#i miss them so much... i feel emotional about them on a routinely basis
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memories better left forgotten
i was emotionally groveling over how phos and shinsha's last moments together were tainted with anguish and sorrow... 🙂 i think it's interesting to see the progressive shift in shinsha's confidence, indicating how much their resolve grew since their first encounter with phos.
out of the two, shinsha is the only one who remembers their promise and the extent of its deep significance. between letting go of the notebook and crushing the mercury-formed figure of young phos, it felt like shinsha forcibly wanted to distance their old feelings for phos, at least the memory of the version who actively wanted to save them in the first place, in order to protect adamant.
nevertheless, i'd like to think shinsha's efforts didn't fall through considering how clearly they could recall their gratefulness to phos since the last few centuries the promise was made until the very end. ^_T
#houseki no kuni#hnk#phosphophyllite#cinnabar#cinnaphos#chapter 92 was released in 2020 isn't that crazy?#feels like these scenes were burned into my brain just yesterday#i miss them so much... i feel emotional about them on a routinely basis#pemprika#hnk spoilers#hnk 92
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Saga of Solitude 2/?
Nepo!Baby Bradley and his life at USNA and afterwards. DADT fully in force. Hangster AU. (Begun prior to 'It's not who you know' - the non-angsty version).
PROLOGUE (He remembers) HANGSTER FIRST MEETING (Lonely Nights) Updating irregularly. This is a SLOW BURN
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
2001
He walks across the stage at his graduation and he feels buoyed up as he hears the cheers, can hear Mav absolutely losing it, egged on by the high pitched squeals of Tamsin and Petra and when he’s engulfed in the warm embrace of his family he does his best to ignore the fact that he might not get this when he graduates from the USNA. And he will graduate, that’s not in question in his mind. But whether he will allow both Mav and Ice to attend, whether they will even be in the country. It’s all unknown with it being so far away.
That said they’ve decided that Sarah and the girls will drop him off at USNA, they’re still his family and no-one will look sideways at them being there. He knows Mav could technically drop him off, that no one going into Plebe summer would know who he was, at least not yet. But he doesn’t want there to be talk about him having connections, even if it’s true multiple times over. If he’s going to make friends he wants them to be people who genuinely like him, rather than the potential benefits of being his friend. Not that he thinks there are any. Not yet.
Ice and Mav have been riding him hard the last few months, training with him and running, swimming, weights and he hadn’t wanted to let guys over twenty years his senior put him to shame. But they had the first couple of weeks, their endurance just out-stripping him. Not anymore though, he’s improved remarkably, the routine becoming almost comfortable and Ice had begun slapping him on the back and telling him that he maybe might have a chance of enjoying Plebe Summer rather than wishing for a swift and painless death on a daily basis.
The most exciting thing he gets is an almost new Audi, which Ice then promptly tells him he can’t take to USNA anyway. But its highly safety rated and he gives Mav a raised eyebrow at that, because Mav still rides his bike around with no helmet and probably always will. But he’s going to insist Bradley drive a car that is rated for maximum safety for front and passenger side crashes. Apparently, he trusts Bradley, but not everyone else on the road. Bradley doesn’t point out that Mav himself is one of the other people on the road.
They say goodbye at the airport, none of them in uniform yet with the fact that they’re going a couple of days early. Tamsin and Petra are just as excited about the flight as Bradley, although they’re running circles around them and he occasionally reaches out to throw one or the other up into the air, their delighted giggles making him grin. He wants to start this journey already, wants to make Mav and Ice proud. But he’s going to miss seeing Tamsin and Petra grow up and if he’s going to have regrets about anything, it’s that.
“We would like a short phone call every Saturday. Doesn’t need to be longer than a couple of minutes, but we do want to talk to you. Obviously only works when I’m in the country.”
“Of course. And I’ll write letters as well. When I have time,” Bradley offers, because Ice has reiterated over and over how exhausting the first year is. “Can I call you as well?” Bradley asks, turning to Sarah, and his anxiousness must show on his face.
“Oh honey, of course you can. We’d all love to talk to you. You won’t get a word in edgeways if it’s one of these two hellions you wanted to talk to though…”
“That’s okay, I might not be much of a conversationalist anyway…”
The call for their flight comes and he hugs Mav and Ice tightly, throat tight with emotion as he realizes it’s going to be months before he sees them again.
“I’m proud of you. Keep your nose clean okay?” Ice says.
“Of course. Always.”
“Don’t forget to have fun,” Mav says.
“Not too much fun,” Ice instantly adds and Mav is rolling his eyes, throws him a wink and god he’s going to miss them so much.
The flight is exhausting, keeping Petra and Tamsin entertained a fulltime task and he’s glad the flight isn’t any longer. They got a couple of rooms booked at a Motel and he falls into his bed, determined to enjoy a solid night’s sleep. Over the next couple of days they do some touristy things, although the number of playgrounds and parks they visit is probably higher, what with Tamsin and Petra getting bored quickly with anything that requires even a small modicum of reading. It’s fine though, he’ll have liberty leave and can come to the museums and stuff if he wants to.
When they drop him off for his first day, his bags all packed and dressed in his uniform Tamsin has made the connection that he’s not coming home with them and is inconsolable, tears streaming down her face and he finds it heartbreaking that she’s so upset to say goodbye to him. He promises to draw her some pictures and post them, that they’ll talk on the phone and he has to trust Sarah when she says she’ll be fine. He waves good bye and goes to start the rest of his life.
… … …
As the days fly past he’s so glad he was forced into the training regime that Ice and Mav planned out, because while he’s still pushed past his personal limits his recovery time is much shorter, he knows how much food he needs to eat and how to deal with the yelling and sleep depravation exercises. God, Ice really didn’t exaggerate when he said it was going to be hard. He knows the orders inside out, when asked about his family he doesn’t hesitate to say his father was a naval aviator, a RIO who died in a training exercise in 1986. It does generally stop follow-up questions, but he suspects that some of the teachers know who he is, know that Maverick is listed as his emergency contact. He doesn’t ever bring it up.
He writes more letters than he thought he would, the phones difficult to use except for the brief few minutes he makes a concerted effort every Saturday. However the time he doesn’t have to use memorizing orders coming in handy and he draws pictures for Tamsin and Petra and writes letters, addressing them to where Mav is deployed. Bradley doesn’t make close friends, he does make friends though, lots and lots of friends. Remembers their birthdays, makes little notes of things they tell him, asks follow up questions about their families and helps them out where and when he can.
He doesn’t share much information about himself though, keeps it close to his chest. It’s maybe a little paranoid but it’s not just him on the line, but Mav and Ice. When pressed he mentions his step-father Pete, how he married his mom after his dad died. When he mentions his mom dying is usually when people either start to look like they seriously regret asking, or they look like they pity him and he doesn’t know which he dislikes the most. He is asked about the photo he keeps by his bed, of Tamsin and Petra and he simply explains that they’re his step-siblings. It all makes sense in his head, knows he can keep all of that straight in his head as none of it is a lie. He knows people are probably making assumption about Pete marrying Sarah, but he’s never said anything about that.
The seven weeks of Plebe Summer come to an end and then he’s preparing for his plebe year, picking the academic classes which he will undertake alongside the physical activities required at the Academy. He’s flying home for a short break of one week, Maverick is on deployment, so he expects Ice or Sarah at the airport to pick him up. The fact that they’re all there makes his hurt from smiling so much and he goes home with Ice, squishes himself into the backseat because Tamsin won’t let go of his hand.
He goes back to USNA feeling revitalized after spending time with them, and of course there’s one upper classman who seems to have it out for him, and Bradley is careful to remain respectful, but he also won’t let himself be a doormat. He knows his own worth, even if this one guy is constantly trying to find fault with him and snipe him. He does his best to ignore it, knows that a little of this is part and parcel of the entire experience, but it doesn’t mean he likes it.
Then September 11th happens and his immediate thought goes to Mav, somewhere on deployment somewhere near the Middle East, and he feels awful, immediately thinking of his own family before the hundreds or thousands of innocent people who are now dead. They’re given very little information, however he does receive an envelope with the mail two days later, no stamp or postmark and it’s simply They’re both alive and well. Uncle Sli. He breathes out and the tension in his shoulders lessens immediately. Slider isn’t someone he sees a lot of, but he’d recognize him and is so grateful for the message.
He’s not stupid, knows that they’re all now in the military, that there are plenty of risks day-to-day associated with that. However looking at the potential start of World War Three is different when he knows Mav is one of the best fighter pilots that the Navy currently has. He’s just going to have to learn to compartmentalize now and ignore his feelings, the worry about where he is and when he will next see him. Plebe Year continues, and there is a shift in the intensity of some of the people, knowing that active combat suddenly feels much closer to home.
He chooses to stay on campus through the holiday break, along with a handful of others. He’s thankful all his family are alive and well, but going home to houses devoid of both Maverick and Ice makes him want to stay where he is, because he’s used to not seeing them around here. Word has gotten around that both his parents are dead, so no one asks him awkward questions about why he’s not going home. He’s the only Plebe who has stayed.
His New Year’s Eve is vastly different than the previous year, when he’d been celebrating with his high school friends, or even the year before sitting on the sofa with Ice as they watched the ball drop. This year he lies in his dorm bed and listens to the fireworks outside, rolls over and simply tries to sleep. He’d had liberty leave, but he’s underage, clearly military and the risks far outweigh any rewards from doing something, anything, for New Year’s Eve. So staying in and sleeping it is. This is only one year of the many ahead of him.
… … …
Spring semester starts up and it’s routine. The academic classes along with the exercises and naval classes. He continues writing letters, making Saturday afternoon phone calls and hangs out with the other Plebes, some of them he’d even class as friends, and damned Ice, he was right about him making friends despite trying to be stand offish and taciturn about his background. They don’t seem to care that he doesn’t talk about his family much, which he guesses is nice, and when a couple of them invite him to their place for summer he mention going home to his step-father and he gets a couple of raised eyebrows.
“I love my step-father. And my step-siblings. I’ll spend the few weeks of summer with them.”
“But you didn’t go at Christmas.”
“Pete was out of the country for work and Sarah is Jewish, so I just, stayed here,” Bradley offers and once again he ignores the slightly pitying looks from the others in the wider circle who are listening in, but the two different Plebes that had invited him to their homes for summer nod with more understanding and he wonders if he’s now going to get invites for every time they have liberty leave or parent-weekends, or fuck, even their next Christmas break.
So his first year comes to an end and he finishes in the top two-percent of the class. He watches the Firsts graduate and knows that’s going to be him in another three years. Then Uncle Slider is there, along with Wolfman and Hollywood and he knows it’s a compromise of sorts, Ice and Maverick staying away. How he’s going to explain these three talking to him he had no idea, but finds he doesn’t need to.
“They flew with your old man huh?”
“What?”
“Those guys that were talking to you, they all looked proud of you, but also a little sad.”
“Yeah. Yeah they flew with my dad. They were in the same Top Gun class as him. And I guess they wish my dad was here to see me…” Bradley says, realizing the truth of it, because not only is his dad not able to be here, but neither Maverick or Ice are here either. None of the men he considers father figures, and he knows that Slider at least knows about Ice and Mav’s relationship.
They had seemed a little melancholic when they’d been talking to him, unlike Ice and Mav who have probably worked through the fact that his parents will miss all his milestones the people who see him less often probably focus on it a lot more. He’s grateful suddenly that Mav doesn’t seem to dwell on it, is gleefully proud of him from a distance and Bradley is left in no doubt of that fact. The same for Ice. God he’s looking forward to seeing them both in person though, doesn’t want to go an entire year again without seeing them, but also knows it’s been a good test, for future deployments when he has to be even further away from them all.
… … …
“God I want to be there so badly…”
“We’ll be there for his final year graduation, even if it’s purely formal. He’s not alone…”
“I know, I know, it just… I’ve missed him so much. Coming home and him not being here. God Ice, it’s like I’m missing a piece of myself.”
“He was going to grow up and move out eventually…”
“I know. God. I know. I just feel like it’s gone by so fast. I still remember him being this little toddler who could barely walk…”
“If you couldn’t remember it I’d be worried about you.”
“Shut up, you know what I mean. It’s the fact that this toddler is now on the other side of the country attending boat school and I can’t even visit him…”
“We’ll make it work better next year, figure out some visits, because I don’t think Sarah and the girls have coped overly well either. I do think it was probably for the best though, think he will feel incredibly settled going forward. He’s done very well, he’s got people watching him already, and not all of them know about his connections or background.”
“He’s impressive all on his own, he doesn’t fucking need any connections!”
“Mav, you’re preaching to the converted. He’s gotten through his first year and I’m hoping he’ll let us visit a little incognito for next year’s parent weekend. I could visit formally, although I’d prefer not to.”
“Well, at least we get him home for a few weeks this summer.”
Tom hums, because he’s pulled a few strings to ensure that they all have leave overlapping for the weeks Bradley is back home, and he may have used his eldest daughter’s last summer before she starts school as an excuse and he has no shame in admitting it.
… … …
It’s absolute chaos, Petra’s fourth birthday and his welcome home party all squished into a terrifying combination of a bouncy castle and a group of kids from Petra’s daycare, along with a mom of one of the other kids doing face-painting, which has resulted in him with a rainbow on one cheek and a butterfly on the other. The birthday party is meant to finish around three, early enough that the kids who need naps can still have them.
Petra is not one of them, looking wide awake, apparently impossible to keep shoes on or her long dark hair braided, or even tied back. She’s swinging on the backyard playset, yelling for higher and faster with excited giggles and… She could be Mav’s kid. As much as Tamsin is the spitting image of Ice, Petra looks like Maverick. He looks to Sarah, her hair is brown, eyes also brown, so it’s not impossible that Petra just looks like her more than Ice but…
“Papa! Higher!”
Holy shit.
“She calls Mav papa?” Bradley mutters under his breath, because that’s a new development no-one bothered to mention to him. Mav is already there, pushing her and laughing with her and god, why didn’t they say anything? Maybe he has it wrong? Does he need to know? He wants to know, but he doesn’t need to know.
“Did you just realize?”
Ice has stepped beside him, is nursing a beer and is also watching Petra and Maverick.
“Hmm? Realize what?” Bradley asks, wondering if playing dumb is going to even work right now. Looks from his kid-sisters-slash-cousins back to Ice, and now that he’s looking properly it’s even more obvious that Tamsin is very clearly his daughter through and through just as much as Petra isn’t.
“Did you just realize that Petra is the spitting image of Maverick.”
“I… I’m not imagining it?”
“Nope. They’re even named after each of us. Your Aunt Sarah is a very generous woman, and obviously it’s my name on the birth certificates. But we all know the truth. And now you do too.”
“Holy shit… Tamsin and Petra. That’s really obvious when you know.”
“Hiding in plain sight…” Ice says quietly, taking another sip of his beer.
“Yeah…” Bradley says on an exhale and wonders how old Tamsin and Petra will be when they figure it out.
CHAPTER THREE - 2002
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heya, i have a lil requesting regarding larissa weems x reader BUT before i say, i wanted to tell u i LOVE your work SO friggin much!! <3
anyway, i was wondering if maybe you could write about larissa and the reader just having cute lil moments throughout the day for example:
- holding hands through the halls/corridors
- larissa admiring the reader in general settings eg: whilst at the poe cup, when she’s giving her speech in jericho
- i think it would be really cute if there was a moment where they are just hugging and their foreheads meet?
- and maybe just a super passionate and intense smut scene followed by fluff??
i know this is all like super specific, sorry 😭
Hey darling, I’m so glad you love my work! I love that it is really touching some people’s hearts. It makes my day to hear how my writing makes people feel. And receiving your prompts makes my day.<3
Memories of us | fluff
*Authors note~ This prompt is just so adorable I couldn't help but run to write this it's so cute and I love the idea of it being flashback's maybe that's just me?*
Trigger warnings~ none ?
Prompt~see the ask^^^^
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
Larissa had to go out of town for a conference, and you couldn't help but miss her terribly. You knew it was only a few days, yet you immediately noticed her absence in your daily routines. It's funny how she had quite literally invaded every corner of your brain. There was always something reminding you of the women. You noticed how not seeing her was impacting your mood. The first day you tried to busy yourself in work. Which worked until there was no more work to do. Which is how you ended up on the second night, in her office with a glass of her wine and her blanket draped over your shoulders as you watched the flames complete their game of chase. The flames twisting and flickering away from the other seemed to put you in a trance, you allowed your mind to take you to your happy place. Her.
The first thought was purely a need. You missed how whenever you and Larissa were walking around the school she would tightly intwine her long slender fingers with yours. You would walk the halls hand in hand, the pad of her thumb stroking over the top of your hands to provide comfort that would ease your anxiety. The halls could be crowded and overwhelmingly noisy, all things she knew made you incredibly anxious. Seeing as your main love language was physical touch, yet it wasn't quite appropriate for the headmistress to be all over another teacher, she always found the most intimate yet discreet ways to comfort you. When you would reach your destination she would bring your hand to her lips and kiss it gently before whispering an I love you. It was routine. A daily occurrence. And one you missed dearly, walking the halls the past two days had been overwhelming and you longed to have your protective love back, guiding you through the crowds.
You then thought of how she handled her job so impressively well, anytime you got the chance you would admire her in action. Your favourites were events in the public eye, the Poe cup and even Outreach day, all presented opportunities for you to admire the women from the crowd. You loved how she would clasp her hands together in front of her body as she patiently waited for her turn to talk. And when she spoke you loved how her eyes would sparkle with pure emotions. She truly loved her job and the children at Nevermore, in fact she showed that love and care on a daily basis but there was just something about how she adored showing just how proud she was of each and everyone of them to anyone who will listen. Such a kind heart.
On days like today, where everything was just too much, you adored the quite time you got with her after the school day had ended. The times where you would either find purchase on the sofa and read as she worked on sending important emails before joining you, or the days you'd retire to be earlier just to cuddle. Either scenario would involve a glass of red wine and each others company. The very thing you both craved all the time. If you could you'd allow her to wrap you in her arms and never let go. In these moments one of you would move to kiss the other, desperate to show your love and feel their lips on yours once more. It was frustrating during school hours, she would look utterly kissable and you couldn't do anything about it. The pair of you would only pull back when breathing became necessary. Not wanting to leave the blissful bubble you had created you kept your eyes closed, foreheads resting on each others as your lips turned up into a smile and your hands desperately clawing at each other to keep the other as close as humanly possible.
And those nights where you both would engage in the most delicious form of distressing yourself from the hard day or simply spending hours worshiping each other's beautiful bodies. Your normal role of the submissive and hers of the donme were forgotten on these nights. Nights where you would bring each other to pleasure as you continued to worship them. And at the end of the night you'd be begging for a break, content to snuggle into her arms and sleep the night away. But not before a bath was drawn for the pair of you, Larissa slipping in first and guiding you to lay your exhausted body back on hers. Here she would lovingly wash your body in your favourite bath soap before helping you out of the bath and dressing into comfy sleep wear. Only then would she quickly rush through her nightly routines, eager to have you back in her arms. Once you were both settled her hand would find its way to your back to rub slow soothing circles on, whispering words of praise and love to you, watching as you drifted off to a peaceful slumber knowing you were safe in her arms.
Yeah it was safe to say you missed everything about the women. No one could ever compare to her grace and beauty, but also you could never move from one and another as fiercely as much as you loved Larissa Weems. But it was just two more days before she was home with you. You could do that. Worth every second when you get to see,touch,hear and feel her presence. Just two more days.
Word count~ 1090
#fanfic#larissa weems#wednesday netflix#gwendoline christie#larissa x reader#principal larissa weems#principal larissa weems x reader#larissa weems x reader#anon reply#anon <3#anon answered#anons welcome
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Hello! I find your blog really inspiring and empowering, so I have a question for you. I am a trans girl in her early 20's that haven't started her medical transition yet. I feel like I have a lot of self - respect, as I am quite intelligent and talented. Yet I still suffer greatly with having confidence in my looks and body because of my gender dysphoria. Do you have any tips for how to translate my inner strength and confidence outside of my head until I find a way to start my medical transition?
Hi love! Thank you so much. As a cishet woman, I can't even imagine what it's like to feel mentally misaligned from your physical body every day, so you're extremely strong for working through that on a daily basis and ensuring that you provide yourself with the positive self-esteem and self-talk you deserve. Onto your question, I would say these are some ways you strengthen your relationship with your body and lean into your feminine side:
Refine your personal style. Have fun with the clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and nail colors you wear. Presenting an image to the world (or your mirror at home) that matches up with who you know you are inside can boost your confidence like no other.
Pamper yourself. Create an indulgent skincare, shower, and nighttime routine. Have perfumes, massage oils, satin robes, etc. that allow you to feel your most relaxed and feminine.
Get creative. Dance, journal, sing, write for pleasure, etc. These practices allow you to tap into your feminine side, no question about it.
Create an environment that reflects your feminine side – how you decorate your room/home, stationery, laptop sticks or desk accessories, and dinnerware, home decor, candles, etc.
Engage in activities that could heal the inner young girl in you. Maybe buy a certain doll you wish you could have as a child (or just browse them in a store), read the books you feel you missed out on, or even take something like a ballet class if you feel comfortable/are interested in those sorts of things
Read books, watch movies, and listen to podcasts all created, written, produced, etc. by women.
Indulge in your emotional world and have deep conversations about all different interesting topics with your womanhood friends (cis, trans – you get the deal). Nothing makes me feel closer to my feminity than a good girl chat.
See if you can get a trans-affirming primary care doctor in the meantime to support you through your biological disassociation and to get any expert medical-related suggestions before you're able to get hormone replacement therapy/surgery
Hope this helps
#lgbtq#transgender#gender stuff#femmefatalevibe#self concept#inner child#inner work#feminine energy#q/a
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♡ 𝙰𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽 → 𝚈𝚄𝙰𝙽.
some days are meant to be special. lately, aiden’s days have been dyed in grey monotone.
forced to remain locked up and monitored at all times, with no contact allowed from any living soul aside from the one tasked to guard him—everyday passes by in an inconsistent blur, blending in one after the other slowly. most of the time, he’s left to his own thoughts, a cage far more dangerous than the walls that physically contain him inside a single room. it’s here that he reflects, contemplates, thinks. mostly about his mistakes, the actions he could have taken to avoid the consequences he has to face now. he’d recall the people he had disappointed, begins to assume the worst of reactions, unable to comprehend how he could look them in the eyes once he’s out of here.
and during the night, aiden would remember the boy he dragged down with him—the same one who’s suffering like him, but not with him.
recycled thoughts bounce around within the confines of his mind on a daily basis, his only true companion as he spends day and night in unwilling solitude. his only comfort comes in the form of his memories, even those he knows he shouldn’t indulge himself with, not when he’s attempting to fix his wrongdoings.
another day ends, and a similar routine repeats.
aiden falls onto his bed with a subtle thud, looking up at an empty ceiling. no chatter to drown out his thoughts, no sleepy breaths to tell him he isn’t completely alone. left with nothing else to do, he finally takes out his phone from his pocket. at times, he’d avoid looking at the little device simply out of fear—there are messages he feels anxious to read, particularly those sent by the very people he cares about; he doesn’t know how to face them properly, even through text.
but there’s something else on his lockscreen, staring at him with great significance, notifying him that today isn’t over. not yet. it’s a gentle reminder that reads: ‘yuan day! :)’, no doubt set up by himself prior. a wave of several different emotions washes over him, and the image of a familiar smile of someone he hasn’t seen for a while appears without a warning. with a start, aiden pushes himself back up into a sitting position, scrambling for his laptop from the top of his desk and silently opening it so as to not alarm anyone.
he’s not going to do anything troubling. all he’s going to do is transfer an mp3 file from his laptop to his phone—one of his creations; a little unrefined, rough around the edges, a piece of his heart. yuan had heard it once, on that fateful encounter he stores in his dreams; only a glimpse. buckled with newfound inspiration from none other than yuan himself, the affections that he was showered with, yuan’s heavy yet meaningful promise, he had woven their momentary fantasy into a melody of their own making. his voice.
it’s not much, really. there’s a chance the reminder of their shared night together in the form of an unpolished song would bring yuan nothing but misery.
or, just maybe, he can make today a little bit special for the two of them.
( ✉ ) outgoing → lee yuan !
··· sent: hey, yuan.
··· sent: sorry if i’m disturbing you at this time.
··· sent: but maybe you like me disturbing you?
··· sent: just kidding~ there is something i wanna tell you though.
··· sent: i know it’s probably hard for you right now. it might even feel unfair at times. this will pass! and i know you’re more than capable of proving yourself and getting back what you lost! you’re always so determined after all. plus, i know you’re strong.
··· sent: i… might have went a little off topic, but i wanted to wish you a happy birthday! there’s a lot i wish i could have gotten you, but i’ll save all that for next year. hopefully, we’ll see each other soon!
··· sent: but if you’re missing me right now…
··· sent: [untitled.mp3]
··· sent: remember that song i was working on that night? it’s… not exactly finished, but i worked on it to the best of my ability thinking of you.
··· sent: i didn’t name it yet either. maybe you can help me with that the next time we meet? just in case you needed something to look forward to.
··· sent: sorry if i sound conceited… i don’t know what else to say. i miss you. i wish i could tell you to rely on me. i wanted to make today a lot more special for you.
··· sent: dream of me tonight? deleted!
··· sent: let’s try not to get in trouble next time?
yuan slides his journal aside on his desk, stands up, and immediately falls back into his bed — a deep sigh following suit as he stares at the ceiling. he feels a sense of relief after pouring out his heart and soul onto the pages; knowing that he doesn’t have many people to actually talk to through this. this isolation isn’t great for his mental state, but it’s definitely making him realize that he’s been taking everything that lgc entertainment has given him for granted. coming to terms with that is the point of all of this, right ?? while finding love and chasing romance is still high up on his list of priorities, he knows that he needs to rearrange some things if he wants to remain under lgc’s care. they’re pouring time and money into his success, after all, and although he has no regrets about that night with aiden, he knows that he needs to be more respectful to the the people who gave him this opportunity in the future. he needs to show them that he’s grateful for them instead of doing things that could besmirch their image or further destroy their trust in him — he knows that now.
however, in the midst of his languidness, he feels his phone vibrate multiple times beneath his pillow. curious, he digs it up and watches as the stream of notifications come in one after the other — all from his beloved; one of them even including an audio file. being the emotional sap that he is, yuan’s eyes begin to fill with tears as he reads through each one. making sure that he has his air-pods in tow, he puts them into his ears to listen to the present sent to him, and once he presses play, he’s taken on a joyride. he recognizes the sultry production from the night they shared, but the words that are paired with it are new and they tug at his heartstrings stronger than anything else ever has. the fact that he gets to hear aiden’s vocals after awhile of being kept away from them causes such a visceral reaction out of him — one that he’s desperately trying to conceal from the nanny that he shares his space with.
eagerly, he begins to write his responses once the tune plays through twice; his heart pounding all the while as his fingers move in a rapid manner against the touch screen.
( ✉ ) outgoing → prince charming 💓 !
··· sent: being “disturbed” by you is my favorite thing, aiden. 💗
··· sent: it blows my mind that you always know exactly what to say.
··· sent: this has been hard for me, but you help get me through it.
··· sent: i hope that you know that, and i hope i can help you, too.
··· sent: i’ll stay strong and i know that you will, too. we’ve got this !
··· sent: this song is the best birthday present ever… wow !! 💖
··· sent: listening to it will remind me to keep my head up.
··· sent: it’ll remind me that you — and we — are worth waiting for.
··· sent: i miss you, too. 💓 all i do is think about you lately, it’s true.
··· sent: i’m afraid that i might be obsessed with you, son aiden…
··· sent: i hope that it’s okay for me to say that… i really mean it.
··· sent: i’ll be on my best behavior so we can meet really soon.
··· sent: thanks again for making today so special. i love you. ❤️
with that, he sighs — feeling like his heart is about to explode from typing out those three words at the end of his messages, but he can’t help but feel like they’re true, and he can’t wait to tell them to aiden in person. for now, though, he sets his phone back down and rolls over; curling into a ball on his mattress as he listens to the untitled song on repeat until he falls asleep — a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he drifts into a deep, pleasant slumber; his dreams colored with aiden.
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Suga on How BTS Stays Hungry After Conquering the World
"I do sometimes think, 'Why did I have to spend so much time in the studio?'" says Suga
With his biting, confessional lyrics, technique-heavy flow that can hit Busta Rhymes-like levels of emotional intensity, extensive production and songwriting credits, and indomitable work ethic, Suga is an indispensable piece of BTS’ collective artistic soul. In April, he sat in his label’s headquarters, wearing a gray knit cap, white mask, and black parka as he spoke about his battles with depression, his songwriting process, staying hungry after conquering the world, and much more.
You had surgery late last year for a shoulder injury that I believe dates back to your trainee days. How are you feeling?
Much better. There’s still some physical therapy that I have to do, but it’s much better. And, yes, I suffered the injury in an accident when I was 20 years old and then as I continued to deteriorate, it was recommended to me that I undergo surgery. Fortunately, there was a little bit of time that I could use to have this procedure. So that’s what we did.
It’s very impressive that you’ve been doing elaborate choreography for all these years with this injury. How did you manage that?
By the year before I got the surgery, I think, I was receiving treatment, injections, almost on a monthly basis. But there were times when I couldn’t lift my arms or have a full range of motion in the middle of a concert. So it wasn’t really so much about the pain. It’s more about whether I would be able to continue doing these performances. When you are actually performing, because of the adrenaline and whatever, it doesn’t really hurt. You sort of experience that the next day, that’s when you feel the pain or the discomfort or you can’t raise your arms anymore.
I love the song “First Love,” where you talk about your early infatuation with your piano and with music. The lyrics suggest that your love for music is also a source of torment; what was going on there?
When I was working on “First Love,” I wanted to express a mix of different emotions, because first love is not all good things; there’s the bitter things as well. So I was talking to Mr. Bang about attaching the metaphor of first love to the first moment I came to know music. The target of the love is a piano, but it could be anything – a friend, some other entity. Then, I wanted to show the emotions you go through.
You’ve been open in your lyrics about depression and other struggles. How are you now?
I’m comfortable now and feeling good, but those sorts of negative emotions come and go. So it’s almost like cold weather. It may come back in a cycle over a year, year and a half. But when I hear people say that when they listen to my music, and feel comfort and are consoled by those lyrics that express these emotions, that makes me feel very good. It’s very encouraging. I think, for anybody, these emotions are not something that need to be hidden. They need to be discussed and expressed. Whatever emotions that I may be feeling, I’m always ready to express them now, as I was before.
You’ve written many songs for BTS, many songs for yourself, and many songs for other people. What is your usual songwriting process?
The process is really different for every song. Sometimes it may be a word that pops up and I build on that word, or someone could make a request for a certain way they would like a song to be developed. Oftentimes, we decide on a theme and then we sort of freely work from the larger overarching theme that we may have. But generally, when I work on a song, I create the beat first and then the melody and the rap and then finally the lyrics. That’s generally how I build them.
How is your guitar playing going?
Since my shoulder got much better, I am back on the guitar. I’ve been playing other people’s songs to practice, of course, and I’m looking forward to sometime in the far future of being able to sing and play the guitar at the same time. That’s what I’m working toward.
On “Dope,” you have a great line about your youth rotting in the studio. But do you ever have regrets about that?
I have no regrets about the work in the studio. Those days and that time has allowed me to have the kind of opportunities that I have now and today. So there’s no regret. But I do sometimes think, “Why did I have to spend so much time in the studio?” [laughs] Why couldn’t I have gone faster. I had that head-to-the-grindstone effort. Why couldn’t I have rested a little more or refreshed myself a little bit more? I do think about that.
You and RM and J-Hope have all these great double and triple entendres and other wordplay that can be lost on listeners who don’t speak Korean — translations can’t convey all of it. Is it frustrating that some of your foreign fans might miss certain things?
When I was growing up, of course, I listened to American hip-hop and pop, and my English is not very good. So I read the lyrics and the translations of the lyrics. And obviously, what native speakers of English may consider the key lines, the key verses, the punchlines, I really couldn’t understand them because of the intricacies of the language. And, I think, that’s an unavoidable part of the language barrier. And, I think, it’s important to try to find a happy medium where people from both languages and cultures or other languages understand it. So we try to write lyrics sort of in the happy middle, that can be understood by people speaking other languages. And also, I’m studying English more and more, trying to get more familiar with it. So if we can get both Korean speakers and English speakers to understand the lyrics, that would be great. But again, that’s something I experience as well.
There’s a story that your parents didn’t like that you were rapping, that they even tore up your lyrics. How did that affect you?
My parents didn’t understand rap. They are a generation apart from myself, and they never listened to rap; it wasn’t part of the music that they listened to. So it’s only natural they were against what I was doing. And, of course, being a musician is a very unstable profession as well. So I can understand perfectly why my parents were against what I was doing. But I think that motivated me or helped me work harder because there was something that I now had to prove. I had to show my parents it was possible. So it drove and motivated me to work even harder.
After all that BTS has achieved, how do you stay hungry?
I’m one of those people who think that not only do people change, but people must change. But I do think it’s so important to maintain that hunger. But from the days when we were actually hungry, we set routines for ourselves, and they stay with you, even if you change as a person. I think we are still able to draw upon the things that we talked about when we were still hungry, so we can maintain that work ethic and stay hungry, even if we change and develop as people. Now, instead of hungry, I think we’re more hangry! Angry and hungry [laughs].
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Another first sentence + 5 sentence fic, "I hate it when you're being a martyr!!?"
Lol, next time just send me a sentence. I don't think I'll ever be doing "only" +5 sentences xD
Okay, okay, so this isn't from my *THE* time-travel fic, but the thing is... I just love the idea of a bamf!sterek that go back in time and don't tell anyone about the truth and then comes this CONFRONTATION and everyone else is confused/in awe.
Quick rundown of dynamics, just because: Alpha Talia Hale. Human/Alpha Mate Nathaniel Hale. Betas Peter Hale, Laura Hale, Cora Hale, Claudia Stilinski. Human Noah John Stilinski. Alpha Derek Hale (but he presents as a beta to everyone except Stiles). Human Stiles Stilinski (but he is actually a spark, the strongest there is).
Idk their ages, but you can imagine Stiles as a 15/16 year old teen (he's mentally older, of course, think like... hmm... let's say he came back in time at age 21. So he should be 30, mentally). That makes Derek 21/22 (mentally 36).
Okay, enough rambling, now let's get down to the fic!! I'll be writing this from Laura's POV. Also, tell me if I should post this one on AO3? Now it's on AO3!
The Moon's Come Out
"I hate it when you're being a martyr."
Stiles' voice is a soft whisper underneath the chaos of blood and death, but it's not quite enough to drown under. It's a resigned exhale of breath, a truth so absolute that it's no longer just a truth. It's a fact.
Laura Hale wonders when her baby brother aligned himself to such a fact. She wonders lots of things about her baby brother.
She remembers the day when it all changed. When Derek changed. It was subtle, but it was prominent.
She remembers when she'd helped Derek with his flirting skills. Paige, she remembers; the same Paige who had once held Derek's eyes had been rendered into nothing that day. No, not nothing—something else. Something deeper. Something like grief.
But why would Derek grieve someone living? It's a mystery, but more than that it's an act shared between Derek and Stiles—like they're barely tethered to the world, and every moment with anyone but each other is like a gift and a curse, all in one.
But this isn't the time to think about it, how it feels like she's lost Derek once.
It's time to save him.
"Mom," her voice is a barely there sound, but her mom, her Alpha, she's here.
And she's silently crying.
"Mom, we need to- need to help him,"
Her mom is nodding her head, and they're moving between the bloody bodies—hunters, who'd come to kill them, only to die by Stiles'... everything.
Laura feels she can save him.
"Stop." Stiles' voice is still a whisper, but it's an order. A command.
Her mom—Alpha Talia Hale—stops in her tracks, and Laura, with her injured leg has to stop with her.
Dad is shouting at Cora to stay back, and John is trying to free Claudia and Peter from their confines, and Laura can hear all that. But right now, her world boils to where Derek is. On the ground, only a few feet away but so, so far away, spitting blood out of his mouth as his healing tries to kick in where the bullets are lodged on his body.
Bullets. Because Derek had jumped in front of the hunters when they started shooting at Peter and Claudia. And they're all wolfsbane laced.
Laura opens her mouth to protest, to shout, but Stiles doesn't let her.
He's always stopped her from talking.
She hates Stiles.
He's taken Derek away from her. From the pack.
"I can deal with this, you don't have to worry,"
"You can't order me around." Laura's eyes flash at her Alpha's tone, and she bares her neck.
Stiles' jaw sets with a determined look. "Oh, yeah? You really think so, Talia?" Laura watches him as he speaks, words fast paced and laced with worry and fear and anger. It's an ensemble of emotions, but even Laura has to admit that there's always been something special about this kid. His hands work as he talks.
"I mean, maybe you do. You Hales always think you know the best, don't you? It's like you think nobody else has any brains but you. Well, except Peter. That fucker is just too clever for his own good and he knows it. But he at least knows not to underestimate others. That's more than I can say for you, Talia. Or Laura. You two are so similar, you know?"
Laura does. She does know. And she is proud of that fact. But Stiles says it like a curse, like being so similar to her own mother—her Alpha—is nothing short of the worst thing.
Laura wonders why. She wonders a lot when it comes to Stiles.
"Stiles," everyone stops at that voice, as if freezing in place would freeze time itself.
Laura has been tortured, she's seen more blood than she needs to today, and she'd cried herself hoarse when they'd started to torture her previously unconscious mom. And then she'd wanted to die when the hunters turned their guns toward Cora, Claudia and Peter. So much so that she'd barely noticed Derek somehow escaping from his own personal confinement, the shackles he was in, all of it covered in wolfsbane. Neither had she witnessed Stiles breaking the literal cage the humans of their pack had been put in. But the thing that truly, truly scares her isn't any of those things. No.
It's losing Derek. Her baby brother (he used to hate it when she called him that, but when he changed, that hate turned into a grieving sort of fondness, like this was something he'd missed), who feels more like an adult than she is, her Derek. She can't lose him. She just can't.
It would break her. It would break the pack. Derek has always been the heart of it, the sweet little kid who is adored by his sisters and trusted by his parents; the man who even Peter respects, and Claudia cherishes like her own son, and John who calls him a good man.
It's no surprise they all just stop when Derek speaks for the first time since he was shot. And oh, was it only minutes ago? It feels like hours.
"Finally coherent, huh?" Stiles asks Derek, like Derek speaking right now is no big deal. Like it's that easy to try and repel the poison of wolfsbane.
"Shut up," Derek coughs out, voice throaty and weak.
"Derek," someone calls out. It's choked with tears, and it's a female, and it's her voice. "Derek! Please don't die,"
Derek tries to move his head, but falls back on the ground with a thump. Stiles swats at him, and Laura only now notices that Stiles' hands are covered in blood, one anchored on Derek's chest while the other digs around one of the holes. There's a host of bullets lying on the other side; Stiles throws another bullet there.
Perhaps everyone notices the same thing just then, because everyone makes a noise, a wail of pain and disgust and fear, all of it mixed in one sound.
Her mom has lost all her fight in herself, and Laura deflates, too. Stiles seems to know what he's doing.
And he doesn't seem to care what he sounds like.
"No, shut up? Me? Shut up? I swear to the fucking moon, you asshole, if you die on me I'll follow you. I'll fucking follow you there, because nothing is left for me here, okay, and I know you know that. You know this. How could you even do this to me? I told you to wait for my signal! I never would have let them get hurt, Derek! No, no, shut up! You keep your words to yourself and you listen, you goddamn martyr, you listen.
You made me a promise. When we came back, you promised me we'd be together. Always. We'll fix things, then we'll live, and then we'll die. Together. But you-you broke that promise, Der. You did tha-that,"
Laura is missing something. They all are.
Stiles' voice is a steady stream, a flow broken only by the cracks in his voice and the anger in it. And then it's a whisper, the height of his voice toppled down by his sorrow.
Derek smiles softly, as if Stiles worrying himself to death about him is not a new thing. Like Derek almost dies on a constant basis, and this is a routine they have—Stiles worries, Stiles shouts, and then Derek smiles because he's still here. He isn't gone yet.
Laura watches as Derek puts his weight on his elbows, brings his face close to Stiles'. Nobody interrupts them, still frozen in time, still processing what they just went through. Stiles shuts his eyes.
"I am here. I am here, Stiles," Derek tells Stiles, and Stiles takes a shaky breath, and it hangs there, that breath—the worry, the anger, the pain, everything—between them, before Derek lunges forward and presses his lips against Stiles'.
There are a few sharp breaths, and a hysterical giggle from Claudia. "I told you," she says, and Laura thinks she's saying it to John.
Laura isn't exactly surprised. She's caught them kissing multiple times, and she's always wanted to tattle on them. And she would have, because this is wrong—Stiles is a teenager and Derek is an adult—but Stiles is clever and somehow always a few steps ahead of her. He knows all of her secrets, and she'd rather he didn't but that's not the life she has. No, the life she has is—
—clearer in hindsight. She thinks back on those kisses, shared in the early mornings or late nights, between whispered words that Laura couldn't make out and with a desperation that went beyond the desperation of wanting a good time.
And she looks now, looks at the way Stiles' breaths are shaky and labored, but his hands are steady, even as he brings flames appear out of nowhere and presses it against Derek's bullet wounds. She looks at the way Derek has his forehead pressed against Stiles', and how he moves his head to Stiles' neck at the precise moments that the fire touches his skin. Like he's done this before, knows how to keep his pain between him and Stiles. She looks at the way Stiles' other hand, still bloody, tangles in Derek's hair, comforts him, like he's the only comfort Derek needs in this world.
She looks at the way Derek's body heals, like even his body is used to being hurt like this.
"It all makes sense," Peter's voice brings her out of her thoughts, and she turns to look at him. He's vibrating with excitement. "The way they talk—the way they behave—it all makes sense!"
Laura doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to know how this much blood and death and crying and confusion could ever make sense.
But if knowing is the answer to ease the burden on Stiles' and Derek's shoulders, she'll take it. She will know.
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Missing Piece
Fandom : Criminal minds
Pairing : Aaron Hotchner x Spencer Reid
Genre : angst and fluff probably? At least happy ending lmao!
Warnings : 16 years age difference, but both are well above legal age. Just heads-up, it references all our important Hotch reid moments from seasons 1 to 3.
This is just a oneshot? Or drabble probably which I wanted to write after reading this prompt! The section which is in bold and italics is copied as it as from prompt!!
******†******
"I love you Aaron, and I want to be with you!!"
Those were the words Aaron never thought he would hear, not from this person that he was so in love with! Spencer Reid was epitome of everything Aaron ever wanted from his life, and everything he never thought he deserved to have! He can't pinpoint the exact moment it all started, but he can remember the exact moment he realised he had fallen for the younger man.
It was in that grave all those years ago, when he was helping Spencer get up after shooting Tobias Hankel, a name he would never forget! He had never been this scared for someone else's life before, and that's saying something because with the job he had, there were so many lives he saved on a routine basis. But he could still remember in detail how his chest felt like someone had put bricks on it, how his brain was in constant thoughts of what if they lose their agent, what if they lose Spencer? Their youngest agent, he was so young!! And he was in the hands of a psychopath and he had still fought the mad man, despite being beaten, being kidnapped and tortured at some remote location away from any help, he somehow fought back and used his brain to get help.
And when Aaron pulled Spencer up and into his arms, he felt like his missing piece was found. That hug lasted just for a few seconds but Aaron felt eternal gratitude in those moments. And then Spencer gasped out, I knew you would understand!!
And Aaron still wakes up from nightmares where he somehow fails to understand Spencer's clue and that results in the horrific death of the younger man. And Aaron lays awake, gasping and shuddering, struggling to calm himself and trying hard not to dial Spencer's number just to confirm that he is indeed alive.
And then Chester Hardwick came and he had the audacity to threaten Spencer in front of him, and Aaron would never let anyone get away with that. And he was so ready to kill Hardwick with his bare hands but Spencer, yet again saved them.
Just like all those years ago when he killed Philip Dowd and saved Aaron, like how he killed Tobias and saved Aaron, he yet again saved Aaron again this time by making use of his sharp tongue and unstoppable brain.
And the words that Aaron never wanted to let out, poured out of his mouth as he admitted his relationship problems to Spencer.
What I want, I'm never going to get!!
But now, Spencer is standing in front of him, they have just wrapped up the bombing case and he had said goodbye to Kate with a heavy heart, just one more person he lost to this job.
He came back home to find Spencer waiting for him. Aaron was worried to see Spencer with this Haunted look in his eyes. They went inside and before he could ask him anything Spencer was spilling out his every feeling.
He had never seen Spencer like this, so desperate, so needy, so fiercely wanting… And all Aaron wants is to pull the younger man in his arms and just escape from the reality that's keeping them apart! But he can't. No matter what they want, they have to think carefully. Spencer, even with his gifted IQ and old soul, is still just so much younger than him. 16 years. That's too many years in between, probably a generation gap you can call even.
And Aaron is thinking about those predators they hunt, those who prey on younglings. Was he one of those? Was he attracted to Spencer's pretty face and young age? No! He was attracted to Spencer's heart, the heart that never stopped giving despite never receiving much love, he was attracted to Spencer's courage that made the man so much more admirable than he already was, he was attracted to Spencer's mind, too beautiful despite the fractures it might bore in future, he was attracted to Spencer's soul, kindest despite the horrors he sees everyday.
But he should try to lay all the cards down, he is old , he is just a boring agent who has trouble expressing his emotions! He is an agent who is more dedicated to his job and all the unknown faces who need saving than his own family. He is a man who will never think twice before jumping into fire if it meant he could save someone's life. And he tries to portray it through words!
Spencer is just listening, his heart so easily readable through those hazel eyes and Aaron has to keep looking somewhere else to continue talking.
"Spencer, I appreciate your feelings, and I do return them! God! I have been returning them probably even before I realised I had feelings for you. But, we can't be together. We are too different, you are too young and I'm just too old. You have this life waiting for you whereas I have already been through my half. I don't want to tie you down to me when you have so much more to live for. So much time which I might even not have. The thing about time is, the older you get, the faster it goes,” he said. “Tomorrow, you will be my age, and I will be dead.”
And Spencer looks up in Aaron's eyes, understanding everything words could never explain.
"But Aaron, I don't even have you to lose. You are just so out of my reach despite the efforts I take to be closer! I don't care about your age Aaron, I don't care how short or long life we might have unless it's together! I yearn for you Aaron! Do you even know how much?"
"And you are talking about dying when we both know we have probably equal chances of dying tomorrow with the job we have. We understand each other Aaron, there is this deep understanding which stems from never-ending trust that we have on each other. I gave you a clue even when I was delirious from drugs and wasn't even sure you'll be listening, and you understood it Aaron. And you think we should just let go of this beautiful bond because of something as trivial as age gap? I would've understood it if I was underage or just barely 20, but Aaron I'm in my thirties and I'm yet to find a person who came as close to understanding me as you do!"
Spencer is all but sniffing now, and Aaron's heart breaks all over again.
"I don't give a shit about the reasons why we should not be together Aaron, I only care about one reason why we should be! And that's, I love you as much as you love me back! And that should be enough! For once, let that be enough reason Aaron, let us be enough for each other!! "
And Aaron couldn't stop his heart from skipping a beat. Let us be enough for each other! Wasn't that what Aaron wanted his entire life? To be enough for someone? And he is maybe getting it now, and what does he have to lose anyways?
He took a shuddering breath before saying, "Well I have given you enough chances to back out of it, now you don't get more chances. You are going to have to be in my life, as my whole heart till the day I die."
And then the wide smile he got in response made his heart almost stop but he decided if he could die now, at least he'll die happy.
Before he could spend more time muling over those unnecessary thoughts Spencer pulled him in a hug, his arms going around Aaron's shoulder as Aaron's own looped around his waist. And there was that feeling again, like he found his missing piece!!!
#heid#hotchreid#hotch x reid#aaron hotchner x spencer reid#criminal minds#my fic#angst#sorry for all grammatical mistakes#i literally wrote it on my mobile in an hour#and english isn't ny first language
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feels like floating (when i’m with you) - j.yh x k.hj
↣ pairing: k. hongjoong x j. yunho
↣ genre: angst/fluff/sfw, single dad!yunho, teacher!hongjoong
↣ wc: 27.2k
↣ ao3 version here (contains smut)
↣ summary: liking yunho is akin to the smell of rain after a bad thunderstorm, the first star that appears in the night sky, and the last drop of sunset before the night descends. hongjoong isn’t sure if it’s his favorite thing or the one he fears the most.
Kim Hongjoong starts his days alone. Gets out of bed, does his morning routine, then goes to the elementary school ten minutes from his apartment all on his own. He runs through the monotonous and unending routine of teaching classes and watching the children on his own, sometimes stopped by another teacher in the hallway for a small chat but they never last long. Afternoons see Hongjoong watching the kids leave the school and staying in the classroom for an extra two or so hours for the one student who doesn’t get picked up until far later than usual. Then he heads home alone and concludes his day in the all too small apartment that is perfect for someone like him. “Someone like him” being a person who doesn’t need a lot to live happily or a lot to take care of himself. He has friends and family, people around him that he talks to on a daily basis, but there’s always something lacking and a certain feeling that nags at his heart when he sees parents with their children or couples in the street or his two best friends fawning over each other because they couldn’t be more in love.
And so, Kim Hongjoong starts his days alone and ends them lonely.
“Akemi darling, did your father say when he’s coming to pick you up?” Hongjoong squats down to be eye level with the little girl, bringing a hand to brush over her jet black hair and comb through the slight frizz in it. She shifts to grin at him, crooked little teeth gleaming like pearls in the yellow sunlight.
“Daddy said he’d be late again today!” She speaks with such enthusiasm and brightness, as though without a care in the world, and Hongjoong half-wishes he could hold the same optimism that all his students have. Akemi always has had this attitude about her — a never-ending joy to her disposition that Hongjoong can’t place. One would think that the little girl would at least be bothered by the fact that her dad can’t seem to pick her up on time no matter what. However, she just skips around the classroom once all the other first graders have left and waits patiently as Hongjoong conducts his afterschool work. Then roughly around five o’clock – a little over two hours after school finishes for the day – a tall, young man who can’t possibly be much older than Hongjoong (if older at all) rushes through the hallways and raps at Hongjoong’s classroom door to pick her up.
Jeong Yunho. A strangely Korean name for someone whose daughter bears a Japanese one, but Hongjoong assumes that’s on account of Akemi’s mother and the fact that they live in Kyoto. Speaking of the girl’s mother, Hongjoong has never seen the woman before. She has never come to pick Akemi up from school, never come to school functions, parent-teacher meetings (not that Hongjoong has ever had to have one with Akemi’s parents since she’s his best student), and he has never heard any mention of her in the slightest. He has Yunho’s contact information and nothing else, so — and it’s not any of Hongjoong’s business honestly, just a thought that nags at the edges of his mind — he can only assume that Yunho is a single father.
That thought is the only reason why Hongjoong even considers staying so late after hours to look after the girl. That along with the fact that every single time Jeong Yunho comes bursting into his classroom, the man looks like he has run three marathons in a row and has no time to remember to put his ass on in the morning. (He never forgets to though. Hongjoong has checked. On occasion. Discreetly, of course, he can’t very well ogle his student’s father in plain daylight.)
But in any case, the man seems to have a hard enough life, so Hongjoong doesn’t mind looking after Akemi. It’s not like he has anything else to do with his life outside of the elementary school; all he does is go home, do some planning for future classes, maybe watch some television or read a book, then go to sleep. On weekends, Hongjoong might get daring enough to go to the bar with his friends Wooyoung and San, but recently that has been nigh impossible since he can’t bear to see them fawn over each other for more than ten minutes. He only has himself to blame for that at the end of the day. He was the one who introduced the pair and set them up on a date together, so yes, mistakes were made, Hongjoong admits it, and he regrets it only half-heartedly because they are genuinely happy together.
Back to the matter at hand though, Hongjoong just genuinely enjoys his job as a teacher and taking care of his students no matter what. Even if it means losing a bit of time in his all too small and dingy apartment once school is over.
“Same time as usual?” Hongjoong inquires, tilting his head a bit to the left. A soft smile creeps onto his lips, an attempt to comfort the girl even tho it’s unneeded since she still bears the same smile as always.
“Maybe!” Akemi pulls her head up and draws the colored pencil in her hand, scanning her little drawing with critical eyes. “Do you think Daddy will like it, Mr. Hong?”
Hongjoong releases a loud laugh at the girl’s nickname for him, and Akemi grins back as bright as ever. She adopted the nickname at some point during the first term, maybe back in May once it started becoming a daily thing for him to look after her every day once school concluded. She didn’t miss a beat during summer break either, coming back in September to continue with the same schedule and nickname.
“I’m sure he will love it, little butterfly.” If possible, the girl positively glows at the nickname, one that Hongjoong gave her quite some time ago on a whim.
“I think we’re running out of room on the fridge. But Daddy loves hanging my pictures up.” Akemi hums to herself and lifts the colored pencil once more to continue her work. “Mr. Hong, when can we do lessons again?”
“Hm? We have lessons every weekday.”
“No! Piano lessons! We haven’t had lessons in a long time!” Akemi protests, slamming her little hand flat against the desk with a small huff. She whips around to face Hongjoong, and in that moment Hongjoong is taken aback by how brightly her eyes shine at the thought of the small lessons.
In another life, perhaps Hongjoong would have been a professional pianist since that is what he studied and labored after in university, but those dreams eventually fell flat and he traded them for the thought of being a teacher instead. Being able to teach Akemi… it lets him get to have one last glimpse into those dreams and think about what it could have been like to fulfill them, to see himself in her and watch the way her eyes light up when she plays a certain passage correctly. Hongjoong has never dreamt of having children himself – being a teacher is more than enough exposure to kids as it is – but he thinks that having a kid like Akemi would make the experience quite a bit better.
“Maybe tomorrow? Your dad will be by soon to pick you up so I don’t think we have enough time today.” Hongjoong offers through a small smile, and Akemi just bobs her head in agreement. She brings her blue colored pencil back down to her little drawing and continues to color without a care in the world.
And sure enough, it’s only seven minutes later that a hand comes down on the door to the classroom, rapping at the wood frantically until Hongjoong moves to open it.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Kim. I had a meeting run late, then got caught in some traffic because there was an accident on the highway. I tried to get over here as fast as possible, but I know I’m still pretty late. I’m sorry for keeping you late. Again. As usual,” Yunho rambles as he comes face to face with Hongjoong. The rant is a typical one, one that both isn’t necessary and is entirely understandable so Hongjoong doesn’t feel a need to hear it. Still, he responds with a wide smile and flashes his teeth.
“It’s perfectly alright, Mr. Jeong. Akemi is a delight to be around as always. We worked on some drawings today! I believe she has one for the fridge at home.” Hongjoong steps aside to let the man step into the classroom, willing himself not to look at the way his white button-up clings to his body and strains around his broad shoulders. Yunho leans over the desk Akemi sits at. A grin pulls at his lips in an instant, a quick change to his demeanor as he sees his daughter that causes his cheeks to glow with joy. There’s something so raw and beautiful about the love in his eyes, a kind of love that transcends the need for words, and Hongjoong can see it often in the parents of his students. Fascinating. He doesn’t know how else to describe the emotion but in his twenty-six years of life, he has seen a multitude of different loves. This one is the most fascinating to him since he doesn’t have a child of his own to experience it with.
“Daddy, daddy! I drew a butterfly today! A pretty blue one! We can put it at the tippy top of the fridge like it’s flying, right?”
“Of course, Mimi.”
Mimi. Huh. Hongjoong definitely does not think about what it would be like to call the little girl by that name. That would be something too grossly domestic and beyond the line of things that are okay for him to say as a teacher. Because that’s all he is. A teacher. Yunho’s daughter’s teacher. Yeah. He’s doing great, by the way, just peachy.
“Why’d you draw a butterfly, little one? Hm?” Yunho runs his all too long fingers through the little girl’s hair as she shows off the drawing to her father, smiles nearly identical in the way they scrunch their cheeks and noses.
“Mr. Hong calls me little butterfly! So I wanted to draw one!”
“That’s…” Yunho shifts to look at the much shorter man, and Hongjoong just about throws up on the spot. The man sinks his front teeth into his lip, biting back a smile that has Hongjoong’s insides turning to mush.
Fuck, he has a really nice smile.
Like a terribly nice one that is exactly the kind Hongjoong would fall for in seconds back in high school or college. He blanches. All the color leaves his cheeks and blood rushes down to his toes. It’s not weird to give students nicknames, right? Why does it feel like Hongjoong is overstepping his boundaries? It feels like he’s done something wrong and–
“Her mother used to call her that.”
Oh dear god. Hongjoong has truly fucked up beyond belief. This is the end of him. He had no way of knowing – how the hell would he have figured that out? – but he still feels like he has walked to the end of a plank and leaped into shark-infested waters without anything to protect him from their sharp teeth. Maybe being eaten alive would be better than this awkwardness though. Maybe Hongjoong needs to see someone for thinking such a thing.
Yunho seems to catch what he has just said a moment later and shakes his head fervently, brown bangs fanning over his forehead with the movements.
“Ah, sorry, why – why did I say that?” Yunho huffs out a shaky and nervous laugh that somehow still sounds pretty to Hongjoong’s ears even though it shouldn’t. “Um, thank you again for… yeah, uh, for watching her as usual. Um, I tried to call the school and let you know that I would be late again but I forgot the whole ‘no calls after school hours’ part!”
“I can just give you my cellphone number?” The words are out of Hongjoong’s mouth before he can stop them, and damn, he really needs to learn how to hold his tongue around this man. His jaw stays hanging open well after he finishes speaking, but he’s still reeling from the shock of hearing himself say such a thing. Yunho blinks back at him with wide, doe-like eyes. Somewhere in the back of Hongjoong’s mind, he distinctly thinks pretty, but that thought is rudely shoved aside as he tries to recover the situation. “Like, I mean, so you can – to tell me if you’re going to be late. On a school day. So I know if I need to watch her.”
Good riddance, Kim Hongjoong. Like you don’t watch her every day regardless.
“Um, yeah, only if you’re sure? I wouldn’t wanna intrude into your personal life or anything. That would be inappropriate of me…” Yunho trails off to look at some random piece of furniture in the corner of the room.
“I’m sure! That would – that would probably be best honestly. I mean, the receptionist leaves so soon after the school closes that you wouldn’t ever be able to reach me if you’re running late. You wouldn’t be intruding. Not like I have much of a personal life outside of teaching anyway, uh, why am I telling you that? That’s not important, um, phone number! Let me write it down for you!”
Hongjoong turns on his heel to go find whatever he can to scribble his number on before he chickens out too much, head reeling and spinning. He knocks into one of the desks along the way and almost trips over the chair, which causes Yunho to lunge forward in a rush to catch him, but Hongjoong flings a hand up to ward him off.
“I’m fine! Ha, should watch my step! Might knock into a table or something, right?” Hongjoong tries to flash a toothy smile, eyes turning into soft crescents just before he knocks into yet another desk.
“Mr. Hong! You’re so clumsy today,” Akemi giggles. Hongjoong’s embarrassment surges as Yunho looks over him with nothing but sheer concern, and the temptation of crawling into a hole for the rest of his life sneaks up. He can almost hear San chastising him for thinking such a thing though, a small nagging voice in the back of his mind saying ‘no, Joong, you can’t just become a hobbit even if you are the size of one’. Rude as hell, first of all, because hobbits don’t really live in holes, and Hongjoong is not the size of one but that’s beside the point.
Hongjoong finally reaches his own desk in one piece and tugs out a plain sticky note to write his number down as hastily as possible. Akemi continues speaking to her dad, telling him some story about what she did on the playground during recess today and how another student’s mother came to pick him up early. Hongjoong really tries not to listen in (because again not his business!) but there does lie a distinct sense of longing in Akemi’s tone, even if she’s too young to truly understand what that longing is. Whether it’s a desire for her father to come sooner when he picks her up or an inherent desire to have another parental figure in her life, it’s present and there and hurts Hongjoong’s heart a bit more than it should.
He pushes that to the side in favor of carrying the sticky note, which now holds his cell number of all things on it, to Yunho.
“You can just, uh, call or text whenever. On weekdays of course.”
“Yeah, on weekdays, schooldays, yeah.” Yunho bobs his head while speaking, hastily agreeing with Hongjoong before taking the sticky note from his hands. Their hands may or may not make contact when he does so – one of Yunho’s long and spindly fingers running over Hongjoong’s knuckles – and Hongjoong full-on panics at the small contact, yanking his hand away in a rush with an embarrassing blush creeping up his neck. At this point, Wooyoung would probably point and laugh at him then call him a whole gay disaster and a half.
“Well, I hope you have a good evening!” Hongjoong blurts to break the tense silence.
“Thank you, yeah, thank you. Um, you too! And thank you again for always staying late for her. I know you aren’t paid for that and it’s probably a burden.”
“It’s – look, it’s no issue at all, I promise. I wouldn’t be a teacher if I didn’t enjoy spending time with kids, and Akemi is a delight to be around as always. She’s so well behaved and wonderful. Reminds me of myself when I was her age!” Hongjoong reaches up to rub at the back of his neck, laughing off Yunho’s concern as best he can.
“Are you saying you’re well-behaved, Mr. Kim?” Yunho chuckles a bit under his breath. There’s no alternative meaning to his words. There is not. Hongjoong cannot read into that. He refuses to think too deeply about it. So why does his brain go straight to the bedroom? For fuck’s sake, Hongjoong needs a drink, and preferably the strongest one imaginable.
“I used to be, at least.” Hongjoong really needs to stop putting his foot in his mouth like this. Yunho most definitely picks up on the possible innuendos in the topic at hand because his eyes grow a bit wide with each passing second, then he chokes on a cough, dipping his chin to his chest in a hurry to hide his embarrassment. “Uh, in any case, don’t feel bad about being a bit late to pick her up. I get the sense that you have a very busy life on top of being a father. I don’t want you to feel rushed if you have more to deal with.”
“I mean, that’s life, isn’t it?” Yunho reaches down to comb his fingers through Akemi’s hair again, a soft and fond smile painting his lips as he looks at the little girl. “Alright, Mimi, let’s get home. I still have to cook dinner and get you in bed on time.”
Hongjoong would be lying if he said that he isn’t bothered by those words. Because they nearly confirm that Yunho is taking care of Akemi on his own and without help. He’s the one to bring her to school, pick her up, take her home, cook dinner, tuck her in, and work late hours. Hongjoong doesn’t understand how he can do all that on his own. He can hardly take care of himself and remember to put food in his body; he can’t imagine having to be fully responsible for another human being the way Yunho has to. If he were more bold and perhaps less of a disaster himself, he might offer to do more to help the man. It isn’t his place to offer, however, and he is still making presumptions with all this.
“Can we invite Mr. Hong to dinner, Daddy? As a thank-you gift like you mentioned?” Akemi whips to face her father, bright eyes stretched impossibly wide.
Cue the alarm bells and sirens of panic. Hongjoong is just about losing his mind, in case you couldn’t tell, and he should not be so thrown into disarray the way he is. Maybe it has just been that long since he had even an ounce of mediocre human contact with anyone outside his immediate friend group that the idea of spending time with a new person sends him into an alternate dimension of extroversion.
“A-Ah, I couldn’t intrude in such a way.” Hongjoong shakes his head even though no one is looking directly at him.
“I’m, uh, I’m sure Mr. Kim has other plans for dinner. We shouldn’t spring plans on him like this, darling. Maybe—” Yunho shifts to look at Hongjoong with an imperceptible gleam to his eyes that will have him thinking for weeks about what it could mean “—maybe some other time.”
“Maybe some other time.”
“Like you mentioned.”
Hongjoong really doesn’t have a crush on the man or anything like that; Yunho is merely a rather attractive man and happens to be his ideal type. But the prospect that the comment has does make his stomach do a little flip and turn every which way, and that is dangerously close to developing feelings for the man. So, he does what any logical anxiety-ridden human being would do.
“I’m free on Friday. If, well, if that might work for you.”
Yunho’s thin lips fall agape, tongue poking forward to swipe over the front of his teeth.
“That… actually, yeah, that would work. Are you sure though? I don’t want you to feel obligated or anything. I could always get you a gift card if you’d rather.”
“No, no, I’d love to come for dinner. If you’ll have me that is.” Hongjoong, you dipshit, he literally offered.
“Of course we will. I would really love to thank you for all you do for Akemi and me. I just… don’t how else to do it.” Yunho motions towards the little girl, who now hums happily to herself and collects her belongings into her school bag. “She’s been wanting to invite you for quite some time but I was, uh, nervous about asking you to do more than you already do.”
“I can’t think of anything better than a nice dinner.” Hongjoong offers up a small shrug if only to quell the churning of nerves in his gut that only heightens when one side of Yunho’s lips quirks up into a smile.
“Well then, I’d better hope my cooking can live up to those expectations.”
I’m sure it can. Hongjoong has to bite the tip of his tongue to keep the words from slipping out but he manages to return Yunho’s grin with one of his own.
“You can let me know a good time that works for you whenever we’re closer to Friday. I’m sure my schedule will be clear.”
And maybe when Hongjoong breathes the words out in a tone that is a bit airy and light, Yunho’s wide eyes blink back at him with as much gratitude as those dark orbs can hold. There’s such a gentle warmth to them that Hongjoong truly feels like he is the one doing something nice for the man rather than the other way around.
…
“So let me get this straight, even though this is far from the straight category,” Wooyoung starts, palms facing Hongjoong’s exasperated expression as he mulls over his next words. San sits at his side with an equally perceptive stare, but Hongjoong doesn’t bother to look at the latter man. “You want your student’s father’s dick up your ass?”
“Wooyoung, no!” Hongjoong protests in an instant, already midway to dropping his head on the granite countertop. How he could afford an apartment with such granite is mind-boggling, but he’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the saying goes.
“Then you want your dick up his ass? Look, hyung, it’s either one or the other. You can’t have both at once, maybe you can alternate days or something but—”
“I wonder if you could though,” San chirps. He shifts to look at his lover who sends a confused glance in his direction with little other acknowledgment. Hongjoong already knows where this conversation is headed without needing San to continue it at all, but the man must not pick up on Hongjoong’s mental screams for him to stop. “I suppose the actual asshole and dick are too far apart for that to be probable… unless you’ve got a toy. Then you can simultaneously ride a toy and fuck someone and have the best of both worlds.”
“Why are we having this conversation? We do not need to be having this conversation! At all!”
“Dipshit, just have a threesome at that point,” Wooyoung remarks before shifting to smack San’s arm hard with the back of his hand.
“Is that your way of saying you wanna invite Seonghwa over?”
“No, you idiot, Seonghwa is engaged.” Wooyoung rolls his eyes as though San has just said the unspeakable, then returns to staring Hongjoong down with sharp eyes. He pauses a moment there, seeming to remember something, and chimes up once more, “Besides, I dipped my toes in those waters, and Seonghwa is far too gentle and vanilla for my liking. I’m sure Yeosang absolutely adores that himself, but I need to be demolished in the bedroom.”
“Gross, just – too much information, Wooyoung!” Hongjoong groans. The man in question just lifts his hands to his head as though to defend himself.
“Okay, first of all, I will personally body you just for saying that in front of Hongjoong. Secondly, when the fuck did you sleep with Seonghwa?”
“Like… um, a couple months before he and Yeosang got together? I don’t really remember it all too well because – well, it was boring, okay? Don’t tell him I said that, he’ll rip me a new one.”
“I would pay to see Seonghwa fight you honestly.” San glances over Wooyoung’s smaller frame, eyes narrowed in a way that shows he’s mentally measuring Wooyoung up with Seonghwa, who is far taller than him to begin with so that’s just a disaster waiting to happen.
“I know you would, which is why I’m not giving you head for the next three days just for that.”
“God, you two are so gross.”
“Three days? Come on, isn’t that a bit harsh?”
“Hello, um, can we talk about my gay panicking instead?” Hongjoong pleads, motioning towards himself with flopping hands, and Wooyoung only snorts in response at first. San huffs out a sigh but relents in the discussion. He leans towards Wooyoung, chin coming to a rest atop the man’s shoulder, and despite all Wooyoung’s insistence that he was annoyed, he just leans into the touch. A hand reaches up to comb through San’s black hair.
You see, Hongjoong might be fascinated by the love a parent harbors for their child, but there is something else that sends him reeling far more often. The most daunting and terrifying kind of love is the romantic one that he runs from so often. Maybe that is why he can’t bear to be around Wooyoung and San as much as he used to because they display it with such ease and carelessness, like love doesn’t hurt or burn or ache the way Hongjoong knows it does. He has had many a relationship in all his time on Earth, and unfortunately, they have all ended in a crashing burn of flames and chaos – quite literally for his last relationship – so forgive him if he is a bit bitter and scalded by those failures.
It isn’t that he is not happy on his own. He has a nice apartment meant for one and that’s lovely, along with the betta fish Seonghwa and Yeosang bought for him as a moving-in gift named Karl, who is cherished company even if he just swims around his tank without doing much of anything. The point being that Hongjoong has never actively sought out a relationship or a special someone because he has never thought that he actually needed it.
Why seek something that could hurt you when you’re perfectly fine on your own?
“Listen, this is all beside the point,” he starts, waving a dismissive hand through the air in an effort to shut the other two men up. “We’re here to talk about how I accidentally agreed to go to his house for dinner knowing damn well that I don’t know how to socialize with a stray cat in the street let alone a very cute man who happens to be my type.”
“So you have a date.”
“It’s not a date, Woo! It is a somewhat casual thank you dinner that is… quite casual.”
“Date or not, you better not wear that fucking sweater vest that you insist looks good,” San remarks. His lips curl into a scowl, and he shakes his head ever so slightly at the mere thought of said article of clothing.
“Hey! It does look good!”
“It makes you look like you’re going through a midlife crisis!”
“Well, maybe I am!”
“You damn well must be if you’re behaving like this but still insisting that you aren’t even a little bit attracted to this man and don’t see potential in him!”
San’s words shut Hongjoong right up in an instant. Of course, the man isn’t wrong about the statement. Maybe that is what Hongjoong has been adamantly avoiding since Monday, and these past four days have just been a blur of anxiety surrounding the potential of falling for Yunho. Wooyoung must read the distress on his features.
“You can always back out and say that you need to raincheck. You shouldn’t cause yourself any extra worry over something like this.” Wooyoung draws his brows together to add to the concern already on his features.
“Kind of shitty of me to cancel an hour before the dinner,” Hongjoong grumbles, bringing his arms up to cross over his chest in a defensive manner that Wooyoung picks up on instantly.
“Joong…” There is far too much sympathy in his stare; maybe if Hongjoong were feeling particularly self-loathing, he would go so far as to say it looks like pity. He knows deep down that it isn’t pity. Wooyoung has been with him for every breakup in the past eleven years, they have been best friends for longer than that, and perhaps at one odd point during their teenage years, they had an escapade of their own that caused issues in some of Hongjoong’s relationships before. Yet even though Wooyoung knows him better than anyone on the face of the planet, it is always San who picks him apart like he’s a book. Hongjoong feels his prying and perceptive gaze on the side of his face before he says a word, and he makes the impulse decision to spew nonsense just to save himself from San’s impending lecture.
“I’m not interested! I’m not, and I don’t want to be. I will do this one dinner so he can feel fucking better about himself, then I will put all thoughts of him behind me.”
San draws his lips into a tight purse.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t see any hint of potential in him.”
Hongjoong jerks to look the taller man in the eye, gaze wavering a bit as he tries to come up with a reasonable and believable response. That is answer enough for San, and he shakes his head with a frown painting his features now.
“Don’t throw away something good just because you’re scared, Hongjoong.”
“I’m not scared.”
Lie. They all know it too.
“Then promise to see this dinner through without trying to sabotage yourself.”
“Fine,” Hongjoong relents. That must be enough for San because he flips his frown into a soft-sided grin and nods in his direction. As though on cue, his phone dings with a notification atop the counter, and Hongjoong glances down at the device at the same time that the other two men do.
“Prince Charming awaits!” Wooyoung chirps through a toothy grin. Hongjoong has half a mind to lean across the counter and smack him upside the head, but instead, he snatches up his phone to read the message that just came through. It is, as expected, an address complete with an all too cute smiley face emoji at the end that makes Hongjoong want to scowl just because of how damn adorable it is. He hastily types out a ‘thanks, I’ll be there soon’ response and hits send before Wooyoung can tell him to play up the flirting and hit on him. “Okay but seriously don’t put on that sweater vest!”
“Jeez, I won’t!” Hongjoong waves the man off as he retreats to his tiny bedroom only to have Wooyoung trail after him with shuffling feet.
“Do you still have that leather jacket I got you last year?”
“I’m not wearing a leather jacket to a dinner with my student and her father.”
“Can you at least wear something a little less… teacher-y?” Wooyoung runs a hand through his hair, a sigh escaping him as he glances over Hongjoong’s closet in dismay.
“What are you trying to say?”
“You dress like an old man. I want you to at least look cute.” Wooyoung hums a little to himself while drumming his fingers over his chin. “White button-down with that brown cardigan you have and some cuffed jeans. And the black oxfords that you redesigned. So you can show off how cute and artsy you are! Oh, do you still have those wireframe glasses you used to wear so much? Let’s get those too.”
“Isn’t this too much effort? What if he’s just – I don’t know, wearing sweatpants?”
“You really think he’s gonna be wearing sweatpants?”
“I, well, maybe not—” Wooyoung interrupts him with a harsh slap to the back of his arm, knuckles hitting his skin so hard that it burns a bit.
“Good, now go get changed. No complaining or I’ll bite your armpits.”
“That’s an oddly specific threat…”
“I said no complaining!”
Hongjoong grumbles a little under his breath as Wooyoung tosses the closes he picked out at his chest, then he slips into the bathroom to quickly slip into them. He shouldn’t even be putting this much effort into the outfit or reading too much into this dinner because it’s nothing more than a simple thank-you dinner. He keeps reminding himself of that fact over and over. It isn’t an invitation to be friends or to have some semblance of a casual relationship, even if Hongjoong would kinda like to be at least friends with Yunho. He’ll probably get there, talk with Yunho about Akemi’s schoolwork, then leave.
Wooyoung springs on him the second he steps out of the bathroom in the new outfit, hands pushing the wireframe glasses he mentioned earlier onto the bridge of Hongjoong’s nose and setting them straight. The man’s lips twitch into a smile as he leans back to admire his work.
“Perfect. He won’t be able to take his eyes off you.” Wooyoung presses the pad of his index finger against the tip of Hongjoong’s nose, leaving him with that before stepping away and motioning towards the door. “Now go have fun, and try not to overthink this whole thing too much.”
“You do realize who you’re talking to, right?”
“Oh hush, you twat. If nothing else, just take it as an opportunity to do something nice for yourself. I know clubbing with Sannie and me isn’t always your favorite, so here’s a chance for you to do something else. And! Since I know you and I know you would do something stupid, if he invites you to stay for drinks after his daughter goes to bed, you fucking say yes, okay?”
“He most definitely won’t do that but whatever.”
…
As it turns out, that is exactly what Yunho does. He corners Hongjoong while the shorter man stands at the sink, washing the plates used for dinner by hand because he demanded that Yunho let him do something in return for the incredible meal Yunho prepared for his visit. Perhaps Hongjoong just takes so little care of himself that any homecooked meal is a good one though; he is far too used to eating instant ramen on the couch after work and calling it a healthy diet by eating a handful of blueberries afterward. He couldn’t put a name to the dish Yunho made even though Yunho mentioned it when he walked in the door. His mind was too addled with anxiety because there the impossibly tall man stood with a crisp white button-up and really nice black trousers that definitely show off how good his ass is (not that Hongjoong could look for long because Akemi came rushing to the door as well).
All throughout dinner, Yunho kept him occupied with questions and menial chatter, things about the school and what the curriculum for the year is. It added up in Hongjoong’s mind; he had already figured that Yunho would wanna talk a lot about Akemi and school rather than anything personal. The scene was oddly intimate despite the less than personal questions. Just the three of them – Hongjoong, Yunho, and Akemi – seated around a small wooden table in a pretty standard suburban home. That was the moment Hongjoong got the nonverbal confirmation that Yunho is indeed a single father, then the verbal confirmation came when Hongjoong slipped his shoes off by the door upon Yunho’s prompting.
“It’s just the two of us, so I apologize if the house is a bit of a mess. I only have time to clean after work.”
Hongjoong insisted that it was fine and that he could not even see a single speck of dust in the house, which Yunho had laughed too loudly at and the sound rumbled in Hongjoong’s gut for too long.
Yunho is smart, Hongjoong will give him that. He makes sure to snag Hongjoong when he has no escape, hands coming to rest on the edge of the counter as he looks to the shorter man with wide and hopeful eyes. Hongjoong nearly drops the plate in his hand because of the way Yunho’s eyes seem to twinkle under the yellow lights of the kitchen.
“Um, you don’t have to say yes, but I got a bottle of red wine for tonight if you’d like to stay and have a drink? I’m about to put Akemi to bed. I normally, uh, drink alone on Friday nights.”
Well god fucking dammit Jeong Yunho, why did you have to say it like that? The man could probably weave the saddest sob story in existence with just those gleaming eyes, and Hongjoong would bend over backward for him because he can’t help himself. And Wooyoung’s words are ringing so loudly in his head that he can hardly think straight. He’s willing himself to say no despite what his friend said and the look in Yunho’s eyes, yet the words that actually come out of his mouth are —
“Yeah, I’d love to!”
Maybe the smile that decorates Yunho’s lips afterward makes it worth it.
“Cool, yeah, I’ll be quick I promise. She normally doesn’t take long to get tucked in.”
“That’s fine. Take your time!”
Yunho leaves with a nod, and it gives Hongjoong a moment to breathe easy while he’s gone. He takes his precious time in cleaning the remainder of the dishes just so that he can stay busy and not have to stand around waiting. In all honesty, this is a disaster waiting to happen. Wooyoung made sure to drive him over both because he wanted to see Hongjoong off and insisted that Hongjoong would get wasted while at Yunho’s so he had to be the responsible one. (As though Wooyoung has ever been responsible a day in his life; Hongjoong is always the designated driver on club nights because the man throws alcohol back like it’s his job). His alcohol tolerance could prove to be an issue though, so it’s probably for the best that Wooyoung drove him. Even a single glass of wine could make him tipsy, and he is a nervous drinker on top of that.
It’s fine, it’s fine. It will be fine. Just one glass of wine then you can tell him that your friend is waiting outside. Is it lame to have your twenty-five-year-old friend pick you up when you’re twenty-six? Why does this feel like high school?
Hongjoong doesn’t realize he’s standing at the sink and scrubbing a wet rag over the same plate over and over again until Yunho comes up on his right.
“You good?”
“Fuck – I mean shit, damn, um, fudge! Fudge. Yeah, fudge.”
Yup, there’s a great example for your kid, Yunho! Hongjoong mentally uppercuts himself in the nose as he sets the last plate on the drying rack and fumbles to put everything back in its proper place. Yunho huffs out a loud laugh, chin tipping back to expose the long column of his throat, and Hongjoong most definitely spends far too long staring at the way his tendons twitch.
“Well, that explains why Akemi always tells me to say fudge when I cuss in front of her.” He shakes his head, still laughing a bit under his breath. He slips away from Hongjoong’s side, and the shorter man uses it as an opportunity to catch his own breath and calm his racing heart. “You big on wine, Mr. Kim?”
Mr. Kim. The name sounds a bit odd and foreign on Yunho’s tongue in such a setting, and Hongjoong has to tell himself that that discomfort is the reason why he says what he does next.
“You can call me H-Hongjoong if you’d rather.” He can’t keep from stuttering in his sudden state of nervousness, and Yunho twists to look back at him from the other side of the kitchen.
“With the stammer and everything?” Yunho jokes through a hum. Hongjoong whips around to face him, a bit of disbelief coating his expression, and the other man just lifts two empty wine glasses and motions back towards the dining table. “You can call me Y-Yunho then. For solidarity.”
Hongjoong would really love to punch him in that pretty mouth of his because curse him for being the entire package. Was being tall and attractive not enough? God had to make him cute and adorable, along with having a beautiful natural flush to his cheeks that comes out when he smiles or laughs? And he has a nice ass and a good sense of humor? Hongjoong is absolutely screwed and not in the way he wants to be. He is gonna leave this dinner tonight fully whipped for this man. The brief and fleeting thought to call Wooyoung for backup and get the hell out of here earlier than intended crosses his mind, but that is swept away when Yunho straddles a chair and spreads his legs far wider than is even remotely necessary. Hongjoong’s body just moves on its own at that point, and he finds the seat on Yunho’s left.
It feels like there is lead rushing through his veins rather than blood. Almost a heady sensation like Hongjoong is already drunk despite not having had a drop of alcohol yet. Yunho rectifies that quickly though, pouring a glass of the dark red liquid and passing it over to Hongjoong with long fingers splayed over the bottom of the glass. He doesn’t drink from it right away as much as he wants to. It would be bad etiquette to start drinking before him surely, and the stretch grin Yunho wears when he notices the gesture almost hurts Hongjoong’s heart.
“So, Hongjoong, I don’t believe I know how old you are.” His name sounds really wonderful coming from Yunho’s lips, but that is a dangerous thought. And Yunho looks dastardly good taking a languid sip from his wine glass. Focus, Hongjoong, focus.
“I’m, uh, turning twenty-seven in early November.”
“Oh?” Yunho sounds genuinely surprised by that, head tilting to the side to accentuate his shock. “I would never have guessed. You hardly look twenty-three.”
“I get that a lot. Youthful genes blessed me.”
“Apparently so. I swear I’ve got to look older than you and I’m twenty-six.”
Ah. Younger than expected. Hongjoong honestly assumed the man was older than him simply because he has Akemi, and while the girl is only six, he figured Yunho would at least be upper twenties. He hopes that the shock doesn’t read too well on his features but he has no such luck.
“Shocking, I know. Had Akemi early while we were still in college. Lots of… it was both good and bad, but it turned out to be more than worth it in the end because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Yunho stares at the table while he speaks, but Hongjoong can see emotion shining clearly in his dark eyes regardless.
It’s that same raw and open one he saw before, the purest form of love he can think of, and he has to gulp down some wine to keep from getting overwhelmed by the mere sight of it. Despite having technically known Yunho for five (nearly six) months now, Hongjoong still can’t find it in him to think it’s appropriate to breach the subject of Akemi’s mother. This is still their first personal one on one conversation, the first time they’ve exchanged names, and Hongjoong can’t very well ask something so personal this soon.
“I’ve been a bit curious, so I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Yunho starts, looking to Hongjoong with a bit more fervor in his movements. “What made you think to call Akemi butterfly? I don’t think I’ve ever come across another person who calls her that.”
“Her mother used to call her that.”
Hongjoong should have prepared himself for the question because that statement Yunho had made earlier in the week opened a door that would come back to bite him later. This must be later.
“Um, I hope this doesn’t… sound odd or anything, but the first day she came to class, she had a clip in her hair. One with—”
“A blue butterfly on it,” Yunho finishes for him.
“Y-Yeah. It stood out to me since I’ve always liked butterflies myself.” Hongjoong thinks back to the pair of shoes he left by the door with small blue butterflies painted along the sides. “You probably didn’t see them when I came in, but my shoes – uh, they have butterflies on them too.” He motions past Yunho’s shoulder and towards the door, but Yunho only stares directly at him and nowhere else.
“I noticed that! It look hand-drawn too, or maybe painted?”
“Painted, yes. I reform clothes I own sometimes and shoes as well if I come up with a cool enough idea. Just a side hobby, I guess, like piano.” Hongjoong sips at his wine to busy himself and not focus on the way Yunho gazes at him intently. He isn’t used to this: talking about himself, his interests, things he does in his spare time. Wooyoung and San know him well enough to have witnessed his growth into those hobbies, and he doesn’t really have discussions like this with his fellow teachers. Maybe he mentioned it once or twice in passing to Seonghwa, but he and the man likely changed the topic quickly. It’s a little bit embarrassing for him as a twenty-seven-year-old to talk about what he enjoys doing like he’s back in high school or college. Something about the way Yunho offers an encouraging nod shoots that insecurity out the window.
“You know, Akemi talks about you a lot when I pick her up.” He drags a finger over the rim of his wine glass, eyes trained on the liquid inside. “She loves talking about you more than what she learned or her friends in the class. This is probably weird but I think I’ve learned a lot about you through her. The piano lessons and drawings, how you’ll sometimes draw pictures for her or show her your reformed clothes and shoes. I’m seriously grateful that you’re her teacher and that she has you in her life.” The words are spoken with too much emotion for Hongjoong’s liking, and his gut melds into a deep pit of growing agony.
“You don’t have to…” Hongjoong can’t even finish the thought. You don’t have to thank me, he wants to say. Yunho shakes his head.
“As much as I do to support us as a family and provide for her, it still falls short more often than not. Maybe this is too open of me, but I work a typical nine-to-five job as a business firm. Most if not all of my friends live out of town or work in similar fields and have lives like mine. When I have to go out of town for business trips, I have to leave Akemi with a friend in the next city over. I don’t – I don’t get to be the dad that she deserves to have. I can’t teach her new things, play with her in the park, and sometimes I can hardly… hardly spend time with her in general because of all that. The fact that you are so ready and willing to sacrifice your time for someone who isn’t even your kid or responsibility is quite telling of how good you are as a person. I am glad that she can have you as some sort of father figure in her life.”
“I can – I can hardly take any credit,” Hongjoong whispers, not daring to raise his tone any higher than that.
“You don’t need to,” Yunho replies in a tone just as quiet. “This dinner… I know very well that there is nothing I can do to repay you for what you are doing for Akemi. My heart will never be satisfied no matter what because you – you are doing something that even her mother refused to do, and that is simply to not leave her alone. I guess that’s my way of saying that I admire you quite a bit, Hongjoong.”
Hongjoong’s heart is in absolute shambles. Yunho is being too open, too raw, too giving in his emotions. It’s like Hongjoong can see straight through his chest and into his heart, pull the organ out and listen to every pang and stitched scar over it with ease. He is merely being genuine with Hongjoong, yet that one thing is more than all of Hongjoong’s exes combined could not do. He wills his mouth to work properly, jaw stuttering and wavering without purpose for too long before he can speak again.
“If y-you ever need someone to look after Akemi while you’re out of town, I would be happy to do so. My apartment – where I live, I mean – it’s not too big, but I would gladly sleep on the couch so she can sleep in the bed, and I live alone so it’s not like there would be anyone else with us and—”
“You’d truly do that?” The shock in Yunho’s voice almost hurts to hear, like he can’t believe anyone would do such a thing for him. In the back of his head, Hongjoong internally questions those friends that Yunho mentioned and how reliable they truly are. It catches him off-guard though. He isn’t making the offer because he wants Yunho to like him or trust him or anything unsavory. He would make the same offer to any parent who needed help; Hongjoong truly values his job but he cherishes each student of his even more than that. Seeing people struggle on their own is never pleasant – a thing he recognizes in others but refuses to recognize in himself – so if he can make Yunho’s day to day life even the tiniest bit easier, then he would jump at the opportunity.
“Of course.”
“Are you truly real?”
Hongjoong needs at least another glass of wine in him before Yunho starts having an existential crisis, but this sort of disbelief seems a bit different, something that stagnates the air between them and lets them hover in each other’s breaths like it’s the only thing that matters.
“I would hope people value you enough to give you the bare minimum of what you deserve, Yunho.” Hongjoong doesn’t realize that it’s the first time he’s used the other man’s name until he folds his lips into a soft grin.
“You forgot the stutter.”
Hongjoong dares to smile back, nose scrunching up and cheeks rounding under the wire frames of his glasses.
“My apologies, Y-Yunho.”
Yunho doesn’t respond this time, but there doesn’t seem to be a need to. The air returns to its pleasant trill, alight and humming with the beads of anticipation, and Hongjoong settles into the cloud with a newfound sense of ease and comfort in front of Yunho. There remains a stark sense of fear in his bones, one that does not care for the thoughts of where this might lead, what feelings will bud in his chest as a result, or how hard Hongjoong will recklessly fall because that’s how it always is.
“I don’t know if — this may be too bold but, uh, would you like to come for dinner again?”
This is a slippery slope and Hongjoong is already in the midst of falling.
…
It’s October now, nearing November in less than two weeks which will mean another bland birthday for Hongjoong to pass through with little interest and lots of enthusiasm from both Wooyoung and San. In the past six (yes, six) weeks since his first dinner with Yunho and Akemi, Hongjoong has been over to visit at least eight times. Once a week was the agreement he and Yunho came to after the second visit, the kind smile splayed over Yunho’s lips too much for Hongjoong to say no to, but the spare two visits came as a result of a spur of the moment decision on weekdays where Akemi begged for more time with Hongjoong and Yunho demanded to treat him to dinner as thanks. It is pleasant. Too pleasant. Hongjoong already knows that he has tumbled into a dangerous territory that consists of feelings of euphoria and happiness, butterflies churning in his stomach every time Yunho’s tinkling laugh graces his ears, and no matter how much he tries to push it out of his mind, he can’t.
Hongjoong likes the man. It would be much easier if he knew that Yunho did not like men at all, but alas he learned of that a while ago, maybe on his sixth visit to the Jeong household. What had they even been talking about again? Oh, right it was about being a disappointment to their families.
“You don’t talk much of your own family, Hongjoong. Is that a… sensitive topic?”
“Oh, uh, no. It’s not that I have a bad relationship with them or anything like that. There is a bit of tension? I guess you could call it that. I stopped going home to visit them because the plane tickets were getting to be too much and every time I walked in the door, I would just get an earful about how I never bring a wife home.”
“Not into marriage?”
“Not into women.”
Yunho had choked midway through a sip of wine, and Hongjoong thought the man was going to keel over on the floor with the way he was coughing, cheeks blazing red in embarrassment. Once he had finally recovered enough to speak again, Hongjoong’s heart plummeted, but only because he knew there was no way for him to back out of the crush that had formed.
“Well, we have disappointed parents in common then. Mine couldn’t believe I had a kid before marriage, then just about had a heart attack when Akemi’s mother walked out. Made things even worse when I brought my first boyfriend home for the holidays when Akemi was three. They were at least glad when the next girlfriend came around, but I can’t seem to make a relationship stick enough to live up to their standards. They at least love to dote on Akemi and look after her when they can, so I guess I can’t complain all too much.”
Hongjoong hadn’t let the conversation go any further than that, swiftly changing the subject because he was terrified of letting it continue and exposing the ugly and gross bits about his own past to Yunho. He isn’t ready for that. It would be too intimate and vulnerable. That’s what he has to tell himself at least.
Now Hongjoong finds himself yet again in Yunho’s house, but this time the situation is far different. First of all, it’s a Sunday night and not a weekday. Secondly, Yunho is not home. Hongjoong did not break-in, as suspicious as it sounds. The previous Tuesday evening found Hongjoong over for dinner and Yunho mentioned that he had to leave in the morning for a business trip so they wouldn’t be able to do their typical Friday dinner.
“Do you need me to watch Akemi?”
Hongjoong hadn’t even hesitated to ask the question.
“I was hoping to ask if that would be too much actually. I… I would really appreciate it. I’m not used to midweek trips, but I don’t want her to miss school because of this.”
“I’d be happy to look after her while you’re gone, Yunho. I can bring her to school with me in the mornings.”
“Would you please? I can – I can pay you for it or something. I wouldn’t want you to do it for free or–”
“I want to do it for free. Please, Yunho, it’s a – it’s what friends would do, right?”
Friends. Yeah, Hongjoong had breached the invisible line and defined their relationship then and there. Before then, they hadn’t spoken of it or said anything definitive about what they are. Hongjoong couldn’t very well say yeah it’s because I have a crush on you actually so don’t worry about it.
But in any case, that led to Yunho dropping Akemi off for school on Wednesday morning with a little travel bag of clothes and belongings so that she could have her things while she stayed at Hongjoong’s. Hongjoong brought her home in the evening right after school, which was quite the fever dream because he hadn’t gone home on time like that in months.
It was a steady process they formed: go to school a bit early for Hongjoong to prepare his things for the day, leave right after school ended, spend time doing fun things a kid would normally do after school, eat dinner, and go to sleep in Hongjoong’s all too large bed while the man slept on the couch.
On Friday after school, Hongjoong dared to take Akemi to the park to go cloud watching, then they went and bought matching pairs of shoes to bring home and reform together. Hongjoong had drawn small butterflies across the side of Akemi’s white sneakers and told himself that he wouldn’t get too attached to the little girl. That would make the end of the school year far too hard to handle because he wouldn’t get to move up with her to second grade.
For Saturday, he took Akemi to an ice skating rink and held her hand tight against his as they slid over the ice together. An elderly couple watching their grandchildren from the side of the rink asked if Hongjoong wanted pictures with his daughter. Akemi begged for him to say yes with such big and bright eyes that he couldn’t even bother correcting the couple. His cheeks still hurt from laughing and smiling so much even though several hours have passed since then. Hongjoong brought Akemi home to her house rather than his afterward since Yunho said he would be coming home in the evening, and they agreed to meet up after so Hongjoong could return the spare house key.
That is why Hongjoong finds himself seated on the leather couch in Yunho’s living room, thumbing through the channels mindlessly to keep himself busy as he waits for Yunho to get back. Akemi has already been put to bed since she was tired after ice skating, and Hongjoong managed to make a pot of mac and cheese without burning the kitchen down, which is good by his standards. It’s well past eight o’clock, and Yunho said he would be home by six so Hongjoong is maybe sorta kinda starting to get extremely worried about the man’s whereabouts. In fact, he’s about to try to call the man to see if everything is okay when the door handle jiggles. Hongjoong jerks to shut the television off, eyes wide with a nagging panic that someone is trying to break in, but the door swings open to reveal Yunho at long last.
Saying he looks exhausted would be a gross understatement. He looks worse than ever, tired and overwhelmed in every way, but as his gaze falls to where Hongjoong sits on the couch, a shaky sigh slips from his lips, almost as though he is relieved to see the other man sitting there. It tugs at his heartstrings, makes his stomach drop a bit too much, and Hongjoong inhales sharply to bury the feeling.
“I already put Akemi to bed,” Hongjoong whispers, scared to speak any louder than that. Yunho offers a nod but nothing else in response as he shuts the door behind him and drops his travel bag to the floor. He doesn’t even smile, which is something Hongjoong has never seen from the man. He seems to always be wearing a smile no matter what, and Hongjoong can’t describe the odd, misplaced pain in his chest that comes with seeing the blank slate that is Yunho’s expression. “How was your trip?” Careful, calculated, wary. He isn’t sure what is overstepping, but this is the best he can do right now.
“It was… it was fine until the end. I’m sorry I’m late. Stopped at the store to get some groceries and uh—” Yunho stops himself there, hand coming up to run through his dark hair. Hongjoong feels compelled to get up. His legs work before his brain does, and all of a sudden, he is on both feet and moving closer to Yunho for some godforsaken reason. He doesn’t even know what he intends to do until his hand reaches up to grasp at Yunho’s shoulder, shaking the man from his thoughts and offering the faintest bit of comfort.
“I’m here.” Yeah, you’re right in front of him, idiot, I think he knows you’re here.
“I ran into Akemi’s mother.”
Oh.
“She was with the – the guy she cheated on me with.”
Oh. Hongjoong didn’t know that was what had happened between the two of them. He didn’t think to ask, and it wasn’t his business too either, but it makes his heart go out even more to the man because damn. How shitty of a person do you have to be to cheat on your partner after having a damn kid with them?
Hongjoong doesn’t know what the right thing to do is. He racks his brain and tries to find some hint as to what the best idea is, but all he can come up with are memories of how Wooyoung would envelop him in a tight hug after a rough night of memories full of exes and pain. So that’s what Hongjoong does. He leans into Yunho’s space, slots himself in that tiny crack in Yunho’s heart, and wedges himself there. Arms reach higher to fold around the back of the man’s neck until Yunho is forced to bend down a bit and accommodate Hongjoong’s much shorter form, but the taller man hugs him right back in an instant. His breath is hot on Hongjoong’s neck as he releases a shaky exhale, burying his nose deep into the shorter’s neck. It’s all he can do right now, yet it still doesn’t feel like enough.
“She had the audacity to ask about Akemi.” Yunho’s tone is nothing more than a whisper now, like he couldn’t speak louder if he tried, and Hongjoong has a sneaking suspicion that it’s to keep from crying. “Asked if I’d given up on her yet and when I s-said no, she… she said Akemi would be better off if I did give her up.” Yunho tightens his grip on Hongjoong’s waist, arms enveloping him so deeply that Hongjoong can feel his palms squeezing all the way around his sides. If not for what Yunho said, Hongjoong’s mind might drift into unsavory territory. “Am I a bad father, Hongjoong?”
That question hurts so badly to hear. It’s like a knife in his chest that sinks deeper and deeper with each passing second. He doesn’t need time to come up with an answer though; the words are already waiting on the tip of his tongue before Yunho even finished the question.
“No. You’re the best father in the world, Yunho. You do so much for Akemi. You work long hours to provide for her, bring her to school and take her home for education, give her toys and let her do things she enjoys. You take care of her, love her, cherish her the way a father should. You don’t let her want for anything. You give her your absolute best, and that makes you a good father.”
“Yet I can’t give her a mother. I can only give her me.” Hongjoong can’t take the tone of his voice. He pulls back a bit, hands still wrapped tight around Yunho’s neck, and he tugs Yunho until they can look each other in the eye.
“There is no rulebook for parenting, no matter what the internet says or what other parents might say. No commandment says that a child must have two parents to grow up well and have a good life. And it isn’t your fault that Akemi’s mother made those decisions or walked out on both of you. You were the one who stayed, who continues to stay and fight for her still. I wish you could see through my eyes and know that you are doing well.”
“I-I don’t know what to say, Hongjoong.” Yunho’s dark brown eyes swim with unspoken emotions and gratitude, along with some other quivering feeling that swirl amongst them, but Hongjoong can’t place what it is or whether he wants to figure it out.
“You don’t have to say anything.” Hongjoong lets a smile tug at his lips. It’s an invitation for Yunho to do the same, and this time he does, gracing Hongjoong’s eyes with the sight of that precious smile. It sends his stomach spiraling as always, and he has to internally fight the blush that threatens to creep up his neck.
“I need a drink. Or thirty.”
“You can put yourself to bed with one,” Hongjoong huffs. The minimal space between their chests is suddenly making itself known, and he vaguely registers how neither of them have pulled completely away or moved back yet. Yunho’s fingers twitch at his hips.
“Can I convince you to stay for one?”
How can Hongjoong say no to that?
His response to the question is to detach himself from Yunho’s body and move back towards the couch, sending a quick look over his shoulder to see if the man will pick up on what he’s insinuating. Yunho blinks at him in confusion for a few moments. Realization only hits when Hongjoong plops down on the cushions, and he jumps into action, rushing to retrieve some glasses and the wine bottle from the fridge. The look of pure relief on Yunho’s features when he comes to join Hongjoong makes the decision to stay more than worth it.
Over the past few weeks, Hongjoong has come to realize that these moments – the ones where they drink and talk over menial things – are the only ones Yunho has to himself. It’s the only time he gets to do something for himself that isn’t work or taking care of Akemi. Hongjoong briefly wonders when the last time the man went out on his own for fun was but ultimately decides that he doesn’t want to depress himself with the thought.
“Did Akemi behave okay while I was gone?” Yunho inquires, glancing at Hongjoong out the corner of his eye as he pours the drinks.
“Like a dream really. I have no complaints.” Yunho’s cheeks bunch up a bit, and he passes Hongjoong a glass that is far too full of wine but Hongjoong drinks it regardless.
“The pictures you sent were nice to see. I was missing her when you sent them so… perfectly timed.”
Pictures? Hongjoong doesn’t recall sending pictures. Oh wait, yes he does. He sent some as soon as they got home from the ice skating rink, some that the old couple took as well as pictures of Akemi at the park and the shoes they painted together. He tried to push that out of his mind because it felt too domestic for his liking, but it also felt wrong to keep those pictures from Yunho.
“Ha, yeah, the couple who took the pictures at the rink thought I was her dad.” Fuck. Shit. Kim Hongjoong, why the hell would you say that? You aren’t even drunk yet. Hongjoong drinks at his wine with more intensity now, nervously trying to drown his panic in the red liquor in the hopes that it will help somehow. Thank goodness Yunho just smiles wider with nothing but a joyful mirth to his gaze.
“You would be a fantastic father.”
“There’s a difference between being a good teacher and a good parent,” Hongjoong mumbles into his glass.
“I know.” Yunho’s gentle gaze is turning him to jello, or maybe even better, a melted pile of ice cream on the floor. Hongjoong is internally begging for him to change the subject and move onto something else so that Yunho won’t keep staring at him in such a way. He has no such luck. “Do you wanna be a dad one day?”
“I, uh, I’m not sure. Sometimes I feel like being a teacher is more than enough but it would be nice to get to do things like go to the park or paint or something like that with a kid of my own. I barely have my life together as it is, I can’t possibly imagine trying to raise a kid on my own. T-That’s kinda why I admire your efforts so much. But I gotta… gotta find someone who will put up with me long term.”
“You don’t have anyone?” Now that question shocks Hongjoong. He has always pinned himself as the type who is very obviously single and alone, but Yunho sounds like he truly believed the opposite.
“You thought I did?”
“I just – well, I – someone like you, I just figured that you’d be taken.”
Someone like you.
Taken.
Oh dear, Hongjoong needs more wine. He lunges forward without thinking after downing the rest of his glass, refilling it to the same height that it was when Yunho initially filled it. There is no negative connotation to Yunho’s statement, and that is what scares Hongjoong more than anything else. His brain’s first reaction is to think of all the ways he could ruin this here and now, how best to run away, how to set his relationship with Yunho aflame before there is even an opportunity for it to go anywhere, and he hates himself for that but it is to protect himself from the pain.
He knows how this ends, and he would rather destroy it himself than wait for Yunho to leave him.
“Nope, not taken! Can’t keep a relationship to save my life actually.” Hongjoong silently begs that Yunho will understand that he means that he is the problem, not all the exes in his past relationships.
“Any terrible exes I need to know about?”
Why would you need to know about them? Hongjoong wants to ask but he bites his tongue and tries not to think too hard about it.
“Uh, just that all my relationships have ended in flames. Quite literally for the last one.”
“Oh? That sounds like an interesting story.” Yunho hums a little to himself, eyes darting from the ceiling back down to Hongjoong’s face.
“It’s really not… just one bad relationship after the other honestly.”
“I can relate to that quite well, I think.” A deep sigh falls from the man’s lips. He swirls his drink around and watches the liquid toss and turn in the glass for a few moments before Hongjoong finds it in him to say something.
“You’ll find someone who will do right by you.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. Maybe I’m just moaning because it’s been over a year since my last relationship. Haven’t really found the time to go out and meet new people this year.”
“Better than me,” Hongjoong mumbles against the rim of his glass before taking a long drag of the liquor. Curse him for being such a damn lightweight because he can already feel a bit of a tipsy haze slipping over his mind and clouding his thoughts. “It’s been two years since I had a stable relationship.”
“How many unstable ones did you have in-between?”
“Why do you ask?” Hongjoong can’t keep the question off his lips.
“Curiosity?”
Hongjoong waits until he has swallowed another half of his glass before mustering up the courage to answer Yunho’s question, but that proves to be a mistake because the quick intake of alcohol makes his head swim.
“Three or four undefined sexual relationships maybe? All left when I got too attached or because they found me boring outside the bedroom.” He could have done with better phrasing than that. The way he said it makes him sound like an absolute sex demon, which Hongjoong doesn’t think is appropriate to talk about or mention to Yunho, but again his reason is quickly leaving him thanks to the wine.
“They have bad taste then. You are by far one of the most interesting people I’ve met, and I mean that in the best way possible.” Yunho gnaws on his lower lip after speaking, and the corner of his mouth twitches up into a strained smile. Hongjoong mimics the smile with equal awkwardness. The action draws a throaty laugh from Yunho, a sound that reverberates in his chest and sends Hongjoong’s heart into a mad state of gay panic. “Hongjoong, are you already tipsy?”
“Hm?” In Hongjoong’s defense, the most he’s had while at Yunho’s place is one glass of wine and nothing more because he usually is careful enough to watch his alcohol intake. Maybe it’s the mixture of his poor panic-riddled heart and the drinks? Is that possible? He doesn’t even know.
“God, you’re so — you’re already tipsy, aren’t you?”
“I’m not tipsy!” He refutes in haste, but there is already a heat rising up his neck and cheeks that betrays his state of slight inebriation.
“Oh, you’re not?” Yunho tilts his head to the side, exposing the long column of his neck to the yellow light above them. Hongjoong spends too much time eyeing that exposed bit of skin. “You seem a little tipsy to me. You look a little flushed.”
“That’s not tipsiness.” Hongjoong presses his lips to the side of his glass as though it will hide his blushing cheeks. Yunho’s next laugh is an endearing one, and Hongjoong drinks it up like it’s his wine.
“Low alcohol tolerance?”
“I’m short. And petite. And small. Not a lot of space to put alcohol in my body. Besides you’re so—” Hongjoong gestures wildly with his free hand to Yunho’s form before him “—big and broad and wide so you can fit a lot more liquor in there.”
“I do have rather high alcohol tolerance, I’ll give you that. Because I’m… big?” Yunho lets his words trail off as a smirk overtakes his lips. Hongjoong’s cheeks could not get any redder than they are in this moment. The other man must find this absolutely hilarious because he releases a laugh that is far too loud and will most definitely wake Akemi up, and he realizes this a moment too late, hand flying up to cover his mouth. Hongjoong breaks into a fit of laughter with him, falling into Yunho’s space without thinking. He’s caught by gentle hands, and one of those hands moves to catch his teetering wine glass before it can tip over onto the couch. They laugh like that, together, full of each other, pushing themselves closer and closer into one another until every sense is so full of Yunho that Hongjoong thinks he could get drunk off that.
“Daddy?”
Hongjoong moves back so quickly that his vision blurs into a hazy mess. Yunho is still chuckling under his breath even as he turns to look over the back of the couch.
“Mimi baby, why are you up? Hm? Was Daddy being too loud?” Yunho places his glass on the coffee table and pushes himself to his feet, hastily rounding the couch so that he can meet Akemi by the stairs. Hongjoong feels useless as can be, but he just continues to sit where he is and watch the scene unfold before him. Yunho squats down to be eye level with the little girl and brings his hands up to comb through a few stray tangles in her hair.
“I heard you laughing with Mr. Hong!”
Yunho’s chin dips to his chest as he laughs again. He pinches the tip of Akemi’s nose between his index finger and thumb, reveling in the way the girl squeals in delight.
“Yes, well, Mr. Hong and I were laughing about a joke Daddy made.” Yunho glances over to where Hongjoong is sitting. The mirth in his eyes makes Hongjoong take another long sip of wine, but it’s not enough to drown the butterflies flying through his gut. “You should get back to bed, angel. We can’t have you going to bed too late or you’ll be sleepy in the morning!”
“Can you tuck me in, Daddy? Pretty please?”
“Of course, Mimi, I missed tucking you in at night the mostest of all while I was gone.”
“Mr. Hong tucked me in every night! And he would show me the pretty butterflies he painted and would read me a poem to help me fall asleep.” Ah, Akemi, why would you mention that? Hongjoong hides his face behind the safety of his glass and tries not to see whether Yunho turns to look at him or not.
“Hm, yes, Mr. Hong is quite the angel, isn’t he? We gotta go to bed though! Come on, up, up! If you don’t hurry your little booty up the stairs, Daddy is gonna catch the little butterfly and gobble her right up!” Yunho leans in to pinch her sides, but Akemi squeals and darts out of the way, her short and stubby legs flying up the stairs and out of his reach. Yunho moves with her, and Hongjoong can’t keep himself from laughing as he watches the scene unfold before him because it’s just so damn cute and domestic. He couldn’t be more whipped if he tried.
Against better judgment, Hongjoong decides to pour himself one more glass of wine and tells himself that it’s because the cheap store-bought wine is good enough to indulge in more (but he knows it’s to chase the feelings away instead).
“Okay, one little butterfly safely put back to bed without any issue.” Hongjoong doesn’t even hear the man come down the stairs, too busy reclining against the couch cushion and mulling over his drink like the lonely gay he is, and Yunho’s sudden presence behind him startles him more than he’d like to admit. The man stands right behind the back of the couch leaned over it so he can speak into Hongjoong’s ear with too much teasing joy to his tone. Hongjoong just about melts on the spot because holy hell the feeling of Yunho’s warm breath cascading over his ear and down the side of his neck makes him feel even hotter under the collar. He tries not to think about how if he turned his head just a little bit to the left, their lips would touch, and he truly tries not to cave in to that desire and do so. Yunho lingers there, pressed into Hongjoong’s space without moving.
“So.” He isn’t sure what possesses him to say that or where the thought is going. Yunho dips his head as he laughs, and Hongjoong swears up and down that the man accidentally brushes his lips over the bare skin of Hongjoong’s neck. He pulls away too quickly for Hongjoong to process it any further though, sliding back around to the front of the couch to sit down beside him again.
“So, two glasses is all it takes to get you drunk?”
“Tipsy.”
“You admitting it?”
“Fucking smooth, Jeong Yunho.” Oops, did Hongjoong say that out loud? He could have swore he said it to himself only, but the way Yunho is smiling at him tells him otherwise.
“I can be much smoother than that.” Now, Yunho isn’t drunk in the slightest. He doesn’t seem tipsy or affected by the alcohol at all, and he claimed to have a high alcohol tolerance so Hongjoong knows that he isn’t saying things in a drunken haze. So why does it sound like he is flirting?
That’s just how he normally is. It doesn’t mean anything. He talks like that all the time.
“Doesn’t sound convincing, but okay.” Hongjoong gives a small shrug of his shoulders before mentally punching himself in the nose. Tipsy Hongjoong is a menace who should not be allowed to speak for more than two seconds.
“Oh? Should I be convincing then?” Yunho twists to look at him. Hongjoong’s heart stops dead in his chest. One large hand stretches out to take his wine glass from his hands and sets it on the coffee table beside the bottle. He is leaning back into Hongjoong’s space again, this time pushing so close that Yunho’s hip brushes against his knee. Hongjoong could fall forward and —
“I wasn’t done with that,” he protests instead, watching the glass rather than Yunho.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Yunho murmurs back. His tone is much gentler and less teasing this time, and Hongjoong might even go so far as to say that Yunho seems to genuinely care. “I shouldn’t have let you have any if I had remembered that you would have to drive back. I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine!”
“Yeah?”
“Tired. Really tired. Like this couch is way too comfortable and I will fall asleep if you don’t stop me,” Hongjoong babbles. He’s all but forgotten about the flush on his cheeks and how foolish he must look right now. For some reason, the only thing his brain can manage is the thought of placing his hand on Yunho’s knee and leaning against his shoulder. The man shifts before he can do that though, pulling a leg up to mimic Hongjoong’s position. Oh. Now Hongjoong really could fall against his chest and just take a nice nap there—
“Maybe you should stay the night.”
“Yunho.” Why is he saying the man’s name?
“Hongjoong,” Yunho responds with a slight smile. Gonna kiss that stupid pretty mouth one day, Hongjoong thinks to himself, eyes narrowed on the man’s lips. “Can you please stay the night? I don’t think you should be driving in this state.”
Hongjoong tells himself that he needs to say no because staying in dangerous and will only make his feelings worse. Instead, he drops a hand to Yunho’s knee and smiles so wide that it hurts his cheeks.
“Okay.”
Yunho exhales a sigh of relief. His hand falls atop Hongjoong’s, the weight so heavy and warm over him that it makes him see stars. Hongjoong twists so that he can slip his fingers over Yunho’s.
“I-I can let you sleep in my bed. I know you’ve been sleeping on a couch for the past week. I’ll take the couch instead.”
“No, no! Noooo, Yunho, you don’t have to!” Hongjoong protests quickly. He flops back on the couch, forgoing the fact that he still has a grip on Yunho’s hand, and the man moves with him, his other hand flying up to steady himself on the pillow that Hongjoong lands on.
Their noses bump against each other.
Yunho doesn’t move away.
“Hi friend,” Hongjoong whispers to quell his rapidly beating heart. Friend. Friend? Hongjoong, are you serious? The man hovering above him can only laugh.
“Hi Hongjoong.” Is Yunho looking at his lips or is Hongjoong seeing things? The man seems to shake himself out of whatever is plaguing him and pulls back to a sitting position. “Are you okay to walk or should I carry you up the stairs?”
“I’m fine!” Hongjoong insists, slipping off the couch cushions and standing upright. He moves far too soon because blood rushes to his head and makes his vision go spotty in the edges. His legs turn to jello in the blink of an eye, but there goes Yunho again, hands finding Hongjoong’s hips and keeping him upright without hesitation. Hongjoong has to keep telling himself that this is what friends would do, Yunho is just doing this as a friend, he is only helping Hongjoong out because they’re friends.
“Next time, I’m watching how much you drink like a hawk.”
“Next time, I’m making sure you get drunk,” Hongjoong grumbles as Yunho loops an arm around his waist and slings one of the shorter man’s arms over his broad shoulders. The heat of his body is too comfortable. Hongjoong debates falling asleep standing up like this but Yunho squeezes his side a little tighter to keep him awake.
“Good luck with that. I’m a tough nut to crack.” A laugh slips from Hongjoong’s lips, and he turns to push up closer to Yunho, caressing his ear with the barest touch of his mouth, and he can feel the way the man quivers under the touch.
“Nut,” he whispers, stifling a giggle.
“How immature, Mr. Kim.” Yunho clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth but still manages to smile as he walks Hongjoong to the edge of the stairs. Hongjoong has to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from saying something much worse. He would preferably like to kiss Yunho on the same spot of his ear, work a path of wet kisses down to his neck and kiss him there as well, but he convinces himself not to.
Yunho drags his slow ass up the stairs with quite a bit of difficulty since Hongjoong’s drunkenness is apparently bad enough for him to struggle with even moving his legs properly. Yunho doesn’t seem to mind, nor does he complain about it either because he lugs Hongjoong until they reach the top of the stairs, pausing to pass him a smile that makes Hongjoong giggle like a schoolgirl in an embarrassing way.
“Mr. Jeong, you’re so cute,” he whispers as he lets his cheek rest against the man’s arm.
“From where I’m standing, you’re much cuter, Hongjoong.”
“Oh?” The sigh slips out without him intending for it to, but he doesn’t bother to correct himself.
“Do you need me to repeat myself?”
“Will you?” Whatever possesses Hongjoong to say that is unbeknownst to him because he had no clue where they come from or why they fall from his lips.
Yunho pauses, looks to the ceiling, then offers a small shrug of his shoulders. His voice is still hushed, no doubt because Akemi is sleeping behind one of these doors.
“Only if you want me to.”
What? Hongjoong catches that much through his dizzied state. Yunho hoists him forward, pushing his way in through one of the doorframes at the top of the stairs. It’s a bedroom, Hongjoong can see that much out the corner of his eye and in the fuzziness of his vision. Yunho pulls him forward a bit more, hands still secured around his waist, and Hongjoong feels like he’s positively floating under the touch.
“Please?” He typically isn’t one to beg or be desperate, but just this once, Hongjoong finds himself wanting to hear the words again.
“I find you quite cute, Hongjoong.” Has Yunho always been this close to him? Hongjoong’s head is no longer pressed to his arm, and Yunho has turned his chin so that he can properly look Hongjoong in the eye.
“I like that.”
“What do you like?” Yunho unravels his arm from Hongjoong’s shoulders, shifting the man so that he can set him down on the edge of the bed. Hongjoong lets him, eyes wide and glassy as he looks up at Yunho.
You.
“You calling me cute,” Hongjoong slurs. A lopsided smile takes over his lips. “Friends can call each other cute, right?”
“…Sure.” If Yunho hesitates in his answer, Hongjoong doesn’t have enough brainpower to process it.
“Cute,” Hongjoong coos moreso to himself than to the man beside him. “You’re so cute, Yunho.”
He can’t help himself any longer. He grabs for Yunho and plants a hand on either side of his face, pulling his head towards his own. He tugs with a bit too much force though because Yunho’s forehead smacks hard on his and knocks Hongjoong back. Yunho is forced to throw his hands down on either side of Hongjoong’s body to stabilize himself before fully crushing the shorter man.
“Ah, I’m such a mess. I’m a tipsy mess. A mess, Yunho, an absolute mess,” he mutters, eyes searching the other man’s face for a sign of discomfort. He finds nothing except a slight red tinge to Yunho’s face and drags his thumbs over the balls of the man’s cheeks.
“An adorable one nonetheless.”
Hongjoong finds himself stretching his neck up a bit. Yunho’s tongue darts out to drag over his lower him, eyes flitting from Hongjoong’s down to his lips and back up again. The visual clue is there, Hongjoong sees it, it’s impossible to miss even while drunk. Yunho’s next words only confirm his suspicions.
“I-I… Hongjoong, I – I want to kiss you b-but—”
“Do it,” Hongjoong blurts before he can stop himself.
“You’re drunk, Hongjoong. I won’t – I won’t take advantage of you like this, not while you’re drunk.”
“I want you to kiss me.”
“Maybe when you’re sober,” Yunho whispers. He hoists Hongjoong further up on the bed with such little effort that Hongjoong’s heart soars in his chest. “Do you want to change clothes?”
“Don’t have anything to wear,” Hongjoong grumbles back. The sudden change in topic hurts him more than he’d like to admit, and the thought of having Yunho so close yet so far away makes him want to sob.
“I have clothes.” The words are stilted and cut short like Yunho wants to say more but can’t bring himself to do it. Hongjoong refuses to move or react. Yunho takes it as an unspoken agreement and slips off the bed to stand up straight. “Let’s get you changed, Hongjoong. I’ll set out some clothes for you.”
When Yunho’s warmth disappears from his side, Hongjoong stretches a hand out after his back but ultimately lets it fall to his side uselessly. He can only watch on with tired eyes, growing more tired by the second as Yunho pulls a shirt and pair of pants out of his dresser. Hongjoong forces himself to sit up and takes the clothes from Yunho’s hands.
“Do you need help changing? I can—”
“I got it, I got it,” Hongjoong interrupts with a small wave of his hand.
“I’ll step into the bathroom then.” Yunho grins a bit before disappearing into said room so Hongjoong can stumble around and change.
“Yunho!” Hongjoong calls out as he’s switching out shirts. “Are you still there?”
“Do you need help?”
“Hm, no, no. Just checking to see if you’re still there!”
The sound of a huffed out laugh echoes through the door.
“I’m still here, Hongjoong.”
“I’m done changing!” It’s a half-truth, but it’s technically a full truth for Hongjoong because he only sleeps in a shirt regardless. He doesn’t bother putting the pants Yunho gave him on mostly thanks to the ridiculous length of them but also because Hongjoong never sleeps with pants on so it seems pointless. He throws himself back on the bed, rolling over to one side of the overly sized mattress as Yunho comes back into the bedroom.
“I – oh, um, Hongjoong, you… pants?” Yunho motions to his all too bare legs.
“Don’t sleep in them,” he mutters back, words still slurring a bit.
“Fair enough, uh, I suppose.” Maybe Yunho’s gaze is lingering a bit too long on the exposed skin of Hongjoong’s thighs, just at the midway point where Yunho’s shirt stops and skin begins. Yunho jerks his head to look in the opposite direction. “If you need anything, just let me know. I’ll be – be downstairs, yeah.”
Yunho doesn’t leave right away. He lingers by the bed, long fingers tracing over the edge of the mattress and eyes staring holes into the side of Hongjoong’s head.
“Can you… would you stay, Yunho?” Hongjoong dares to murmur. He’s too afraid to look Yunho in the eye, too scared of what he might see there (read – rejection). Yunho’s jaw stutters.
“I want to b-but that would be inappropriate of me,” Yunho whispers back. Hongjoong isn’t sure what he wants. He extended an invitation not once but twice, all that’s left is for Yunho to quit stalling and talking himself out of it. He just needs to commit, which is a cruel irony of Hongjoong to say because he can’t commit to even having feelings for the man as it is. Still, Hongjoong can’t be the only one pulling if Yunho isn’t going to move with him.
“Goodnight then, Yunho,” he says through a slightly bitten back tone that conceals his true feelings.
“G-Goodnight, Hongjoong. I hope you – please sleep well.”
Hongjoong is passed out under the sheets before Yunho can even get out the door. The only dreams that plague him that night are the thoughts of what might have happened if they spent the night crammed into each other’s space with little regard for what lines they were crossing or what boundaries they skipping over in Hongjoong’s drunken rush. Every dream he has ends in a nightmare.
…
In the week that has passed since Hongjoong’s drunken night at Yunho’s house, Wooyoung has warned him about getting too attached to the man at least three times. Hongjoong wishes he could say that he doesn’t remember a thing from that night but he remembers it all. The lingering touches, the laughs exchanged in breaths that mingled together, the near kisses, and most of all the way Yunho was so close within Hongjoong’s reach yet so far away at the same time.
“Maybe you aren’t ready for this.”
“For what, Wooyoung?”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. I’ve seen enough people hurt you, and I do my best to help you recover every time, but I’m always scared that there’s gonna be one worse than the rest. One I can’t fix.”
Yunho is making conversation with Akemi on his right. Hongjoong can barely touch his food thanks to the uneasy feeling settling in his stomach, but he forces some food down just so that Yunho isn’t offended. He can’t quit thinking about that damn conversation with Wooyoung, the latest one that had the most lasting impact on his damn overthinking brain.
“Do you want this, Hongjoong?”
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know that? You said that he literally wanted to kiss you.”
“I was drunk. Probably only said that because of the way I was acting.”
Maybe Hongjoong can move back home and find a job there. Or he can find a different school so he doesn’t have to see Yunho and his stupidly perfect face anymore.
“Are you tired, Mimi?” Hongjoong pulls his focus back to the scene before him, trying to shake the memories of that conversation out of his mind. Akemi nods her little head in agreement, and Yunho reaches out to comb his hand through her hair. “Okay, butterfly, run upstairs and brush your teeth. I’ll be right there.”
“Can Mr. Hong come tuck me in please?”
Hongjoong’s eyes widen a bit at that. Yunho twists to look at him, lips parted a bit in disbelief, then he returns to smiling at Akemi.
“We’ll see, angel. Head upstairs first.”
Akemi gets up from her seat with a loud giggle and darts around the table within seconds, gone from sight before Hongjoong can even blink. Yunho stands as well, albeit much slower, gathering his plate and Akemi’s from the table to head into the kitchen. Hongjoong follows suit with his own plate. His gaze finds the back of Yunho’s head.
“Do you want me to tuck her in?” He asks once Yunho sets his plates in the sink.
“Would you please? She will probably refuse to sleep unless you do it.”
Hongjoong replies with a smile and a nod, placing his dish on the counter and pulling away to follow Akemi up the stairs. Maybe it’s because he was already too deep in his thoughts but the act of tucking Yunho’s daughter in and putting her to bed before they indulge in some wine feels grossly domestic. It’s funny how much he hates the thought of it because this is what he’s always wanted: a family to come home to, spend time with, and be loved by. If it’s what he’s always wanted, why is his mind telling him to run away?
Akemi is crawling into bed when Hongjoong arrives in the doorway.
“Mr. Hong, Mr. Hong! Do you have a new poem for me?”
“Where did we leave off last time, little butterfly?” Hongjoong hums, stepping further into the room as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
“You read one about stars and wasting time!” Akemi tugs her sheets up to her chin, bright eyes blinking at Hongjoong with endless wonder, and he grins at her enthusiasm.
“Hm, I have one about love but it’s a bit sappy.” Hongjoong squats beside her mattress and rests his elbows on the edge. Akemi twists to rest on her side.
“I wanna hear it!”
“Okay, okay, close your eyes and listen closely. This is a word we use to plug holes with. It's the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart-shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace and you can sell it. We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form that comes with no instructions. There are whole magazines with not much in them but the word love, you can rub it all over your body and you can cook with it too. How do we know it isn't what goes on at the cool debaucheries of slugs under damp pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-seedlings nosing their tough snouts up among the lettuces, they shout it. Love, love, sing the soldiers, raising their glittering knives in salute. Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. This word is not enough but it will have to do. It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says ‘oh’ again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go.” Hongjoong concludes with a small sigh, thumb dragging over his screen and blinking down at the typed words with a painful burn in his chest. Akemi’s eyes are squeezed shut, and he thinks the girl is asleep so he slowly gets back up and stands straight again. Before he moves to leave the room, he bends over Akemi’s bed and presses a soft kiss to the girl’s head.
“Is that how you and Daddy feel about each other?” Hongjoong’s heart almost stops dead in his chest. He chokes on air. What does Akemi know about love? About their feelings? About Hongjoong’s feelings?
“Go to sleep, little butterfly,” he murmurs before retreating for good, this time with heart heavier than lead.
Love. Hongjoong doesn’t know if he’s ever been in love. He hasn’t stopped to wonder if he has or not, hasn’t bothered putting certain labels on his past relationships out of fear of greater heartbreak.
He runs into something on his way out of the room, arms swinging up to lessen the blow only for his palms to land on Yunho’s chest as he hits the man. A small curse slips past his lips but it’s thankfully spoken too quietly for Akemi to stir in her bed. Yunho’s expression is unreadable in the darkness. Hongjoong can’t move his hands away from Yunho, and the man doesn’t ask him to, merely placing his hands over Hongjoong’s. He pulls the shorter man out of the room like that, and once they’re fully in the hallway, Yunho reaches around his shoulder to shut the door to Akemi’s room.
“This word is not enough but it will have to do,” Yunho murmurs. “What poem is that from?”
“Variations On The Word Love by Margaret Atwood.”
Yunho sinks his teeth into his lower lip. So close. Hongjoong tries to pull his hands away but Yunho keeps him in place, slowly guiding him to the stairs with little effort.
“We’ll fall down the stairs, Yunho.”
This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness.
“Right.”
“Let’s go downstairs,” Yunho mutters, finally releasing Hongjoong so that he can walk on his own. So far away.
It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear.
Hongjoong’s legs are wobbling on his way down the stairs. This intimacy is foreign. It feels too much like a dance, one that only Yunho and Hongjoong are aware of and only they know the steps to, and Hongjoong can’t recall a time when he ever danced around a person for so long. People take what they want from him and leave him. That’s what Hongjoong is used to, and that’s what he knows how to handle after all this time.
Why is Yunho different?
It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says ‘oh’ again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside.
They find their way to the couch where Yunho already has wine out on the coffee table, their unfinished glasses from dinner there as well. Hongjoong sinks to the cushions with a slight exhale of breath. He reaches for the wine immediately like the liquor is an extension of his body.
You can hold on or let go.
Hongjoong is afraid more than anything else that these feelings will ruin him forever, that Yunho will ruin everyone for him because he just seems too perfect. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, slotted in each other’s space even as Yunho sinks down beside Hongjoong and their thighs brush together. Hongjoong wants to let go, to see this fail if only to prove that he was right about it all along. His heart is holding onto Yunho like he’s a lifeline.
“I wouldn’t expect you to read love poems, Hongjoong,” Yunho hums before taking a long drag of wine. “Are you secretly a hopeless romantic?”
“I’m not even sure I can make myself believe in love at this point.”
“How badly have you been hurt in the past? To think like that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I used to think like that myself. Right after Akemi’s mother… after I found out. There was a short period of time where I knew she was cheating but couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I wanted to try to make things work for Akemi b-because I wanted so badly to give her two parents. I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure that she could have both of us growing up and that she wouldn’t be left with just one of us. Guess I failed her the minute her mother decided to walk out.”
“Yunho,” Hongjoong starts, voice hitching a bit in his throat.
“I’m not — I don’t say this to have your pity. I don’t want that. I guess – part of me wants to open up to you because I care about you but also because I can’t help myself around you. Maybe I’m just a fool though.”
“No, Yunho, I—” Hongjoong can’t finish the thought. Why can’t he give? Yunho sits there and pours his soul into every word, bares the most painful parts of himself without hesitation, and Hongjoong can do nothing but whine about how shitty his life is. “I’m the fool,” he whispers after some time has passed. “I’m scared. My last – my last relationship was s-so perfect up until the end, and I’m so afraid that it will happen again. I’m terrified of letting myself g-go enough to let someone in that way.”
“It’s okay to be afraid, Hongjoong. No one is asking you to stop being afraid. Even I’m still fearful of what could happen in the future or if I try again.”
“I guess it’s because I’m used to the pain of heartbreak.”
“That doesn’t mean it will always be that way though,” Yunho whispers, and Hongjoong dares to make eye contact with the man. The stare doesn’t hold for long though because Yunho moves to pour himself another glass of wine, and Hongjoong watches the liquid pour into the glass in silence. Yunho doesn’t speak again until he’s filled his glass and taken a lingering sip from it. “You deserve a chance at happiness too, Hongjoong.”
His response comes in the form of a small choking sound as he drinks too quickly from his wine and inhales the liquor on accident. He coughs his way through it, waving Yunho off when the man leans across the couch in a fit of worry, but Hongjoong really can’t handle him being any closer than he is.
“I-I am happy,” he finally manages to say after clearing his throat.
“Alone?”
“I’m fine on my own.”
Why seek something that could hurt you when you’re perfectly fine on your own?
Hongjoong finds himself asking the question again, though this time he can come up with many more answers than he is willing to admit.
“Every time I look at you, it’s like seeing a reflection of myself. I can see how lonely you are behind that mask you wear.”
“I have friends.” He sounds defensive, and it’s because he most definitely is getting defensive.
“You know that’s not what I mean, Hongjoong.”
“I don’t need to risk being hurt again,” he counters, pushing a bit of vehemence into his tone.
“By that logic, I don’t either but here I am, trying to rectify all the emotions in my body and make sense of them somehow. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt or how badly I’ve been hurt, I still want to keep trying because I truly believe I can get it right one day.”
Why does Yunho have to be right? Why can’t he just be an asshole and break Hongjoong’s heart that way? It hurts knowing that Hongjoong is gonna fuck this up somehow, these lingering feelings have tumbled out of control and he can’t pull them back into his stone-cold heart any longer. A second later, his vision begins to blur. He can’t pinpoint why or what’s going on until Yunho reaches a hand out and places it atop Hongjoong’s knee. Fingers splay over his clothed skin, swamping Hongjoong in the warmth of the touch, and he can’t help but notice how small and fragile he looks under Yunho’s grasp. Something wet falls atop one of Yunho’s fingers, and it’s not red so it can’t possibly be wine but Hongjoong can’t figure out what — oh. He’s crying.
“Hongjoong…”
He must look absolutely pathetic sitting here on Yunho’s couch, fat tears rolling over the balls of his cheeks with an unfinished glass of wine in his hands, but Yunho doesn’t chastise him or ridicule him in the slightest. He merely moves his free hand to take the glass from Hongjoong’s hands, placing it on the coffee table beside his own that somehow ended up over there without a word, and when he reaches back towards the shorter man, he catches Hongjoong’s face in his hands. Yunho swipes his thumbs over the balls of his cheeks with such gentle and caring fingers that Hongjoong can only cry harder because fuck, he’s touch-starved and even a hand on the knee sent him spiraling. Yunho keeps catching each tear that falls without complaint, hands never leaving Hongjoong for a second, and it causes a painful burn to blossom in his chest, one that grows and festers like a wound until it’s all he can feel.
This kind of weakness isn’t one he’s used to. Hongjoong doesn’t let the cracks show in front of other people like Wooyoung or San so they won’t worry about him not being okay, but Yunho just barged in and knocked those brick walls around Hongjoong down as though they were nothing. How does he do it? This damn blundering giant who has stars in his eyes and a laugh so bright that Hongjoong could gladly listen to it for the rest of his life is gonna ruin him forever. He won’t be able to look at anyone if they aren’t Yunho. Hongjoong wants to trust that Yunho will be better to him than all his exes were, but he can’t shake the fear gnawing away at his bones or the nagging sense of inadequacy when he looks in the mirror. Isn’t it too much? Can’t he just have this one nice thing?
Hongjoong wants so badly to throw all caution to the wind and close the distance between him and Yunho right now, kiss the man right on the mouth and tell him how he feels, but all he can do is mumble broken apologies in a choked tone.
“Don’t apologize, Hongjoong,” Yunho whispers back. The way he’s cradling Hongjoong’s face feels like too much, too intimate and too precious, something he shouldn’t allow himself to have, so he reaches up to push Yunho’s hands away from him like the touch is offensive. Hongjoong is good at only one thing and that’s ruining the good he has in his life.
“I – I should g-go. I need t-to go.” He barely remembers to place the spare key on the table beside his glass of wine as he stands up. Yunho moves with him. Hongjoong just wishes that he would stop being so damn considerate and kind and perfect. Stop being everything Hongjoong wants and needs in his life because it hurts too much. He doesn’t even get around the coffee table before Yunho snatches him by the wrist.
“I don’t want you driving in this state, Hongjoong. It’s not safe,” Yunho pleas. Anger bubbles up in Hongjoong’s gut. He’s been in this position before. He has stood in the center of a room with tears running down his cheeks and begged for someone to make him stay. No one ever did. His exes never stopped him or held onto him or asked him not to go.
“Why does it matter?” He spits back in response, and Yunho’s face blurs before him because of the tears. That question seems to catch Yunho off-guard. Hongjoong takes it as an opportunity to escape, slipping his wrist free of Yunho’s grasp and making for the door while he can, but Yunho snaps back to reality too quickly. He’s there to stop Hongjoong at the door; his hand slams against the wood just as Hongjoong turns the handle and cracks it open, pushing it back shut in an instant.
“It matters because I… it’s not safe. I can’t let you go like this in good conscience.”
“So this is about your conscience then?” Reason has left Hongjoong’s body, and at this point, his self-destructive nature has taken the wheel and is ready to drive him off a cliff. Hongjoong just might let it.
“No, I – Hongjoong, please. I c-care about you. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to go out there and be alone.” Yunho’s arm stays planted against the door as though he’s afraid that Hongjoong might try to leave again.
“Can’t you be a fucking terrible person for one second?”
“I don’t know what you want me to do, Hongjoong, but I’m here for you. Please, just stay. I need you to stay, and maybe it’s selfish, yeah. Maybe I’m thinking too much about my own feelings and reading into things too much. But I know that you don’t want to be alone right now.”
“What I want is for you to be like every other person in my life and leave me when I need you most because that hurts less in the long run!”
Yunho’s fingers curl against the door until they’re tucked into a tight fist. His jaw stutters as he tries to come up with some sort of reply, one that will make Hongjoong feel better no doubt, but all Hongjoong wants is to run away. He’s nearing the edge of this cliff and it won’t be long until he tumbles over it, entering a freefall that will result in a dragging sense of pain only to land on another cliff. It’s a sick cycle Hongjoong lives in, but it’s what he’s used to and it’s what he knows how to handle.
“I don’t know what you’ve had to suffer in the past, Hongjoong, or what your past relationships have put you through. I’m not asking for you to tell me either. I just want to give you what you deserve now. You said you had friends so what does that make us? Am I not your friend too? Can you not rely on me too? I want to be close to you, but if that isn’t what you want from me, just say the word and I’ll back off.” The words roll off Hongjoong’s shoulders like they’re nothing, only one having a lasting effect on him in the heat of the moment.
Friend.
The word is laughable on his tongue, and he releases a cruel and sadistic sound that hurts his throat.
Of course. Hongjoong should have known. He told himself this would happen, he warned himself, he looked himself in the eye and said that this was the only outcome out of all of this. So why does it hurt so fucking much? Why did he give himself baseless hopes and wishes to cling to? How could he be so stupid? He drew the line himself. He defined their relationship as a friendship and nothing more. That was what he said would come out of this, and he told Yunho that that’s what they would be. He did this to himself.
If Yunho notices the way tears are flowing harder than before, he doesn’t comment, and this time he doesn’t move to wipe them away either. Hongjoong lifts a shaky and angry hand to furiously brush them off his flushed cheeks.
“I don’t want you to be my friend.” He tries so hard to push rage into the words, some sort of verbal poison that will put Yunho off forever so Hongjoong can just get over himself, but it only comes out broken and weak, like Hongjoong has zero confidence in what he’s saying because he truly doesn’t.
“Then what do you want me to be?”
Why can’t Yunho get it through his thick skull? Why doesn’t he understand what Hongjoong is trying to say?
He pushes as much strength as he can muster into his arms, hands shoving Yunho out of his personal space. Even though Hongjoong doesn’t hit him hard, Yunho’s body moves as though he does, and the man stumbles back on shaky feet. It’s enough to give him the getaway he wants so badly, but Hongjoong just has to drive the knife in Yunho’s chest a little bit deeper before leaving for good.
“I want you to be nothing to me.”
…
Hongjoong has decided that November 7th is the worst day of the year for no reason other than that it is his birthday. He has never enjoyed his birthday; it’s always an overdone celebration that makes him feel worse about getting older, and turning twenty-seven is no different. There is a lot of self-loathing tied to his birthdays every year, but that still never stops Wooyoung or San from trying to do the absolute most for him regardless. Hongjoong woke up to a bouquet of flowers and two small wrapped presents on his counter and Wooyoung on his couch. The gifts were from Seonghwa and Yeosang apparently, small things they sent since they couldn’t be there to celebrate with Hongjoong in person, and Hongjoong is grateful for them even thinking of him today. Wooyoung, on the other hand, is on thin ice.
This year, Wooyoung decided that it would be smart to do something bigger and better than all Hongjoong’s previous birthdays, which means throwing him a party. And before Hongjoong could even say no, Wooyoung hit him with the ‘I already bought all the stuff, San is at home decorating the house, your ass is coming over for drinks whether you like it or not’, so Hongjoong found himself roped into the mess without getting to a say in the matter. Maybe secretly Hongjoong appreciates it though, because he has been doing a lot of wallowing in his miserable feelings and self-loathing since that night at Yunho’s house.
It has been eleven days, not that Hongjoong is keeping track or anything stupid like that, but he has made note of how Yunho won’t look at him when he picks Akemi up from school. They haven’t met for dinner even once in the past two weeks, they haven’t spoken even a word to each other, and Akemi is the only thread hanging between them at the moment. Hongjoong is counting down the days to the end of the school year so the miserable awkwardness can be dispelled and he can move on with his life without having to see Yunho in it. He isn’t necessarily upset at Yunho anymore; it is moreso a matter of Hongjoong hating himself for doing the same shit he always does and ruining something perfectly good and wonderful. San didn’t help either with the long-winded lecture he threw Hongjoong’s way after six days of moping around by himself.
“Just admit that you fucked up. That will help you move on faster and get over these feelings. No one is asking you to be miserable, Joong. No one thinks you deserve to feel that way either, because you don’t. You are the only one making yourself feel that way, and it isn’t fair to yourself. I hate watching you go through this as much as Wooyoung does, but I won’t sit around and watch you hurt yourself without saying anything.”
He went on for a lot longer than that, but Hongjoong has selective memory and that is the only part that really stood out in his mind. Wooyoung made him swear that he wouldn’t think about that today, and Hongjoong is really trying his best not to. Part of him hoped to wake up to a happy birthday text from Yunho even though he knows that’s the last thing he deserves.
“No one else is coming, right?” Hongjoong mumbles from the passenger seat, glancing over to where Wooyoung sits in the driver’s one with one hand on the wheel and the other fiddling with the radio dial.
“That’s a surprise, shush.”
“Wooyoung–”
“You know we wouldn’t bring anyone you hate, right? Just trust us!”
But what about anyone who hates me? Hongjoong wants to ask, mind only envisioning one tall brunette with round cheeks and a stupidly adorable dorky smile. His gut churns with unspoken anxiety as Wooyoung pulls into the driveway at his and San’s shared house. It’s a somewhat recent development for the two of them — moving in together, that is — but Hongjoong thinks the pair will be stuck at the hip forever, so it wasn’t a surprise to him when they dragged him out for house shopping with them. The exterior of the house is blessedly plain when they reach the door, and Hongjoong is glad that Wooyoung didn’t decide to plaster his name in gold across the front of the building on a banner or something drastic like that.
His hopes are shot the moment he steps through the door because rather than seeing San, all he can see are broad shoulders, a brown mop of hair, and lengthy legs standing in the middle of their living room with his back turned on Hongjoong.
He nearly turns on his heel and walks out the door right then and there because how the fuck did Wooyoung manage to get Yunho to come and why the fuck did Yunho agree to be here? Surely he didn’t know this was for Hongjoong. Maybe he somehow knows Wooyoung and San through something else. Even so, how did they convince him to come? This makes no sense, and Hongjoong is reeling so much that he can’t even try to make it make even a sliver of sense. All his brain can do is go: what the fuck Choi San, what the fuck Jung Wooyoung, what the fuck Jeong Yunho.
“We were gonna invite Akemi too, but adult drinks are involved so that was out of the question,” Wooyoung whispers, leaning in close to speak into the shell of Hongjoong’s ear. “Please don’t be too mad at us. I know it’s your birthday, and we should’ve asked to make sure about this beforehand, but we knew you would probably say no because you were dead set on him hating you. Besides, he’s the one who reached out to me and asked if there was anything he could do. Found me through Instagram and saw all the pictures we’ve got together, so he messaged me and asked after you. He… Hongjoong, he won’t shut up about how much he’s worried about you. I thought I was bad with San, but damn, this man has me beat.”
San has Yunho distracted enough to where the man doesn’t notice that he and Wooyoung have come in yet, so Hongjoong takes the opportunity to reel on the man by his side and punch him in the arm. Wooyoung winces and releases an all too loud scream that betrays their presence in the house.
“Ow, you bitch!”
“Yep, there they are!” San chirps, dimples flashing in Yunho’s direction, and the man finally turns to face the door. Hongjoong is fully prepared for hell to break loose when their gazes meet. There’s nothing he can do to prepare himself for it except hold onto his breath like it’s a lifeline and wait for Yunho to spew angry words and hatred his way. It never comes. Wooyoung slips away from his side, moving to join San at the other end of the entryway, and Yunho walks forward to replace his presence.
“Um, happy birthday,” Yunho says, tone so quiet that Hongjoong almost doesn’t pick up a single word. The taller man looks nervous beyond belief, and his gaze flits away from Hongjoong’s after a single second of eye contact, slipping down to the floor instead.
“Who’s watching Akemi?” He asks without a breath of hesitation. Yunho huffs out a small laugh.
“My parents. They flew in yesterday to visit us, so I figured I could escape for at least part of the night.”
Who knows when the last time Yunho got to see his parents was yet he still decided to come to a stranger’s house for Hongjoong? Even after what Hongjoong said to him?
“You… I-I – why did you come?”
“I selfishly wanted to see you on your birthday?”
“But what I said to you and – and how I treated you… I don’t understand.”
Yunho presses his lips into a smile.
“Don’t understand what? Why I’m here? I’d hoped the gesture would be enough to convey my feelings.”
“You,” Hongjoong exhales, but that’s all he can get out.
“I hope you won’t be too mad that I brought you a gift.”
“Just you being here is enough.” Hongjoong huffs out a laugh as the corners of his eyes begin to burn with unshed tears. Shaky hands find Yunho’s collar and twist around his shoulders until Hongjoong can properly pull him into a hug. Yunho drapes his arms around Hongjoong’s waist without a drop of hesitation, pulling the shorter man in until all their senses are full of each other. “Everything about you is enough, Yunho.”
Yunho drops his face into the crook of Hongjoong’s neck, and the younger is almost definitely crying now, tears wetting Hongjoong’s skin as he clings to the man tighter.
“I’m so sorry for making you feel like you aren’t enough,” Hongjoong murmurs against the shell of the man’s ear. He runs a hand through Yunho’s hair, scraping blunt painted nails over his scalp with no particular rhythm. “Y-You’re so much more — so much more than enough.”
“Why are you making me cry on your birthday?” Yunho laughs, words reverberating against his skin, and the butterflies in Hongjoong’s stomach flutter dangerously.
“Why are you crying on my birthday?”
“Aside from Akemi, you’re one of the only good things I have in my life. I was scared I was going to lose you by being careless. I don’t – I don’t want to be careless with you, Hongjoong. I wanted to follow you out that door but couldn’t bring myself to.”
I want you. I like you. I need you. I love you. Hongjoong is thinking of all the things he could say, and the confidence is there, the willpower to say them is boiling over in his gut. San and Wooyoung watch from the edge of the living room with bitten-back smiles and a knowing gleam to their eyes. Even if they can’t hear the conversation, Hongjoong doesn’t doubt that they’ve stood in the same position and whispered confessions and promises and apologies to each other like this too. Instead of those confessions, Hongjoong mutters something else.
“I don’t want you to be nothing.”
“I spent too long hoping you would say that.” Yunho pulls his head up from Hongjoong’s neck and furiously blinks his tears away as he looks the shorter man in the eye.
“What else did you hope I would say?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to ask for anything more than that.”
Hongjoong presses a hand to Yunho’s cheek, collecting the tears staining his skin and pushing them away with the pads of his thumb.
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I hope not. I’d like to keep you around for as long as possible.”
It’s not a confession for either of them. They aren’t admitting to anything special or telling each other how they feel or if they even feel the same way about each other. Maybe there are romantic emotions behind the words or maybe not; Hongjoong doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth and call anything too early. For now, he’s content with this. This admission of needing each other and wanting to be around each other. And when Hongjoong is ready, he will dissolve the line of friendship that he drew in the sand and be honest about how he feels. This is already more than he could have hoped for given what he said and how vehemently he tried to destroy their relationship.
“Um, as cute as you guys are, can you hurry it up so we can open presents?” Wooyoung croons from the other side of the room, and Hongjoong holds back the urge to roll his eyes. “And Yunho is not a present so please for the sake of my innocence don’t do anything explicit opening up over there!”
“You whore!” Hongjoong scoffs, glancing around Yunho’s shoulder to scowl at his friend. Wooyoung simply beams back at him before making a crude gesture with his hand and giving him a thumbs up. Still, they both heed his words and untangle their arms from each other to follow the other two further into the living room while Wooyoung prattles on about the new furniture he’s planning on getting for the house to a mildly interested Yunho. San stops beside Hongjoong, careening an elbow into his side and flashing his dimples. “Was this your idea?”
“Maybe? You should be glad I didn’t decide to lock the two of you in a room so you could talk shit through.” San clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Progress is progress, I suppose, so I can’t be too mad at the fact that you two literally look at each other with hearts in your eyes yet still refuse to confess.”
“Yeah, well, took you eight months to grow the balls to ask Wooyoung out.”
“Part of that was your fault. He’s your best friend before he’s my boyfriend, and I thought you would kill me if I so much as looked at him the wrong way.”
“Still might,” Hongjoong grumbles before joining the aforementioned man on the couch. Wooyoung scrambles to the side just before he sits down, making space between him and Yunho for Hongjoong to sit.
“Okay, me first, me first!” Wooyoung insists as he passes an all too large package Hongjoong’s way with his trademark toothy smile. Hongjoong least favorite part about birthdays is the awkwardness that comes with opening presents because he is the type who needs to give in return for receiving something. And if he’s being honest, he is most nervous about whatever Yunho brought him, but he tries to distract himself with Wooyoung and San’s gifts first.
Wooyoung gets him a new jean jacket along with a set of paints that Hongjoong had been eyeing for a while, adding that he got himself a jacket as well so that they could reform the clothes together as a friend project. Hongjoong pokes fun at him for the action and accuses him of only getting Hongjoong something because Wooyoung wanted it for himself at first. Wooyoung plays along with a scrunched nose, faking offense to mess with Hongjoong some more before San interrupts to pass another gift his way. Hongjoong unwraps a new pair of shoes from the man who insists they’ll add at least two inches to Hongjoong’s height just from the insoles, and he nearly earns a boot in the face for that comment but Hongjoong holds back only because Yunho is present.
And speaking of Yunho, that’s how Hongjoong finds himself suddenly looking him in the eye as the man extends a delicately wrapped box with a small blue bow on top of it.
“I wasn’t too sure what to get you but… I hope you’ll like it,” Yunho says just before biting his lip so hard that it hurts to look at. Hongjoong exhales a nervous laugh, fingers nearly shaking as he pulls the wrapping paper away and reveals the box underneath. He knows from experience that it must be jewelry of some sort, but even thinking about it can’t prepare him for what’s inside.
“Y-Yunho,” he stammers, eyes flitting between the gift and the man’s face in absolute disbelief. It’s something small and delicate, a thing that might be insignificant upon first glance or to anyone other than Yunho and Hongjoong themselves, but Hongjoong knows the second he sees it how special and precious the thought behind it is.
“Her mother used to call her that.”
“He would show me the pretty butterflies he painted and would read me a poem to help me fall asleep.”
“Okay, one little butterfly safely put back to bed without any issue.”
On a small bed of white foam there sits a little blue butterfly. It’s attached to a silver chain at the tip of one of the wings, tilted at a slight angle in the box, and Hongjoong tilts his head to match it as he stares down.
“We should get the drinks,” San cuts in, shaking Hongjoong out of his stunned reverie.
“Okay, babe. Have fun with that!”
“No, we, Wooyoung, we should get the drinks.”
“Huh? Why we? Oh! Oh. Oh my god, yes, we should definitely get the drinks. Excuse us for a second, we’ll be right back!” Wooyoung bolts from his spot on the couch, followed quickly by San, and all of a sudden, it’s just Hongjoong and Yunho sitting in the living room. Endless amounts of empty space around them yet only mere centimeters separating their thighs from touching.
“A butterfly,” Hongjoong whispers at last, and he finally dares to look back up at Yunho. Yunho doesn’t look back at him though; he has his head hung a bit, fingers awkwardly and nervously clasped around something on his neck. Hongjoong waits as patiently as he can for the man to react in some way, and once again his heart threatens to stop in his chest. Yunho unfolds his fingers to reveal an identical silver chain with a blue butterfly pendant placed in the exact same position as the one Hongjoong holds in his hand.
“It’s a, um, it’s a custom piece. The one I have, I mean. I got it shortly after Akemi’s mother and I officially split and she moved out. I contacted the jeweler who made it for me and asked if he could make another and he said absolutely, so… yeah.” Custom piece. Identical. Hongjoong might pass out actually. Yunho continues after a quick lick of his lips. “You’ve always — you always act like a father to Akemi even though no one expects you to or demands that of you. You do it willingly and happily, and I never thought I would meet a person like you in a million years. I don’t know how to show my gratitude for that but I thought that out of everyone in my life, you deserve this the most.”
A key to Yunho’s heart, his pride and joy, and an invitation. To what exactly, Hongjoong doesn’t think he could figure that out right now, but he indulges in himself a bit, turning around on the couch so his back is now to Yunho. With a quick flick of his wrist, he extends the box with the necklace behind him, giving Yunho a silent plea to put the necklace on for him. Yunho takes it in stride and pulls the box from Hongjoong’s hand. Their fingers brush for half a second, but both chase the feeling for another half-second before Yunho dips his chin with a chuckle.
The metal of the chain and pendant is cold against his skin, slipping over his neck and under the collar of his shirt before he can stop it. Hongjoong reaches up to touch the jewelry if only to confirm that it’s real, this is real, Yunho is real.
Yunho does his best not to touch the back of Hongjoong’s neck, and the older of the two is glad for it because he isn’t sure if his heart can handle much more of this.
“There,” Yunho whispers once the clasp sits attached on Hongjoong’s skin.
“Thank you,” Hongjoong says as he turns to face Yunho once more. His hand still sits atop the pendant, and he isn’t sure he could move it if he wanted to with how touched he is by the gesture of the necklace.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
A breath of silence. Hongjoong feels like Yunho is the only person in the universe at that moment, the only other human being who knows him and understands him in ways even Hongjoong doesn’t himself.
“I want to.”
“Then I suppose I can’t stop you if it’s what you want.” Yunho’s eyes are twinkling under the fluorescent lights above them, little gems that shine with so much emotion that Hongjoong is overwhelmed just from the sight of it.
“I was engaged,” Hongjoong blurts. He isn’t sure what comes over him or possesses him to say such a thing, and as soon as he processes what he’s said, he flings a hand up to cover his mouth. Yunho blinks back in equal parts shock and confusion. “I – hold on, I m-meant, uh, let me start over.” Hongjoong is begging Wooyoung and San to come back and save him from this awkwardness, but apparently, his mouth has a mind of its own because he just keeps speaking instead. “My last relationship – the one I kinda told you about – we were together for three years then he proposed to me. We were engaged for seven months and planned the wedding and honeymoon and everything. There weren’t… any problems between us, at least I didn’t see any signs of there being something wrong. A few days before the wedding, he c-called it off and said he didn’t want to marry me.”
“Wh–Why?” Yunho exhales, and the one word quivers on his tongue.
“He… found someone else he wanted to be with more. Made more money than me, taller than me, better looking no doubt – just everything he wanted and more. He didn’t even cheat on me b-but I selfishly wished he had just so that I could justify how I felt. I wanted to hate him but couldn’t even do that because he was open and h-honest and kind even then. I get scared with you because you’re so – so kind. So giving, and I get scared that I won’t be good enough in the long run.” Scared that it will happen again. That’s what Hongjoong wishes he could say, but he doesn’t need to because Yunho understands nonetheless.
Large hands cup his jaw, and Hongjoong is forced to look up at the man across from him.
“Anyone – and I truly mean anyone, Hongjoong – would be lucky to call you theirs for eternity. I hate that someone took that away from you and made you feel like you’re less than perfect.” Yunho is pulling him closer. He is sinking into Yunho’s touch, long fingers guiding him forward with endless gentleness, and Hongjoong secures a hand by Yunho’s side as he gets closer. Their noses brush, a smile twitches at Yunho’s lips, and Hongjoong is about to risk it all for this man.
“I’m not drunk this time,” Hongjoong murmurs, hot breath cascading over Yunho’s mouth.
“You’re not.”
“So kiss m—”
“Got drinks!”
Hongjoong has never scrambled to get away from a person faster in his life, and he’s pretty sure he nearly faceplants atop the glass coffee table in his rush to separate himself from Yunho.
Fuck Jung Wooyoung.
“Oh s-shit, uh, hold on, we’ll go back into the kitchen for a second! Continue!” Hongjoong hears angry whispers, followed by a loud smack and a noise of indignation coming from San as the pair rush to get back into the kitchen. Hongjoong’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. The mood has most definitely been killed thanks to Wooyoung’s interruption, and when Hongjoong glances over to gauge Yunho’s reaction, he finds a pretty blush splayed over the man’s cheeks.
It shouldn’t change anything. Friends have their moments like this, right? Friends get each other gifts and such, and maybe sometimes they nearly kiss in moments of clouded judgment. Yunho’s expression is one that Hongjoong can’t read. It’s only after he’s been staring at the younger man for well over a minute that Yunho meets his gaze and offers a shaky smile.
It shouldn’t change anything, so why does it feel like the ground under Hongjoong has been shifted in ways that he both can’t explain or reverse? The slippery slope just keeps sending him down.
…
There is an unspoken shift between the two of them from the night onwards. Nothing else significant happened that night; Yunho stayed to eat with them and drink a bit before saying that it was time for him to get back to Akemi. Hongjoong walked him to the door, put a hand on his arm, and thanked him one more time. They stared at each other’s lips for far too long, then Wooyoung started screaming about how San spilled beer on the couch cushions, and Hongjoong let Yunho go without asking for anything else from the man.
Their dinners resume as well, and Hongjoong is more grateful for that than he’d like to admit because admitting it would mean acknowledging how intense his feelings for the man are. They don’t talk about the near kisses or lingering touches either, but that’s alright by Hongjoong’s standards. He’ll take the peace and pining while it lasts because that’s the best way for him to avoid pain in the long run. He does make certain not to drink enough to get drunk like he did that one night. Things don’t change beyond that, that is until one day in mid-December when Hongjoong is back to visit for dinner but it’s quite different this time.
First, it’s a Saturday rather than their usual Fridays. Hongjoong couldn’t make it the day before because he promised that he would go visit Seonghwa and Yeosang in the new house they bought recently.
Second, Akemi isn’t present. According to Yunho, she’s off staying the night at a friend’s house for a birthday sleepover, so for the first time ever, Hongjoong is alone with Yunho in the house. He tries to insist that this won’t make anything different between them. It’s just their typical dinner after all, even if Akemi isn’t with them.
“What are your plans for Christmas?” Yunho asks midway through a bite of chicken. To be frank, Hongjoong completely forgot about the holiday. It’s never something huge or drastically special to him, so he pushed the thought of it to the back of his mind, but he should probably start debating what he’s going to be doing since it’s less than a week away now.
“Uh, I’m not sure. I won’t be going home, I know that much. Tickets are too expensive, and it isn’t worth the hassle to go. What about you?”
“I haven’t had time to think about it. Work is always busiest this time of year, but I’ll get some time off starting next week.”
“Not going home?” Hongjoong inquires, glancing over at the man.
“No, not this year. Parents are going to France for a trip so there won’t be anyone to go home to.”
“It’ll just be you and Akemi then?”
“Yup, first time too.”
Hongjoong has an idea. A bad one, but an idea nonetheless.
“If you – I, um, it will be a bit cramped, but you two could come to my place for Christmas?” He sounds too hopeful, and he probably looks a bit desperate with his lower lip caught between his teeth. Yunho cocks his head to the side. The silence that ensues feels like a ton of bricks sitting atop Hongjoong’s chest, and he’s about to backtrack and call the idea stupid when Yunho finally speaks.
“I was going to ask the same of you actually.”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah, y-yeah, uh—”
“Do you want to come over for Christmas, Hongjoong?” Yunho interjects. His gaze pierces the side of Hongjoong’s head, and the older man is certain that he forgets how to breathe for a second.
“I would love that,” he exhales quietly. Yunho hums through another bite of food and continues to finish his meal without mentioning it again, but the smile that lingers on his lips for the rest of dinner has Hongjoong’s heart doing cartwheels and frontflips for too long. They clean the dishes side by side for once. Without one of them needing to tuck Akemi in for the night, they can get the dishes done a lot faster than usual. Still, Hongjoong cannot shake the feeling that something they’re both unaware of is about to happen. Nothing about Yunho’s behavior is different tonight. Hongjoong thinks he’s acting normally himself as well.
So why? Why does this feel so different?
Yunho puts on a movie for the two of them to watch while Hongjoong finishes his one (and only) glass of wine. He might need more than that though because as much as he tries, he cannot tear his eyes away from the man on the other side of the couch. Yunho is far too attractive for his own good, legs splayed wide open and thighs on full display with one hand pressed to his right thigh and the other draped over the back of the couch.
“Are you cold?” Yunho asks after about half an hour of Hongjoong’s wandering eyes and lack of focus on the movie.
“H-Huh?” Hongjoong stammers.
“You keep curling up further and further in that corner of the couch.”
“Oh, I’m – I’m fine. I need to run to the bathroom actually.” Hongjoong bolts up before Yunho can reply, darting away from the living room in his sudden bout of panic. He doesn’t need to go to the bathroom, and Yunho probably knows that; all he needs to do is lecture his reflection in the mirror and tell himself to pull it together. He also wants to plaster the words ‘I’m desperately in love with you’ across his forehead just so that he doesn’t have to confess to Yunho himself.
No, Hongjoong, bad idea.
All Hongjoong does is splash some water across his face before returning to the living room. Yunho has shifted a bit and now has a blanket draped over his legs. When he catches sight of Hongjoong, he offers a grin and pulls the blanket up a tad.
“Just admit you’re cold and get under the blanket with me.”
“Okay,” Hongjoong squeaks out, trying to hide his flushing cheeks from view as he slips under the blanket. The space between their bodies is absolutely minimal now. Hongjoong tries to keep himself as far from Yunho’s body as possible, but he was truly cold and the warmth the blanket provides is really nice. Between the blanket, Yunho, and the soft volume of the television playing in the background, he can’t help but to become more drowsy with each passing second. Yunho’s arm is still on the back of the couch, nearly around Hongjoong’s shoulders, and if he’s honest, Hongjoong is only thinking about that and nothing else.
“For Christmas, do you want me to bring anything?” He asks after a while in a desperate attempt to stay awake. Yunho hums a little, head tilting side to side.
“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. We can talk about that later on though.” Yunho sounds tired as well, and Hongjoong can’t tell whether that’s a good thing or not. On one hand, if they’re both so tired, it wouldn’t be as awkward to fall asleep like this, but on the other, it would be too intimate given Hongjoong’s feelings for him. “Do you want me to put up any specific decorations?”
“Hm? I don’t have a preference. It’s your home, you can choose whatever you like,” Hongjoong murmurs back, daring to let his head fall closer to Yunho’s shoulder.
“Can I put up mistletoe then?”
“Wh-What?” That caught Hongjoong’s attention. And woke him up quite a bit too.
“I think you’d look cute under it,” Yunho whispers through a smile, leaning in to speak the words closer to Hongjoong’s mouth. “And it would give me an excuse to kiss you.”
What. What? Passing out seems like a good idea all of a sudden.
“Do you need an excuse?”
“Depends.” Yunho shrugs. The hand resting on the back of the couch falls forward, brushing Hongjoong’s shoulder before coming up to toy with a few strands of his hair.
“What if… what if I ask you to?” Hongjoong wets his lips then drags his teeth over his bottom lip. He doesn’t intend to be so seductive in the action; it’s merely a nervous habit he has, but Yunho watching his mouth move so intently that Hongjoong might melt.
“Are you asking me to?”
“No,” Hongjoong exhales. That catches Yunho a bit off-guard, eyes blinking furiously like he’s misunderstood Hongjoong’s advances and actions this whole time, but the older rushes to finish his thought. “I’m not asking. I’m telling you to kiss me already, Yunho. I’ve waited long enough, no?”
Yunho inhales so sharply that air whistles through his teeth. His eyes search Hongjoong’s features for something else, maybe a sign that he doesn’t mean what he’s saying, but all Hongjoong wears is pure determination and pent-up frustration at taking this long to kiss the man. Yunho curls his fingers in Hongjoong’s hair, gripping it like a vice but not hard enough to cause any pain.
“I didn’t expect you to be the demanding type, Hongjoong.”
Hongjoong arches a brow at that and curls his lips enough to be taunting. Apparently, that turns out to be Yunho’s limit because the man finally dips in to close the distance between their mouths. He pulls at Hongjoong’s hair a little harder to get better access to his mouth. Hongjoong is positively floating with even the smallest pressure of the kiss, but when Yunho’s lips slot against his and deepen the pressure, he thinks that there’s no way this is reality. He’s ascended to the last level of heaven and is on his way to paradise, that’s the only explanation for this.
Hongjoong doesn’t remember moving at all but suddenly he’s pushing his way out from under the blanket and straddling Yunho’s hips without missing a beat. Their lips are still connected, thin trails of spit between them that only increase in volume when Hongjoong gets bold enough to swipe his tongue over the younger man’s lip. Yunho uses his free hand to yank the blanket out from between their bodies, letting Hongjoong press closer to his chest in a heated fervor. He can’t seem to move fast enough, nipping at Yunho’s lip until the man gasps. His tongue slips in next and fills the empty space in Yunho’s mouth to clash with the man’s tongue in a show of dominance. He doesn’t get to maintain that dominance for long as it turns out because Yunho gives a sharp tug to Hongjoong’s hair, and it sends a jolt through his body so intense that he forgets where he is and what he’s doing for a split second.
Yunho takes the opportunity to push back against Hongjoong’s tongue and shove his way into the smaller man’s mouth, and fuck, if that’s not the hottest thing he’s ever done, Hongjoong doesn’t know what could possibly top that. Until Yunho slips both hands down his back to secure at his hips with a grip that’s almost bruising in force, that is. That sends Hongjoong to a different plane of existence, but he doesn’t even want to come down from there if it means kissing Yunho like this. Or maybe just kissing him in general. He hasn’t decided.
Yunho decides it’s time to breathe, unfortunately, and Hongjoong has to pull away with no shortage of internal whining because goddammit lungs, hold a bit more air so he can kiss Yunho some more.
“That was nice,” Hongjoong exhales, still staring at the soft glisten of spit on Yunho’s lips. “Can we—”
“I like you, Hongjoong.”
“Y-You what?”
“I like you. In ways I can’t explain and in ways that words can’t describe. Just saying it wouldn’t do my feelings justice, and I-I thought… I hoped to make it clear on your birthday. When you asked me why I came and I said I hoped the gesture would convey my feelings – I should have said it then. I like you, every inch of you, every part of you inside and out, maybe so much so that it’s love.”
Hongjoong huffs out a breath of disbelief, jaw unable to close in his state of shock, and all he can do is bring a trembling hand to where Yunho’s heart lies behind the confines of his chest. Yunho gnaws at his lip. The corners of his mouth turn upward.
Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness.
“I-I’ve liked you for s-so long,” Hongjoong whispers once the initial surprise passes. “I didn’t – I tried talking myself out of it and convincing myself that there was no way you could ever feel the same.”
It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear.
“How could I not when it’s you?” Yunho is holding his cheek now, thumb caressing his face like Hongjoong is a piece of glass in his hands. “You’re… everything I could ever have asked for in a person. Everything and more. I wish I could put it into words – how you make me feel – but the best I can do is say I think I love you.”
This word is not enough but it will have to do.
“I think I love you too.” It scares Hongjoong to admit that out loud; it’s something he could never even let himself say in his thoughts, but Yunho pulls the words from his lips with no effort at all. Like he’s meant to say it.
It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says ‘oh’ again and again in wonder and pain.
His chest burns a little from the heat of all the emotions running through his body. Yunho pulls him closer, one hand still wrapped around Hongjoong’s delicate waist with the other dragging soft patterns over his cheek. They have been this close for so long. They’ve worked in this standstill where they are together but apart, close but far away, and now all that’s left to do is increase the distance or close it forever.
A breath.
It is Hongjoong’s turn to inhale as Yunho sighs over his still-swollen lips.
A finger grip on a cliffside.
The way Yunho’s eyes rake over his face is intimate in a way Hongjoong can’t describe. Yunho almost speaks through only that gaze, like he’s telling – no, asking, pleading, begging Hongjoong to hold onto him and not let go.
You can hold on or let go.
Hongjoong, at last, has decided that he wants to hold on, even if the past has scarred him and the future scares him.
…
Hongjoong arrives outside Yunho’s door on Christmas day with a knot in his stomach that won’t go away. It’s not a bad sort of knot – at least he thinks it isn’t – but it is one that leaves him a bit nervous. The butterfly necklace Yunho gifted him still sits around his neck, not taken off once since Yunho gifted it to him, and the bag of gifts in his hands feels heavier than usual. He and Yunho have spoken since that night, but Hongjoong hasn’t come over again nor have they discussed what the events of that night entail for them moving forward. It would taste a lie on his lips if Hongjoong tried to say that he hasn’t been thinking about kissing Yunho every day since.
“Mr. Hong! You’re here! Mr. Hong is here, Daddy!” The door swings open to reveal Akemi, all dolled up in a precious little plaid dress with small butterfly clips in her hair, and Hongjoong’s nerves melt away at the sight of her bright smile. Then Yunho steps into view, much less dolled up and more looking like he just rolled out of bed five minutes ago, but Hongjoong can’t say that he doesn’t look damn good as it is. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks about the possibility of waking up to a Yunho with bedhead and flushed cheeks.
“Can you take the gifts in for him, Mimi?” Yunho asks, running a hand through Akemi’s hair. She beams back at him and takes the bag in Hongjoong’s hands away without complaint, which leaves Hongjoong suddenly very empty-handed and alone before Yunho. “Hi friend.”
Friend? Hongjoong cocks his head to the side.
“That’s what you said the first time I tried to kiss you,” Yunho explains upon seeing Hongjoong’s confusion.
“Hi friend,” Hongjoong replies through a stretched grin. The sight of Yunho before him is making him feel a bit bold, maybe too reckless, but he rolls with it and stretches up on his tiptoes to place a small kiss on the corner of Yunho’s mouth. “Merry Christmas.”
“We’re not even under the mistletoe yet.”
Hongjoong squints and looks off to the side, pretending to think the words through, then breaks into a broad smile.
“Need an excuse to kiss me then?”
“Never,” Yunho murmurs before dipping in to give Hongjoong a proper kiss on the lips, and it’s everything he could have wanted and more. Everything about Yunho feels safe and warm, like something Hongjoong never wants to let go of, and thankfully Yunho seems to think the same of him as his lips chase after Hongjoong’s when the shorter man pulls away.
“Daddy! Mr. Hong will get cold if you don’t let him in!”
“Yeah, Yunho! Do you want me to get all cold out here?” Hongjoong teases, stepping around Yunho to properly greet Akemi inside.
“I had to wake Daddy up because he was trying to sleep in this morning,” the little girl explains when Hongjoong squats down to be eye level with her.
“Did you? Shame on him! He should know to be up early for Christmas morning!”
“He should! He said he stayed up late, so I think he was trying to spy on Santa.”
“Spy on Santa? My goodness, Yunho, you are causing trouble left and right.”
“Yes, well, Santa and I had to meet up during the night. I had to ask him for one more gift.”
“He didn’t leave any other gifts on the fireplace though, Daddy!” Akemi protests, motioning to the hearth behind her. Yunho blinks at the spot for a moment then turns to look down at Hongjoong with a smile.
“He brought my gift to the door this morning it seems.”
Hongjoong releases a scoff to hide his embarrassment and reaches over to swat at Yunho’s stupidly long legs.
“You’re disgusting!”
“Yeah, Daddy! Ew! Don’t say icky things!” Akemi scrunches up her nose and feigns disgust although Hongjoong isn’t sure she can even understand what Yunho means by his comment, so she might just be playing along with Hongjoong’s show of disgust. Yunho shakes his head a little but relents in his grossly cheesy comments to say something else.
“Mimi, honey, can you run upstairs for a moment? Daddy wants to talk to Mr. Hong in private for a little bit, then when we’re done, we can open up all the presents!”
“Okay, Daddy! Can I play with my dolls while I wait?”
“Of course, baby, go ahead. Run, run! We won’t be long, I promise!” Yunho shoos the little girl off, watching her bound up the stairs with nothing but fondness in his eyes, and he continues to stare after her even after Hongjoong pushes himself to his feet.
“Talk in private?” Hongjoong asks.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was going to wait until after gifts and such but… you decided to kiss me right off the bat, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus after that.”
“Are you saying that I’m distracting, Mr. Jeong?”
“In more ways than one, absolutely.” Yunho draws his lips into a tight purse then presses them into a thin line in the same motion. “What do you want us to be, Hongjoong?”
That’s… not the question Hongjoong was expecting.
“I’m content with it being up to you,” he whispers in response.
“If – so if I asked for us to be exclusive, what would you say?” Hongjoong’s heart leaps in his chest.
“Say the word and I’m yours, Yunho.”
“Well, you can’t say things like that. I’ll lose all my inhibitions before noon,” Yunho chuckles, dipping his head to his chest. Hongjoong takes a step closer to him and closes a bit of the distance between their bodies. He lifts a hand in a sudden bout of confidence and cups Yunho’s cheek.
“I want to be yours and only yours. Even if I’m scared of the future and what it holds, I don’t want to lose what we have or what we could have. So if you would have me, I will gladly be yours for as long as you want me.”
“And if I happen to want you forever?”
“Then you’re stuck with me,” Hongjoong murmurs. The undisclosed promises in those words sting a bit, memories of the past threatening to resurface until Yunho chases them away with his next words.
“Do you – do you want me as well?”
“I want you,” he whispers while the confidence still lasts. He delivers a quick kiss to the tip of Yunho’s nose. “I like you—” another to his right cheek “—I need you—” one where his thumb ends and Yunho’s skin begins “—and I’m madly in love with you, Jeong Yunho.”
It’s good that Hongjoong has nothing else to say because Yunho cuts off his air, lips smashing hard against his with an almost bruising force, and Hongjoong could almost cry because of all the emotions built up in his chest. He scrambles to wrap his arms around Yunho’s neck as the other man deepens the kiss. His back curls hard to press himself fully against Yunho. There’s a certain kind of desperation in his body, one that just makes him want to pull Yunho closer and kiss him for hours on end. Even if it’s not their first kiss or their last, Hongjoong cherishes it nonetheless. They only pull apart when every ounce of air has left their bodies and they’re on the verge of blacking out. Yunho gasps for air, huffing in deep breaths stolen from Hongjoong’s exhales, and it’s too close, too intimate, too everything. Hongjoong doesn’t want it to stop even for a second.
“Good because I’m in love with you too, Hongjoong. And I plan to continue loving you for as long as I can.”
He would like to think that there are unspoken promises in those words as well, ones that only the two of them know, but for now, Hongjoong will live in this moment as long as he can without thinking about the past or the future. He has Yunho now, and that's enough for him.
..
a/n: hi wow yes you made it to the end of this fic!! this is officially the longest standalone fic i’ve ever written and god it’s long as hell and took the life out of me but i absolutely adore this fic and am very proud of it and myself for finishing it! i hope you all enjoy as much as i do :c
#kpopscape#kdiarynet#kwritersworldnet#ateez fluff#ateez angst#yunho x hongjoong#hongjoong x yunho#ateez oneshot#ateez ff#ateez fic#ateez fanfic#hongjoong angst#hongjoong fluff#yunho angst#yunho fluff#yunho oneshot#hongjoong oneshot
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Fire and Light (ao3) - on tumblr: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9
- Chapter 10 -
Nie Mingjue was starting to become accustomed to the routine of the cell.
Wen Ruohan would generally visit the Fire Palace twice weekly, sometimes more if he had had a very bad day and wanted to let off some steam. Nie Mingjue would get visited on at least one of those instances, whether for a short time and a bit of emotional devastation or for a longer and much more physically uncomfortable visit, and sometimes more often if Wen Ruohan was not doing well in war.
Wen Ruohan still enjoyed asking him questions, but Nie Mingjue didn’t think he had to answer them anymore. This was a subject that came up sometimes during some of those longer visits.
The rest of the time, he was left to recover and be bored. He was not given access to his saber – Baxia had been hidden away somewhere, he thought, he could feel that she was safe if unhappy – but his spiritual energy was not restrained, the way some other prisoners were.
He spent a great deal of time meditating. Sometimes, if his physical condition allowed for it, he would practice old techniques, trying to focus on a different muscle each time to try to avoid letting them atrophy. His empty hands bothered him, but he deemed it unlikely that anyone would give him equivalent to a saber something to wield, not even if he asked.
Food was twice a day, usually just a bowl of rice and vegetables that the kitchen would otherwise have thrown away, and it was brought by the same prison guard each time.
Nie Mingjue liked the prison guard.
Possibly it was because he was the only person Nie Mingjue saw on a regular basis, other than Wen Ruohan – Nie Mingjue’s cell was a little ways away from the other prisoners, lest they infect him with something and he die too quickly, although he was still within earshot of all the screams – or possibly it was the prison guard’s pleasant demeanor, friendly and calm like a lake of still water.
They were playing a long-running game of sorts.
Nie Mingjue had guessed that Meng Yao – that was the prison guard’s name – was an outsider, recently joined, and that he had previously spent time in both the Lan and Jin sects. This perspicacity had surprised Meng Yao, drawing his interest, and he had asked, very politely, for Nie Mingjue’s name.
Nie Mingjue had, just as politely, refused to give it.
Meng Yao, surprised yet again, had asked for his reasons.
Nie Mingjue had explained that he wasn’t sure if Wen Ruohan would react badly to other people knowing about him, and it would be a shame for Meng Yao to be murdered while he had yet to achieve whatever it was that he was seeking so strenuously to accomplish.
For some reason, Meng Yao saw this as a challenge.
“Gongzi, I have your dinner,” Meng Yao said. “Would you like me to ask the cook to give you some meat, next time? Just let me know. I would be more than happy to tell her to send more food to…?”
“Certainly,” Nie Mingjue said. “You can tell her that it’s on behalf of the last cell on the right.”
Meng Yao wrinkled his nose at him, and Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes back.
Their normal initial exchange of wits over, Meng Yao gave him the food and supervised him as he ate – a babysitter upon whose head the consequences would fall if Nie Mingjue misbehaved was the condition of giving him chopsticks. Wen Ruohan had a great deal of experience in keeping prisoners alive, and he knew Nie Mingjue’s character quite well.
“I heard that you were giving Sect Leader Wen advice on the war,” Meng Yao said casually as Nie Mingjue tried to guess what pickled vegetable he was eating, since neither taste nor appearance was definitive. “Gongzi must be very well-respected.”
“Did you hear about the part where I told him the best counterstrike would be to shove his troops up his own ass?”
“…and very brave.”
Nie Mingjue chuckled. “And you must be very competent to have made your way up to prominence in two separate sects, especially at such a young age.”
Meng Yao did not want to like him, Nie Mingjue could tell. He did anyway.
It wouldn’t help him if something more important to Meng Yao was at stake, of course – Nie Mingjue had lived too long with Qishan Wen cruelty, selfishness, and ruthlessness to miss seeing it reflected in others – but it was still nice to be liked.
“…how do you know?”
“Was that a direct question?” Nie Mingjue asked. “Be still my heart.”
“This humble servant has observed that gongzi does not answer anything else.”
“Humble,” Nie Mingjue drawled. “Yes, that’s the first thing I think of when I think of you.”
Meng Yao’s eyes were narrowing, though, so he stopped teasing.
“It’s your hair.”
“My – hair?”
Nie Mingjue nodded. “The way you set it. It’s clear that Xichen must have taught you how to arrange the braids personally, which means that you must have gotten fairly high up in the Lan sect – but Sect Leader Wen referred to you as being poached from the Jin sect.”
Meng Yao reached up touch his hair. “…I never made it that high in the Jin sect,” he finally said. “Not even lieutenant.”
“In the middle of a war, with how competent you are? Does Sect Leader Jin have something against you?” A small furrowing of Meng Yao’s brow. “Did you complain that he raped your sister or something?”
A long, slow blink. “Is that a problem he has?”
“Not liking people who try to make him responsible for his actions?” Nie Mingjue snorted. “Yes.”
Meng Yao looked contemplative.
“What are you thinking?” Nie Mingjue asked, finally giving up on the pickled vegetable and handing back the bowl.
“Only that you know a great deal of gossip –”
“Involuntarily, I assure you.”
“– and that you feel comfortable calling Lan-da-gongzi by name, and are familiar enough to know how he personally styles his hair.” Meng Yao smiled. “I’ll figure out who you are yet, gongzi.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Nie Mingjue said. “They’ve probably already forgotten me.”
-
“This is your fault,” Wen Ruohan murmured in his ear, and Nie Mingjue was too weak to refuse to listen. “You did this – to yourself, to them. Why couldn’t you have just been obedient?”
He didn’t know anymore.
-
“I’m Sect Leader Jin’s son,” Meng Yao said.
“Your mother must be a genius,” Nie Mingjue replied.
There was a moment of silence – probably Meng Yao staring at him.
It was probably not the response he had been expecting.
“I’ve met Sect Leader Jin,” Nie Mingjue said in explanation. He was lying face-down on the floor of the cell while Meng Yao tended to his wounds; the conversation, he knew, was only to distract him from the sting of the stitches. “He’s cunning, not smart, horribly self-absorbed, and ‘competent’ isn’t the word I’d use for him; he makes do mostly by paying enough to hire good help. Given the contrast with you, it follows that you must have gotten all the good traits from the other side…I hope he didn’t rape her. Sorry about making that joke, earlier. I didn’t realize.”
“You said sister, not mother.”
“Right,” Nie Mingjue said. “I forgot.”
“Anyway, he didn’t have to rape her. He bought her,” Meng Yao said. He was tightening the bandages now and his hands were perfectly steady. Too steady, the way Wen Qing’s were when she was having to control himself. “She was a whore.”
Nie Mingjue got the feeling that Meng Yao was expecting some sort of reaction. He wasn’t sure what, though.
“Okay,” he said. Out of lack of anything better to say, he added, “Was she nice?”
“What type of question is that?” Meng Yao demanded.
He’d picked the wrong reaction again, Nie Mingjue presumed.
“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes were closed and his forehead was pressed against the cool stone. “I don’t really remember my mother. All I know is that she was a rogue cultivator, and tall –”
“I would never have guessed the latter, gongzi.”
“Yeah, yeah. Like I’ve never heard that one before. My father raised me on his own – we don’t believe in using nursemaids to do it.” He exhaled. “I’m forgetting him, too.”
“He died?”
“Sect Leader Wen killed him.” He heard Meng Yao exhale. “I know. I’m not very filial, am I?”
“I don’t think that’s a consideration,” Meng Yao murmured. “Under the circumstances.”
Nie Mingjue didn’t want to talk about it. “So, your mother,” he said. “Was she nice?”
“…does it matter?”
“Why wouldn’t it matter? She’s your mother, isn’t she?”
Meng Yao chuckled. It was not a nice sound. “Most people don’t really care to listen past the part where they find out she’s a whore.”
“I’ve never actually met a whore,” Nie Mingjue confessed. He was starting to drift off again – it was hard to stay awake. “The closest I ever got to even talking about one was when we had to put the fear of brothels into A-Chao. Sect Leader Wen was trying to ruin him.”
“A-Chao?”
“Mm. Like – a little brother, almost. I’ve got a bunch.”
Meng Yao snickered. “Yes, gongzi does seem the type.”
Nie Mingjue smiled into the floor. He knew that tone – it was just the same as A-Chao’s, in fact. “You’re welcome to join in, if you like.”
Meng Yao’s hands stopped moving abruptly.
“Assuming I’m not dead, of course.”
After a moment, Meng Yao’s hands started moving again. They were gentler.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “After a promise like that, I’ll be sure not to let him kill you.”
“Need to get your money’s worth out of me?”
“Of course.” A pause. “Naturally, it would be easier if gongzi would tell me his name…”
Nie Mingjue huffed – like Meng Yao was going to get him that easily.
“No need for such formality, A-Yao,” he said. “Just call me da-ge.”
-
“You must have some hobbies.”
“Must I?”
“Everyone has hobbies.”
“I collect younger siblings. Does that count?”
“It does not.”
-
“It’s your fault,” Wen Ruohan crooned as Nie Mingjue’s shrieks split the air. “Your fault. You turned them against me. It’s because of you that I’m going to need to kill them…”
-
“I don’t think I would have liked you, in the normal course of things,” Meng Yao said conversationally. “I usually find righteous people boring. Most of the time, they’re arrogant hypocrites, as rigid like the stiff pole that must have gotten shoved up their asses at some point. No one looks down on you like the righteous, and usually for stupid reasons, too. For something as petty and as simple as just not being them. Not having their advantages from the moment you were born.”
He paused. Cleared his throat.
“Lan Xichen was the first one I met who wasn’t like that. He really – he’s nice, I think you would put it. Kind. Everything they say about what gentlemen ought to be, he is.”
A brief silence.
“Naïve, though. Almost painfully so. I twisted him around my little finger without even trying…even when I was trying not to.”
Nie Mingjue believed him. Manipulation seemed to come as second nature to Meng Yao, even when he was being sincere. Sometimes, even especially when he was being sincere.
It was a bit like Wen Xu, actually. It was hard to throw off the way you’d been raised.
“At first I thought the problem was with me, that I didn’t appreciate him enough, that I didn’t understand how to have a friendship with a person like that. A good one. Sometimes I thought, well, no, maybe the problem’s with him – he pities me too much to see what I’m really like, and that means he’s deceiving himself, it’s got nothing to do with me. In the end…I don’t know. I don’t think I ever resolved it.”
He sighed. It was a long, low sound, almost whistling in the dead air of the Fire Palace.
“You’re not like Lan Xichen at all. You really are unbending, rigid, inexorable…I ought to despise you. You ought to despise me. I torture people most of the day, you know. I even enjoy it.”
For all his poise, Meng Yao was younger even than Lan Xichen. He shouldn’t be anyone’s prison guard. Shouldn’t be torturing anyone. How could you blame children for doing something that would win them praise?
“It’s this place that makes me like you, I think. It’s just – it’s filthy, here. Disgusting. The more I’m in this prison the worse it gets. The more bad things I do, the more bad things I think. I barely dare recall my better memories, my mother, Lan Xichen. I’m too afraid that the filth and grime of this place will stain their purity even in my thoughts.”
Nie Mingjue didn’t understand, not really - maybe he’d been here so long that the stain had sunk in already, blackening everything it touched. But he tried as much as he could to sympathize.
“And then there’s you. You, all shining steel and stiff unbending morality, the sort of person I hate the most. But when I’m here knee-deep in the muck, trapped in the dark without any hope of surfacing, I look at you and I feel – it’s almost like I can see light again, reflected in you. As if I’m breathing clean air. For the first time in my life, I think I understand why people have ethics. That they’re not some stupid thing made up by someone to fool someone else into voluntarily crippling the hand they’ve been dealt to play.”
That was definitely not what ethics were.
“I don’t know if we’d get along outside this place. Where I’m still me, with all my flaws that make me all the worse, and you’re still you, with all your imperfections that only make you better, but without this place to make us get along. I really don’t know. For once in my life, I don’t have a goal, a target, a scheme. As far as I know, you’re nobody I can use, and keeping you close to me will only tie an anchor to my legs, weigh me down. But even with all that, even if nothing I do works out and it all blows up in my face…I’d still like to find out. Find out if we would get along, if you really would treat me like your little brother even though you know what I’m really like under the smile. Find out if someone like me really can get along with someone like you.”
Nie Mingjue felt Meng Yao squeeze his hand, and wished he could respond in kind.
“So you have to wake up, da-ge. You hear me? You have to wake up.”
-
“It’s done. They’re gone. And it’s all your fault.”
He lies, Nie Mingjue told himself. He lies, he lies, he lies –
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Suga on How BTS Stays Hungry After Conquering the World
"I do sometimes think, 'Why did I have to spend so much time in the studio?'" says Suga
With his biting, confessional lyrics, technique-heavy flow that can hit Busta Rhymes-like levels of emotional intensity, extensive production and songwriting credits, and indomitable work ethic, Suga is an indispensable piece of BTS’ collective artistic soul. In April, he sat in his label’s headquarters, wearing a gray knit cap, white mask, and black parka as he spoke about his battles with depression, his songwriting process, staying hungry after conquering the world, and much more.(In celebration of BTS’ appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone, we’re publishing individual digital covers with each member of the band; check back tomorrow for our interview with V.)
You had surgery late last year for a shoulder injury that I believe dates back to your trainee days. How are you feeling?
Much better. There’s still some physical therapy that I have to do, but it’s much better. And, yes, I suffered the injury in an accident when I was 20 years old and then as I continued to deteriorate, it was recommended to me that I undergo surgery. Fortunately, there was a little bit of time that I could use to have this procedure. So that’s what we did.
It’s very impressive that you’ve been doing elaborate choreography for all these years with this injury. How did you manage that?
By the year before I got the surgery, I think, I was receiving treatment, injections, almost on a monthly basis. But there were times when I couldn’t lift my arms or have a full range of motion in the middle of a concert. So it wasn’t really so much about the pain. It’s more about whether I would be able to continue doing these performances. When you are actually performing, because of the adrenaline and whatever, it doesn’t really hurt. You sort of experience that the next day, that’s when you feel the pain or the discomfort or you can’t raise your arms anymore.
I love the song “First Love,” where you talk about your early infatuation with your piano and with music. The lyrics suggest that your love for music is also a source of torment; what was going on there?
When I was working on “First Love,” I wanted to express a mix of different emotions, because first love is not all good things; there’s the bitter things as well. So I was talking to Mr. Bang about attaching the metaphor of first love to the first moment I came to know music. The target of the love is a piano, but it could be anything – a friend, some other entity. Then, I wanted to show the emotions you go through.
You’ve been open in your lyrics about depression and other struggles. How are you now?
I’m comfortable now and feeling good, but those sorts of negative emotions come and go. So it’s almost like cold weather. It may come back in a cycle over a year, year and a half. But when I hear people say that when they listen to my music, and feel comfort and are consoled by those lyrics that express these emotions, that makes me feel very good. It’s very encouraging. I think, for anybody, these emotions are not something that need to be hidden. They need to be discussed and expressed. Whatever emotions that I may be feeling, I’m always ready to express them now, as I was before.
You’ve written many songs for BTS, many songs for yourself, and many songs for other people. What is your usual songwriting process?
The process is really different for every song. Sometimes it may be a word that pops up and I build on that word, or someone could make a request for a certain way they would like a song to be developed. Oftentimes, we decide on a theme and then we sort of freely work from the larger overarching theme that we may have. But generally, when I work on a song, I create the beat first and then the melody and the rap and then finally the lyrics. That’s generally how I build them.
How is your guitar playing going?
Since my shoulder got much better, I am back on the guitar. I’ve been playing other people’s songs to practice, of course, and I’m looking forward to sometime in the far future of being able to sing and play the guitar at the same time. That’s what I’m working toward.
On “Dope,” you have a great line about your youth rotting in the studio. But do you ever have regrets about that?
I have no regrets about the work in the studio. Those days and that time has allowed me to have the kind of opportunities that I have now and today. So there’s no regret. But I do sometimes think, “Why did I have to spend so much time in the studio?” [laughs] Why couldn’t I have gone faster. I had that head-to-the-grindstone effort. Why couldn’t I have rested a little more or refreshed myself a little bit more? I do think about that.
You and RM and J-Hope have all these great double and triple entendres and other wordplay that can be lost on listeners who don’t speak Korean — translations can’t convey all of it. Is it frustrating that some of your foreign fans might miss certain things?
When I was growing up, of course, I listened to American hip-hop and pop, and my English is not very good. So I read the lyrics and the translations of the lyrics. And obviously, what native speakers of English may consider the key lines, the key verses, the punchlines, I really couldn’t understand them because of the intricacies of the language. And, I think, that’s an unavoidable part of the language barrier. And, I think, it’s important to try to find a happy medium where people from both languages and cultures or other languages understand it. So we try to write lyrics sort of in the happy middle, that can be understood by people speaking other languages. And also, I’m studying English more and more, trying to get more familiar with it. So if we can get both Korean speakers and English speakers to understand the lyrics, that would be great. But again, that’s something I experience as well.
There’s a story that your parents didn’t like that you were rapping, that they even tore up your lyrics. How did that affect you?
My parents didn’t understand rap. They are a generation apart from myself, and they never listened to rap; it wasn’t part of the music that they listened to. So it’s only natural they were against what I was doing. And, of course, being a musician is a very unstable profession as well. So I can understand perfectly why my parents were against what I was doing. But I think that motivated me or helped me work harder because there was something that I now had to prove. I had to show my parents it was possible. So it drove and motivated me to work even harder.
After all that BTS has achieved, how do you stay hungry?
I’m one of those people who think that not only do people change, but people must change. But I do think it’s so important to maintain that hunger. But from the days when we were actually hungry, we set routines for ourselves, and they stay with you, even if you change as a person. I think we are still able to draw upon the things that we talked about when we were still hungry, so we can maintain that work ethic and stay hungry, even if we change and develop as people. Now, instead of hungry, I think we’re more hangry! Angry and hungry [laughs].
© source
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“Realistic” Tom/Thomas Relationship Timeline
The S3/S4 Tom/Thomas affair is a theory that has been making its way around lately, and it is centered around the contrast in the interactions between Thomas and Tom during the Season 3 Christmas Special and their interactions in the Season 4 Christmas Special.
This means that usually the start of the relationship is viewed as coinciding with the immediate aftermath of Matthew’s death, which occurs in the Christmas Special of Season 3 (September 1921). Due to the interactions between Tom and Thomas in the Christmas Special of Season 4, the relationship can almost certainly be considered over by that time (May-ish of 1923). But what happened in between, and how long were they actually together?
There’s one view that the affair occurs in between Seasons 3 and 4, which means that at the very longest they lasted just under six months (generally I think this view cuts it even shorter than that)...but this leaves some unanswered questions and some peculiarities, so I took another look at the canon to determine when, in fact, Thomas and Tom broke up.
(Note: I definitely know that Julian Fellowes did not intend for them to be having an affair, but also Julian if I’m right just DM me)
Let’s start with what we know about September 1921 and May 1923—the definite before and after points—for reference:
Christmas Special Season 3—September, 1921
In this Christmas special, we see Tom left behind while the rest of the family goes to Duneagle, and we see Thomas still dealing with the Jimmy situation a year after its apparent resolution. On its face, this episode features Tom being challenged in his new role in the house—and being encouraged to step up and face that role—and Thomas finding a way to resolve things with Jimmy.
Except there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in the periphery of those stories: Tom knows that Jimmy is bothering Thomas and appears to want to intervene at the fair, but he is stopped by Edna, who at one point uses Thomas’s injuries as an excuse to visit Tom and assure him that Thomas is “feeling much better.” And—of course—there’s the fact that Tom and Thomas hug at the fair (and lest you think this was a RJC/Allen Leech moment not caught by editing, it was in multiple takes! Someone—multiple someones actually—included it on purpose).
They are friendly, aware of each other, and to be honest it isn’t impossible to argue that maybe the relationship predates Matthew’s death! I’m going to argue otherwise, however, based on how Tom breaks down when Edna kisses him—I think Edna is the first time he’s even really thought of himself in romantic terms for a long time! But Thomas is right there in the wings, and he just finally made some progress on the emotional problem that’s been plaguing him for over a year!
It’s a big difference from what we see in the next Christmas special, big enough to start the theory of the affair in the first place...
Season 4 Christmas Special—Summer 1923
Once again, Tom is left alone at Downton while the rest of the family goes to London...and the difference in how Thomas responds is striking. He’s furious at having to wait on Tom, for reasons both we and the characters cannot quite understand. The excuses don’t add up—at this point, Tom has been living at Downton for three YEARS, and this has never been a problem before. Now all of a sudden Thomas is slamming trays and clenching his fists and provoking Tom into admitting that he sees himself as Above sitting next to him...what?
Then there’s Sarah Bunting, a Miss Sarah Bunting...whose presence infuriates Thomas while also making him eager to use her as a way to embarrass Tom. And Tom knows it, immediately. He’s embarrassed, he’s uncomfortable, but still he’s quick to pull rank with Thomas when challenged. Something has fundamentally altered the way they interact with and perceive each other while sharing the same space.
All of this speaks to a breakup, and a messy one at that...so with the knowledge we have, WHAT exactly happened between September of 1921 and May of 1923? Let’s look at what Season 4 has to say:
4.1/4.2–February, 1922
“That’s right: it’s Valentine’s Day.”
This is an important piece of the puzzle, because Thomas—Nanny West drama aside—is in a pretty good mood for the Valentine’s Day episode! He engages with Daisy and Jimmy’s Valentine’s card drama with good humor and even some genuine interest...something I do not believe he’d do if he’d only recently been broken up with, and by someone who lived in the house!
The big one here, though, is the dialogue Thomas has with Nanny West in which she calls him “Thomas” and he says, “that’s Mr. Barrow to you...”
Now, where did Nanny West hear him referred to as Thomas? The episode makes a point of the fact that nannies do not as a rule spend much time with the downstairs staff—and even if they did, not many of the downstairs crew call Thomas “Thomas” on a regular basis. Nor do the upstairs folks...with one notable exception. Tom, who has to be reminded by Thomas in 4.3 to address him as “Barrow” (more on that later), routinely messes up names and titles.
To me, this suggests that Tom and Thomas are still talking, and it’s pretty clear from Thomas’s attentions to Sybbie in the episode that it would have been easy for Nanny West to overhear it in that context. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re still seeing each romantically, but the “Mr. Barrow TO YOU” element implies that the correction was NOT made to whoever Nanny West heard using the name (we presume it’s Tom)...and the distinction is that Nanny West does not *get* to call him that! It definitely seems like whoever she grabbed the name from has been granted permission to do that, and she Has Not. And if it’s Tom...well.
So does that mean that Thomas and Tom were done by 4.3, when Thomas DOES correct Tom on his title? Not exactly...
4.3/4.4–The House Party (pre July 1922)
(tw on this section for discussions involving sexual assault)
The party features Edna’s schemes and assault on Tom in order to extract a promise of marriage from him. It also features a Tom who is incredibly vulnerable and entirely out of his element with the introduction of the Crawley’s friends. This is somewhat of a contrast from the Tom of the first two episodes, who stands up to Robert several times to intervene on Mary’s behalf, and even ropes Carson into the mission. It feels, for a moment, that despite Matthew’s death Tom has taken up the challenge presented to him at the end of Season 3 and begun seeing himself as a valuable, contributing member of the household and family.
But here, Tom speaks of himself as a fool, as walking a tightrope, and of not being understood. He relies on alcohol to get through the event, which Edna takes advantage of—and which gives us a Tom/Thomas interaction that speaks to, in my opinion, a continuing relationship (although perhaps an altering one):
Now, if I had to guess, I would say that Tom might be less *keen* than usual, given his overall demeanor and the new scrutiny placed on him by Edna coming back to the house (not to mention the house party itself). It’s very possible there’s been a lull between the two of them as of late. I do not believe, however, that there is evidence of a clear break between Tom and Thomas as of the house party.
For one, Tom doesn’t just say the wrong thing when addressing Thomas in the drawing room—he says, “Thomas, would you get me a drink for God’s sake?” That is Not how he talks to him in the Christmas Special, where he is stilted and uncomfortable and concerned about how the words will be taken. He isn’t worried about any of that, and while Thomas corrects him, he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. Tom’s look of irritation at the correction isn’t overdone either.
“It’s Barrow now,” also has flexible meanings. Of course it literally is what Tom is supposed to call him now...but “now” seems like a weird word to use when it’s been what Thomas is meant to be called for several years. It could be a post-breakup smackdown, but we’ve seen what those look like in the Christmas Special, and this doesn’t feel like that! I believe, rather, that Thomas is making reference to the fact that it is incorrect at that moment, something Tom should know and has been discussed!!!
The house party has both of them overworked and tense (this is also the time where Thomas has to fill in for Jimmy because Jimmy hurt his hand...which is SO ridiculous if you think about it for more than two seconds), but Edna’s transgression still draws Thomas’s attention
And that’s important! Thomas had been friends with Edna until this point, largely for convenience it seems—she is a new lady’s maid, and she can feed him information. Thomas even worked with her to mess with Anna, who had earlier made a comment to Edna about his intentions in befriending her. There’s a bond forming there, and while I don’t believe Thomas would genuinely support the literal details of Edna’s plot, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that he would be Opposed to Edna taking advantage of what she would frame as an indiscretion on Tom’s part. Not if he disliked Tom or was predisposed to believe Tom was at fault (ie: someone who expects to be “waited on Hand and Foot while he decides what Might Please Him Next”).
But right away, Thomas is suspicious the morning after. We see Thomas spying on Edna as she corners Tom, and he specifically brings it up to her later to catch her out. Already his tone is soured where she’s concerned. He’s sensed she’s up to something and he can probably guess the vague idea if not the particulars...and it turns him against her almost instinctively.
So what’s that about? Could it just be jealousy? The thing is, we know what Thomas would do if he believed that Edna and Tom were simply having an affair—we see what happens in the S4 Christmas Special with Sarah Bunting. This isn’t like that at all.
Thomas immediately blames Edna for what’s happened, calling her a manipulative little witch and declaring that he’s delighted her plans didn’t work. There’s no question of Thomas’s loyalties, even though Edna assumes he’ll want to “keep in with” her. Not for one second does he appear to consider this, and that seems to distinguish this incident from later ones.
4.5/4.6–What Are These Episodes (pre-July 1922)
There isn’t a lot to remember about these episodes for Tom or Thomas, and so what people may not remember is that these are the episodes Tom starts floating the idea of leaving for America—a full season before he tries starting that conversation again, and over two years before he actually DOES temporarily move to Boston. Now, that kind of decision takes time, but it’s kind of...strange that he begins making it here in the spring of 1922 and will not seriously consider it again until well into 1924!
Whether this has anything at all to do with Thomas can’t be determined, but I do enjoy hearing Tom say it will be impossible for him to marry anyone at Downton because an upper class woman won’t have him, and would an “nice Irish working class girl” make everyone “comfy?”...and Thomas is standing Right There! What does it mean...
Thomas is also getting more paranoid, he’s got Baxter in the house feeding him information...and he’s generally giving off a different vibe than he has all season.
Here is where I think the connection is starting to see some serious cracks—Tom is realizing he doesn’t belong and is making moves to change that. Meanwhile, Thomas is making moves to ensure Nothing Ever changes without him knowing about it ahead of time! Tension abounds, though we don’t see any evidence of it being directed at each other just yet...
4.7/4.8–Interesting and Modern (July 1922)
Thomas goes to America and Tom meets Miss Bunting...weird how that just happened like that!
Thomas is excited to go to New York, and it seems...pretty clear he fucked while he was there. I think if you’re gay and you go to New York in the 1920s and you come back and all you can tell your coworkers is that it was “interesting and modern” you definitely were not doing anything you can actually talk about
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he and Tom are Done (they may not have ever been exclusive on paper), but the overall feeling from Tom is a dejected man in limbo...he can’t even say he’s a Socialist anymore. It’s not going well. So my inclination is to say that Tom hit pause (maybe not for the first time), and Thomas is dealing with it by getting some in New York (great!) and bullying his coworkers (bad!)
So why do I think they weren’t totally done at that time? Because these episodes happen in the summer of 1922...the Christmas Special for S4 takes place in May of 1923. That’s a long time to have passed! A long time for Tom to keep Miss Bunting at arm’s length, a long time for Thomas to be fuming over something...I believe that in the Christmas Special what we are seeing is the last stand of two people who are grappling with finally cutting a fraying thread.
Another Look At The S4 Christmas Special
These scenes are truly some of the most incomprehensible things Downton Abbey ever presented to us with virtually no explanation. So let’s take another look at what’s happening here.
First of all, we have the scene with Tom and Thomas entering the house after sending Edith off and leaving Tom offically on his own--they don’t appear openly hostile, though there’s some tense looking when the other person isn’t and looking back down again when they are energy...but nothing egregious.
Not until we see Thomas slam down a tray, that is. In fact, this whole thing seems to be coming from Thomas’s anger, while Tom appears eager to just smooth it over by not causing trouble and following the rules set forth by the household norms. This seems in line with Tom’s general dispositon--with both Edna and Miss Bunting he tries to ease out rather than break things off.
But Thomas interprets this as dismissive, and while he says to Ivy it’s about their positions in the house...as discussed above this really doesn’t logically check out. I do think it irritates him that Tom is essentially avoiding Thomas because it’s what “pleases him,” but it runs deeper than “he used to be the chauffeur.” Because that was always the case.
And then Tom brings Miss Bunting back without telling anyone, and he takes her upstairs. And this makes Thomas INSANE, and Tom knows IMMEDIATELY that it will! And Tom is eager to assure “Mr. Barrow” that nothing happened (actually, what he’s really eager to do is have Thomas not stand there while he eats, but Thomas is not budging).
Thomas is furious. He’s said to Ivy that he is SICK of this man, he’s tired of dealing with him...and then he tries to get Tom to sit next to him the car?
Thomas stole a dog one time, and I still think this might be his wildest attempt at controlling a situation we see on the show. What is going on? If Tom HAD let him sit in the back, would Thomas have still gone to Lord Grantham about Miss Bunting? If Thomas hadn’t been such a jerk about Miss Bunting, would Tom have LET him? What is poor Ivy even processing this as? Am I the only one hearing Taylor Swift’s Better Than Revenge playing?
Thomas acts immediately on coming to London, dropping the line of “Mr. Branson is stil a young man, and he can’t be expected to stay single forever”...he’s Angry Angry!! If they were on a break before, I don’t think it had fully set in for Thomas that it might be Permanent until now. And I think Tom’s newly avoidant personality we see in other scenarios gave him the wrong impression in this respect.
In Summary
I think that the relationship was relatively “on” from the period of September 1921 through whenever the house party took place. The house party caused some huge issues, mostly for Tom (understandably)—he may have unfairly blamed himself for what happened and drew wrongful parallels to what’s happening with Thomas. I think that after that it was very “off,” but I believe that neither Thomas nor Tom really committed to ending it either...and when we see them in 1923 they are in the peak stages of finally facing the end of things.
So what caused the final shift? Perhaps Thomas came back from New York with expectations, expectations Tom found himself intimidated by. Perhaps Thomas’s increasing paranoia and Tom’s growing agnosticism towards his own beliefs and identity are related and fed off of each other until they both just did not like the person they were seeing! Maybe it’s just that Downton Abbey is a really bad place for both of them, and even though they started off trying to protect each other from that, they got sucked in and turned on each other!
In any case, by Season 5 the romantic relationship appears over for good, though there is some evidence in later episodes that Tom and Thomas settled down a bit over time (Thomas defending Tom in S5 at Brancaster, and Tom saying he hates goodbyes in reference to Thomas).
We will just have to see what happens when they realize they both are dating someone new, and they work together too :)
#this is way too long to actually be Fun but to be clear I did it for Fun#anything to avoid actually writing#thomas barrow#tom branson
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Wip Wednesday
Untitled fic (Correspondence)
Summary/Story so far: HotchReid, slow burn, AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. We are now months into this... tentative thing that is beyond friendship, beyond flirtatious, they still don't know much about each other on paper... but this feels a lot like dating. And then one day, Hotch abruptly stops answering his phone.
(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)
(Set in season 6, unbeta'd, still the first draft, text/email templates are temporary)
((Notes: Spencer's POV this time, he is 29 and working at CalTech, Hotch still doesn't know how old he is though he does know that he's at least younger than 45 now. Hotch has been MIA now for about 18 hours.))
.
Spencer spends way too long online that morning, searching for anything about the case Hotch is working. There's nothing about a raid, or a shooting, or even an arrest -- which could all just be apart of the ongoing media blackout -- but it also does nothing to stop him from panicking.
With a drafted email pulled up to Ms. Penelope Garcia, the BAU's personal tech analyst, he ponders how to... even word this without it sounding too personal. Too much like he and Hotch have more than just a working relationship.
Because they do. They have... something.
Something that gives him fluttering sensations in his stomach, makes him check his phone constantly, and react to even the slightest chime similar to his text tone. Makes him smile when he sees Hotch's name on his notifications, in his email inbox, makes him message the man in the middle of the day at the most random thoughts. Just because he wants to make him laugh.
.
[]You're going to get me in trouble.
[][]Did I make you smile?
[]I'm at a crime scene. There's a dead body in front of me.
[][]Then why are you checking your phone?
[]You know why.
.
But that’s not something that is shared with the rest of the team, he’s sure. So he should be careful how he words his email, lest Ms. Garcia realize that Spencer isn’t asking purely as a colleague.
Surely they know he has friends, though?
Chewing his lip, Spencer types out a brief email asking if Agent Hotchner is feeling well since he missed an appointment the night before and hasn’t been returning his calls. It’s a phrase he’s used often, so it comes naturally to Spencer as he types it out, and he realizes… he hasn’t called. He’s sent a dozen text messages, but not a phone call. Never a phone call. That was against the rules.
He looks to his phone beside him on his desk, and tries to fight back the dueling forms of panic clawing at his chest. Panic that Hotch might not answer, panic what that means for the man he’s been… becoming more and more inclined to than any other person he’s met in so long. Panic if he does answer, breaking that barrier of written words to spoken, and the opportunity to hear Hotch’s voice. But he would also hear Spencer’s, and then there would be no hiding just how… how young he really is.
But his phone is in his hand before he can stop himself, and Hotch’s contact pulled up and his thumb hovering over the phone number with baited breath.
Was he really going to do this?
He presses the touch screen and can hear the line connecting, the dial tone ring even before he gets the phone up to his ear and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings a fourth time -- before clicking over to voicemail. And Spencer’s hyper-fast thought processes realize he’s going to hear Hotch’s voice for the first time. Frozen in a panic, unsure if he wants to or if that had been something he wanted them to do together that the seconds slip by and suddenly it’s too late.
“You’ve reached the voicemail box of -- (703)-567-8790 -- this caller is not available. Please leave a message after the tone--”
It’s an automated, female voice that rattles off the numbers and generic call back message, and Spencer hangs up before it can begin recording him. Exhaling a shaky breath, that nothing had been ruined between him and Hotch thanks to an ill-timed phone call.
He keeps the momentum going without much thought, and adjusts his email to Ms. Garcia before sending it.
It feels so understated, and yet over dramatic the more he thinks about it. The more he reads it.
.
Please let me know of his well-being.
.
God, no wonder Hotch thought he was in his 60’s.
But Spencer has to keep the façade up, not give away anything he doesn’t want to just because the emotional part of his brain is running rampant over the rational one. There are… many explanations as to why Hotch isn’t answering him. His gut feeling aside, he doesn’t need to be panicking like this. The world is still turning, he still has work to do, so Spencer tries to gather himself into some semblance of order and preps to talk to his doctoral students within the hour.
.
--
.
His morning routine progresses as usual, to start. Dr. Reid has his mandatory round up with his doctoral candidates going over thesis and dissertation parameters, class lecture schedules, updates, the works. Like morning announcements, but he requires them all to be there and to listen, and they all show up. Everyone knows of Spencer’s eidetic memory. He will certainly not forget a single date or schedule change, and he expects his students to not forget as well.
But this morning Spencer is fully distracted, his mind elsewhere, somewhere in the state of Delaware with an agent who may or may not be in danger. Because Spencer cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. It almost seems more like a fact than a feeling.
He becomes even more distracted when his email pings, a response from Ms. Garcia of Quantico, VA flashing across his laptop screen, right in the middle of his department announcements. Spencer’s eyes skim the preview sentence in the pop-up box, and his voice trails off as his mind… whirls.
.
Dr. Reid, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know when Hotch will be available again. There was an incident, and he’s still in surg-
.
Surgery.
Surgery.
That vice-like grip of worry that has taken hold of him since last night tightens further, to the point Spencer can’t breathe. Hotch is hurt, he’s in surgery, and if he hasn’t been answering his phone since last night -- or even late yesterday afternoon -- it was not a minor thing.
Hotch is hurt.
“Dr. Reid? Are you okay?”
“I--” he’s still looking at the email pop-up box, and is clicking on it before he can stop himself. Immediately disconnecting his laptop from the projector as his email loads there. It takes him a faction of a second to read the email. “I’m sorry, an emergency just came up. Kimmy, finish reading off the schedule for me?” He doesn’t even wait until she answers him, just picks up his laptop and retreats to his office as fast as his long legs will carry him.
.
--surgery and we’re still waiting on word. I know you 2 talk on the reg so I’ll keep you posted.
Fret not, genius professor, our fearless leader has been through much worse than this.
.
She’s using informal speech patterns, which she has never done before. It bleeds her nervousness, and worries Spencer even more. Ms. Garcia also revealed she knows he and Hotch talk, but surprisingly that doesn’t have the effect he thought it would on his already rattled nerves. Instead, any and all reservations fall away as he types out a response much in the same way he and Hotch had started their friendship all those months ago.
.
Please, is there anything you are allowed to tell me about the case or his condition? We --
.
Spencer pauses, bites his lip as he considers crossing this boundary into the uncomfortable unknown, and then thinks about Hotch on a hospital operating table three thousand miles away.
“Screw it,” he mutters and continues to type.
.
--We’ve become good friends and I’m very worried.
.
The reply is almost immediate.
.
That makes 2 of us, boy wonder, but I’m already hacked into the hospital records database and Prentiss is in the waiting room.
I’m sending you the case files and the incident report from last night. Maybe you can see some shiz we can’t b/c the bossman is tough but he’s been in surgery a long time.
.
Of course, whatever he can do to help. Spencer’s heavy heart-beat triples in his chest as pulls up the files and immediately prints them out so he can read through them faster. But then his mind sticks on something from the email.
Boy Wonder.
Ms. Garcia knows how young he is.
She must have done a background check on him, that would make sense since he’s been consulting so much lately. But why would Garcia know his age, and not Hotch?
.
Ms. Garcia, did you update my dossier with the bureau after you ran my background check?
.
If you’re referring to why Hotch seems to think you’re rocking the senior discount at restaurants and not still getting carded for beer, then no I didn’t update it. I’m very anti-gov files having every detail of our lives in them, that’s what I’m for, and I figured there was a reason he didn’t know. Your secret is safe with me, sugar bean.
.
The real reason is Agent Anderson of the LA field office is a dick, with a bully streak he never outgrew after high school, and didn’t bother filling out a full file on him the first time Spencer consulted for the FBI. Then, he couldn’t be bothered to update it when his consultations became more than a one time thing.
But that was all in the past now, and Spencer can’t even be upset about it. Because now he has Hotch.
.
Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I’ll let you know my findings soon.
.
He skims the file quickly, pulling information out at lightning speed. It appears a very straight-forward case. As straight-forward as a murderous sociopath can be, anyway. Very anti-establishment, specified targets that devolved to anyone in a uniform. Anyone who appears too official, or lables as official.
It’s easy to see, now why the unsub attacked Hotch instead of running from him. He practically served himself up on a silver platter. But there’s something about the kills that’s bothering Spencer. The knife wounds, bludgeoning, even the gunshots during the first murders -- it’s all overkill. Rage. Every single target has died from massive internal bleeding, M.E. reports all label the knife wounds and beatings as the cause. But the amount of blood left over, measured during autopsy, doesn’t add up. They bled too much. No wounds indicating intentional bleeding occurred, and the tox screens are all clean.
Except, every victim has elevated potassium rates.
“Oh, God,” Spencer whispers, quiet and horrified. “Hotch.”
There’s no time for email.
He picks up his phone, goes to an older email that has full contact details in the footer, and dials Ms. Garcia’s direct line in Quantico.
“Speak, and behold greatness.”
“Ms. Garcia, it’s Dr. Reid,” Spencer says, and his tone and quickened speech patterns gives way to his panic.
“Dr-- Dr. Reid?”
“Yes, quick there’s no time. Do you have Hotch’s hospital records in front of you still?”
“Yes,” Garcia says, her voice a musical thing even in it’s breathless reaction to his heightened state of haste. “Updated every two minutes.”
“Is his potassium elevated?”
Some quick typing of keys that move faster than even he could ever hope to type. “... Yes.”
God. “Okay, okay I need you to call the hospital right now,” Spencer says in a spiel that all sounds like one word. “Whatever you have to do, he needs Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate as soon as possible, to counteract the chemical imbalance or he’s going to go into kidney failure and bleed out.”
.
tbc...
#THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET#I s2g it is but it is also long af#legit this ended up being 1900 words i just didn't feel like stopping you know?#so yall get like... 25% of the entire chapter basically#sorry not sorry#expect a wip every week now#wip wednesday#HotchReid#Heid#katyswriting#don't ask about the dots tumblr and I are in a formatting fight and aren't on speaking terms rn
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pieces - chapter eight
Five years ago, Chloe dropped off the face of the Earth. Beca didn’t expect to see her again dancing in a strip club, out of all places.
rated: E (drug use and emotional abuse in early chapters)
ao3 link
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Chapter seven was published yesterday, in case you missed it! I was too lazy to make a tumblr post.
*
The term rollercoaster didn’t seem strong enough to describe the last six weeks of Chloe’s life.
Seeing Beca again. Leaving Marco. Getting clean. Finding out she was pregnant.
She felt like she needed to stop and take a minute to remind herself to breathe, but the weight pressing on her chest prevented her from sucking enough oxygen into her lungs.
“You’re…” Beca blinked twice in slow succession. “...pregnant. With a baby.” She grimaced in the next beat, releasing a breath. “Sorry, I-- I wasn’t expecting that.”
Chloe couldn't blame her for being shocked. She swallowed thickly and cleared the lump from her throat. “I made an appointment for an abortion. Tomorrow.”
Tears sprang up into her eyes before she could stop them, and she lifted a hand to her mouth to muffle the sob itching to come out.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked out, shaking her head.
“Chlo…” Beca murmured, setting a hand over Chloe’s back and the other one on Chloe’s. “You don’t need to apologize. What you’re going through is incredibly hard, and… if an abortion is what you feel is the best option, then that’s what you should do.”
Chloe had always wanted to have kids one day, but this was the worst possible timing. She didn’t have a place to raise that baby, or a job, not to mention that she was a recovering addict.
She nodded along to Beca’s words, as though attempting to convince herself further.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Beca asked. “To the appointment?”
Chloe hesitated. “I don’t want you to miss work because of me.”
“You’re more important than work,” Beca argued softly as her thumb stroked Chloe’s knuckles back and forth. “And I don’t think you should be doing this on your own, you know? But I don’t want to overstep either, so it’s completely up to you.”
Chloe sniffled, reaching up to wipe her tears away. “I… I think I’d like it if you could be there.”
“Done,” Beca instantly said, nodding firmly. She cleared her throat following a few beats of silence. “So um, is there anything you should do for your recovery? Now that you’re out of rehab, I mean.”
“The therapist there recommended one in the city, I need to call and book an appointment. I’m going to my first NA meeting in two days. Otherwise, I’ve been told having a routine could really help? Like go for a morning walk, do some yoga, cook, clean… that sort of stuff. But all I want to do right now is crash for a few hours.”
Beca nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Let me know if I can do anything to make things easier on you, okay?”
Chloe managed a small smile despite how heavy her heart felt. “I’m already so grateful for what you’re doing for me, Bec.”
“It’s what friends do. Help each other out.”
Chloe ended up sleeping for four hours straight. She had never felt so exhausted in her life, and she guessed it was a mix of the physical and emotional toll of pregnancy and rehab finally hitting her. She didn’t eat much for dinner and mostly pushed her food around in her plate, knowing most of it would come back up as it had for the last few days.
She and Beca got to the clinic ten minutes before Chloe’s appointment that next morning, and after filling out the paperwork, they were led into an exam room, where Chloe was asked to change into a paper gown. She sat down on the edge of the bed once she was changed, her eyes sweeping over the many baby pictures lining the wall.
Her attention shifted to the door when it opened, a middle-aged woman stepping inside.
“Hello, Chloe,” she greeted with a soft, reassuring smile. “I’m Dr. Harris.”
“Hi,” Chloe returned quietly. “This is my friend Beca.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Dr. Harris said as she approached. “I was told you’re here to terminate your pregnancy?”
“I-- yes.”
“Okay. As one of the nurses probably told you over the phone, I need to check how far along you are first so we can figure out if a procedure is required,” she explained, setting her chart down and snapping on a pair of gloves. “When was your last period?”
“I-- I’m not sure.”
She used to take the pill. But when you’re fortunate if you remember to eat one meal a day, it’s also easy to forget to renew your birth control prescription. That was just another detail among the many in her life that seemingly had ceased to have consequences or meaning the further she slipped down that rabbit hole.
“Okay, that’s alright. Can you lie down please, and put your feet in the stirrups? I need to do a vaginal ultrasound so we can see better.”
Chloe nodded, scooting back and lifting her feet. She reached for Beca’s hand as nerves sprouted in her belly, immensely grateful for her presence.
“This might not be the most comfortable feeling, but I’ll try to be as gentle as possible,” Dr. Harris said as she placed a condom over the wand before slowly inserting it. She tapped a few keys on the ultrasound machine, gently moving the wand around until a clear image popped up on the screen. It was another minute before she spoke again. “Okay… given the size of the embryo, you’re about seven weeks along, Chloe.”
Chloe puffed out a breath as a kaleidoscope of emotions swept through her. This was her baby, up there on the screen, and the sight of it suddenly made her question everything and ask something that she would regret shortly after. “Can I-- can I listen to the heartbeat?”
The doctor glanced at her. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Chloe confirmed. “I’m sure.”
Nodding, Dr. Harris pushed another key, and the most beautiful sound filled the room a second later. A steady, strong woosh woosh. Tears sprang to Chloe’s eyes, and she felt a squeeze to her hand as she attempted not to let them fall. Her own heart constricted in her chest, so hard it was nearly painful.
“Turn if off, please,” she croaked out, shaking her head as her lids slammed shut, those tears sliding down her cheeks and curling around her chin.
The doctor shut off the machine and withdrew the wand a few seconds later. “You can put your legs down, Chloe.”
Chloe nodded and straightened, taking the tissue Beca offered her and blowing her nose with it.
Dr. Harris watched on, her eyes soft. “You still have some time before making a decision.”
“Did it look healthy?” She found herself asking, then figured she should explain. “I just got out of rehab. I did cocaine and drank a fair amount of alcohol on a daily basis up until four weeks ago. And I was given um...” Chloe scratched her forehead as she raked her brain for the medication name. “Gabapentin for the first two weeks of rehab to help with withdrawal.”
Dr. Harris’ features remained professional as she nodded slowly. “The heartbeat is strong, and I didn’t catch anything abnormal. The risk of miscarriage is more present than for other pregnancies as the drugs crossed through the placenta when you were still using, and that up to twelve weeks. Problems could occur during and after the pregnancy. But the baby could also be perfectly healthy, since you stopped in the early stages of pregnancy. It’s hard to tell.”
Chloe’s mind swam with all these possible scenarios, and she didn’t know whether to listen to her brain or her gut feeling. “How-- how much time do I have to decide?”
Dr. Harris slipped her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “Abortion is legal up to 25 weeks in New York state. Up to ten weeks, you can take a pill, past that a surgical procedure is needed.”
Chloe sniffled, swiping the back of her hand under her runny nose. “Okay. Thank you.”
Dr. Harris cast them both a tight-lipped smile. “Of course. I’ll leave informational pamphlets at the desk for you to read, as well as my phone number should you have any questions.”
“Thanks,” Beca said as the doctor walked out, then focused back on Chloe, reaching out to brush her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed? I can go get those pamphlets in the meantime.”
Chloe nodded, her insides caving in as soon as the door clicked shut behind Beca. She gripped the edges of the exam cot hard, her nails digging into the leather and her breathing turning chopped as a mix of panic and sadness unleashed within her.
It all seemed unfair, but she knew her own recklessness was the root of the situation she found herself in.
She eventually managed to calm herself down enough to get dressed, meeting Beca by the desk ten minutes later. The walk home was silent, and Chloe was grateful Beca didn’t push her to talk. She didn’t even know how to process her own thoughts, let alone speaking them aloud.
A few days passed. Chloe slept a lot, and tried to keep herself busy the rest of the time. One hour each morning consisted of hugging the toilet while she puked her guts out, and the rest of her day was spent craving that warm embrace of the rush cocaine once brought her.
The temptation was there. She knew there was a store on the corner of Beca’s street that sold booze, and she knew there was enough change in the bowl by the front door to afford at least a couple beers.
Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to. Not after seeing that tiny blob on that screen and listening to its heartbeat, because the biggest part of her wanted this. She knew it deep down, but she couldn’t silence those same voices that had been making her life hell for the past four years, telling her that she was bound to fail at this like she did with everything else.
Chloe woke up that Saturday morning to a churning stomach. Scrambling out of bed, she stumbled to the bathroom across the hall and made it just in time to empty the contents of her stomach into the ceramic bowl.
She slumped back against the wall afterwards, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she reached out to flush the toilet with the other. Chloe glanced up when Beca appeared around the corner, a sympathetic smile curving her lips as she stepped closer and handed Chloe a steaming mug.
“Ginger tea. I read it helps with morning sickness.”
Chloe accepted it with a quiet thank you. She cradled the mug between her palms, her head tilting back against the tile behind her as she exhaled. “You can sit, if you want.”
Beca nodded and lowered herself next to her in the tight space, their thighs and shoulders touching. “Do you… want to talk?”
Chloe sucked in a sharp breath. “I feel… lost,” she croaked out, her head rolling to the side to look at Beca. “Before the appointment, I was so sure terminating the pregnancy was the wise option, but then I saw it on that screen and heard its heartbeat and…”
“You realized the wise decision is maybe not what you want?” Beca supplied when Chloe trailed off.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” Chloe whispered before she broke eye-contact, focusing on the mug she held in her hands as she blinked away the tears filling her eyes. “But it’s crazy to even consider it, right? I don’t have a job, I don’t have my own place, and I’m still battling with my own mind because I crave something. All day, every day since my last hit.”
“But you didn’t cave,” Beca pointed out softly. “I know it’s only been four days since you got out of rehab, but you didn’t cave, and that’s already an accomplishment of its own.”
“I just… I don’t want to harm this baby more than I’ve possibly already done,” Chloe admitted quietly.
Beca nodded, and reached out to take one of Chloe’s hands, tugging it into her lap gently. “If keeping this baby is what you want to do, those things you’re worried about have solutions. You may not have a place of your own, but I’m not kicking you out. Even with a baby. This is home for you as long as you want or need it. A job shouldn’t be too difficult to find. Maybe it won’t be the greatest one on earth to start with, but it will be something to get your head back in the game,” she paused, tilting her head to the side and seeking Chloe’s gaze. “And what you just said? About not caving because of the baby? I can’t think of a better proof of your ability to be a great mom. You’re already putting that baby before your own needs, and I can’t even fathom how great and out of control those can become, and I think that’s admirable. And for what it’s worth, I think you should trust what your gut tells you. I listened to my brain instead of my heart once, and ended up making one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”
Chloe let Beca’s words resonate within her, basking in the temporary peace they brought her. There was no doubt about where her gut feeling lay on this.
“I feel like I’m turning your life upside down,” she whispered after a while, sniffling. “You’ve done so much for me already, I don’t want to keep abusing from your generosity, or jeopardize your relationship with Sarah.”
“You’re not abusing anything, Chlo. I promise,” Beca murmured with a squeeze to her hand. A stretch of silence settled between them, until Beca spoke again. “You still have time to think about it. Just know that whatever you decide to do, I’ll support it.”
Over the next week, Chloe found herself picturing what it would be like, caring and nurturing for that baby and raising them. For the first time in five years, cocaine wasn’t the first thing she thought about when she woke up, or the last thing on her mind before going to sleep.
For the first time in five years, it felt like she had purpose, in trying her best to be the mom her child deserved. That meant staying clean, leaving those demons behind where they belonged, and getting her life back together one day at a time, for that innocent being that came to light in the darkest time of her life.
She woke up earlier than usual that morning, and headed to the bathroom to pee, pausing as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. A soft gasp escaped as she lifted her shirt and ran her palm over the barely perceptible swell in her lower belly. It wasn’t there yesterday, and Chloe felt tears pool in her eyes.
Happy ones.
“Hey there, little one,” she croaked out, her heart swelling against her ribcage as she rubbed slow circles over her skin. “We’ll be okay, won’t we?”
She puffed out a long breath, a watery smile breaking through.
One day at a time.
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The opening scene to episode 9, season 3 of Hannibal is sex on the eyes to anyone who ships Hannigram. Let’s analyse this for a minute.
Hannibal recognises him immediately without even looking. Will is wearing the same after shave he wore to Hannibal’s court case. Hannibal must have spent every second he could once he got close to Will then, soaking up all he could, knowing he wouldn’t be seeing him again for a long time. He made note of his smell, savouring it, remembering it. Even through the smell was “atrocious”, in his words.
They greet each other, it’s formal.
Then Hannibal asked Will if he read the note he’d sent to him or if he tossed it into the nearest fire. Basically telling Will that even after all these years, he finds Will to be slightly predictable. He knows him that well, they know each other that well. Just like Will knew Hannibal only wrote him that note because he could help in the case and wanted Will to come to him. And Will says he read it before he burnt it.
Hannibal says “and you came anyway.” But he isn’t surprised, no. He’s relieved Will is there, that he can finally see him, and he cements this by saying “I’m glad you came,” and makes a stab at the other company he’s been keeping while here, as he nears the glass.
He’s telling Will that he missed his company, expressing that he’s putting Will above everyone else. And that he misses being unprofessional with Will. And he expresses his disgust for the others.
Will brings him back to the reason he’s here, and he asks for help. Asking Hannibal for help is a hard thing to do, especially for Will when he was probably quite content staying away from him. Not because he doesn’t miss him every waking moment, but because it’s hard for Will not to be sucked into Hannibal like debris to a vacuum.
Hannibal responds by saying “yes, I thought so.” He knew that Will would use it as an excuse to see him, or at the very least be the only reason he’d come.
Hannibal observes that Will is being too formal, asking him “are we no longer on a first name basis?”
Will says he’s more comfortable the less personal they are. And for obvious reasons, this is Will saying he can’t bare to say Hannibal’s name because Hannibal is right there, and the wounds are still fresh and Will is so vulnerable to Hannibal. Hannibal makes him weak because he loves Hannibal so much. Keeping distance feels safe, safer. It’s like the glass for Will isn’t even between them, like he could reach out an touch him they’re so close. And he needs the distance.
Hannibal then makes another point of smelling Will, and Will tries not to show his emotions as Hannibal accurately pinpoints Will’s life. Of “dogs, and pine and oil beneath that shaving lotion.”
He asks Will “it’s something a child would select, isn’t it? Is there a child in your life, Will? I gave you a child, if you recall.” And Will stays still, but you can tell Hannibal’s gotten under his skin by the way he starts shaking lightly. He ignores Hannibal. He opens his mouth long before the words come out.
He tells him “I came about Chicago and Buffalo, you’ve read about it,” trying to reason with Hannibal, trying to convince himself and keep this strictly impersonal and distant. He doesn’t sound sure, and he can’t blink, he simply stares.
Hannibal makes another jab, this time saying he’s not allowed to have scissors. Hannibal wants to express to Will how awful his life is without the freedom he gave up for Will. To be treated like a child, to be treated like he’s on training wheels. He wants Will to know this, and be personal.
He offers to Will “you want to know how he’s choosing them?” and Will says “I thought you would have some ideas.” And Hannibal scoffs, because it’s simply amusing to Hannibal that Will is pretending he’s here because of a case instead of using it as an excuse to see Hannibal.
Hannibal knows how delighted he is to see Will, and he knows Will is delighted to see him, trying to hide it is kind of hysterical.
“You just came here to look at me,” he says smugly, because it’s true and they both know it. Will is speechless, nothing to say. Because he’s right.
Hannibal continues “came to get the old scent again. Why don’t you just smell yourself?”
Will has had enough now, he knows he’s gotten himself in too deep, and he doesn’t want to give himself up to Hannibal and let him win, and let Hannibal know he’s here to see him, and not here to use him for a case.
Will turns to leave after a moment. “I expected more of you, doctor. That routine, old hat.”
And Hannibal calls him out, saying “whereas you are a new man?”
And he’s right. Will is here just to look at him, to smell him, to speak to him. He was away from Hannibal for 3 years. He got a wife, a kid, a new place. And the second he had opportunity and a valid reason he could blame, he came right back to Hannibal like a yo-yo. There were cases before Hannibal, and Will solved them with just as much help without Hannibal then, so why would he need to turn back to Hannibal when he knows he can do it without him? It’s because they’ve both showed their hand. Hannibal was desperate for a reason and so is Will. They’re both going through the old routine, neither of them have changed with the years. They’re still the same, and Will can hide behind his new life and think “my life is perfect, I have everything, why would I turn back to Hannibal?” But that doesn’t change that he did turn back. It’s like a cheater saying “why would I cheat? I have you. I love you.” It doesn’t change the fact that you cheated.
“Let me have the file,” Hannibal says. “An hour and we can discuss it like old times.”
Will says “thank you.” Grateful for Hannibal’s help, and grateful for the chance to “discuss it like old times.” I bet to Will without Hannibal has been much like to Hannibal without Will. They have their imagination but they’re still trapped in their own little prisons.
Will is accepting of a life where he has a son in substitute of the daughter he’d lost, Abigail, and Molly in substitute of Hannibal. And he isn’t happy with her, isn’t truly happy to forget Hannibal. It’s why at the end of the series he finds it so easy to do what he does. In his mind, he has no one to go back to but Hannibal. Hannibal is his world, and dying with him, or dying without him and living the life he did when Hannibal was locked up are one and the same. Jack and Alana talked about busting Hannibal out and killing him with Will, but Will and Hannibal can never truly live without each other. And Will knew that when he agreed to bust Hannibal out, only because he wanted to see him free. It was enough to Will to know where Hannibal was when he needed him, and it was enough to Hannibal to know that Will knew where he was and that that wasn’t going to change.
Hannibal is like a priceless gem waiting in the earth to be discovered, and Will is the determined party searching for him. They find wealth in each other.
The second Will walked over to hand in the file, Hannibal walks with him in tandem, unable to keep his eyes off of Will.
He tells Will that he’s family, and he’ll help him when he can. And Will absorbs this, then leaves.
Now to both of them, their lives aren’t the same. They’ll never be the same again. Just like when they first met. A rebirth, if you will. To Will, he’ll never be a father or a husband again, not in the way he was. And to Hannibal his life would no longer be the waiting game it is. He wouldn’t be waiting for Will to come to him, because here he is, and he’s once again satiated by the sight of him.
SORRY IF THIS IS REALLY STUPID AND MAKES NO SENSE I’m having a difficult time putting my thoughts together on paper.
#hannibal#hannibal lecter#will graham#mads mikkelsen#hugh dancy#hannigram#hannibal will graham#hannibal and will#hannibal analysis#analysis#scene analysis
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How to parent the types
Most guides detail the scenarios that will screw up a person of each type and land them in therapy or self help group, but what would a positive scenario be?
Since I just saw another funny post about the average age of the userbase increasing, I figured some of you could use this stuff I compiled from various sources. Might also be helpful for handling one's inner toddler
Tl; Dr: Attachment Triad -> give positive reinforcement; Frustration Triad -> Handle with care, gently nudge towards balance; Rejection Triad -> Do not overdiscipline or neglect
Type 1
have some degree of structure, routine & clear rules
encourage fun & humor
emphasize positive feedback & deliver criticism in soft, upbeat ways
dont let them beat themselves up too much
Type 2
don't make fun of their feelings
give praise & affection easily & freely
they will probably try to help you & approach you on a more equal basis fairly early on, hence be mindful not to neglect them, give them too much responsibility or lean on them for emotional support
model good boundaries
Type 3
Need a lot of love, affection & praise actually
Ask them their emotional experience of things & praise non-marketable, non-static traits like their effort & thoughtfulness
they like it when you do projects together or teach them skills (good opportunity also to show that setbacks are ok)
Do not miss their soccer game, school play etc.
Type 4
don't mock their interests or repress their expression, instead encourage creativity or if they wanna do their own thing apart from the family
try to listen & hear them out
avoid the use of negative labels, those can get stuck
don't shut down questioning of conventional wisdom or the status quo with "because i say so"
Type 5
benefit from a hands-off approach, give options & choices; Don't be too critical, clingy or demanding
if you're not sure what they're thinking or feeling just ask.
avoid sudden surprises; If there's a scary or difficult situation, explain exactly what's going to happen and why
dont go overboard trying to "correct" their introversion
Type 6
shelter & provide structure as kids, but also let them assert boundaries, rebel & explore on their own as teens.
Those of the phobic persuasion might need a little push or encouragement to do more independent stuff
be reliable but not overdominant
teach ways to relax & self-soothe
Type 7
they might not show their troubles openly so try to be sensitive
provide emotional support with difficult experiences
motivate with rewards
be mindful of how to discipline - don't be too inflexible/harsh but don't let them charm their way out of everything either
Type 8
as with the 5s these do well with a hand off approach - give them choices, some areas of control and/or free space
treat with respect & dignity
don't overdiscipline or impose too much restriction they'll just rebel more
on the other hand don't completely neglect them just cause they act mature for their age
Type 9
they might be easy to handle but they're still very sensitive, dont let them get ignored in favor of noisier siblings
instead of bossing them around or being too strict, use dialogue - sit down & explain calmly what they did wrong or why they have to do the thing, why its important, why you care etc. you get way less passive aggression this way
just talk to them enough in general
dont overreact to rebellion or misbehavior, its not all bad if they learn to assert themselves or state what they want
That said, one of the best predictors of a kid's later sucess was the parents' ability to narrate their own life story, that is, self-awareness of their own faults. So it might help above all to have a good handle on your own patterns.
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