Changbin smirks at your expression, stretching his legs out to rest it on the coffee table in front of your sofa. “And it looks like you’re just as excited.”

Red travels up your neck and spreads across your face, as you sputter at your best friend’s preposterous words. “W-what are you- I- Huh-”

Realising that your little breakdown wasn’t helping your case at all, you take a deep breath to calm yourself, before speaking to the insolent brat in front of you. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“But you like him, don’t you?”

You freeze like a deer caught in headlights, and the first instinct you have is to play dumb. “O-of course I like him. He’s my friend.”

“I will pretend like I did not hear that pathetic attempt of you trying to act dumb,” Changbin states robotically, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, Y/n. It’s obvious. So stop pretending and just fess up. It’ll be easier for the both of us.”

You had two choices now: Either fess up and prepare yourself for at least a thousand years of teasing, or just completely deny it till your deathbed.

Clearly, the second option was much more appealing.

“No, Changbin,” you snap with as much conviction as you could. “I do not have a crush on Chan. He’s just a really good friend.”

The knowing look on his face wavers, and you know that you’re seconds away from success. It’s not that you did not trust your best friend with the information of you having a crush on one of his friends. You just did not want to say it out loud—saying it out loud would mean that you were confirming it, and there will be no going back. And that scared you.

You were scared of liking someone who was way too perfect, and who probably would never like you back.

So the best solution was to keep your little crush hidden away in the depths of your heart, and slowly get over it as soon as you could. It was as easy as it could get.

ix.

Apparently, you realise, it wasn’t at all easy to get over a simple crush.

The smell of meat fills your nostrils as the eight boys chatter loudly over the sound of the sizzling of the food. You’re back at the same restaurant, with the same boys, except it wasn’t exactly the same as the last time.

This time, you had a raging crush on the boy who insisted on sitting beside you, leg brushing against yours every few seconds as he piles the food on your plate instead of his.

It definitely didn’t help that every time your hands brushed while reaching out for the side dishes around the table, you pulled your hand back as if you had just been burned, ears immediately heating up.

“Did you know Chan told Y/n about 3RACHA?” Changbin whines to Jisung, making him stop his actions mid-way, meat hanging from the chopsticks just a few inches away from his mouth. “All I heard the past few weeks was ‘SpearB, help me’, ‘SpearB, go there’. It was torture.”

The table goes silent at the new information Changbin had revealed, and all you can do is smile sheepishly as your friends stare at the both of you.

“These two have been meeting almost everyday the past few weeks to get ramen at weird timings, and I’m pretty sure Y/n has lots of quality dirt on us now,” Changbin says pointedly, completely ignoring the way your eyes widened because why would he just say that?

It already wasn’t easy keeping Changbin in check with his little fantasies every time you went out to meet Chan, and now it was going to be worse because you just knew that the six other boys were going to question you from their expressions.

You turn to look at Chan, expecting to see the same ‘busted’ expression on his face, but all you see is a guilty smile, before he opens his mouth to speak. “In my defense, I was bribed.”

“Yes but, you never told us your 3RACHA names even after we kept begging you for weeks,” Hyunjin speaks up, eyes wide in disbelief. “We had to bribe you with a new game for your console, but you just told Y/n after two packets of ramen and chocolate milk?”

Your heart rate picks up speed just a fraction after hearing Hyunjin’s words, and you can’t help but feel a little special that Chan was comfortable enough to tell you things he refused to tell others. There’s a small smile playing at your lips as you look at the boy beside you, who was now rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as he tried his best to defend himself from the accusations that were now pouring out from all his friends.

Unbeknownst to you, your own best friend was watching the both of you since the night started, a glint in his eye as he catches the way you threw small glances at his friend, blushing every time your hands brushed or when Chan purposely picked out the meat that was grilled best to put on your plate.

He also didn’t miss the soft smile playing at Chan’s lips every time you laughed at another stupid joke Jisung cracked, head thrown back slightly as you clutched your stomach, or the way his eyes widened every time you leaned a little too close to him to reach for a side dish.

Fools, is what he thinks when he eyes his two best friends. Fools in love.

The night goes on, and it’s Changbin who proposes a game of who can finish a bottle of soju the fastest to make things more exciting. You already know how it was going to end when you see the soju bottles crowding the table, all screaming the obvious outcome of the night.

“Rule’s simple. We’ll have two people against each other, and the one that loses has to pay their opponent’s share for tonight’s dinner.”

You notice Changbin avoiding your eyes as he speaks and distributes the bottle, which could be attributed to the very scary death glare you were throwing right at him.

Here’s the thing—your alcohol tolerance was shit. And Changbin knew that, making you wonder what he had planned up his sleeve.

“Right, here’s the lineup,” he announces, making it seem as if the lot of you were in some world championship of sorts. “Hyunjin and Jisung”—there’s a loud ‘Die, bitch!’ that resounds from Jisung as they both get ready to win against each other—“Seungmin and Felix, Minho and Jeongin, and Chan and Y/n!”

You were going to kill that idiot.

Changbin starts off the game with a recap of the rules, and makes sure that everyone has their own bottle of alcohol. Disaster is the only word flashing in your mind, and you’re on the verge of ditching your friends to return to the comfort of your room.

“Jisung and Hyunjin first!” Changbin instructs, to which the two boys grab their bottles and have a stare-down with each other.

“I’m gonna win so hard, your ancestors are gonna feel it.”

“Let’s see you try, pretty boy.”

On Changbin’s cue, the two boys start gulping down the alcohol, and you visibly cringe at the ghost feeling of the taste on your tongue.

“Are you okay?” Chan whispers from beside you, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s a stupid game. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

There’s a grateful smile on your face as you shake your head, letting the boy know you were okay. “I’m fine. Just worried because my alcohol tolerance isn’t that good, and I don’t want to inconvenience all of you.”

“I promise I’ll take care of you,” Chan mutters softly, staring right into your eyes. The smile slowly drops from your face as your heartbeat echoes in your ears at his words and the way he was looking at you. You so badly wanted to look away, not being used to such eye contact, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at you that makes it almost impossible for you to tear your gaze away from his twinkling eyes.

The sound of a bottle being slammed onto the table snaps you out of your little moment with Chan, and you immediately turn away to look at what was happening at the table, taking deep, cleansing breaths to calm yourself.

On the other side of the table, you realise that Hyunjin was the one who finished his bottle first, now having the time of his life teasing Jisung, who had about one quarter of the bottle left.

All the boys, except Chan and Felix, were laughing their asses off—Felix was the only one comforting Jisung, while Chan was staring at the table, an unreadable expression on his face.

“There, there. It’s okay, Sung,” Felix coos, patting Jisung’s hair, as the latter sulks at his loss.

The next two rounds proceed quickly, with Seungmin and Jeongin emerging as the winners. Everyone stares shell shocked, as Jeongin gulps down the liquid with vigour and speed, and slams his bottle down onto the table with a grin.

“There’s no way! I can’t believe Minho lost to a baby!”

“Just because he’s the youngest doesn’t mean he’s a baby, Changbin.” Seungmin deadpans, swiftly moving the empty bottles to the side of the table. “And how come you’re not participating?”

“Someone needs to bring Y/n back,” Changbin shrugs, passing the bottles to Chan and you with a guilty smile in return to your scowl. “And I’d rather stay sober when taking care of drunk children.”

You turn to pass the bottle to Chan, quickly avoiding his gaze when he looks at you. You’re not confident in your abilities to keep the blush down if he was going to look at you the way he did before.

“Okay,” Changbin cues, making sure both of you were ready with the bottle caps off. “Ready, set… Go!”

You didn’t mind paying for Chan’s share for dinner, you really didn’t. But if there was something about you that was both your downfall and pride, it was your competitiveness. You were competitive to the point where you tended to disregard the consequences of your actions.

So, your brain doesn’t register the painful consequences of your actions as you gulp down the bottle of alcohol like your life depended on it. You weren’t the best drinker out there, but you were going to try your very damn best because it was a competition.

With no expectation of winning, you swallow the last drop of soju and slam the bottle back onto the table, when you realise that everyone was staring at the two of you with their mouths open—specifically at Chan.

Following their gaze, your eyes widen in surprise as you see the boy holding an almost half-full bottle of soju, clearly indicating that you were the winner of your little game.

It’s like a dam breaks, and suddenly everyone’s shouting at the unexpected outcome. Hyunjin and Jisung scream while looking back and forth the bottle and Chan, while Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin sit with wide eyes and open mouths, unable to process that Chan just lost to you.

On the other hand, Changbin watches Chan with a smirk, which slowly drops when he realises that Minho, who was sitting beside him, was staring at him with raised eyebrows, clearly asking the question ‘What the fuck just happened?’.

Just as he’s about to pull Changbin to the side to question him, you shoot up from your seat, stumbling around almost immediately because of the sudden bout of dizziness that hit you. You fall back onto your seat as fast you had gotten up, and Chan wraps an arm around you almost instinctively, making sure you didn’t fall off your seat.

The table is back to having their own conversations a few minutes later, as if they weren't just screaming over your victory, with Hyunjin and Jisung having a rock-paper-scissors tournament between themselves, proposed by Jisung who was still sore about losing to Hyunjin.

Alcohol clouds your mind as your head lols back and forth, with soft giggles spilling from your lips. In your drunken state, you register the arm wrapped around you, and you turn your head to look for the owner of said arm.

Chan looks at you with the fondest smile as he tries to hold back his own chuckles at how cute your giggles were, at the same time being extremely conscious of the way you fit perfectly around his arms. He thanks his lucky stars that you were drunk as he held you, assuring him that there was no way you were going to hear how fast his heart was beating.

“Oh?” you drawl, squinting at the boy beside you. “Who might you be?”

And at that very moment, Chan hopes with all his heart that there is no one else who will get to witness what he was seeing right in front of him.

There are strands of hair covering your face, cheeks red from the alcohol (and from the close proximity to him, but he doesn’t need to know that) and eyes drooping from the oncoming sleepiness. Yet, to him, you were still the most beautiful in that moment.

“I’m Chan,” he replies sweetly, hesitating for a moment before adding more to the sentence. “Your friend.”

An exaggerated gasp escapes you as your eyes widen comically. Words tumble from your mouth, with hiccups disrupting your sentences every now and then. “Chan? Bang Chan? From high school? The really, um-" hiccup "-cute boy who tutored in the library? The super popular dude? You’re my-" hiccup "friend?”

There’s a light pink flush dusting his cheeks at your words, but he laughs nonetheless while nodding, finger reaching out to tap your nose. “Yes, I am.”

Scrunching your nose at the contact, you continue giggling when the sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts the little exchange you and Chan were having. Chan turns to face his friends, and immediately starts coughing when he realises that they had been watching the whole scene with amused expressions. He awkwardly retracts his arm from around your waist, only for you to get up and stumble over to where Changbin was sitting, arms reaching out towards him while making grabby hands. “Changbinnnn~”

You plop yourself onto his lap, arms encircling his neck as you pull his ear closer to your mouth. Used to your drunk antics, he concedes, knowing that he’ll end up with more damage if he didn’t listen to you when you were drunk.

When he is close enough, you cup your hands around your mouth and whisper into his ears. At least, you thought you were whispering.

“You have really cute friends, Changbin.”

The whole table erupts into cheers at your words, and you immediately cover your mouth with a horrified expression. “Did everyone hear that?”

“You weren’t very quiet, darling,” Changbin snorts, pulling you up with him as he stands. “How are all of you getting back?”

“We’re all crashing at Felix’s place,” Seungmin speaks up, tapping away on his phone. “The uber’s about to arrive… right now.”

Grabbing their things, everyone except Minho, Chan, Changbin, and you, make their way out of the restaurant, shouting out hurried farewells and promises of ‘I’ll wire the money to you when I get back!’ to Changbin.

“Okay, Minho and I will go settle the bill,” Changbin says, readjusting his grip on you. “Chan, can you look after Y/n for a bit?”

“Sure,” Chan replies, looping your arm around his neck as his snakes around your waist. “We’ll be out at the front.”

The moment Chan leaves their sight with you by his side, Minho turns to bombard Changbin with all the questions that had been bothering him the whole night.

“What was that?” Minho asks in bewilderment, pointing to the door that Chan and you had exited from. “How on earth did Chan lose that game when he’s the best drinker amongst all of us?!”

“It’s called being in love,” Changbin scoffs, shaking his head at his two friends. “Disgusting.”

The distressed look on Minho’s face dissolves, and is replaced by what one could describe as enlightenment. “No fucking way. I was wondering why he kept smiling at them like an idiot. That explains so much! Have they confessed?”

“You think?” Changbin rolls his eyes, knowing that there was no way either of you had the courage to confess first. “The only way either of them will confess is if they are drunk.”

“But Y/n is dru-” Minho starts in confusion, when he stops mid-sentence, realising what Changbin had just done. “You evil genius.”

“What can I say,” Changbin states proudly, brushing imaginary dirt off his shoulder. “I wonder what’s going on outside,” he mutters under his breath, staring at the door.

On the other side of the door, Chan finally succeeds in getting you to sit down with him on a curb, his jacket folded neatly under your bottom to make sure that you were not sitting on the hard cement. “I’m tired,” you whine, head dropping onto the warm shoulder beside you.

Chan tenses up at the sudden contact, staring at the top of your head, when you nuzzle your cheek against his shoulder. At the feeling of your cheek against his shoulder, he relaxes, and positions himself such that you didn’t have to strain your neck.

There’s a comfortable silence between the both of you, until you decide to break it by asking Chan a very obvious question.

“We’re close friends right?”

You lift your head from Chan’s shoulder, almost whining out loud at the loss of comfort, but you decide that asking him that question was more important. Clearly, drunk you had very different priorities.

Chan just nods and replies with a soft “Of course”, wondering why you were suddenly asking that question. “Why?”

“Since we’re close friends, can I tell you a secret?” The last few words are spoken in a hushed whisper, as you reach out and grasp Chan’s soft and warm hands. His larger hands clasps yours, as he chuckles at your question. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Y/n. You’re drunk, and you might regret telling me when you sober up.”

“No!” You almost shout, alarming Chan who looks around to make sure no one heard your exclamation. You continue in a softer tone, to Chan’s relief. “You’re my close friend! So I won’t regret it.”

And the wide smile you show Chan almost makes him want to kiss you right there and then. Almost.

“Alright then,” Chan agrees, rubbing circles into the skin on your hand. “Go ahead, tell me your secret.”

Giggling, you use your free hand to beckon him closer, your face moving closer to his at the same time. Just as his ear is close enough to you, you whisper out the words that make his heart stop.

“I think I like you.”

He freezes in place, eyes staring at the black tar road ahead of him as his heart hammers against his ribcage because of your nonchalant words. He gulps before slowly turning to face you, the person he had grown to like more than he could ever imagine coming into his view. He takes quick, shallow breaths as he continues to stare at you, unsure of what to say.

Luckily (or unluckily, for Chan), you decide to continue talking, baring your heart and soul to him.

“It’s like...” you start, trailing off after your first two words, before finding the right words to continue. “It’s like I was always happy in life, but you made me realise that it was possible for me to be happier when you are there with me.”

And the smile you give Chan, accompanied with the words you had just uttered, makes him want to protect you from the rest of the world. He’s not sure if he loves you, but what he’s sure about is that all he wants to do is hug you and never let go, to be there for you every minute, every second. And he thinks that’s enough.

That’s enough reason to hold onto you and never let go.

Opening his mouth, Chan is about to reply to your drunk confession, when the sound of soft snores fill his ears.

Leaning against the light pole that was situated very conveniently behind you, you had fallen asleep in the split second Chan had taken to make his move. Your chest rises and falls with every breath you take, and Chan can’t help but breath out a laugh at your timing.

There’s always tomorrow, he thinks.

There’s white noise playing in your ear as you stare up at your ceiling.

Changbin is seated at the edge of your bed saying something important, you assume. You aren’t listening; your brain cells have decided to go on a strike and replay the scene from yesterday on loop.

I think I like you.

You want to scream. You want to scream and murder the boy sitting beside you so bad. After all, it was his fault that you ingested that goddamn devil liquid that made you spill more than your guts.

It was a wonder that you were able to find a friend as precious as Chan, and there you lay in despair, all thoughts of facing Chan again slowly slipping away from your fingertips. There was absolutely no way you were going to be able to see him after the stunt you pulled yesterday.

“Y/n, are you listening?!”

“No.”

A hand wraps around your arm and you feel yourself being pulled up, coming face-to-face with your distressed best friend. “Stop being stubborn. Calm down and listen to what I have to say.”

And that’s when you snap.

“Stubborn!?” you shriek, clutching the ends of your hair. “I just confessed to your friend, Seo Changbin. I was drunk, and I confessed my very large and real crush to the person I am crushing on. I have ruined any chance at friendship with him, so don’t tell me to stop being stubborn and to calm down!”

Taking a deep breath, Changbin pulls you towards him, both his hands resting against your cheeks. “Listen here. Stop being a wuss. Yes, you confessed when you were drunk. Yes, it’s embarrassing as fuck. But get over it. You know Chan. Is he the kind of asshole who drops friendship over small things like rejection?”

There’s a pout playing at your lips as you shake your head, partly due to the way Changbin was squishing your cheeks, and the other half because you knew he was right.

“But I still don’t want to face him yet,” you whine, pushing his hands away from your face and diving back into your covers. “I just want to wallow in self pity, and hopefully waste away on this bed so that I’ll never have to face anyone ever again.”

Changbin knows that there was no convincing you otherwise, so he settles for sighing and getting up from your bed.

“Don’t stay in bed for too long. I’ll order us food for later.”

Muttering something under your breath, you roll over and bury your face into your pillow, sighing as you think about the boy whose smile gave you more warmth than the sun could ever provide.

You’re in the midst of imagining how different today would’ve been if you hadn’t opened your dumb mouth when your phone rings and cuts off your thoughts. Reaching out for it, your mouth runs dry when you see the name displayed on your screen.

“Chan :)”

Your finger presses the decline button and your phone clatters against your bedside table as you decide that you are not ready to talk to Chan yet. And you’re not sure if you’ll ever be ready to talk to him, let alone face him.

A minute after declining the call, there’s a series of knocks on your door, and you shout out a “Go away!”, not wanting to hear anything related to Chan and how you need to stop being a coward. But as the knocking continues, getting louder as time passes, you start getting annoying and realise you have no choice but to open the door.

“What the fuck do you want, Chang-”

You cut yourself off as you take in the person standing in front of you with wide eyes, looking as handsome as ever even with the furious look painted on his face.

The silence is thick with tension, and you can’t help but avert your eyes, choosing to look at anything but the boy in front of you.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Chan asks, voice quiet and flat. “I’ve been calling and texting you all morning.”

“Um, I-” you start, not knowing how to answer his question. You imagined your day going various ways, but this definitely wasn’t in your plans. “Did Changbin call you?”

“I asked,” he starts, walking towards you. You take a few steps a back, and continue walking backwards until your hands come into contact with your dresser. You were trapped. “Why are you ignoring me, Y/n?”

You blink rapidly, not used to this closed-off version of Chan. The usual warmth and softness in his eyes were missing, and instead all you saw was disappointment and anger. You open your mouth to speak, but it wasn’t easy to get the words out.

“Was it funny messing with me?” Chan continues, not breaking eye contact with you once. “To just get my hopes up and disappear like it all meant nothing?”

“W-what?”

“How was it so easy for you to just start ignoring me?”

“No I-”

“Is that all I mean to you?” And instead of the disappointment and anger, you see pure, unfiltered hurt, and that was enough for your walls to come crashing down. Tears well up in your eyes as you look at the boy in front of you, and it’s like a dam breaks.

“I’m sorry.” Sobs wreck your body as you wipe the tears that don’t seem to stop. “I-I’m so fucking sorry, Chan. I was scared.”

“Scared because you just said that in the spur of moment and you don’t actually mean it?”

“No, I was scared because I like you too fucking much!”

There’s a pregnant silence between the two of you, and you continue staring at the floor, vision blur with stubborn tears that refuse to fall. And that’s when you hear it.

A chuckle.

It’s soft, and you would’ve missed it if not for the pin drop silence in the room.

You slowly lift your head up to confirm if you actually heard what you heard, or if you were hallucinating, when you see it.

Chan was smiling.

“Can’t believe it worked.”

What on earth did that mean?

“W-what do you mean?” you ask, sniffing softly.

“This was Changbin’s idea. For the record, I was against it.” Chan’s hands come up to rest on your cheeks, his thumb wiping away the tears on your cheeks as he smiles softly at you. “I mean, of course I was hurt and worried. But I just wanted to come over and talk it over like a normal person.”

His smile widens as one hand continues cupping your face, while the other reaches to tuck the one stray strand of hair behind your ear. “He said you’ll never admit things unless I, uh, scared you a little.

You stare at Chan as the gears work in your head, putting the pieces of information. The moment the last piece clicks in place, you stare in shock at the boy standing in front of you with a sheepish smile.

“What the fuck?!” you yell, equal parts of relief and anger taking over your mind. “I fucking hate you!”

And with that you storm off towards your door, Chan chasing after you with apologies spilling from his mouth. But the both of you knew that you weren’t actually upset, which can be seen by the giggles accompanying every apology.

Just as you’re about to leave your room, you’re pulled back into warm arms, and you fight every urge to melt right into his embrace. His arms wrap around your frame tightly, but gently. You feel his strong heartbeat against your back, and it’s enough to make you shiver, goosebumps erupting all over your skin.

“Do you hate me?” Chan asks, chin resting on your shoulder as you feel his breath tickle your neck.

“Yes.”

“Really?” Chan asks in amusement, lips against your ears and voice just above a whisper. “That’s a pity then. Because I like you too fucking much too.”

He whispers the last part of the sentence, making your knees go weak and your heartbeat pick up its pace as it usually does whenever the boy who stole your heart was involved.

You turn around in his arms to face him, sighing contentedly at how things ended up turning out. “I’m really sorry about the ghosting.”

“It’s okay, love,” Chan assures you, the pet name inducing butterflies in your stomach. “I would’ve been embarrassed too, if I had confessed to you when I was drunk.”

“I would’ve loved to see that.” You whine at the unfortunate circumstance of you confessing instead of Chan. “I probably looked like an idiot while confessing.”

“Since I’m your boyfriend, can I tell you a secret?” Chan teases, repeating what you said the night before with a little twist. Smacking his arm lightly for the jab, you nod with a laugh, ignoring the way your face heats up when he refers to himself as your boyfriend.

“I really wanted to kiss you when you were confessing.” There’s mirth in Chan’s eyes as he gazes at you the same way he did back at the restaurant. The only difference was that you knew he liked you back. And you had never been happier.

“Go for it.”

And that’s all the confirmation that Chan needs to lean down and press his lips against yours in a feather-light kiss, as your hands rest on his chest, appreciating the strong beat his heart was playing.

You part a few seconds later, eyes still closed as a smile plays on both your lips, before you’re pulled for another kiss, this one more forceful than the one before. His lips press against yours harder, and his arms pull you closer—as close as you could be. You respond with equal fervor, pouring every emotion you have into the kiss, when you’re interrupted by a loud cough.

“I would appreciate it if I didn’t have to bleach my eyes every time I see the two of you.”

Oh.

It completely slipped your mind that Changbin was just a few steps away from your room, and you want to crawl under your bed and befriend the monster there when you see the haughty smile on your best friend’s face.

“I think a thanks is in order.”

Removing yourself from Chan’s arms, you walk over to Changbin, who smiles wider when he realises you are walking towards him. Opening his arms to welcome you in for a hug, he can’t help but shriek when you start punching him everywhere possible.

“Dude, what is wrong with you?!”

“That’s what you get for coming up with stupid ideas to get me to talk!” you snap at your best friend with words that carry no real bite. “Were you that desperate?”

“Clearly!” Changbin replies, exasperated. “It was getting depressing. He wouldn’t stop calling me because he was worried, and you were being a stubborn bitch!”

At his words, there’s a tinge of guilt that pinches at you when you realise the trouble you had put your best friend through.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” you say with a pout, burying your face into Changbin’s shoulder. “And thank you.”

“Yes yes, you’re welcome,” Changbin says with a soft smile. He wouldn’t admit it just yet, but seeing his best friend who meant the world to him end up with someone who just as much deserved nothing but the best made him eternally grateful. “Now go smooch your boyfriend. We don’t want him becoming too jealous of the attention you’re giving me.”

“Oh, shut up,” is what Changbin gets in return, as Chan intertwines his hand with yours. Just as Changbin walks out of sight back to his room, Chan turns to you with the biggest smile.

“Now then, shall we go on a date to celebrate our first day?”

“Absolutely.”

And as you and Chan sit on the beach that evening, surrounded by sand and accompanied by the sound of the waves and the soft breeze with a orange hue enveloping you, you think:

Life had never been sweeter.

#stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader #bang chan x reader #stray kids #bang chan #stray kids fluff #stray kids oneshot #stray kids scenarios #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz oneshot #skz x reader #skz fluff #chan x reader #bang chan imagines #bang chan scenarios #bang chan oneshot #dee scribbles

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blackwoolncrown · 4 years

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”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

not

fucking

talk

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

#acab

5K notes · View notes

yikesharringrove · 3 years

Text

Billy closed the front door behind him, the pine wreath jiggling as the door swung shut.

He took of his boots, leaving them next to Steve’s wet snow boots, smiling down and rolling his eyes fondly at the fancy fur-lined things.

He could hear Steve in the kitchen, no doubt on the phone. .

“Yeah, no, it’s okay. No, I don’t mind. Yeah. Mom, seriously, it’s alright. Just, uh, enjoy the trip. I’ll-yes. Yeah. I’m good! Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yep. Alright, love you too. Yep. Bye now. Of course. Yeah. Okay. Talk soon.”

He was leaned against the wall next to the mounted phone, his back to the entry way.

He was twisting the chord around his wrist.

Billy liked to imagine Steve doing that whenever they spoke on the phone. Liked to imagine him twirling the chord around and blushing and getting all gooey.

Mostly because Steve was always so damn rigid when he spoke with his parents. So anxious and stiff.

He shook his hand free, placing the phone back on the hook and sighing deeply.

And then he sniffed.

Billy wrapped his arms around him from behind, and Steve didn’t waste a moment before leaning back against him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What was your mom talking about?”

“It’s nothing.” Steve took a deep breath, turning in his arms to wrap his own arms around Billy’s shoulders, giving him his best attempt at a smile. “Hey.”

“Hey back.”

Steve leaned forward, ready to press his lips to Billy’s, only to have Billy lean back, avoiding him completely. He pouted at Billy.

“Tell me what’s up. Then you get a kiss.”

Steve’s pout just went deeper. Billy liked to pretend he was immune to those goddamn doe eyes. He absolutely was not.

“It’s nothing. Really.”

“Nah, your parents are being shitty again, and I wanna know about it so I can make you feel better.”

And Steve melted, just a little bit at that.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

Billy gasped dramatically.

“I would never.”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“It’s just, my mom and I have this tradition. Around Christmastime. We, you know. We go to the city, and do dinner, just the two of us. And we. God, it sounds so lame.” Billy pinched his side. Steve pulled his hair in retaliation. “And, wegototheballet.” Steve let his head flop onto Billy’s shoulder.

“Stevie, you got mush mouth there at the end.”

“We go to the freakin’ ballet, okay? We go to the ballet!” And Steve was pulling away, his face beet red, his arms wrapped around himself. “We do it every year, and have since I could sit through the fucking thing, and she’s not coming this year. And she said why don’t you take your girlfriend, Nancy? And I don’t know how many times I’ve told her that Nancy and I broke up, but she still just-” he cut himself off shaking his head. “It’s like, I know it’s fucking lame, but it’s my favorite part of Christmas. I look forward to it all damn year and we’re not going.”

And the thing on the tip of Billy’s tongue was Jesus, the fucking ballet, Harrington? Could you be anymore of a princess?

But this is, like, effecting Steve. This is actually taking a fucking toll on him.

And, well, Billy said he’d try to make him feel better.

“So, when is it?”

“When’s what?”

“The fucking ballet.”

And Steve stared at him.

“Never, apparently. Because she’s having too much fun in Saint-Tropez, and anyway aren’t you getting a little old for it, Steven?” He put on a breathy voice when he imitated his mother, sticking his nose in the air.

“I mean when is it running, numb nuts.”

“All this month. It’s like, Christmas themed. They do it every year.”

“Then you’re in charge of getting tickets.”

And Steve was giving him a look, his eyes narrowed.

“Are you, suggesting, that you, Billy ‘I’m rough and tough and dangerous’ Hargrove, are going to take me to the ballet?”

“I’m not suggesting it, shithead. I’m telling you to get fucking tickets, and let me know the date so I can get a nice fucking shirt.”

“You’re serious? You’re going to drive with me to the city, and sit there for nearly three hours, and watch the ballet with me.”

“Jesus fuck-three hours? God, the shit I do for you.” He scrubbed a hand down his face as Steve, Steve’s face split into a wide smile, the one that makes his nose scrunch up, and he began hopping from foot to foot, bobbing his head.

“Okay. Okay! I’m gonna, I think I can buy them over the phone. I’ll, I’m gonna do it before you have a chance to back out.” He took a step closer to Billy, grabbing his face in one hand, making his cheeks pout, planting a kiss to his lips before zooming off to dig the phone book out of the hall closet.

He was humming away to himself, probably the music from the fucking ballet Billy had resigned himself to seeing, while he pawed through the heavy book, searching for the number of the theater in Indianapolis.

Billy rolled his eyes at Steve’s little outbursts of excitement, tossing himself into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

“You fucking owe me. Just, like, by the way. I’m talking blowjobs every day. I’m talking cigarettes. I’m talking homemade dinners.”

“Oh, you mean the shit that I already do because I l-love you, or whatever.” Steve’s face went bright red, and he turned away from Billy, standing in a stunned silence, jamming the phone up to his ear. “Yeah, hi, I’d like to purchase some tickets please.” His voice sounded strained, and he reached up to tug on a lock of hair near the crown of his head.

Billy was stuck fucking dumb.

He’s never, fucking never had someone tell him that they love him. He thinks maybe his mom did back in the day, but it’s been a long fucking time since he’s felt the slow spread of warmth down his spine that comes with hearing it.

Steve loves him.

Steve was rambling away on the phone, tugging on the phone cord, and tapping his foot maniacally.

Billy doesn’t think he could move.

And eventually he hear the person on the other end of the line hang up. He registered Steve placing the phone quietly on the hook once again.

He stayed with his back towards Billy.

“Steve.”

He took a deep breath, turning around to face Billy with a big fake smile.

“I got tickets! We’re going on Saturday. So, uh, yeah. If you need to borrow some clothes, it’s, it’s pretty fancy. So, like, uh, yes.” Steve was babbling, his eyes darting between Billy’s left ear and the wall behind him.

“Steve.”

“I got mezzanine seats. That’s where I like to sit, uh, you can see the stage better that way, and they’re usually cheaper. I mean, not that that’s, like, the thing, but, it’s a bonus.”

“Steve.”

Steve rolled his lips into his mouth, his leg shaking.

“Can we, like, not talk about it?”

“I feel like we should, though.”

“I don’t, wanna.”

Billy fought the urge to roll his eyes. He should be, like, sweet for this conversation. Or something. Adjacent to it.

“At least, did you mean it? What you said?”

Steve bit his bottom lip.

“Yeah.”

“Good. I mean. I liked, liked hearing it. And, uh, me too. You know. Uno reverse.” Billy gestured like he was putting a card down between them. Steve gave him a blank stare.

“Did you just, Uno reverse my confession of love? Is that seriously what just happened?”

“Well, like-” the thing is, it’s a big fucking word. And he doesn’t think he can actually, like, say it to Steve. But, he feels it. He definitely feels it. Like, fuck, he’s going to the goddamn ballet for this fucker. Obviously, there’s some big fucking feelings there. “What you feel. Is also. What I feel.”

“Oh. Good, then. Yeah. Good.” Steve looked around the room. “Should we, like, shake on it?”

“Shake on it? Steve, fucking Hell. Just come here.” He reached out, looping his fingers through Steve’s belt loops, tugging him into his arms. And Steve stumbled forward, crashing with very little grace into Billy.

He sighed as Billy kissed him, a sloppy, desperate kiss. A kiss that Billy tried to shove every word he couldn’t say into Steve’s brain the same way he shoved his tongue into Steve’s mouth.

And when they broke apart, Steve began humming, grinning wildly.

And Billy figured the song was from the fucking ballet he had agreed to see with Steve. Which he can’t stress enough, the fact that he is going to see a goddamn, motherfucking ballet just to make his favorite person happy, that’s as close as Billy can possibly come to a declaration of devotion at this point in his life.

But Steve pulled out a brightly decorated record from his family’s collection, explaining that the ballet had many different iterations, but all choreographed to the same compilation of music, and apparently, this was enough for him.

To have Billy hold him while he talked for hours about the story of the ballet, the history of it, the music the costumes he likes, everything, maybe it was okay that Billy couldn’t say the words. Maybe it was okay that he was there, that he did the things Steve liked just to see him smile.

Billy’s never been enough for anyone.

But then again, neither has Steve.

(And when they finally see the show, it’s the most beautiful thing Billy’s ever seen in his life. They go once more before the run is closed and establish a new tradition together.)

#yikes writes #I watched the nutcracker bc they aired our local production on tv and its highkey the best production of the nutcracker i've ever seen #and i've seen a lot #but it's my favorite #and I may or may not have cried while watching it and thought of this #I was in that production for four years ayyoooo #steve harrington #billy hargrove #harringrove

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study-coffee-chicago · 3 years

Text

Seasons of PD: Season 2: Will’s Back...and There’s a Bomb (A Halstead Brothers + Halstead Sister! Imagine)

Your age: 14

Jay's age: 28

Will's age: 30

"Spoke to Dad," Will said to Jay as the two brothers were sat in Jay's apartment sipping their respective beers. "Said you two barely talk. Said if it wasn't for Y/N, you probably wouldn't see him at all."

"I mean, he's not wrong." Jay shrugged.

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"Not really, but you should've been here. You should've been home. Mom was dyin'. You were off partyin'."

"You left," Will said as he set his beer down and leaned forward on the couch.

"I left to fight a war. I came home. And you know why that was?" he asked rhetorically. "It was because my humvee hit an IED and me and Mouse were the only two who survived! And because Mom was sick! I came back for Mom and I came back traumatized! Nothing bad even happened to you in New York and you left two fucking days after her funeral, man!"

Luckily Will hadn't been holding his beer or he would've dropped it right then and there. "Jay, I- I never knew it was so hard for you to come Stateside again."

"Forget it. You weren't there then, what makes me think you're gonna be here now? You're probably taking off in another few days anyway, am I right? Not even gonna go see Y/N? Even though she always wants help on her math homework from you and you don't even have the decency to answer her phone calls!"

"I'm sorry that I don't have my phone on me when I'm performing surgeries, Jay!"

Jay's phone rang, stopping the argument in its tracks. "Speak of the devil," Jay mumbled and then answered the call. "Hey, Y/N, what's up?"

"I don't understand this stupid homework," you groaned from your desk in your bedroom at home. "Why do I even need to know the equation of a line, anyway? It's not like I'm even gonna use it in life anyway."

"Y/N, like I've told you numerous times, I can help you if it's a single variable problem, but anything more than that, I forgot how to do it. Not really helping your teacher's case for actually using this in life, am I?"

"Yeah, not at all. I guess I'll just try and call Will...he's not gonna answer anyway, but I guess it's worth a shot."

"Wait, how about you FaceTime me?" Jay suggested.

"Why? You already admitted that you can't help me."

"Just do it."

"Okay, gimme a few minutes. I gotta switch devices."

"Oh yeah. You don't have an iPhone yet, only an iPod and a slide phone. Sucks to be you."

"Well, I'm sorry that I don't have a grown-up job and can buy my own stuff, Jay."

"And with buying your own stuff and having a grown-up job comes bills. So, be glad you can't legally work yet."

You rolled your eyes. "I'll call you back in a few minutes. And, whatever this is, better be able to help me with this homework since math is my first class tomorrow."

"It'll help. I promise."

"Hmmm, sure." Then, you hung up and switched to your iPod, and hit the FaceTime icon.

"You look like- you look tired," Jay said when he accepted the FaceTime call. He almost said that you looked like hell, but he figured he shouldn't say that.

"Thanks," you replied sarcastically. "You would be, too, if you've been staring at the same problem on your homework for the past hour."

"What's the equation you have to work with?" Jay asked.

"Y=mx+b," you answered.

"Yeah, vaguely remember that. Don't know what it means, just remember hearing it a bunch. Will, you know what that equation is and how to do it?"

"Will's at your house? I thought he wasn't getting back for another week."

"I thought so, too. And then I got called to a bar today because he was being stupid--"

"Hey, I was not stupid!" Will protested.

"Fine. He was being dumb and tried to break up a fight. And, now I think he's got a job at Chicago Med because he got fired in New York--"

"Y/N," Will butted in, "you said you needed help with your homework?"

"Yeah."

"Jay, can you please give me the phone so I can help our little sister with her homework please?"

"Uh, fine. She'll know why you left New York eventually," Jay said as he passed his phone to his older brother.

"Eventually. But not tonight." He turned to Jay. "Can you get me a piece of paper? I'd grab it but I have no idea where you keep stuff in this little bachelor pad of yours."

"Like you didn't snoop through my stuff when I was at work," Jay joked and stood up to get Will a piece of paper.

"Y/N, for Christmas I'm getting you a subscription to Chegg so you don't need to call me for this."

"I'm holding you to that one."

***

God, I hate running on the track. It's literally just running in circles and seeing the same things over and over, no variety in the scenery whatsoever. I wish I could run with Emma, but she's way faster than me, so she's ahead of me by like one or two laps. Uh, this song sucks! I gotta skip--

"Run lockdown! Run lockdown!"

What? Run lockdown? What is the high school cross country coach talking about? Maybe it's just something that the high schoolers have to do for their drills because I sure have never heard of that one.

But then, you saw Emma jogging toward the bathrooms a few yards away from the track.

What the hell?

You ran towards the bathrooms a few yards away from the track and didn't stop until you'd caught up with Emma. "What's going on?"

"No idea. Something about a lockdown."

Once all of you and your coach, Mrs. Rivers, were safely in the bathroom with the door locked, did you get any closure about what was going on.

"There's been a bomb threat."

"What? A bomb threat?"

"What?!"

"So we can't leave?"

"Girls, I need you to be quiet, okay? The police are looking into it, but for now, the campus is on lockdown and we can't leave here until I get the all-clear. The school's already notified parents, so if someone else is picking you up today other than your parents, you need to call them. Just ask and you can use my phone. Everything's going to be okay, though. We have nothing to worry about. We just need to sit tight until I'm told we can leave." Her phone buzzed and you all held your breath. "Looks like Miss G got stuck in the boys' bathroom with all the stinky football boys."

"What if we walk home?" you asked quietly.

"If you walk home, a parent or someone else will have to pick you up since they don't want anybody walking home because, as of right now, they have no idea who did this."

***

"How's your brother doing?" Erin asked as she and Jay were standing around the coffee pot in the break room.

"Pretty sure he's going to quit the new job he just got at Med even though it's his first day," Jay answered.

"What? He got a job at Med?"

"Yeah. Apparently, they were looking for ER docs and he got the job. But, for some reason, now he wants to quit. And, he was late today. Decided to bitch to me about only having almond milk and not having any regular milk in my fridge. Like, dude, you're staying with me. You can deal with a bit of almond milk."

"I don't blame him," Erin laughed. "Almond milk is disgusting."

"But it's better for you...and cheaper."

"Of course that's your reason for getting it."

"Halstead!" Antonio yelled. "Your phone's been ringing off the hook for the last minute. I think it's important."

"Be right there!" Jay quickly poured himself a cup of coffee and then rushed over to his desk.

"Shit," he muttered.

"Who was it?" Erin asked as she emerged from the breakroom, holding her own cup of coffee.

"Y/N," he answered as he fiddled with his phone. "Called me three times in the past minute."

"Any idea what it's about?"

"No, but I'm about to find out."

"Jay!" you whisper-yelled from the other end of the line.

"Y/N, what's wrong? Why are you calling me so much? Are you sick? Do you need me to--"

"There's a bomb."

Jay almost dropped his phone. "A bomb? Are you sure?"

At the mention of a bomb, everyone's heads snapped towards him.

"Yeah, we're hiding out in the bathrooms near the football field right now until they get the all-clear," you told him. "But, they can't let people walk home from school today and Dad's not answering and it's Will's first day, so I was wondering if you could pick me up?"

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Do you mind if I put you on speaker for a quick second?"

"Why? I'm fine Jay, really. Just needed to know if you can pick me up."

Innocent fourteen-year-olds, Jay thought to himself. Of course, she just called to pick to see if you'd pick her up. She hasn't grasped the gravity of the situation, and she's probably thinking that this is just another story to tell. Not that if there's actually a bomb at her school that she could be dead any second if it goes off.

"You're sure you don't want me to stay on the phone with you?"

"You can go."

"Okay. Just, listen to the adult that's in there with you, okay?"

"Okay, okay. Bye."

"Bye I love--" He was cut off by the beep which signaled that you had hung up. "--you."

"What's going on? A bomb?" Erin asked, but Jay was already making his way down the stairs.

"Sarge!" Jay yelled as he made his way to the front desk.

"Well, hello to you too, Chuckles. If you're looking for Voight, he's just meeting with a CI and should back soon," Platt told him.

"Sargeant, all due respect, I don't give a damn about Voight right now. I just need to know if you have any idea about the bomb threat at Central Chicago's high school and middle school campuses?"

"I know that they sent someone from bomb squad and some patrolmen over there to see if there's anyone who seems suspicious--"

"Why wasn't Intelligence notified?"

Platt's jaw dropped and she stared at Jay for a second before speaking. "Because last I checked, detective, those schools weren't in our district--"

Jay slammed his hand down on the desk. "Jay," Erin said and grabbed her partner's arm. "I need you to calm down for a second, okay?"

"I don't need to calm down, Erin," Jay spat. "I have every reason--"

"I understand, but being pissed at Platt here isn't going to fix anything. Go back upstairs and I'll be there in a second."

Jay ripped his arm from Erin's grip and stalked upstairs, not without slamming the gate when he was safely inside the Intelligence Unit's area of the 21st District.

"What's his deal?" Platt asked. "I have half a mind to write him up for insubordination for that little scene he just caused."

"Sarge," Erin started, "the school that called in the bomb threat, that's the school Y/N goes to, Jay's little sister."

"What? I thought that only elementary school kids were at school right now?"

"That's true unless there are sports practices."

"And Y/N's in a sport, so she's at school right now." Platt put the pieces together.

"Yeah. And, I know that family isn't supposed to work cases, but could you maybe make an--"

"Erin, go grab Halstead and Dawson, get down to the school. I'll send the information upstairs to Atwater and Ruzek and they can see what they can get. I'll also call Voight and tell him to meet you there."

"Thank you, Sargeant!"

Erin jogged upstairs and into the bullpen. "Jay, Antonio, we're heading to the school! Kev and Adam, Platt said that you're working the case from up here. Voight will meet us there."

"Copy that," Kevin answered.

Jay holstered his gun and was halfway down the stairs before Kevin even finished his sentence.

***

"Kev, what do we know?" Jay asked as they were driving over to your school.

"Uh, I pulled footage from the high school's office and apparently an unknown dude walked in, asked a question, and then walked out all in the span of less than a minute," he answered.

"Can you run facial rec?"

"Nah, not a good enough angle."

"Description?"

"Dude looks Indian or Middle-Eastern to me. He's got short, black hair. Some stubble, not a ton, but it's enough that you can see it even with the bad angle I got. He's kinda chubby, too. Wearing a tan jacket. That's all I got."

"Thanks, man. That helps. Anything from bomb squad?"

"They haven't located a bomb yet, so I guess that's a good sign, right?"

"It is if there's no bomb," Jay replied. "But, just because they haven't found it, doesn't mean there's not a bomb. Whoever the hell did this could've just hid it really well or do whatever a psycho does when they want to blow up a school full of kids."

Jay relayed the information to Erin and Antonio who were also in the car and then hung up his phone. "Any word from Voight or anyone else when I was on the phone?"

"No, you want me to go to the middle school or the high school?" Erin asked.

"Wherever you can get in."

"Jay, we have badges, we can get in anywhere."

"Middle school then. I'm assuming that's where Y/N is."

"Okay."

"Wait!" Jay exclaimed, almost causing Erin to slam on the brakes. "When I was talking to Y/N earlier, she said that she was in the bathrooms near the football field so we need to go to the high school."

"You're sure it's that field? Isn't there a football field at the middle school, too?"

"That's just a shitty practice field," he answered. "Anyway, the high school football field is the only one that has bathrooms near it so that spectators can go to the bathroom when they go to the football games."

"I shouldn't have to tell you this, Jay," Antonio started, "But you can't just burst into the locker rooms and try to get Y/N out of there. No parents are allowed in or out to pick up their kids. And, you're no different. You have to wait for the all-clear to get her out of there."

Jay hated it, but Antonio was right. No matter how much he wanted to get you as far away from this campus as possible, he couldn't until the bomb squad made sure that there wasn't a bomb anywhere near here. If his time in the Rangers had taught him anything, it was that one misstep, and the whole place could get blown up in a nanosecond.

Erin started to pull into the parking lot of the high school near all the cop cars, when one turned on their sirens and pulled in front of them, effectively stopping them from getting any further.

"I know you're worried about your kids," the patrolman said once Erin rolled down her window, "But we can't let anyone in or out until this is all sorted."

"We're not parents." Erin pulled out her badge. "Detectives Lindsay, Dawson, and Halstead from the 21st District's Intelligence Unit."

He looked at the officer next to him. "Desk Sergeant from the 21st said that there'd be some detectives coming." He pushed the button on his radio before anybody could tell him otherwise. "I got the detectives from the 21st here right now."

"Copy," the person on the other end said.

Jay wanted to jump out of the vehicle and strangle that patrolman with his bare hands. "Are you fucking insane?" he yelled.

The one who keyed his radio stepped out of the patrol car, and Jay did the same. "Are you Dawson or Halstead?"

"Halstead. But you, you must be new here because if there is one thing you absolutely do not do when there's even the mention of a bomb is key your radios."

"No offense, detective," the patrolman in the driver's seat started, "but everyone here has been using their radios since we stepped onto this campus."

"There's no bomb," Erin muttered.

They all knew what the patrolman's statement meant: if they had been using their radios the entire time they were here and a bomb hadn't gone off, then there was no bomb to begin with.

Antonio and Erin both stepped out of the car now.

"Who's your sergeant?" Antonio yelled.

"Why? Why do you care?"

"Because of what he just said! You can't key your radios when there might be a bomb, so I think your whole district might need to go back in for a mandatory re-training!"

"I'll call Voight," Erin said.

"Fucking idiots," Jay muttered as he pulled out his phone.

As soon as he was about to dial your number, a call came in from Kevin. "There's no bomb," Jay said as soon as he answered, not even giving Kevin time to tell him anything.

"I mean, yeah, I was callin' to tell you that the bomb squad just declared an all-clear."

"Thanks."

"How'd you know before we even got the call here at the district?"

"They were keying their radios the entire time and nothing happened."

"Yeah, that'll do it."

"We should be back at the district soon."

Jay hung up and made his way to the bathrooms.

You were sitting in silence with Emma next to you when a banging was heard coming from outside causing you to jump.

What if that's the bomber and he's got a gun and wants to kill us before the bomb can get to us? It was irrational, yes, but it was still possible.

"Chicago PD! This is the all-clear."

It was as if everyone in the bathroom let out a collective breath at hearing that there was no bomb or that the bomb had been dismantled.

"Alright girls, you heard the man, we are good to go," Mrs. Rivers said. "Let's head back to the middle school so you can grab your stuff and start getting back to your parents. Was everyone able to get ahold of someone to pick them up? Because I can bring people home if necessary."

All of you filed out of the bathrooms and into the crisp fall air. You were barely onto the sidewalk when you got pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

"Who the--" You looked up. "Hi, Jay."

"Oh my God, you're okay. You don't know how worried I was--"

"Jay, I'm fine," you squeaked out. "But please let go. You're crushing me."

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized and then let go, not without looking you over for injuries even though you promised him that you were in fact fine.

"50-21 George, 50-21 Lincoln, 50-21 Frank, and 50-21 Squad, assistance is requested at Chicago Med for a 10-34. Are you able to assist?"

Jay's eyes went wide and his breath caught in his throat.

"Jay? Jay?" you asked. "You gonna answer that?"

"This is 50-21 Lincoln, hold us down on that 10-34 at Chicago Med," Erin's voice said through the radio.

"Halstead! We gotta go now!" Antonio yelled.

"Jay, what's going on? Will's at Med. What's happening?"

"Come with me," Jay said and then started ushering you towards the car.

"Shit," Erin said when she saw you. "Antonio, you wanna go with Voight, and then me and Jay will drop her off at home? We can't exactly bring her with us."

"Yeah, good idea." Antonio turned to you. "Glad you're safe, kid."

You nodded as he jogged off to find Voight. Then, you turned back to Jay. "Why are you going to Med? Whatever it is, I wanna go with you because what if Will's hurt? I wanna go!"

Jay got in the passenger seat without answering you and you got in the backseat. Erin started driving to the middle school so that you could go get your backpack from your locker.

Once inside school and connected to the wifi, you took out your iPod and pulled up google.

What does 10-34 mean?

The answer almost caused you to drop your iPod on the tiled floor.

10-34 is a police radio signal that means that a bomb threat has been called in.

You ran to your locker and with shaking hands, put in the combination. How was Jay so calm? How was he so calm when you were silently freaking out? And, to make matters worse, he got to work the case while you were going to be stuck going home and just waiting to see if Will (and Jay for the matter since he would no doubt be in the vicinity of the blast zone) was safe, just waiting to see if your oldest brother, who you just got back, would make it out of his new workplace alive.

You hustled out of school and then got into the backseat of Erin and Jay's car. "There's a bomb threat at Med?"

"Who told you that?" Erin asked, turning around in her seat.

"I googled what 10-34 meant. Jay, please, I wanna go with you. I don't wanna go home!"

"No! I know you wanna make sure that Will's safe, and I do too, but you gotta understand that it's not safe for you there, Y/N," he pleaded.

"It's not safe for you to be there, either!" you argued.

"Y/N, I know you're scared, but I'm trained for this kind of stuff. You are not."

"Please," you begged as your lip began to tremble. "I-It'd be faster for you to just go to Med from-from here instead of dropping me off at home."

"She's got a point, Jay," Erin said.

"What? No way, Er! There is no way in hell she is going in there with us!"

"She doesn't have to go past the tape with us. Just somewhere close by." Erin turned back to you. "Would that make you feel better, Y/N? Being somewhere close by?"

You nodded as you wiped away a tear.

Jay sighed. "Fine," he relented. "We'll drop you off at Mama Garcia's to get your homework done since it's a half-block away from the hospital."

"Will's okay, right? You checked in with him?" you asked.

"I haven't yet, but I promise you when I do, I will text you. I just need you to stay calm and focus on yourself right now. It's no use worrying about Will when you can't do anything about it."

"That's what Mom used to tell me when I was worried about you when you were in Afghanistan. She always told me that it's no use worrying about it since none of us were there with you."

"See, you gotta trust what Mom always told you, kiddo. She was a smart lady after all."

***

"Tell me you're not in there," Jay spoke into his phone as he and Erin walked into the police tent-like structure equipped with fancy tech gear outside of Chicago Med's emergency department.

"I am," Will answered, causing Jay's stomach to drop. "Listen, the guy who blew himself up in here, said he had something worse than Ebola."

"What, like he's spreading it since he blew himself up?"

"Yeah, so essentially, every single one of us in here has been in contact with him."

"Who was he?"

"No idea. But do us all a favor and find out."

"Son of a bitch," Jay muttered as he pocketed his phone and entered the tent-like structure where a bunch of people, including the FBI, were sitting at computers.

"Talk to Will?" Erin asked.

"Uh, yeah," Jay answered, "he says he's in there. Apparently whoever the hell blew himself up in there was infected with something that he said was worse than Ebola."

"So if these people get out before we figure out what it is and if it's treatable, we could have an epidemic on our hands?"

"Exactly. Damn, Er. With that mind of yours, you should've gone to med school."

"Very funny, Halstead. You're looking at someone who barely graduated high school and didn't even go to the academy because being in the back of cop cars on the eastside for half my childhood was more than enough experience to qualify me for this job right here."

"I'm gonna start making some calls." Jay turned his attention back to the situation at hand. "Apparently traffic was a mess earlier and Voight and Antonio got called to headquarters to brief some higher-ups about this."

"Fat chance of them knowing anything right now. They've gotta just be trying to keep all the info away from the press." Erin's phone rang. "Speak of the devil."

"I'll call HQ and try to get some more back up to control the situation," Jay said to no one in particular.

***

You kept fiddling with your slide phone, just opening and closing it as you tried--and failed--to focus on your homework as you sat in one of the far back booths at Mama Gracia's. The news was of course playing on the tv in front of you and all the headlines were about what was happening at Med.

"Again we have word of an event at Chicago Med," the news anchor read from her script. "The CFD was able to contain the victims to the ER, but Ebola was mentioned."

Ebola? That was the disease that wreaked havoc on Africa last year.

You knew Will was a doctor and that he was smart, but if he became infected and it was in fact Ebola, what if he died? What if, since Jay was close to Med that he somehow became infected and he died, too? What if you lost both your big brothers in the same amount of time because of some psychopath who decided it was a good idea to blow himself up and put innocent people--innocent first responders--in danger.

"Ay, cariña. ¿A dónde vayas?" Mama Garcia asked as you stood up and made your way to the door, intent on exiting the small restaurant.

"¿Qúe? No entiendo," you answered. You had started taking Spanish this year, so you only understood one word of what she had said to you.

"Sorry, honey. Where are you going? Your brother said to make sure you stayed here."

You and Jay were both pretty close with Mama Garcia. Seeing as it was very close to Med, when your mom had been hospitalized for cancer years ago, you'd always come in here to get dinner. It was here that Mama Garcia had taught you all the words of the toppings that one could put on their tamales, tacos, or burritos, shocking your Spanish teacher when you told her you could tell her in Spanish exactly what you would put on your tamale when you learned about food in class.

"I'm just going for a walk," you answered. "I need some fresh air."

"Okay, don't go far," she warned.

Once out the door, you breathed a sigh of relief and started to walk towards Chicago Med.

When you got close enough, you saw a big white tent and a bunch of fire trucks. You crept to the side and started walking around the side of the building, where there were barely any people and only one cop to keep people at bay. You smiled at him and watched the scene in front of you.

You had seen of those firefighters before on a rare day that you were at the district waiting for Jay and one of them had to walk the firehouse dog, Pouch. He was super cute and all the firefighters were really nice and let you pet him!

"What is it Casey?" a deep voice bellowed.

You knew Casey! Well, you knew of him at least. He was the one that Hermann always said would write him up if he was gone too long with Pouch, so that was always the excuse he gave you when he had to leave the district to go back to the firehouse.

You couldn't hear what Casey said on the other end, but you could hear whoever this guy was talking to Casey. "Okay, we're gonna need to get some CO2 extinguishers inside."

"You mean you're out of fire extinguishers?" a woman next to the firefighters asked.

"Afraid so."

You turned on your heels and sprinted back towards Mama Garcia's. You were a girl on a mission.

"Mama Garcia! Mama Garcia!" you shouted as soon as you were inside.

"Y/N, ¿Qúe pasa?" she asked as she stuck her head out of the kitchen where she was preparing a bunch of batches of tamales.

"They're out of fire extinguishers at the hospital, do you have any that I can bring over there?"

"You are just like your brother," she said, "super sneaky."

"When you live with older brothers and have to steal their Halloween candy, you learn how to be sneaky, Mama Garcia," you joked.

"I'm not even gonna ask how you know this. There's one fire extinguisher back by the bathrooms and I've got two back here I can give you. Esperes un minuto."

You went and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the spot where it was stored in the back by the bathrooms and waited for Mama Garcia to come out with the other two.

"Thank you!" you exclaimed as you took the big bag from her which contained the two other ones. She had put them in a bag for you since they were super heavy.

You slung the bag over your shoulder and carried the other one in your hand. You knew you couldn't run because these were really heavy, but you knew you had to get to Med to help them. Both your brothers were there! And you'd get there, even if it was a lot slower than you had originally planned when you formulated this plan when you were sprinting back to the restaurant five minutes ago.

***

"Is there a detective Halstead here?" a patrolman walked into the tent-like structure and asked.

"That'd be me," Jay answered as he raised his hand and turned away from the computer screen he had been looking at.

"There's a girl outside, Y/N I think she said her name was. Said you're her brother and that she's looking for you. Said she might be able to help."

Jay turned to Erin. "Go," she urged him.

Jay followed the patrol officer to where you were standing and to say he didn't look happy would be an understatement.

"I thought I told you to stay at Mama Garcia's!" he yelled over the crowd of people and the firefighters shouting out orders to each other. "It's dangerous for you here!"

"I know and I'm sorry! But, I came here to see if Will was outside, and I heard that one firefighter talking into his radio thingy, and then the lady next to him said that they were out of fire extinguishers."

Jay crossed his arms in front of his chest. He was not impressed.

"So I ran back to Mama Garcia's and I grabbed these." You held up the fire extinguisher that you had set on the ground next to you because you had been carrying it for a while now and you thought it was going to rip your arm off because of how heavy it was.

"Let her in," Jay declared.

He grabbed the extinguisher from you and then made his way over to the firefighters.

"Chief!" he yelled. "I've got some fire extinguishers here!"

Chief Boden cocked his head to the side. "How?"

"Apparently my little sister was here and she heard Ms. Goodwin say that you were out of extinguishers. So, she ran to Mama Garcia's and these are from her restaurant."

You set down the bag that contained the two fire extinguishers. "Geez, those things are heavy!"

"That they are. Thank you for these..." Chief Boden trailed off, not knowing your name.

"Y/N," you answered.

"Well, thank you Y/N."

"You're welcome, Chief. Please get my brother out of there safely."

"We're doing our best. And, call me Wallace."

He nodded at Jay and Jay placed a hand on your shoulder to lead you back to where he had been working alongside everyone else who wanted to figure out what the hell had gone on in there. Behind you, you heard the other firefighters volunteering to go inside the hospital.

"You're not making me go back to Mama Garcia's?" you asked Jay as you walked.

"No," he answered. "It's gonna get dark soon and I don't need you sneaking off from there again."

"So, I'm staying here so you can keep an eye on me?"

"Precisely."

***

You were sitting in a metal folding chair, scrolling through your iPod--wifi courtesy of Jay's hotspot--when three people entered the tent-like structure.

"Detective," Sharon Goodwin said as she entered the area where everyone was working. Jay looked up from the computer he was working at. "The parents of..." she trailed off, allowing you to assume that these were the parents of the man who had blown himself up.

"Alright," Jay said as he walked over to them. "Please, have a seat."

His voice was monotonous, not soft like when he was talking to child victims and not angry like when he was trying to get a hardened criminal to break. His voice, it was just...there.

"Is there anything you can tell us?" he asked once the parents had sat down.

"He was a smart boy," the man started, "always nice...and helpful. This country has given us so much. How could this have happened?"

"He claimed to be infected with something similar to Ebola."

You felt like you couldn't breathe. So, what the woman on the news had said was true. Your brother--and everyone else in the hospital for that matter--could be infected with something similar--or god forbid, worse--than Ebola.

You couldn't take another funeral. You couldn't take losing another family member before you even learned how to drive, hell before you even got to high school.

Your mind flashed back to when you were four years old. Will was in college and Jay was in his senior year of high school. It was springtime and the weather was just starting to get nice out.

You woke up from sleeping and realized you were thirsty. Seeing as you didn't think it was super late yet, you hoped that maybe Jay or Will would still be up and they'd give you a cup of juice. They were on babysitting duty tonight because your parents had gone out for a date night and knew they wouldn't be back until the early hours of the morning.

With Beary gripped tightly in your hand, you walked down the hallway and towards the kitchen. You saw the living room light on, and then it was quickly turned off.

"Mommy? Daddy?" you asked.

The only light now was from the hallway and you were starting to get scared. Monsters would come out if it was too dark!

Suddenly, the light was flicked back on.

"Y/N, what are you doing up?" Jay asked as he walked towards you.

"I want juice," you told him. But, then you looked at what he was wearing. He was wearing one of those shirts that he had to wear when you and your mom went to his soccer games at other schools. Jay always said that if he didn't wear this type of nice shirt, that he and his team would have to run suicides. You didn't know what those were, but they didn't sound nice. "Why you not in your 'jamas?" you asked. "You have a game? In the dark?"

"Uh," Jay blanched. He couldn't exactly tell his little, very talkative sister, that he was sneaking out to go to a party. "Let's get you some juice."

"Okay!"

Jay got you some juice and started to take your hand to walk you back to your room and tuck you back in when you turned to look at him. "So you going to play soccer? Or you going to see Allie?" He always wore those kinds of shirts when she came over in one of her really fancy dresses. And, Jay would give Allie a flower bracelet, too!

Jay crouched down so he was eye-level with you. "Y/N, you know what a secret is?"

"Yeah! It's when you can't tell somethin' to somebody. Mommy said secrets are bad," you told him, while you swung Beary back and forth in your little hand.

"Well, they're not all bad," he told you. "So, if I told you a secret, you'd be able to keep it?"

"And not tell Mommy or Daddy?" He nodded. "I dunno. I don't wanna get in trouble and have to go in time-out, Jay Jay."

"You won't get in trouble, I promise. And, if you promise not to tell Mommy and Daddy and Will, I'll get you a big pack of Oreos."

"I get Oreos for not telling Mommy and Daddy and Will?"

"Yes, you get Oreos if you don't tell them."

You'd do just about anything for Oreos!

"Okay, I keep it a secret. Where you going?"

"I am going to a friend's house to hang out."

"Okay." You didn't know what was so bad about that, but you wanted to get your Oreos, so you'd keep your mouth shut.

"Alrighty then, let's get you back to bed. Because, if I'm not mistaken, princesses need their beauty sleep."

He tucked you back into bed and got out of the house safely. Now all Jay had to do was to entrust you with the secret that he had snuck and went to a "friend's house", which was code for going to a party.

You had almost fallen back asleep when your door creaked open.

"Y/N," Will whispered.

"Will?"

"Yeah, it's Will," he answered and flicked on your bedside lamp.

"Were you talking to Jay a few minutes ago?"

"No," you lied. You wanted your Oreos!

"Are you sure about that? Because I could've sworn I heard you say Jay Jay."

"You wrong," you told him defiantly.

"Oh yeah? Because I heard him mention Oreos."

"No, no Oreos. He only got me juice."

"So you did talk to him."

"No, I didn't."

"Then who got you the juice?" Will knew you couldn't pour yourself a glass of juice without spilling it everywhere. He also knew that the glasses were up high enough in the cupboard that you needed someone else to reach them for you.

"Uh, uh, the-the juice fairy!"

"The juice fairy, huh? I've never heard of her. Because I could've sworn I heard you ask him if he was going to play soccer and he told you that he was going to a friend's house."

"No, he didn't!" you protested.

"Tell you what, kiddo, if you tell me where Jay went, I will give you Oreos, too."

You furrowed your eyebrows. Will was gonna give you the same thing and Jay might be mad at you. You needed something more. "Oreos and Sour Patch."

"Deal. Sour Patch Kids or watermelons?"

"Kids," you answered.

"Okay, it's a deal. Now, where is Jay going?"

"He went to a friend's house. But he was wearing one of those shirts he wears when he has to go to other schools for soccer," you answered.

"He's going to a party," Will muttered.

"A party? Like my tea parties?"

"Something like that." Where the tea is beer, Will thought to himself. "But, now you have to wait for Jay to give you your Oreos, and then I'll give you your Sour Patch Kids and Oreos."

"Then I have two Oreos?"

"Exactly. Now, time to go back to sleep."

The next day, Jay gave you a family sized-pack of Oreos that you hid in your room. The day after that, Will came home from studying at the library with a family-sized pack of Oreos and a big bag of Sour Patch Kids for you that you also ended up hiding in your room. And, that night at dinner, Will told your parents that Jay had gone to a party. He was grounded until the end of soccer season. But, Will had successfully taught you how to blackmail someone.

"Y/N." Erin's voice broke through your memories of being a little kid and being taught blackmail by your oldest brother. "I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that?"

"W-What if Will-- What if he gets the--"

"Y/N, match my breathing."

She took a deep breath in and you tried to follow. It took a few tries, but your breathing eventually evened out and returned to normal.

"Will," you heard Jay say.

Before you could even think, you had jumped off your chair and were barrelling towards Jay. "Will? You're talking to Will? Is he okay? Is he gonna come out soon?"

"Y/N," Jay spoke calmly, "we just need to ask him some medical questions. Go back to where you were."

"Is he okay?"

"Y/N's here?" Will asked from his spot in the ED. "Why? How?"

"It's a long story. But, I'm gonna put you on speaker so that you can tell her that you're okay and then I need you to answer some questions."

Jay put the phone on speaker.

"I'm fine, kiddo. Really. You wouldn't want to see me right now anyway. You wouldn't want to come in here either because it smells really bad."

"You promise you're fine?"

"I promise. Now, I think I need to answer some questions?"

"Yeah, yeah," you heard Jay say as you walked back towards Erin. It was quiet in there now, as everyone was listening intently to what Will was saying.

Apparently, Antonio and Voight had looked up where this psycho worked and had figured out that he was the same guy who had walked into the high school's office earlier that day, which he probably did for a distraction. Now, they just had Will on the other end telling the infectious disease specialist in the ED all the chemicals that he had been working with so that she could test for them.

***

"Jay! Why'd you turn off your hotspot?" you whined as you pulled up google.

"Because you heard the bacteria and the strain and I know you. I am not letting you go down a google rabbit hole to look this up and try and figure out if Will's gonna die."

You sighed and put your head in your hands. Jay was right, of course, he was right, he's a detective for crying out loud!

"But what if Will's gonna die?"

"Y/N." Jay walked up to you. "He's not gonna die. He's gonna be just fine."

"But you don't know that!"

Jay's phone rang. "It's Will."

"Put it on speaker."

"It's not contagious," Will said.

If you weren't sitting down, you would've fallen to the ground in pure relief.

"So, you're good?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Everyone's good. Whatever he had, it died with him. I've got some patients that need work, but I'll be out soon."

***

Everyone from the hospital, the police, and the firefighters were all currently packed into Mama Garcia's. You, Will, and Jay had snagged a booth because your backpack and homework were still there from earlier.

"That's one good thing about being the middle child I guess," Jay stated after he had taken a bite of a tamale. "Not having to be the victim in one of these bomb situations."

You knew he meant, here, today, in Chicago and not overseas. And, you weren't about to wreck his joke by mentioning that.

"Yeah, but you had to work it," Will pointed out.

"Technically, you did, too, man. I think Y/N was the only one who got out of this without a payday."

Jay's phone rang. "Why's Dad calling me?" His eyes went wide. "Oh shit! I didn't tell him that I picked you up from practice." He threw his phone to Will, who narrowly caught it. "You talk to him!"

"Me? Why me?"

"Because he likes you better!"

"But he's calling you!"

You swiped the phone from Will's hand and answered it. "Jay? Do you know where Y/N is? I came home from work and--"

"Dad, it's Y/N. I'm fine. Jay picked me up from practice and I'm assuming you got a phone call about what happened at school and then he had to go to Med to work that case."

"Med? As in Chicago Med? Where Will just started working?"

"Yes, Dad, Chicago Med. And, we're fine. We're just a Mama Garcia's getting dinner."

"It's ten o'clock at night!"

"I know, and we should be home soon. I promise I won't complain about getting up in the morning."

"Okay, well, I'm glad you three are safe. Just next time, tell Jay to call me."

"Okay, Dad. Bye, love you."

"Love you, too."

You hung up the phone and passed it back to Jay. "He didn't disown me, did he?"

You laughed. "No, no he did not."

"Y/N, right?"

You looked up at the sound of your name to be met with a firefighter.

"Yes, and you are...?"

"Matt Casey." He stuck out his hand for you to shake and you did so. Despite hearing about him, you'd never actually met the lieutenant. "Chief Boden mentioned that you were the one who ran down to Med with all those extinguishers."

"Oh, it was no big deal," you told him shyly. "They're actually Mama Garcia's. I just heard you needed them, so I asked if I could run them over to you guys. It's her you should be thanking."

"Well, you played a big part in that. So, if you want a dessert, on behalf of me and all the guys at 51, it's on me tonight."

He handed you a ten-dollar bill. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. You made up for your brother almost black-tagging Severide."

"You did what?" Jay practically yelled.

As for you, you had no idea what they were talking about. "What? What's black-tagging?"

"You know what? Never mind," Casey said. "Thanks for all your help today, you guys."

"You were the ones who got them extra fire extinguishers?" Will asked, flabbergasted after Casey walked away.

"Yeah. Jay here wasn't too happy about seeing me over there, but when I told him why he calmed down a bit."

Erin slid into the booth next to Jay and he gave her a kiss.

"Ew, guys! Child in the room!"

Jay stuck his tongue out at you.

"I think he's the child in the room, Y/N," Erin said as she thumbed at Jay.

"So, Y/N, anything else interesting happen today? How'd you do on that math homework I helped you with last night?" Will asked.

"I did really well on it, but that's not even the craziest thing that happened at school today."

"Oh, yeah? Then what was?"

Oh man," you sighed. "Where do I begin? I think to tell you that story I'm gonna need to go get me some Flan."

You picked up the ten-dollar bill Casey had given you and slid out of the booth. If someone would've told you that you'd be buying Flan at Mama Garcia's at ten o'clock at night on a school night, you wouldn't believe them, but it would be plausible at least. The rest of the day? Well, you weren't sure that anyone would believe that you and Jay had been at the location of not one, but two bomb threats in the span of a few hours.

Once you got your Flan, you settled back into the booth. "So, it started out like any normal practice except we had to go to the high school to use the track..."

A/N: Guess who cranked out more than 5k words to get this finished today? That's right, me! Anyway, thank you for almost 8k reads! I know this technically wasn't a PD episode (It was Chicago Fire Season 3 Ep 19), but it had both Will and Jay, and the timeline made it so that it was season 2 of PD, so I thought it was fitting. Finally, please reblog/like and comment and tell me what you think about this one!

If you’re in the taglist, please tell me if it worked, I’m new at this!

taglist: @theambracer88 @virtualreader @kelelas-life @celyndavies @brookerz122493 @musicismyescape27 @anotherfan07 @thexplosivegirl @dreamingwithlens @xoxmariaxox

#chicago pd #chicago med #jay halstead #will halstead #halstead brothers #halstead bros #halstead sister #jay halstead imagine #will halstead imagine #halstead brothers imagine #chicago pd imagine #chicago med imagine #fancfic #fanfiction #writing #imagine

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navegandoaciegas · 4 years

Text

no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: catholic priest!Bucky, virgin!Bucky, desecrating thoughts and actions, explicit language, smut, consensual sexual acts, mentions of loss of virginity, slight innocence and religious kinks (nothing disturbing), oral sex, fingering, masturbation, sex in a public (and sacred) place.

Summary: As punishment for your sinful behavior, your parents send you to your aunt’s house in the middle of nowhere, in hope you’ll redeem yourself. The punishment quickly backfires when you take an interest in the local (and handsome) priest, and you manage to corrupt his pure soul.

A/N: I was in a priest!Bucky mood this morning and I wrote this for @saiyanprincessswanie writing challenge. I chose prompt 17 and the ‘opposites attract’ trope. I hope you like this!

Filth and happy ending ‘cause I’m a sap. Take me to church by Hozier inspired this.

This is not a dark story and both reader and Bucky are consenting adults. Fyi, catholic priests can’t marry, and they change their name when they are ordained. We’ll pretend James is the name he took as priest.

You look over your shoulder to check if anyone’s around and knock on the backdoor of the church, waiting for your lover to usher you inside. The sinful secrecy of it all, the rush of excitement, your love for all that’s forbidden: you’ve never felt more alive.

Being forced to spend the summer in the middle of nowhere is not the way you expected your senior year of college to end, but not all evil comes to harm, and in this quiet little town, you’ve become quite interested in the local priest. In your defence, boredom is the root of all evil, and in your case, evil happens to make you horny and prone to making bad decisions, and Father James is young and handsome, so it was only a matter of time before he gave in the temptation of the flesh and you found yourself fucked against the altar.

Ordained or not, he’s only a man after all.

The confessional is dark and suffocating; behind the wooden screen, the priest is all ears.

Muscle memory kicks in when you do the sign of the cross and begin to speak.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” you recite the formula that’s been ingrained in your mind since you were old enough to need it, “My last confession was seven years ago.”

You mentally curse your parents for still having the authority to send you to Bumfuck Nowhere, Alabama, and your aunt for forcing you to attend church and confess your sins.

It will be good for your soul, they said, New York is corrupting you.

You suppose it’s only fair that your good catholic parents would react so drastically; they wanted to surprise you in your new apartment and drove all the way from Rhode Island to New York, only to find your piano tutor buried balls deep inside of you. Lord knows what they’d do if they knew you’ve lost your purity long before that, with one of the good catholic girls in your private boarding school. Extramarital sex, with a woman at that! They’d probably have a meltdown, drag your to a cloistered convent and lock you there for life.

You don’t wait for the priest to acknowledge you and start talking.

“You know Father, I found a handy dandy little list of all the sins you’re supposed to confess to and I checked them. I’ll read it to you. Let’s see.” you clear your throat, “So, I use artificial birth control, I broke a couple of promises, including the one to wait for marriage, I can be kind of blasphemous sometimes, but you see, I spent six months abroad in Italy last year and the kids there taught me all sorts of ways to disrespect the Lord, they have so many, and once those things get stuck in your brain... what can you do, they just stick in there, you don’t even want to say them but they become part of your vocabulary.” you continue uninterrupted, “Anyways, my parents caught me in the act with a man, so I guess we have ‘dishonoring family’ too. Underage drinking as a kid, a lot of that. Drugs sometimes, nothing major, ya know, I don’t do coke or nothing. Gossiping, impure thoughts, God-”

He interrupts you clearing his throat.

“Sorry. See? I don’t even do it on purpose. As I was saying, I love those. Lying... not a whole lot to be honest; to my parents, mostly. Haven’t prayed in a good 10 years. Masturbation, did I mention that? Watched porn a couple of times, ‘m not a big fan if I’m being honest, but to each their own. Oh, and premarital sex, a ton of that. Had an orgy once, not too fond of those either. Too many limbs.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, so you give him a moment to ponder his thoughts. He stays silent for a while, and when he speaks his voice is not at all what you expected it to be. He’s soft spoken yet commanding, and sounds surprisingly young.

“Anything else you can remember?”

“Well of course, the cherry on top, my own first class ticket to hell.” you say, not as cheerful as before, repeating the exact words you’ve been taught for years, “God gave me free will and I used it to commit homosexual acts, Father. Multiple times.”

You let the words hang in the stuffy air of the confessional; you don’t know what to expect from the priest, to be honest. Last time you admitted to thinking of a girl to a religious figure, Sister Theresa told you you’d never have to act on your impulses, or you’d burn in hell for it. You were 12.

“You think that’s worse than the rest?”

“Not me, no, I don’t.”

He hums thoughtfully. “What makes you do the things you do?” he asks, and you don’t feel any of the judgment you were expecting, only genuine curiosity.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me to repent for my sins?” you reply, equally as curious.

“Is absolution what you’re seeking?”

You snort, shaking your head. “I’m not looking for forgiveness, Father, and I’m way past asking for permission.”

“Then why are you here?”

“My aunt forced me.”

It’s his turn to snort this time. “You don’t seem the type to follow orders blindly.”

You admit the guy’s got a point. “I guess… I don’t know. I felt the need to. It feels nice, talking to someone. I feel lonely a lot, and it’s easier to talk to strangers. And this is cheaper than therapy, so that’s a bonus. Really, I just need to vent.”

“Do you regret any of your choices?” he says, after a while.

“Not the ones I confessed to.” you admit, trying to discern the priest’s figure behind the screen.

“What is it, then?”

“You know, you’re kinda chill for a priest from Alabama, I gotta give it to you.” you respond, dodging his question.

“Thanks, it’s probably because I’m from Brooklyn.”

“What the hell-”

“Language.”

“Sorry. Why would someone move from Brooklyn to this place?”

“Vocation.”

“I see.”

It’s silent again, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.

“You should come to the parish sometimes. We have meetings, we sing, we eat together, the children play football and the young adults talk about what it means to be a Catholic in the modern world. It may ease your mind about a lot of worries and misconceptions you might have.”

You contemplate on his words: it wouldn’t hurt, would it? It’s not like you’ve got a whole lot going on here; and you might as well find yourself a devoted man or woman to pass time.

“I might.”, you finally respond, not willing to give him the satisfaction, and stand from the chair. “I’ll see you around, Father.”

“May God give you peace, miss.”

“Amen.”

“What took you so long?” James asks, grunting when you pull on his hair.

“My aunt asked me to make lunch for her husband, as if he couldn’t do it his damn self.” you respond, and suck on his bottom lip, “Missed me?”

“Always.”

You coo, “My eager boy.”

He’s sitting on his office chair and you’re straddling his lap, grinding your hips on him and feeling his arousal grow. You’re burning up, panties damp and a familiar coil in your core. You don’t know what excites you the most: being responsible for the corruption of such pure soul, the forbidden aspect of fucking a Catholic priest, or the possibility of someone walking in on you. Your walls flutter when you imagine the scandal that this affair would create.

You pull him closer, tugging on his white collar, and he breaks the kiss. His eyes are black and glossed over, lips swollen, cheeks red, but there’s something like worry in eyes.

“Do you love me?” he asks quietly, in the soft voice you adore.

“Of course I do, you know that.”

You fall on your knees and fumble with the zipper of his black pants.

“Would you love me if I didn’t have this collar?” he stops your hands with his, “Would you still love me if I wasn’t this?”, he gestures to his sacred attire.

You pause your actions and search his eyes. Where is this coming from?

“Yes, I’d love you anyways, I’ll always love you.”

A small, shy smile breaks on his face. He lifts you up and makes you sit on his desk.

“I- I w-want to try something,” he begins with a stutter, “I remember hearing some kids back when I was in school talk about it.”

You cock your head to the side, observing carefully as he sits back down on the chair and parts your legs. He lowers his head and begins peppering the inner skin of your thighs with open mouthed kisses. Oh-.

“James, you don’t have to do this.” you try to tell him, but he’s already moving your panties to the side.

He stares entranced between your legs; he’s never been this bold, never watched you there. “You’re so pretty, I want to kiss you here.”

You feel a finger tease your entrance and dip in. Every nerve ending in your body is on fire, and when he licks a strip of your dripping cunt, you feel like you could burst. He delves in your glistening folds, tongue swirling around as if he was kissing your mouth, and your hips jerk forward when he crooks a couple of fingers inside you, hitting that sweet spot that makes the coil in your belly grow tighter.

You throw your head back and your eyes fall on the cross behind you. You are very much past forgiveness at this point, you muse, and that makes this all the more exciting.

You’re writhing under his touch, completely at his mercy. You grab the back of his neck and bring his face upward so that his mouth comes in contact with your clit.

“Suck there.” you demand in a raspy voice, rocking your hips and fucking yourself on his fingers. “Good boy.” you praise when he closes his mouth around your bud and begins sucking and lapping on it. “Yes, oh my God, fuck, faster.”

James obeys and jerks the fingers inside of you, the vibration and his tongue enough to make the knot in your core unravel and pleasure release in jolts, shooting from your center to the rest of your body; you slap a hand on your mouth to suppress wanton moans as your hips twitch involuntarily and your toes curl. He rides you though your orgasm until you’re too sensitive to handle his face on you.

When you look down, you find him, face wet in your arousal, eyes half lidded.

“Did I do well?” he asks full of hope, still clinging to your legs and nuzzling your thigh.

“You did amazing, sweet boy.”

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

Hearing your sultry voice, he chokes on air behind the screen and clears his throat, trying to keep the same composure he always seems to loose when you’re around.

“I got friendly with a man, you see, a man of church.” you begin in a teasing tone, “He kissed me, and I didn’t pull back. I let him roam his hands all over my body, Father, and then I corrupted him.”, You lick a couple of fingers and dip them in your mouth, then you release them with a popping sound and slowly slip them in your panties. You push a finger in your already wet core, smearing arousal around and teasing your clit, slow at first. “You should have seen how innocent he looked, Father. He said he’s never been touched like that. A virgin. I’ve never been with a virgin before.” you continue, almost moaning the last part as you slide three fingers in and out of you and tease your bud with your thumb, “He didn’t even know I could please him with my mouth, so I took him in and I sucked him off.” You’re panting, hand furiously circling your clit. You hear Bucky’s ragged breath behind the screen. “He moaned so loud, F-F-Father, he c-came so quick. And I swallowed it all, because you can’t let a single drop of seed g-go to w-waste, can you?” you whimper, feeling an orgasm build up.

You’re fueled by his suppressed grunts and the lewd sounds of him touching himself.

“I don’t come for absolution Father, because I’d do it all again.” you breathe at last, letting pleasure run through your every nerve, setting you ablaze.

Behind the screen, Father James paints his hand and black shirt in white spurts, shame and pleasure fighting eachother in his mind.

You haven’t moved yet, legs parted, trying to catch your breath, and James is still clinging onto you.

You don’t know how it happened.

It started with boredom, with a wish to fuck the pretty priest, but you’ve caught feelings now, and in three weeks you’ll have to get back to New York, where a job and a new apartment await you.

At least your aunt and your parents are happy about your redemption: you’ve been going to church everyday. They don’t need to know you’ve spent most time on your knees or on your back.

But you don’t want to think about it now; you can’t let sadness take over and ruin these moments when James is only yours. Your love is on borrowed time, and you intend to make the most out of it.

“Do you want to fuck me, my love? You want me to come all over your pretty cock, yes? You want to fill me up with your cum?” you whisper in his ear, amused at the way he blushes.

“Please.” he whines, palming his cock through his briefs.

“Please what, sweet boy?”

“Please let me-” he interrupts himself.

“Let me what?”

He mumbles something incomprehensible.

“Can’t hear you.” you tease him, grabbing his chin and tilting his face up.

“Let me make love to you.”

You let out a chuckle and shake your head fondly. This man has had you bent over his desk, in the confessional, behind the altar, on the benches where the devoted Catholics of this town attend mass, and yet he can’t bring himself to talk crudely.

You pull on his hair so he stands, and you kiss him ravenously, letting your hands roam over his lean body, the taste of his lips permanently etched in the back of your mind. You don’t want to forget a thing, so you commit to mind each of his little noises, the way his tongue swirls around yours, the soft caresses of his hands.

Clothes discarded in a blur, the room is filled with your moan and his grunts. He pounds into you like a desperate man, clinging onto you with a bruising touch, holding you impossibly close as if you were about to slip through his fingers. And in a way, you are.

When James makes love to you the world disappears and there’s no judgement, no church. He’s not a priest, you’re not a sinner; he’s not pure, you’re not sick.

It’s just you and him, united in one body. Just a man and a woman being one in the flesh.

His thrusts become sloppier, his breathing labored. He brings a hand on your clit and presses on it. He comes inside of you, painting your walls, and the feeling of his swollen cock inside you and his cum filling you up are enough to trigger your release too, your walls clenching on him and milking every last drop.

You’re exhausted, panting in each other’s embrace.

There’s no sin when you’re like this; you’re no longer the devil to his holy water.

There’s only love.

James’ desk in his office is dark and wide, with mahogany panels on all three sides except the one he sits at. So when Ms. Lee, the adorable elderly lady that organizes the monthly fundraising events for charity, knocks on the door as you’re bouncing on James’ cock, all you have to do is crouch down and disappear under the table.

“Good evening, Father James.” She greets him cheerfully.

You hear the tapping of her heels until she plops down on the guests chair.

“Good evening, Ms. Lee.” he responds in a strained voice, adjusting himself on the chair.

Ms. Lee speaks a lot. She’s talking James’ ear off, blabbering about the next charity event, and you think what better occasion than this one to be an indecent slut.

You slowly massage his thighs, bringing your hands from his knees to his groin, teasing him when you get close to his crotch and retracting.

You watch as his cock swells in front of you, and you bite back a giggle. You hear him suck in a breath when you start pumping his length with both your hands.

“Are you alright, James? You’re looking a little worse for wear.” Ms. Lee asks him worriedly when she sees her priest red and sweaty.

James clears his throat and when he’s about to open his mouth, you lick a strip from base to his leaking tip, and the noise that escapes him is between a moan and a grunt.

“Y-yes, Ms. Lee, I’m fine. Just some food poisoning I think.” he manages to answer, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Poor thing.” she coos, and you take his cock in your mouth, swirling your tongue around, sucking on the frail skin of under the tip, “Anyways-” she begins again.

James tries to keep his composure, but you sense his distress, and you imagine it must be written all over his face. One hand massages his balls, the other aids your movements as you bob your head up and down, careful not to make a noise. His legs twitch under the table when you push his cock all the way down to your throat, and he makes a strangled noise.

“Sweetie, are you sure you’re fine? You really don’t look like it.” Ms. Lee interjects again, interrupting her story.

“I’m fine ma’am, don’t worry about me.”, he says through gritted teeth, jaw clenched shut so hard he might break his teeth.

You give it all you’ve got until your jaw is aching and your knees are killing you. Your effort pays off when, with one last motion on your hands, James grunts and cums in your throat, hips jerking forward and legs shaking.

He comes so hard that you choke on his release.

“Did you hear it too?” she asks in alert.

“He-hear wh-what?” he stutters, pretending to cough to hide your noises.

“A choking sound?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that, just my cough.” he answers, red faced and spent.

“I guess…” she doesn’t sound convinced but lets it go anyways. She could never imagine her sweet priest is getting blown by a city whore under his desk, “I’ll get going then, but please get some rest Father, your holy duties can wait.”

They can indeed, you think, as James yanks you from underneath the table and bends you over the desk, fucking you until you’re crying.

“What makes you do the things you do?” he’s playing with your hair as he asks the question that’s been plaguing him for months, since that first time in the confessional.

You’re in a motel somewhere, two hours away from your town, laying on a bed like two lovers. In this room, you’re not a dirty little secret.

What excited you before, suffocates you now.

You thought you may only like the forbidden, but you find yourself at peace in his arms, that peace you’ve yearned for for 22 years, that peace you could never find, because people like you are born sick, that’s what you’ve been told your whole life.

“If I tell you, will you absolve me?” you ask, basking in his affection.

James is so sweet, so caring. You wish this moment could last forever.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, my love. I’ve sinned too much myself.”

“My bad.” you giggle.

Silence falls on you, and you hum in though, pondering your next words very carefully.

“I don’t do them for any reasons, other than they feel good. It feels good to drink, to smoke, to fuck you, to suck your cock.”, you say, and he blushes in embarrassment, “Or maybe I never got over my teenage phase and I just like doing all the things my parents always told me not to do, who knows. Trauma? Maybe. Spite? Quite possibly. I don’t even know at this point.”

He nods slowly.

He wishes you could see yourself through his eyes, see how perfect you are. In his heart, there’s only love for you, in his mind, no more conflict.

“I do them for you.” he answers, and you smile at him, “And for myself, I guess. I thought I had found my way, but maybe I was wrong.”

You turn to look at him, and bop his nose.

“I’ll always love you, no matter what choice you make. I’ll wait for you if you ask me to.”

But his choice has been made already.

He doesn’t deserve his collar, but hopefully he deserves you.

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