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sopejinsunflower · 2 years

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Signed and Sealed - PJM One Shot

a/n: it took me awhile but I'm finally happy with this one. I wanted to write more but I decided to end it as I ended it here. You'll know why by next week (maybe)

Summary: Getting hired at one of the most prestigious catering companies had been a dream come true, mostly to earn a couple of extra bucks to make it through college. No one warned you not to get involved with the platinum blond CEO, though. Especially when he offers you something you can't turn down.

Pairing: Park Jimin x you, mentions of Kim Seokjin

Word count: 11.5k

Tags: AU! CEO Jimin, student mc, dom Jimin implied, slight 18+ content.

Fucking finally!

You stare at the email in both relief and excitement. You can’t believe it. After months of trying to find a part time job and getting multiple rejections or offers for work schedules that don’t align with your classes, you finally managed to land a waitressing job with a catering company. And not just any catering company, but the catering company, JP Food & Services, which deals with high class events for the rich and famous, dinners and fundraisers among the politicians, private shows for people who pay more money than you could earn in a month for the tickets to. You hold in a joyous scream, punching the air with both fists. Fuck, yeah!

You scroll through the rest of the email a second time, truly reading every detail now. The best thing about this job is that you can choose which events you would like to work in. They will email you a week prior for the list of events they have in the coming week and you just reply back with your choice of location and the shifts you want to work and they will add you to the group chat of the events accordingly. The pay was the deciding factor for you to reply yes almost immediately: twenty dollars an hour, capped at two hundred dollars if the pay is counted by the day. The catch is that the money will only come in by the end of the week, before the list for the next week is up.

You grin. That’s the best paying offer you’ve got.

“Waitressing is hard work, you know,” your roommate, Yuna, commented when you told her of the job over breakfast one day. “You should check what the working environment is like if they’re paying you that much. Seems fishy.”

You brushed her off, too giddy on the prospect of earning a lot of money in the next few weeks or so. You’re already thinking of the shopping you plan on doing, the items in your online shopping cart that you can check out soon enough. You’ll push through it, you think. “It’s not like I can’t quit if it gets too much,” you retort, stuffing the rest of the toast in your mouth before you rush out the door after her to catch the bus.

When your Event Management lecturer is droning on at the front of the class, your eyes are stuck to your phone screen, scrolling through Twitter and Instagram alternately. Yuna keeps giving you dirty glances, nudging you once a while to get you to look up, which you do for at least a minute before your focus is shifted downward again. Bored with social media, you opened your email, thinking you can just clear out your junk but the email waiting in your inbox catches your attention. The list of work locations have been posted. You go through it one by one, trying to find something of interest.

Week 45

Good day, JP servers! Here is the list for next week. Please reply with the number(s) of your choice of location(s), along with the desired shifts. If the chosen shift is full, we will arrange for you accordingly. Should you agree, we will go ahead and add you to the group chat. If the shift made for you isn’t aligned with your schedule, you will have to step back or choose a different event.

You notice how half of the list is weddings happening on the weekends, five on the Saturday and another three on Sunday. You recognise two of the names; one for this social media influencer, a trust fund girl just a little bit older than yourself that you follow on Instagram, the other one is a local actor who is marrying a music producer who have been together since you were in high school. You circle number three in your head, noting the date and shift time. You continue on down the list and see another interesting event: a fundraiser with the Great Gatsby theme. “How original,” you mutter, but chose the number anyway. You hit reply.

No.2, 1100-1900. No.7, 1600-2200

You check again, making sure they’re both on different days (Saturday for the wedding, Sunday for the fundraiser) and hit send. You counted in your head that you could be making a little over three hundred dollars in just these two days and you grin to yourself, excited to start earning your own money. With that thought, the rest of the class doesn’t seem so boring anymore.

The week went by in a flash and soon it’s Friday night. You’re in your room, rummaging through your closet for some white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of black pants, as required. Frustrated, you head over to Yuna’s room and knock once before opening the door. “Hey,” you call out. Yuna is by her desk, busy with homework, a pair of headphones on. You stand there for a few seconds before approaching her, tapping on her shoulders. She turns in her seat, removing the headphones to one side to free up one ear. “What?”

“Do you have any white shirts I can borrow for tomorrow?”

She dips her eyebrows. “Maybe. You can check,” she says as you squeal and run over to her wardrobe, “but do not make a mess.”

“Got it,” you reply, giving her a thumbs up. She turns back around as you help yourself to the array of clothes she has, which is a lot.

Yuna and you come from totally opposite backgrounds. She’s the daughter of a Korean conglomerate, the future heir to the company since her older brother turned it down to pursue photography and her older sister isn’t interested in the business. The weight of her birth right sits heavily on her shoulders that she has a perpetual slouch. She takes her studies in business seriously, taking up electives in different courses and that’s how you two met. You, on the other hand, come from a family of eight from a small town that no one has ever heard of. The middle child of six, you have a much relaxed attitude to life, excelling enough in your Mass Communication classes to not be taken off the scholarship. Your parents hardly ever visit you in the city, too much expenses to bear if they do.

But you two complement each other so well since freshman year; she helps remind you that there are certain things in life you need to put effort in, things that you need to prioritise more than others. She keeps you in check when you’re slacking off, pushes you to do better even when you moan about it, and is a very good friend, albeit sometimes more like an older sister instead. From you, she learns to let loose sometimes, that it’s okay to not be all stiff and serious all the time, to realise that there’s more to life than just books and studying. Although, to be honest, you get the both of you in trouble more times than she approves of.

You pull out a crisp white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, the label reads a famous Asian designer brand, and hold it in front of you in the mirror, turning this way and that. Yuna is taller than you by a couple of inches but you have more curves in the right places. You take off your cartoon T-shirt and pull on the shirt. The sleeves are a little long and the chest area is a little tight but you think you can pull it off.

“Looks fine.” You look at Yuna through the mirror. She’s leaning one elbow on the back of her chair. “Would look better if you could give me a bit of your boobs.”

“If I could, I would,” you sigh. “Can I borrow this one? At least until I can get a new one for myself?”

She waves you off. “Take it. I don’t think I’ve ever worn it in the last six months. But it needs to be hand-washed, though.”

You look back into her opened wardrobe. With that much clothes, you’re not surprised that this piece is forgotten. “Thanks!” you exclaim as you bound over to her to give her a hug, which she pretends to push you off.

“Get off,” she groans but not really meaning it.

You glance at her computer screen. “You’re already starting on your thesis?”

“Yes,” she replies, fixing her glasses back on her nose.

“But we don’t have to do it until next semester.” You take the mouse and scroll it up, wanting to read the title page. You get to it and squint, then gasp. “Your name isn’t Yuna?!”

She gives you an incredulous look. “Yes, it is. What do you mean?”

“Then who is that?” You point to a word on the screen: Eu-na.

She gawks at you. “That’s me, you idiot. That’s how my name is spelt.”

You stare at her. “Are you sure it’s not with a Y?”

She does a double take. “Yes, I am very sure that’s how my name is spelt. Now would you leave already? I need to finish this.”

“But-”

She sighs. “I’m Korean, you asshole. Did you forget?”

You roll your eyes at her. “Gee, how could I?” Your face turns into a scowl. “You’ve seen me write your name with a Y and not once did you ever correct me. That’s on you. And I’m not changing it now.”

She laughs then. “It’s not that big of a deal to me. It still sounds the same. Now, will you excuse yourself?”

You go to leave and as you reach the door, she calls out to you. “Hey, try not to spill food on people tomorrow, okay? I’m sure the media will be there, too, and I don’t want to see your face or name all over the tabloids.”

“Well, you know they say there’s no such thing as bad media, Yuna,” you say as you head back to your own room. You lay out the outfit and get ready for bed, wondering excitedly as to what kind of guest would turn up tomorrow. Too worked up to sleep, you lay awake until half-past two in the morning, groaning awake at close to ten, dark circles around your eyes.

Yuna is standing in the doorway when you finally manage to open your eyes.

“You’re going to be late if you’re not out the door right now,” she says matter-of-factly, a cup of coffee in her hands. You leap out of bed and get dressed, hopping on one foot as you struggle to put on your pants. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I banged on your door so loud the neighbours came knocking,” says Yuna as she hands you a cup of latte. You take a sip. “Oh, I see the bus coming up.”

“Fuck,” you mouth, banging the cup back on the table and running out, a bag of change of clothes on your back. You slip into your black Converse and run down the street to catch the bus that would take you to the wedding just on time. You manage to get on board, huffing and puffing into a seat and sitting down, only to find out you forgot your phone. “Fuck!” you curse out, louder this time, making the two ladies sitting on the opposite aisle to stare at you disapprovingly. You flash them an apologetic smile while you continue cursing under your breath.

Twenty five minutes later, the bus made a stop in front of this very fancy golf club, known for the many luxurious events held on its beautiful lush, green lawns. It’s a beautiful day, you think as you walk up towards the entrance, sunny and not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze just cool enough to keep the sweats away. There’s no specific instructions for crews to enter so you walk in through the front door, looking around for, you’re not even sure what. You think hard, trying to recall if there was any mention of the person in charge, someone you can find to receive direct orders from but your phone isn’t here for you to check.

But everyone in the foyer is busy; workermen racing around moving or carrying heavy things, men in dark suits and ties walking here and there, speaking into walkie-talkies, a few guests, probably the relatives or close families who arrived back early from the ceremony laughing and talking in groups, kids running around with not a care in the world. The subtle ambience music is barely audible among the noise. You check your watch; 11.10. You sigh, deciding to approach the man in the dark blue suit standing in one corner, platinum blond hair slicked back, a pair of RayBan hiding half his face. He’s so absorbed looking at his phone that you have to clear your throat to get his attention, standing close enough you can smell his cologne.

“Hi, excuse me.” You clear your throat again. “Um, sorry, I’m supposed to be with the serving staff here? But I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go.”

He regards me. “Are you new?”

“Um, yes?”

“You didn’t check the group chat?”

You gulp, realising that this could be the supervisor on-site. First day and you already fucked up. “I…forgot my phone.”

“You couldn’t turn back to get it?”

“I was already on the bus when I realised, sir,” you reply in a small voice, the intimidation rising by the second. You feel a lump forming in your throat but you try to hold back, telling yourself this is the consequences of your own actions.

“You took the bus?”

You nod, not trusting your voice to speak. At this point, you’re already considering just going home and going back to sleep again. Forget about the money. Yuna will probably laugh at you and make fun of this day until you graduate but it seems so trivial right now. Timidly, you raise your gaze to meet the man only to feel overwhelmed, flitting your eyes back down. He still hasn’t removed his sunglasses and yet you can feel his piercing gaze.

“Follow me.”

You didn’t get to ask anything when the man marches off, you scurrying behind. He leads you to the back towards the kitchen area where you see more people wearing the same outfit, black and white, running around. A woman dressed sharply in a light blue suit is barking orders around, a clipboard in hand, standing by one of the metal kitchen counters. The man pauses by the doorway and turns to you. “Tuck in your shirt.” He looks down to your Converse and, even if you can’t fully see his face, you feel the distaste. He sighs but turns back around and approaches the woman. They exchange a few words, the woman glancing your way, nodding once and the man walks off, leaving you without another look.

“You over there,” the woman calls, pointing at you and snapping her fingers. “Put this on.” She slides a bowtie across the counter. “And tie up your hair. Did you bring any black heels?”

You shake your head, not recalling any specific shoes except that they had to be black. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She calls out to another server. “Jodie, can you find her a pair of heels, please?”

Jodie comes over and takes you by the wrist to a backroom. Judging from the piles of bags and clothes on hangers, you guess this is the changing room for the staff. She rummages through a big box and takes out two shoe boxes. “Here, try these on and see which fits better.”

You take them and open up one, unboxing the Mary-Jane style three-inch heels and putting them on. They look pretty fancy for waitressing but you don’t question it. “These are fine,” you tell her, handing the other box back. You fiddle with the bowtie around your neck before Jodie comes up and fixes it for you. “First gig?” You nod, feeling suddenly nervous.

“Don’t worry,” says Jodie, patting your shoulders. “You’ll get used to it fast. But the heels are gonna be a bitch at the end of the day. So I suggest you go get your own pair for the next one. Which shift are you on?”

“The full day,” you answer, checking yourself in the mirror and already feeling the blisters that are going to form on your heels later.

“Me, too. We can stick together and I’ll show you the ropes.”

“Thank you.”

“No worries. I was once in your place, too.” You follow her out back and towards the kitchen, where the woman is reading out the itinerary in a loud, commanding voice. “Just let me know if you have any questions but the job is pretty easy. Just walk around the room with whatever they hand you. How’s your arm?”

“My arm?” You shot your eyebrows up.

Jodie chuckles, gesturing to the huge metal trays arranged in one corner, still empty. “It’s going to be a helluva workout to be carrying those trays the whole day today.”

“How long have you worked with this company?” you ask but then the clipboard woman’s icy stare zones in on you and you feel your stomach drop.

“If everyone has enough chit-chatting, let’s get on with business.” She clears her throat and flips through her clipboard again, this time assigning people to their respective jobs, reminding of the itineraries as she goes along so that everyone has a clear idea when and where they should be throughout the event. When she finishes, she looks up at the group surrounding her, especially the servers. “I should remind you once again that you are not to interact with any of the guests any more than you have to. No flirting, no fraternising, no asking for photos, or signatures or anything of the sort. And god forbids you if you fall on your asses. We are professionals! Please don’t embarrass the company by being on the tabloids tomorrow.”

The crowd of people in black and white nod their heads, murmuring yes, ma’am as they do, much to her satisfaction. Her eyes fall back on you and there’s a silent resignation in her expression almost as if she expects the worst from you. Jodie leans in close and whispers, “Don’t worry. You’re not the only new face today. Just stick with me, alright?”

The trays are divided into two piles; one for champagne glasses, another for the canapes. The first hour or so, the time between guests' arrivals and brunch, your job is to carry the canapes around the event area, offering up food to whoever you see with their hands empty. The canapes aren’t so heavy so it’s a breeze for you to weave around the people as subtly as you can. You recognise some of the people; actors and actresses, singers, a couple of politicians, famous TV hosts and hostesses, even one of the news anchors you see on TV every night is there. Most of them accept your offer, some of them completely ignore you as if you’re part of the wall fixtures.

That first hour is easy, leaving you feeling a bit more confident now. The heels don’t hurt as much as you expected them,too, so all is good so far. You catch glimpses of the platinum blond man, sometimes talking to the guests in low murmurs, most times standing by himself alone, watching the crowd. He has taken off his sunglasses and you notice he’s very handsome. Something about him, the air around him, makes him highly sexually attractive. It’s not just you who notice this, but most of the guests do, too, chancing furtive glances his way. Even some of the servers went up to him multiple times despite the same answer; an almost imperceptible shake of the head, his face serious and unreadable, eyes looking past them. It’s almost like he’s magnetic, pulling in everyone just to repel them back.

That’s when his eyes glide over to you and your heart jumps to your throat. Flustered, you turn to scurry out of there but, as fate would have it, you bump straight into one of the guests, the tray flipping over from your hand sending the canapes flying through the air before landing on the ground at your feet. It’s a good thing you’re on grass; it muffled the sound of the tray falling. The nearby crowd gasps and stares. The guest you ran into is brushing down his suits, checking for stains. You stand there, frozen, watching as this tall, handsome actor assesses himself before finally looking up at you. Your whole body is stiff, waiting for the berating that doesn’t come.

“You okay?” he asks, peering down at you. You instantly recognise him and your heart almost stops beating. This up close, he’s ethereally beautiful you realise the cameras could never capture his true beauty. “Are you hurt?”

You slowly shake your head as Kim Seokjin picks up the tray and hands it back to you. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve looked where I was going.”

“N-no, it’s fine.” You hug the tray to your chest. “It’s, um, it’s my bad. Is your suit okay?”

“My suit?” He laughs, a twinkle in his eyes. “My suit is replaceable, it’s just a suit.”

You nod, eyeing how the clothes he’s wearing look like they’d cost you a yearly salary of a normal office person. Behind his shoulder, the lady with the clipboard is staring daggers at you. You hurry to pick up the fallen canapes, just as Seokjin does the same. “No, no. It’s okay. Please, just leave them and enjoy the party. I’ll do it.”

But Seokjin persisted, picking up the ones nearest to him and placing them all into your tray just as the clipboard lady comes over. She clears her throat, plasters on a huge smile on her face and taps him on the shoulder. “Sir? Mr. Kim, sir, please, don’t worry. We’ll handle this. After all, this is our job.” She looks pointedly at you and you wither under her gaze. Seokjin stands up, smiling. “And I’m just trying to help.”

You gather everything and hurry out of there, Seokjin staring after you. But Seokjin isn’t the only one that’s keeping a close eye on you. Just as you disappear into the back, the platinum blond man makes eye contact with the clipboard lady and she, like you, shrinks back a little, reversing out of the crowd and going off to find you.

You find yourself in the staff changing room, squatting down on the floor with your head in your hands. Fired after an hour, you think. How lame is that. You take a few deep breaths, collecting yourself. The door bursts open and the clipboard woman is standing there. “There you are!” She straightens her hair before continuing. “What are you doing? We’re not paying you to sit around. Go! Get back out there.”

You gape up at her. “You want me back out there?”

“Yes! Now, hurry! Brunch is about to start.” She ushers you out, pushing you out the door and towards the kitchen. The trays are now filled with four to five plates, covered in domes. “Take this one. Table number twelve. Just match the plates with the names on the table. Remove the dome once served. Got it?”

You nod but are a little hesitant. The tray looks a lot heavier now. The lady rolls her eyes, pulling you by the wrist. “Palm up, one hand. You’d need the other to serve.” You follow her lead and she places the tray onto your palm. Your knees buckle a little from the weight and you’re finally starting to feel the blisters on your feet. As the other servers pick up and carry the food with ease, the lady is still looking at you with concern, wondering if it’s worth the risk. It’s the guests she worries about more so than you. You turn to leave, tottering a little and the lady jumps to catch the tray but a pair of stronger hands catch you by the waist and steadies you.

“Use your core,” the platinum blond man says, fingers digging into your sides. “Here.” He pushes his thumbs into your soft abs. “Stand up straight. The heels are there for a boost of confidence.”

“They’re hurting my feet,” you whine then catch yourself.

His eyes flash and you shiver, looking down. Without a word, he takes the tray from you and your heart sinks. “Watch me.”

“But-”

With one look, the lady bites down on her tongue, watching helplessly as the man takes the tray out. You follow him, wondering who the hell he is. He’s a head taller than you, slim-figured but commands such a strong presence it’s almost suffocating. Not in a bad way, you think. More like in a way that if he asks you to strip naked in front of the crowd you wouldn’t even dare to say no. You shake the thought out of your head, a little surprised with yourself, but as you walk behind him, you just can’t help but notice how firm his butt is. It’s almost as nice as looking at his face.

The outdoor wedding has moved over to the dining area where tables have been set up under this huge, cream-coloured canopy, divided into two sections with the middle aisle leading up to the couple’s table and the beautiful four-tiered cake standing at the front. Twenty-five tables are set up on one side, ten people per table, and yet the guests have been whispering how the couples wanted a small wedding, thus the limited guest list. The platinum blond man heads towards table number twelve and you follow close behind, hands clasped in front of you, fiddling your thumbs together. You see Jodie up ahead and she cocks one eyebrow at your situation. You give her a shrug.

When he approaches the table, all ten pairs of eyes widen. One of the women, elegantly dressed but looks like she’s in her mid-30s, stands up, smiling ear to ear. “Oh my, Mr Park, what an honour to be served personally by you.” She continues to giggle like a high-schooler, twirling her hair on one finger. The platinum blond man, or Mr Park as she called him, flashes her a smile that could’ve probably saved the Titanic by melting the ice they hit.

“A little treat for you today, Mrs Williams,” he says as he places her plate in front of her, winking. The woman lightly hit him on the arm. “I’m recently divorced. Just call me Amy.” She bats her eyelashes at him, her hand lingering on his arm. Your eyes zone in one the gold band around her left ring finger that she keeps at table-level just as Mr Park smiles wider. “Right. Well, I hope you enjoy your food, Amy. Let me know if you need anything.”

He finishes serving the whole table and quietly slips the tray back to you. He fixes his suit jacket, leaning in to speak in a low voice. “Do the same with the rest of the meal. And for heaven’s sake, smile. You don’t have to look like you’re having the worst time of your life.”

“Thank-”

But he is already walking away into the sea of tables, greeting people as he passes by, shaking hands with some and returning flirtatious banter with the ladies who unashamedly throw themselves at him any chance they get.

-you,” you huff, watching him from afar. You sigh, heading back to the kitchen, prep-talking to yourself the whole way to do better and step it up. For some reason, you manage to stay close to Jodie for the rest of the shift, your assigned tables closer to hers and as the hour passes by, you get better and better to the point you can feel yourself enjoying the job. The confidence grows along with the smile on your face, finally catching some attention from the other servers and even a few of the guests. Even Seokjin stops you to get a short conversation in before you have to rush away. It feels good to be noticed, especially from that star actor who seems to always be surrounded by people.

By the end of the shift, the staff gathers in the kitchen to listen to the event post mortem by the clipboard lady. She’s telling everyone good job but her face is set straight, like she’s not happy to commend the people on their work. The group finally disperse after the final thank yous and see you again and you check your watch. It’s already 8PM and your stomach growls, having only eaten half of the lunch provided before being rushed back to work. Your feet are killing you even when you already changed back to your Converse and your left arm probably has developed muscles from all the heavy lifting and balancing.

“So,” says Jodie as you both exit the building, “will I see you again at the next job?”

“I signed up for the fundraiser tomorrow. The Great Gatsby one,” you answer, looking hopefully at her.

Her face falls. “Oh. I chose the instgrammer’s wedding. Fundraisers are boring. A lot of old people talking business and politics. But much easier, I’d say. No heavy plates. Just snacks all night round. And champagne. I’m glad today didn’t scare you off. Maybe we can choose the same event next time.”

You agree and exchange contacts with her. To your surprise, you watch as she gets into a convertible Cooper parked in the guest parking lot, starting up the engine. You wave as the car drives off, heading to the bus stand yourself. All the way, you can’t help wondering why someone who drives an expensive car would work as a server.

The next bus is in the next forty-five minutes so you sit down, hugging your backpack to your front, feeling drained. You rest your head on the backboard, closing your eyes. You have no way of knowing if Yuna is cooking dinner or not so you figured you’ll get McDonald’s from around the corner of your place. Your stomach lets out another loud sound and you yearn for something more than fast food.

A Porsche Panamera glides to a stop in front of the bus stop and you squint at it, wondering if it’s waiting for one of the guests. The passenger side window rolls down with a whirr and you sit up straighter when you see who it is. “Are you taking the bus again?”

You hesitate. “Um, yeah? That’s how I came.”

“No one who can pick you up?”

You shake your head, your lips turned up in an amused smile. “No.”

Mr Park regards you for what feels longer than a few seconds. “Get in.”

“What?” you splutter.

“I said, get in,” he repeated. “Hurry up.”

You stand up but pause. “The bus will be here soon, sir. It’s fine.”

He scowls. “Why are you so stubborn? Just get in. I’ll take you home.”

Something clicks in you and you start to feel annoyed. “I don’t even know you. I don’t even know your name.”

He sighs heavily like he’s dealing with a difficult child that he has no time for. “Never mind, then. Take the bus.” The windows whirr closed much to your astonishment and the car revs off noisily down the street. You stare after it. “What an ass,” you mutter, plopping back down, slightly regretting not taking the offer. But flashes of news of females who are abducted and raped then killed cross your mind and you’re once again convinced you did the right thing.

You check the time again. Thirty more minutes. A few of the servers have joined you at the bus stand, three guys and another young lady who has a cigarette in between her lips. Suddenly you see headlights coming up the other street and you see the same car making a half turn to switch lanes and stop right across from where you’re sitting. The window is already open. At the sight of the others, he motions you to come closer with his finger. The girl is staring daggers at you as you approach the car.

When you’re close enough, he asks in an irritated voice, “You really don’t know who I am?”

“No. Should I?”

“I would’ve guessed most people should when they decide to work for me,” he says vehemently. You stare at him. “Yeah, I’m the one paying your salary. Now, will you get in?”

“You’re Jimin Park?”

He heaves a sigh. “Are you deaf or just dumb?”

You step away from the car, frowning, and feeling a little hurt. He groans, banging his head into the headrest. “Look. I’m really tired and I thought you could do with a ride home. It must have been a long day for you.”

Your stomach chooses that exact moment to betray you, sounding out the hunger alarm for all to hear. Mr Park gives you a hard stare. “As your boss, I’m ordering you to get in the car.”

“The bus will be here soon,” you attempt weakly, your resolve shaking.

“Or,” he adds with a mean look in his eyes, “I’ll withhold your pay until the end of the month.”

Your eyes widen. “What? You can’t do that!”

“Wanna bet?”

You stare at each other but as your stomach growls again you relent. “Fine,” you say in a meek voice, opening the car door and getting inside. Immediately, the intimidation starts again, almost as if you’re suddenly enclosed in his predatory bubble. You can’t quite put a finger on it but it feels like sitting next to a salivating demon who’s looking at you with hungry eyes, quite the contrast to his very sweet, very devilishly handsome face.

“Do you like Korean food?” he asks, shifting the car into gear and speeding off. You only nod, your throat prickling at the thought of some spicy food. The hunger almost feels unbearable now. He nods along. “Good.” He glances at you. “I like you better when you’re obedient.”

Something about the way he says it makes goosebumps run up and down your arms and you cross them together, hugging yourself. You throw your gaze out the window but through the reflection, you catch the hint of a smirk on his face.

***

Just like you expect, he pulls up in front of this restaurant known for not only its Michelin Star chef, but also its view as it is situated atop a hill that overlooks the city. The only way you ever saw the interior of the restaurant was through photos posted on social media by famous people and on Yuna’s Instagram page while you only daydream about it. Although Yuna swears the food is just mediocre but you wish you could have been the judge of that yourself.

Now as you follow behind Mr Park up the steps and through the main doors, you can’t help but feel a little excited, like a child on Christmas, your eyes taking in the decors and every little detail, even the smell wafting in from the dining area. The maitre’d eyes you suspiciously but greets Mr Park with such enthusiasm it’s comical to watch, but you remain silent all the way to your seat. He comes back later with a green glass bottle and pours out two shots of soju. He leaves the bottle on the table and goes away.

You watch as Mr Park down the shot in one gulp, throwing his gaze out the glass window, the lights of the city twinkling orange and red. Your drink remains untouched as the maitre’d returns again, this time with plates of different types of food, placing them carefully and silently, not even a thud, in front of you. You look at the selection, a variety of meat and seafood, spicy and non-spicy, stir-fried and soup, hot and cold, along with about a handful of side dishes. The table is almost covered with food. The bowl of rice, one for each of you, comes last.

“Dig in,” says Mr Park gruffly, skilfully using his chopsticks to get the rice. You stare at the food again, licking your lips, not even sure where to start. You watch as Mr Park picks up some meat and piles them on your rice. “Eat. I thought you were hungry.”

“I am,” you answer breathlessly, bringing the meat up to your lips and into your mouth. You chew slowly at first, and as the flavour bursts on your tongue, you chew more adamantly, shoving more in. The only problem you have is with the rice, wishing you had a spoon instead. Mr Park just silently watches you, eating much slower, choosing his food carefully and almost minimally.

“You don’t like rice?” he asks casually.

You shrug, a pout on your lips. “I do.”

“Then why are you barely touching it?”

You look up at him, sighing, putting the metal chopsticks down. “These are hard to use.”

Without breaking eye contact, he raises one finger and the maitre’d is suddenly standing there, ready to take his order. “Can we have a spoon for the lady?”

The maitre’d glances over to you. “A…spoon, sir?”

Mr Park flickers his eyes over at him to confirm and he straightens up and scurries off, coming back with a metal round spoon. “Here you are, ma’am.” His eyes are nothing but judgemental but you just smile sweetly and brightly. “Thank you so much.”

Dinner went by much smoother and at the end of it, you’re sitting back in your chair, wishing you could unbutton your pants. There is still leftover food and you look at them guiltily, realising that you had done most of the eating. When Mr Park puts down his chopsticks and takes a napkin to his mouth, you frown. “Aren’t you finishing those?”

“No.” He puts down the napkin and checks his watch.

“But there’s so many left,” you moan, gesturing to the table.

“And?”

You look at him disbelievingly. “You know how many hungry children are there in the world that would love to have this food?”

He gives you a quizzical look. “If there’s that many, I don’t think these would be enough.”

You groan exasperatedly. You look up, trying to wave over the maitre’d but he keeps avoiding looking your way. You wave your hands over your head but he is adamant to ignore you. “What are you doing?” Mr Park asks, sitting back in his chair.

“Trying to get them to take away all this food,” you answer.

“For who?”

You pause, looking back at him. “Seriously? I didn’t know you’re such a waster, Mr Park. You’re one of this world’s problems.”

He lets out a soft chuckle. “Right.”

You scowl but don’t say a word, still too busy trying to catch the head waiter’s attention, half standing now.

“And it’s Jimin.”

“Huh?” You turn your attention back to him. “What did you say?”

“I said it’s Jimin,” he repeats impatiently.

“What is?”

“My name,” he snaps. “Are you that dumb?”

“But that’s a girl’s name,” you say, scrunching your nose. “And I’m not dumb. Don’t go calling people dumb so easily, Jimin.”

He groans, rolling his eyes. He snaps his fingers and the maitre’d rushes over immediately. “Pack these up, will you? And the check, please.”

“Certainly, sir. Right away, sir.” The maitre’d waves his hands and a couple of waiters come over and take the plates away. A white receipt is placed face down on the table as the head waiter walks back to the front. Jimin slides the paper to himself and stands up and you follow suit. You arrive at the front counter just as the food comes out again in paper bags, to which they hand over to you as Mr Park, or Jimin, pays. The maitre’d gives you one last dirty look as you both walk out the door he is holding open.

“Give me your address?” Jimin instructs as you pull on your seatbelt.

“Why?”

He gives you a look that says he might end up driving to the lake to dump your body there. Realising what he needs the address for, you quote it for him as he types it into the car’s GPS. Fifteen minutes later, the car is parked in front of your apartment building. He looks up at it. “Kind of small.”

You unbelt yourself. “Well, that’s cuz I’m the one working for you, not the other way around.” You open the door and step one foot out when he puts the paper bags of food into your lap. “All of them? You don’t want any?”

“Just take them and get out already,” he sighs. You shrug, stepping out and about to close the door when he asks, “Did you sign up for another event?”

“Yeah,” you say, hefting the paper bags closer to your chest. “Tomorrow. The Gatsby fundraiser.”

He frowns, not quite getting it but then it dawns on him which event you’re talking about. “Well, it’ll be good to have your phone with you. And be there at least thirty minutes early.”

You watch him pull out but don't drive off. You wait, but the window rolls down again. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he shouts through the window. “Go on up, then.”

Slightly taken aback, you bounce up the steps and open the lobby door. You turn and wave at him before shutting the door. You wait another ten seconds and you can still see the silhouette of his car through the crystallised glass. Thinking that he might be on his phone before driving, you go up to your floor and to your unit. Yuna is watching TV when you hurry past her to the window that overlooks the car park. You can see him leaning over the passenger side to look up and your eyes meet. He sits back and finally drives off.

“That’s just creepy,” you muse. “Was he trying to see which floor I was on?”

“Who? What?” Yuna joins you by the window, watching his car tail lights disappear into the night. “Whoa, who’s that?”

“My boss, apparently,” you huff, transferring the paper bags into her arms instead. “Hope you’re hungry.”

“Oh, you got my message,” she replies, peeking into the bag.

“No, I didn’t. I left my phone this morning,” you tell her, going off into your room to find your phone on the bed, still plugged in. You checked it, cringing at the many unread texts, especially the group chat for today’s event, and Yuna’s more recent one asking to get dinner on your way back. You read all of them, disregarded the other notifications, and exit the wedding group chat, as per the instruction once the event finished.

“Wait,” says Yuna as she follows you to your room and stops by the doorway. She pulls out the tub from the paper bags, eyes widening as she registers the name of the shop. “You went to Seoul of Korea?”

You nod. “Yeah, pretty neat place. The food’s not as bad as you said it was. It was actually good.” You start to undress, ready to hop into the shower.

“With your boss?”

You nod again.

Yuna leans back on her hips. “Damn, girl. You move fast.”

You snort. “I was practically coerced there. And he’s pretty rude.”

You follow her back into the kitchen as she unpacks the food. “Did you eat there or these are the takeouts?”

“We ate there,” you reply. “And these are leftovers. He ordered so much food and he didn’t even finish them!”

Yuna gives you a funny look. “So you went to the most fancy restaurant and told them to pack the leftovers?”

“Exactly.”

She laughs, mouthing wow as she puts a couple of tubs into the microwave. While the microwave hums, she leans against the counter. “So who is the old dude? Do I know him?”

“I don’t think he’s that old,” you say, picking on some of the food that is waiting for their turn to be reheated. “He looks super young. Jimin Park?”

Yuna’s eyes widened again along with her mouth. “Park Jimin?!”

“That’s what I said. In reverse.”

“Wait, hold up.” Yuna holds up both hands as if to stop time. “That car just now, that you came back in, that was Park Jimin? You went to have dinner with Park Jimin?!”

“Why do you keep repeating his name?”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I told you,” you say, rolling your eyes. “He’s my boss. I’m going to take a shower.”

Yuna rounds over to you just as the microwave dings. She puts her hands on your arms, shaking. “Park Jimin is like the Korean version of Christian Grey, everyone knows that!”

You stare at her. “As in he’s as rich or he’s…y’know, a sex maniac?”

“He’s fucking rich!” Yuna exclaims, shaking you a little harder. “And he’s hot as fuck! He’s like the most sought after bachelor among the rich and famous! Everyone wants him! Though I don’t know if he’s a sex maniac but given that everyone would love to fuck him, it wouldn’t be farfetched.”

“Are you done?” you ask, glancing at where she’s holding you. She steps back, taking out the food from the microwave and putting in the rest. “I don’t know why it matters so much. He’s rude and seems full of himself. And he’s my boss. He just gave me a ride home. No big deal.”

Yuna splutters. “No- no big deal? I’d be freaking out if Park Jimin sent me home.”

“You are now,” you point out.

“Look,” she says, gathering herself. “The point is, you should consider yourself lucky. Everybody wished they could ride in his car.”

“Yeah,” you snort. “Let him see you take the bus and be pathetic on the first day of work. Maybe he’ll take pity and drive you home. Cuz that’s what happened.”

Yuna laughs again, darkly this time. “Park Jimin doesn’t care about anyone. He’s a cold sonofabitch. I know because I tried talking to him once at this party and-”

“You mean at the rich people party?”

“Yes, that. You know how my parents want me to socialise,” she says, air-quoting socialise. “Well, anyway, my mom pushed me to talk to him but he’s not a friendly person. Couldn’t get more than ten words from him. I don’t think he talked to anybody that night, except for a few key people. Kept to himself, glared at everyone that approached. Worst five minutes of my life. It felt like he was just waiting for me to leave, y’know.”

“And yet you said he’s hot as fuck and all that?”

She nods. “Because he is. All my friends, even my mom’s friends, are just infatuated with him. But he doesn’t seem to notice or give a shit. Maybe he’s gay.”

“Maybe,” you answer absentmindedly. “I’m going to shower. For real, this time.”

You hear Yuna sigh longingly but all that’s on your mind is your next job tomorrow. There’ll be more important people, people you wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of; not that you wanted to today, either. Your feet are still hurting and so is your arm and, to be honest, you’re actually dreading going back to work. But a part of you is somewhat curious if he would be there too, Park Jimin. You finish showering and go to bed wondering if you will get to see him again.

The answer is, yes.

At 3.30PM, you are gathered together with a group of people wearing the same outfit. This time, instead of a bowtie, you are given a plain black tie. The leader this time is a no-nonsense man, gruff and speaks with a perpetual scowl on his face. He has on an earpiece that is connected to a mic at his wrist and he gives the impression that he’s from the secret service. The instructions had been more or less the same as last time; no flirting, no fraternising.

You have bandaids plastered in all the right places on your feet so the heels hurt less, feeling a little more confident now that you know what to expect. You haven’t seen Jimin anywhere today, catching yourself craning your neck to look around. Even when the event started, there was still no sign of him. By 7.30PM, when the bidding starts and dinner is in full swing, your arm is starting to hurt and your feet are starting to cram up. You are walking around the floor, picking up empty glasses and used plates to clear the tables, carefully dumping them into a large basin at the back of the hall where the busboys will come and take them out when they’re full. That’s when you finally see him, dressed in an all white pristine suit, walking down the middle aisle towards a table, a lady in a matching golden and white sequined dress walking next to him, hand on his arm. They both take a seat, side by side, the lady leaning in to whisper something to him.

You start your round again, deliberately circling around the table adjacent to theirs, hands and feet moving automatically to pick up used dining wares as your eyes are glued to Jimin and his plus one. The bid continues on stage, currently over an eight by ten painting that started at ten thousand dollars. You watch as the lady, who looks to be in her late thirties or early forties with a beauty that’s classical, leans in again, whispers something in his ear that cracks a smile on his face. He nods and whispers something back. You notice how her arm is still resting on his upper arm, how he would sometimes brush over it lightly as she gives him a squeeze.

“Excuse me?!”

You look down at the woman whose half-full wine glass is in your hands. You put it back down, accidentally slamming it and making the wine slosh around dangerously. “What the hell?” she shrieks, standing up and gesturing at her glittery dress. “You got wine all over my dress! Do you know how much the dress cost?!”

You shrink, stepping away. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. Here, let me help.” You pick up an unused napkin and try to dab at the spot she’s waving at but can’t seem to see anything wrong with it. She jumps back, raising her voice even more. “Don’t touch me! Where’s your manager? I’d like to make a complaint.”

You panic, unsure what to do, feeling the colours draining from your face. Your mind is blank and it feels like your lips are glued together to say anything, not even to apologise. The woman is still demanding a manager, making the people in the vicinity turn their heads, even some of the other servers, wondering what is going on, but you can’t quite hear her. You stand there, frozen and speechless, gaping like an idiot at the woman screaming in your face, right until you see someone in white comes over and talks to her. She finally calms down but before you can realise what’s happening, a hand is clasped strongly around your wrist and pulls you to the back.

In the service hallway, where the music is muffled, the loud booming voice of the auctioneer faint in the distance, your senses finally come flooding back. The tears pricked the corner of your eyes and as you see Jimin’s darkened face looming close, you turn away, hastily wiping them away.

“Just breathe,” he says, his voice low. “Breathe.”

“I’m fine,” you reply, sniffling the last snot, breathing in gulps. “Fuck, I should go back and apologise to her properly.”

His hand stops you. “It’s been taken care of.”

You take a few steadying breaths, clenching and unclenching your fists on your sides as you try to get a grip. You nod shakily. “Thanks. Look, I’ll pay for the damaged dress. You can take it out of my paycheck.”

“Of course,” he replies coolly. “That’s a given.”

Your heart sinks a little but you nod, accepting the consequence of your action.

Then he adds, “If it was actually damaged.”

You look up, not comprehending. “What do you mean?”

A small smile creeps up his lips. “Her dress is fine.”

“What? Really? But she was pissed!”

Jimin arches an eyebrow. “You made the mistake of picking up something she was still drinking and you did slam the glass down.”

“But it was an accident! I didn’t mean it,” you say, then pauses. “How did you know what I did?”

He looks a little taken aback but quickly recovers. “She told me. Plus, it’s common sense from what she wanted to complain about.” He fixes his tie then turns to head back inside. “Just stop slamming glasses down from now. And make sure you watch what you’re doing instead of staring at someone, why don’t you? I’m not cleaning up your mess again next time.”

You watch him leave, your mind barely processing what he said.

“What are you doing?” a voice barks from behind you. You jump, turning around to come face to face with the team leader. “Get back to work.”

***

The event ended later than scheduled so when you ran down the street to the bus stop, you manage to catch sight of the last bus disappearing around a corner.

“Fuck!” You kick at the curbside. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!”

You groan out loud, running your hands through your hair. The only good thing is that you brought a pair of sneakers to change to so at least your feet don't hurt so much. You take out your phone and dial Yuna’s number but the phone keeps on ringing until it goes into voicemail. She’s probably already asleep as her first class tomorrow is at eight o’clock. You groan again, trying to think of anyone else who you can ask to pick you up but having a small circle of friends, no name comes up. You open up Google Maps and check the distance to walk back home and find out it would take about forty-five minutes. Sighing, you start walking.

Not even five minutes, you hear the sound of a car gliding along next to you and without checking to look, you hasten your pace, pretending to be affixed to my phone screen, the emergency number ready on the dialpad.

“Not taking the bus today?”

At the familiar voice, you finally look up only to scowl again to see Jimin following you with his car. “Are you following me?”

He looks around, at the steering wheel, then back at you. “I think so. Isn’t it obvious? So why aren’t you taking the bus?”

You roll your eyes. “I missed it, the last one.”

“How come?”

“That’s a stupid question,” you remark. “Because the event ended later than when it was supposed to.”

“Why don’t you just drive? This thing is bound to happen in the future if you’re still with us.”

You give him an incredulous look. “Well, gee, why didn’t I think of that! If I just drive it’ll solve all of my problems.”

He doesn’t look amused. “Is it the you work for me thing and not the other way around? If so, I understand.” He has one hand on the wheel, glancing between the road and you. “Or maybe not since I am driving.”

You groan. “You’re a piece of work, y’know.”

“I’ve been told,” he replies lightly. “Are you getting in or not?”

You stop walking, staring at him. “Sorry, was there an invitation implied by your whole assholery?”

He shrugs. “I thought it was obvious. I mean I’m holding traffic to keep up with you.”

You look behind the car at the empty road and then back at him. “Right, I can see that.”

He sighs heavily. “Fucking hell, do you need an invitation? Fine, get in the damn car so I can take you home, your hindness.”

You glare at him. “Have you ever been told to fuck off?”

“It might not look like it but yes, yes I have.”

“Well, here’s another one. Fuck off.” You start to walk faster down the hill but the car keeps rolling at a slow and leisurely pace next to you and is he whistling? The radio is off, you know because the window is still rolled down. “You know,” he says again, “this area isn’t a good one. Lots of people getting jumped, robbed, killed. The stuff.”

You ignore him, the sound of your footsteps loud on the pavement but your heart is beating even louder now as you glance left and right at the low bushes lining the side of the road. It’s dark enough for anyone to be lying in wait for a helpless victim, especially one like you that fits all the right criterias; female, small, alone, have no self-defence skill whatsoever. But the idea of giving in to his arrogance makes your blood boil so you keep going, much to his frustration.

“Y/n l/n,” he calls in a voice that makes you stop dead in your tracks, your heart jumping in your throat as it triggers a childhood memory of being summoned after getting into trouble. “Get in the car. Right now.”

Almost as if compelled, you drag your feet over to the passenger side, stopping just outside. You look at him without saying anything as he locks eyes with you, his face stern. “Get in,” he reiterates in the same commanding tone. You open the door and get inside. When you finish buckling up, he drives off, the window whirring up to a close.

The drive home is a silent one. He doesn’t even bother to ask for your address, having it registered on his car already, which makes you wonder about it but don't ask. Your voice is stuck in your throat, too scared to tip him off even more so you remain quiet, hands clasped in between your legs. The radio is on but turned down low and from the corner of your eyes, you glance at how he has one hand on the wheel and the other on the middle armrest. He has taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie just enough to undo the first button of his shirt, the sleeves rolled up just below his elbows.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” the question pops out of you involuntarily as you suddenly remember the woman with her hand on his arm earlier.

“I don’t have one,” he replies shortly.

“What about that lady you were with?” you remind him, feeling a little tense that you even dare to ask.

“That’s none of your business.”

Silence.

Then, he says, “You’re much more obedient when I have to handle you like a child.”

You don’t answer, keeping your eyes on the road, your body coiling in as if ready in case he does something that requires you to have quick reflexes to protect yourself. But nothing happened. You remind yourself again that this is your boss, not your parents.

In your peripheral vision, you see him glance at you, watching you with eyes that make you feel assessed and gauged, like he’s looking for something that can give him a sign of what he’s curious about. “Are you in college?”

You nod. “Yes.”

“What are you studying?”

“Mass Communication.”

“What year?”

You lick your lips. “Junior. I got one more year and then an internship.”

“So you’re of age?”

Your eyebrows dip a little, turning your head just slightly to see his face. “What do you mean?”

He doesn’t answer but poses another question. “Do you have a boyfriend? A girlfriend? Husband? Any partner whatsoever?”

You frown but shake your head. “No. Why?”

“Just curious,” he says but his tone is that of someone mulling over the information. You see your apartment building coming up and you grab your bag tighter around you. You hear him chuckle. “Ready to jump out of the car?”

You give him a scowl but your expression softens at the amused look on his face, the way his eyes twinkle in the darkness. As he puts the car in park, you wait for him to unlock the door. When he doesn’t, you look back at him questioningly.

“Say,” he starts, fingers drumming on the wheel, eyes looking up at the building up front. “Are you sticking around? With the job?”

“Yes,” you answer immediately. “I need the money. I suck at it but I’ll get better.”

He nods but almost as if he isn’t even hearing you. “Good. Are you an open person, y/n?”

You stare at him, trying to understand what he’s asking. “I like to think that I am?”

He nods again, the same faraway look in his eyes. “So if I say there are…other events only listed for our…more exclusive servers, would you be interested? Of course, the pay is double, sometimes triple the normal amount.”

You notice the red flags in the things he’s saying but the words double and triple stand out the most. You swallow then nod. “Yeah, I’d like to be involved. If it doesn’t clash with my class schedules, of course.”

He smirks. “No, don’t worry about that. You still have the freedom of choosing your own shifts.” He finally turns to look at you straight in the eyes and your breath hitches. “But, these events are strictly private. If you agree, you will be requested to sign an NDA first before the list is provided to you.”

Your curiosity is peaked and it is enough for you to nod your head. “Yeah, okay.”

He regards you for a few seconds, eyebrows stitching together like he’s not sure about you. But then he looks away, reaching over to open the glove compartment and pulling out an A4 brown envelope. He hands it to you. “This is the NDA and an agreement contract you need to adhere to should you agree to be our exclusive server. Read through everything, all the details, the fine prints. Sleep on it, really think about it. I don’t want my servers running out on me after signing the contracts. It’s a pain to chase them down to pay the penalty for contract breach.” He sighs heavily. “They always want their pay on time but when it's the reverse it becomes such a hassle.”

“How do I get it back to you?”

He gives you a long look before answering. “Scan it and email it back to me.” He takes out a card from his breast pocket and hands it over. “Not the work email. This one, my personal one. It’ll be delivered directly to me.”

You take the card and shove it in the front pocket of your bag. You go to open the envelope but he stops you with a hand on yours. Your knuckles feel like they might burst into flames from the contact. “Not now,” he says. When you’re inside.” He gestures to the apartment. You give him one last confused look before exiting the car. Like last time, he only drives off once he sees you through the upstairs window and you watch as he drives away.

Plopping down on the bed, your tiredness forgotten, you upend the content of the envelope into your lap. There are two documents; one an NDA, the other the agreement. You go through the latter, skimming through the first page easily. You pause on the second page, staring at the list of rules you had to adhere to. There are only three.

1. All exclusive events have their own designated rules. You must uphold and adhere to them as per requested.

2. All exclusive events have specific and strict dress codes that you must follow. Any deviation from the dress code will result in being sent home with no reimbursements or any payout.

3. All participants are bound by the NDA.

Any breach of these and the NDA will result in a penalty set by our law team. Any withdrawal from the agreement before the completion of the tenure will result in a penalty set by our law team. A bonus of one year salary will be rewarded with a contract renewal.

The agreement is set to one year, dating from the day you sign the contract. You stare at the list of rules again, your gut screaming at you not to do it but can’t find anything in the writing that clearly states anything that can go against your own values, considering that you are free to choose your own events. You try to analyse the rules again; the first one is a given, any event has their own rules. Dress codes are normal, too, and the NDA is a binding contract that you understand perfectly well as a mass communication student. As much as you’re wondering what kind of event that requires NDAs, the lucrative money promised is much more enticing. It’s the kind of money you can never quite fathom.

Sleep on it, really think about it, his voice echoes in your head. But that amount of money, for someone like you, is something you don’t have to really think about, much less sleep on it. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’re not going to let it get away just because of a gut feeling that could stem from paranoia or something else. You move to the desk, taking out a black pen in a mug in the corner. You scribble on a piece of paper first to check if the ink is working before taking the pen to the agreement contract first, signing your name and the date, before doing the same with the NDA. For some reason, your heart is hammering in your chest. You take out your phone and open the note application to scan the pages of both documents before opening your email.

As you key in his email address and paste in the scanned documents along with a short message, you stare at it for a good minute. You take a deep breath and press send, the whooshing sound signalling that the email is sent. You sit there, frozen, as if you’re waiting for the whole apartment to cave in on itself or the world to stop spinning but nothing happens as it always never does. Shrugging, you crawl into bed, not even bothering to shower first, content that your first class tomorrow isn’t until noon. You fall asleep almost immediately.

~~~

Across town, in a penthouse in one of the largest buildings in the city, the CEO of JP Foods & Services opens up the new email that just dinged on his phone, smirking to himself to see the documents he just passed not even two hours ago signed and delivered. He flags the email for printing later.

Barefoot and shirtless, he pads silently over to the second unoccupied bedroom. Well, it’s supposed to be unoccupied, he lives alone after all. But not tonight. Tonight he has a guest. He pushes open the door and steps into the dimly lit room, approaching the four-poster bed that creaks with every move the tied, naked woman makes. She’s spread-eagled with not a single thread on her, hair tied up in a ponytail to keep them off her face. The room is silent except for the vibration sound coming from between her legs.

He sits on the bed and runs the back of his hand on the side of her face as she leans into his touch. She looks up at him. “So? Did she sign it?”

He smiles. “I guess you’ll be meeting up with her more often now, Jodie.”

She grins back before moaning. “Jimin, please. I think I’ve been a good girl for long enough.”

His face darkens, pulling away his hand. “I told you not to call me that.”

She pouts. “I’m sorry, sajangnim. Please?”

As he takes out the leather paddle, as he unzips his pants and lets it fall to his knees, as he spreads Jodie’s legs even wider, taking out the vibrator from her well-trained ass, he closes his eyes and pictures your face. As he sinks into her, as he feels her clenches around him, as he hears her scream his name with every resounding smack of the paddle, he imagines it’s you. Not long now, he thinks, just a little while longer before I have you begging at my feet to ruin you more.

:MASTERLIST:

#bts #bts jimin #park jimin #jimin x you #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #jimin fanfic #fanfiction #bts one shot #jimin one shot

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hermannsthumb · 3 years

Note

"different young (rebound) hunk on his arm every week…newton geiszler who?" CAN YOU WRITE THIS FIC PLEASE? Hermann as the new heartthrob of the science world, cheekbones that can cut glass, baby gay scientists everywhere using appalling math-related pick-up lines in an attempt to be the booty call of the week. Newton catches a glimpse of him at a fundraiser and the Precursors have to stop him from crying with lust.

so tragically I plotted a whole fic for this and then came back and realized this prompt involves PRU but I liked my idea too much so unfortunately I won’t be filling the PRU part 😔 but I DO love heartthrob hermann sooooooooo. this can be pre-PRU if you want to make it sad actually CW for drinking and mild allusion to not sfw stuff. when will these boys talk about their feelings?

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Hermann doesn’t like going out to bars at the best of times, least of all after he’s had the sort of exceptionally long day he’s had today (fighting his way through airports and hotel lobbies, fielding interview questions, having not even a minute’s break from Newton), but even he will admit that the one Newton has dragged him along to tonight could be far worse. The sorts of bars Newton fancied throughout their stint at the Hong Kong Shatterdome tended to be far hipper, far more becoming for a man of his (and, admittedly, Hermann’s) age, and likely aimed at tourists: pounding music, dark rooms, neon lighting, overpriced drinks, an inability to navigate through throngs of dancing bodies without bumping into at least half a dozen people. For that reason Hermann’s blood practically ran cold earlier that evening when, fresh out of their latest television interview, Newton insisted that Hermann needed to unwind a little. That Newton would help him unwind a little.

Hermann was pleasantly surprised to find that though the music (a live band) is still loud, and drink prices are still inflated, at least he can see Newton, and at least the few people dancing are dancing far away from them. And, well, perhaps it’s made him more amenable to (mostly) matching Newton drink-for-drink, and to indulging him in knocking back not one, but two rounds of the most disgusting-looking pink shots of all time, and�� “Look, dude,” Newton declares, tossing an arm around Hermann’s shoulder. He’s shouting and leaning in too-close to Hermann, not because he’s intoxicated, but rather to be heard over the band, which has launched into a rather enthusiastic cover of some song Hermann’s sure he’s heard blaring from Newton’s iTunes before. His stubble tickles the shell of Hermann’s ear. “Just say it with me. It’s that easy. R-e-t-i-r-e-m—”

“We are thirty-five,” Hermann says. “We can’t just—”

“We absolutely can,” Newton says. He nudges his cocktail glass into Hermann’s chest, sloshing a bit of hot pink Watermelon Crush on his neat button-up. Hermann stifles a sigh; the shirt is brand new, bought just that morning for the interview, and will already be needing a wash. And smelling like liquified hard candy for the rest of the evening. “You and me, lying on a beach somewhere, sleeping in until noon every day, learning how to—to fish, or paint, or whatever the hell we want—”

“Not a beach,” Hermann says immediately. “I’m bloody well sick of beaches. Oceans, lakes, bays—no more."

Indulging Newton’s ridiculous little fantasy, even for a moment, is a mistake: Newton’s face lights up in a grin, and he tucks his arm around Hermann’s shoulder to pull Hermann flush against him. Hermann’s barstool wobbles dangerously. “Okay, no beaches. Far away from any coastline. The mountains, then.” It’d be just their luck, Hermann thinks, if the next Breach reopened far away from the ocean, too. Like it followed them somehow. “Let’s move to Switzerland or something and buy a log cabin or a cave and become weird recluses. I’ll learn how to ski, and you can grow a beard, and we can buy all our furniture at Ikea—” He frowns. “Is Ikea from Switzerland? Sweden? I haven’t been since college.”

“I don’t recall ever agreeing to move anywhere with you in the first place,” Hermann says, “let alone retire to do so. What on earth makes you think I’d follow you to Switzerland? I’ve no interest whatsoever in Switzerland.”

“Uh, because we’re best friends?” Newton says. “Anyway, what else would you do?”

“Anything,” Hermann says. He begins to tick off all the possibilities on his fingers while Newton watches him, unimpressed. “I could stay in Hong Kong—I’m sure they’d appreciate help monitoring what remains of the Breach. Or I could move back to England and resume my old teaching post, if they’d have me.” Hermann knows they’d have him; they’ve already sent him at least a dozen emails practically begging him to accept tenure. “Or back to Germany, with my parents.”

“I could totally do all that, too,” Newton says. “Well—not the Germany thing. No offense, dude, but your parents kinda suck. I don’t think I want them as my roommates.”

Hermann decides not to mention that the odds are very high they would not want Newton as a roommate, either. He’s tempted to ask Newton if he meant what he said about them being best friends—for Hermann can’t recall the last time someone called him their best friend, if ever—but Newton’s arm is slipping from his shoulders, and Newton is pulling out his mobile phone and tapping away frantically at it. Hermann feels strangely bereft without his touch. “Okay,” Newton says, his eyes scanning the screen, “Ikea was founded in Sweden, but they moved headquarters in—”

“Excuse me?”

Hermann and Newton both startle, Newton nearly dropping his phone, and the bartender who’d interrupted them smiles apologetically. He’s holding a pint of what appears to be beer. “Sorry to bother you guys,” he says to them, “but this is from the young man over there in the pink shirt.”

At the sight of the drink Newton brightens and puffs out his chest visibly. Bloody perfect, Hermann thinks. Just want Newton needs—another boost to his ego. “No sweat,” Newton says. He tosses his mobile to the bar counter casually and reaches to accept the glass. “Please tell him I’m super flattered, but—”

“Actually, sir,” the bartender interrupts, and—to Hermann’s surprise—slides the glass away from Newton’s grasp and over to Hermann. Hermann takes it without a word, not quite daring to believe it. Down the bar, out of the corner of his eye, he can see the flash of a bright pink shirt, but he can’t quite make himself turn to acknowledge the mystery admirer. Is that rude of him? No one has ever sent him a drink before. He’s not quite sure of the etiquette. “It’s, um, not for you.”

Newton deflates like a popped balloon. A blush spreads across his cheeks, barely visible beneath his freckles, which have come out again in the spring sunlight now that they’re not spending all their time in the Shatterdome basement. Hermann likes the look of them; he thinks they’re sweet, and that if he traced his fingertip across them they’d make a pattern of some sort, like a constellation. Not that he ever would, of course. Newton would surely ridicule him. "Right, duh,” Newton says.

He waits until the bartender is gone to round on Hermann. “Dude!” he says, almost accusatory, “Fourth time this week!”

“It is not,” Hermann protests. It’s weak to his own ears: even he isn’t thick enough to miss the sudden influx of attention he’s gotten since their first television interview last month. Hermann was never exactly popular, never exactly the sort the drive people wild with lust or romantic longing, yet it seems as if he can’t go anywhere these days without turning a few heads (including mid-twentysomething heads, mortifyingly enough) and getting a few cellular numbers slipped into his hand. Yesterday, a young man on the metro asked Hermann if he might like to see a movie some time. The day before that, another man wearing a jean jacket full of enamel pins stepped up to Hermann in a Starbucks and asked him if he could call-cu-later. Last week, a starry-eyed college student stopped Hermann outside a hotel to ask him to sign his Calculus 3 textbook, excitedly telling Hermann he switched degrees to astrophysics not a few days prior after reading an interview with Hermann in a rather obscure pop science magazine, and had blushed when Hermann thanked him. Newton had laughed at that one, and advised the young man to give biology a shot instead. (Newton had gotten very cross when he was promptly ignored, and in referencing the incident later, rather bitterly called the student an annoying little punk.)

This is to say nothing, of course, of the multiple news articles (listicles, as Newton calls them) Newton has forced him to read about himself on something called Buzzfeed, which have apparently helped to cement Hermann’s fifteen minutes of fame. One was called Twelve Times Dr. Hermann Gottlieb Was A Fashion Icon and was accompanied with a rather embarrassing array of candid photos of Hermann. Newton has been particularly incensed over that one.

“It is,” Newton says. “At least third. You know, I think the worst part is that you’re not even getting laid. Dudes are throwing themselves at you left and right—”

“Am I meant to go home with any random stranger who shows me the briefest bit of attention?” Hermann snaps. “I like to think I have somewhat higher standards than that.” I’m not like you, he nearly adds, but decides that it might perhaps be too cruel, especially considering that Newton has not gotten a fraction of the attention Hermann has over the past month. He remembers what it used to be like in the Shatterdome, is all; Newton seemed to like anyone who would give him the time of day. Most of his romances didn’t fare well for that reason.

“I’m just saying you could, and you’re not,” Newton says.

Hermann taps his finger against the pint glass, watching bubbles release from the side and rise to the top. When he finally takes a sip, it makes him wrinkle his nose. He’s not usually much for drinking. “I don’t like IPAs,” he says.

“I’ll take it,” Newton says, and the corner of his mouth hitches up in a grin, “as long as your boyfriend won’t get offended.”

Considering that Newton has only just finished following up his two shots with a cocktail, Hermann questions the decision, but slides him the glass anyway. Newton starts on it at once. Hermann wonders if he’ll need to call them a rideshare back to their hotel tonight; he’s not sure he can manage guiding a intoxicated Newton through the streets of the city on foot, especially not after a day that’s been rather unkind on his hip. “Only I suppose I have trouble believing it,” Hermann admits.

“Believing what?” Newton says.

“That they’re genuinely interested,” Hermann says.

To Hermann’s surprise, Newton snorts. “Nah, dude. You’ve got—” He taps Hermann’s chest, and leaves his hand there. “—sex appeal. You’ve got the, like, soulful eyes, and the movie star eyelashes, and the cheekbones and—” He drags his fingertip along Hermann’s jaw, and Hermann masks his sharp flinch in a cough, hoping Newton can’t feel his face heating up. He doesn’t remember if Newton has ever touched his face before. It feels shockingly intimate. “People think it’s super hot.” He takes another sip of Hermann’s drink. "Plus, you’re so—like—uptight. It makes people wonder what you’re bottling up.”

Hermann arches an eyebrow. “Bottling up?”

“In a sexy way,” Newton clarifies.

He settles his hand back on Hermann’s chest. Hermann licks his lips. Has Newton wondered those sorts of things about him, too? “You’ve had—too much to drink,” he says.

“A little bit,” Newton agrees. “I’m right, though. I like this shirt, by the way, it’s a nice cut on you.” He toys with one of the shirt’s buttons, and when he speaks again it’s in a low voice that makes Hermann’s mouth feel strangely dry. Hermann has never heard it from him before. “Wanna go back to the hotel and rent a movie or something?”

He’s peering at Hermann through his eyelashes, smiling in an odd little way. How terribly close they are to each other, Hermann realizes. He can count every tiny scratch in Newton’s eyeglasses, every fleck of gold in his eyes, every freckle on his cheeks. He wonders if Newton really wants to rent a movie; he wonders what Newton would do if Hermann closed the inch between them, and... “I,” Hermann stammers, gaze fixed on Newton’s mouth (stained pinker from his drink), “er, yes, only—only I feel as if I ought to thank the gentleman who sent me—”

At once, Newton drops away from him. His face hardens. His smile hardens, too. “Oh, right. I forgot,” he says. He inclines his head down the bar. “Pink shirt, right?”

Hermann casts his eyes about, searching for the pink-shirted stranger. When he doesn’t immediately spot him, a small bubble of relief swells within him. Perhaps he left, perhaps he decided he’s not interested in Hermann after all, perhaps Hermann is free to go back to the hotel with Newton and watch a film and argue about retirement and… “Oh, there,” Newton says. A man catches Hermann’s eye and waves timidly. He’s wearing a pink button-up.

“Bugger,” Hermann mutters. His admirer is not unattractive—in fact, he’s the opposite, with curly hair and glasses even thicker than Newton’s—which Newton seems to notice, too. He claps Hermann on the shoulder, hard enough that Hermann sways with it.

“He’s totally cute,” Newton says, “and he’s totally into you. You gotta at least get his number.” He takes another large sip of Hermann’s drink. “Better yet, get yourself laid. You could use it.”

Hermann feels the oddest sense of whiplash. Just a minute prior, he was about to kiss Newton (and he was pretty sure Newton was going to kiss him back), and now Newton is practically throwing him at another man. Hermann does not want to get anyone’s phone number—he wants to fall asleep in his stiff hotel bed to some absolutely awful science-fiction movie Newton picks out. “Newton,” he says, “weren’t we going to—?”

“No biggie, we can do movie night tomorrow instead,” Newton says. He nudges Hermann’s calf with the toe of his boot, and holds out his cane to him. Hermann feels his heart begin to sink. “I won’t wait up for you. Just give me a heads up if he wants to go back to our place, and I’ll make sure to stay out longer.”

“I’m sure it’ll only take a moment,” Hermann says. He’ll make sure it only takes a moment.

“No biggie,” Newton repeats. He raises his glass to Hermann in a mock toast. “Good luck!”

When Hermann looks back over his shoulder, halfway to the man in the pink shirt, it’s to see Newton’s stool vacant, and the back of Newton’s leather jacket swishing out the bar doors.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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the-purity-pen · 3 years

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PTC: part v

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x Fem!Reader

gif by @pascalsky

Word Count: 2,312

Rating: PG

Warnings: sweet moments, little bit of angst.

A/N: here’s the next part! some reveals. did you guess correctly? @creativekat and i are having a blast writing this and we really do love this story and these characters!

Series Masterlist

You looked around the large rented ballroom and shook your head nervously. You had brought up the idea of taking the kids out on field trips to facilitate their learning and the Heroics school board had decided to hold a fundraiser to help take this from an idea to reality. You hadn’t imagined that they might opt to raise said funds by auctioning off dates with the Heroics themselves. Since the event would be opened to the public, it couldn’t be held at HQ (a logistical nightmare) so a local Events Center had been the next best option. Now, as you watched the room beginning to fill with people you could see why. This was, apparently, the event of the century.

Soft classical music was being piped in from speakers in the corners of the room as people mingled, getting drinks from the bar. Your students were all wearing black outfits and acting as greeters and coat-checkers so the gathering masses would see just who their money would be helping. You quickly realized, for some here, it wouldn’t matter where the money was going. A night on the town with one of the Heroics was a hot commodity.

Glancing over at Marcus, surrounded by half a dozen women, you understood the appeal. The urge to go over and rescue him from his adoring fans was strong, but you couldn’t do that. For one thing, as the teacher of his daughter and the other Heroics’ kids it was inappropriate. For another thing, you’d spotted your brother in the crowd and you just knew he’d have an opinion on your feelings for Marcus Moreno and you just didn’t want to hear it.

Wearing a suit and tie was really nothing new but wearing it that evening made Marcus super uncomfortable. Not that the women who were flocked to him would have complained. A few of them tried chatting him up casually but there were a few making comments about what their ideal date night would consist of. One of them even tried slipping him actual cash to try to rig the auction.

Marcus shook his head with a forced polite smile as he got more uncomfortable until his gaze looked out and found you. “Ladies, I have to go do my part in helping set up,” he explained with a slight lie as he gently pushed through them and walked over to you. His smile changed from forced to nervous as he approached you and leaned in to speak to you.

“What else is left to set up? Please tell me there’s something so I can keep myself busy,” he added with a soft chuckle as his eyes did a very quick, brief scan over your scan to take in your outfit. “You look beautiful by the way,” he commented quietly as he attempted a smile at you.

At his compliment you couldn’t help the heat that rushed to your face. You didn’t feel beautiful most of the time. Cute, sure. But beautiful? No. But, if Marcus Moreno was saying it maybe you needed to believe it. You shook off the exhilaration of the moment to focus on what he was asking. “Ummm, do you want to add the raspberry sorbet to the punch?”

The two of you walked to the end of the table where several pints of fruit-flavored frozen goodness had been softening and you handed him an ice cream scoop with a smile, “Thank you.” You giggled before adding quietly, “You look really good yourself. I’m sure you’ll bring in a lot of money.” You were surprised when Marcus blushed. A little thrill shocked your spine realizing you were the cause.

Missy cleared her throat getting the attention of you and her father, “We’re done getting all the coats hung up. We were wondering if we could get some snacks?” Marcus looked at you for the answer since you were the one in charge for this event. Nodding, you said, “You guys have done more than enough. You’ve earned a break.”

As she walked away, Marcus leaned closer, asking, “Are you going to bid on me?” His smile nearly melted you.

With a nervous laugh, you replied, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Marcus’ brows knit together in a frown as he scooped some of the sorbet into the punch bowl, watching it fizz as the softened dessert melted more into the liquid.

“Why’s that?” he asked, trying to conceal the slight disappointment in his voice. He was excited to participate in something that would help raise money for Missy and her friends and the school but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t see this as an opportunity to finally have you on a date night with him.

Just then, a clearing of a throat and a slap to Marcus’ shoulder caused both of your attention to break from one another. “Well, well, well,” Miracle Guy’s voice broke your concentration on Marcus and caused you to turn to look at him. You forced a smile as the blond male continued talking, “Looks like we’ll be in some pretty heavy competition tonight huh Marcus?”

The question seemed playful in nature but Marcus, and you, knew better. Any chance that Steven could show up Marcus, he would absolutely try to. You shook your head slightly and went to the other end of the table, suddenly feeling tension in your shoulders.

You absent-mindedly straightened a stack of napkins that were already pristine and watched as the two men finished their conversation. Was it too much to hope Steven wouldn’t press the subject with you? You watched as Marcus handled the other Heroic smoothly, then Miracle Guy, also known as your older brother Steven, approached you. Again, you molded a wobbly smile onto your face.

“How’ve you been?” The question was ignored as Steve glanced around before casting his imperious gaze on you.

“So, are you and Marcus Moreno going out now?” He said the other man’s name through clenched teeth.

With a shrug you replied, “No. What gave you that idea? Why would you think that?” Inwardly you cringed. You were never very good at hiding your feelings.

Steven picked up a small plate and helped himself to a couple slices of cheese, “I overheard the kids talking. Wheels seemed to think you were interested.” He popped some gouda into his mouth and then, “I just don’t want you to get hurt… and getting your hopes up that a Heroic like Marcus would… well, I’m just worried he’ll get bored, that’s all. I’m looking out for you.”

You scoffed. The way your fists clenched around the napkin you were currently holding, crumpling it should have been a sign that you wanted to punch your brother for being so rude. The guy hadn’t even had a serious relationship and yet he still managed to have a son by a woman he so-called loved. What did he know about love or relationships or even what it was like to be with you in a relationship? He had no right.

His name was called across the room and he gave you a pitiful smile. Your nostrils flared, trying to calm yourself before Miranda came up to remind you that it was just about time to start. You nodded, thankful that she had broken your frustration towards your brother. You walked with her towards one of the front tables as she kept walking to get onto the stage and welcome everyone to the event.

Marcus had watched as you and Miracle Guy talked, narrowing his eyes when you clearly got agitated. But, then Miranda had interrupted and the blonde hero had walked toward the stage. He yearned to go to you and take your hand, to make sure you were okay, but the event was starting and he had to join the other Heroics at the table reserved for them.

Miranda introduced the emcee for the evening, a local newscaster, and joined you at your table while the rules of the date auction were explained. Reaching across the table, she grabbed an open bottle of red wine pouring two glasses, “You look like you could use a drink.” She knew your family history, since she’d been on the interview committee when you’d gotten hired and you appreciated her support now.

Taking the glass, you smiled, “I shouldn’t let him get to me. I’ll be fine.” You glanced over at the Heroics table and saw Marcus looking at you. He smiled and you couldn’t help but smile in return, your heart fluttering in your chest. Your attention was again diverted when you heard the emcee announcing that Miracle Guy had pulled in $870 for the school and then Marcus’ name was being announced. Your stomach turned while the women around you all cheered wildly. You felt jealous of whoever won this date and watched Marcus walk up to the stage.

Marcus fiddled with his tie as he made his way onto the stage. His face felt hot even before he stepped under the hot stage lights. The cheering and hollering didn’t quiet down until the emcee shushed the crowd at least four more times. Marcus was smiling but he felt his palms get a bit sweaty. For a man who was constantly in the news saving the world, being in front of a crowd to be auctioned off for a date seemed to make him nervous.

His eyes squinted as he adjusted to the light and when he scanned the room, his eyes landed on you for a long moment. His breath caught in his throat, secretly hoping that you would bet on a date with him. Everything in his mind was trying to telepathically tell you to bid.

The emcee barely got his words out to start the bidding before the first few hands rose up, shouting $100, then $150 and $200 in rapid succession. There was a murmur of giggles and whistles as the emcee shouted out the bid numbers and kept trying to explain what a date night with Marcus would entail.

Your eyes couldn’t leave Marcus even after he had caught your gaze a few times. Your heart was hammering as you thought about the real possibility of someone else going on a date with him. The bids had gotten up to $700 and it was down to two people. Both of the women in question had been acting especially thirsty when talking to Marcus earlier.

Throwing caution to the wind, you raised your hand, “$750!” Every eye in the room seemed to turn in your direction with varying reactions. Miranda’s eyebrows shot up, but she grinned at you. The two other bidders glared in your direction. Your students all shared happy grins (especially Missy and Wheels). Steven looked disappointed and aggrieved. But, the only person who mattered to you in that moment was Marcus and he looked relieved and happy, a wide grin forming on his face.

There was some more bidding back and forth while you did math in your head trying to figure out how much you could actually afford. You really didn’t want to lose this. Finally, you bid $1390 and everyone in the room waited to see if either of the other two women would raise the stakes yet again. Finally, the emcee announced, “At $1390, the highest bid of the night so far, a date with Marcus Moreno to the lady at Table 4!”

Breathlessly you leaned back in your seat then gasped, “Oh my God… what did I do?” Marcus was just as breathless as he heard the applause and watched your face as he finally stepped down from the stage.

As he approached your table all eyes were on him and subsequently, you. He stood in front of you, towering over your sitting frame and you audibly gulped at the impressive broadness of him. "So a date it is," he said quietly as he sat down in the chair next to you.

His heart was hammering as he placed his hand over yours and patted it gently before looking back to the stage to see Mrs. Vox coming onto the stage to be bid on.

Off to the side, Steven was furrowing his brow at you and Marcus, trying to see if he could study what your lips were saying to each other. His nostrils flared slightly as seeing how relaxed and comfortable Marcus was around you. Almost as if you had been together already.

You could feel your brother’s eyes on you, and you were sure he suspected you’d lied to him about your relationship with Marcus earlier, but you ignored his glares. You had bigger things to worry about right now. Like the fact that you’d just paid an overwhelming amount of money to go on a date with the parent of one of your students. You’d never crossed the line like that before and the fact that you’d done it this time had you reeling.

Not to mention the fact that he was a Heroic! Growing up powerless in a family full of superpowered people had always made you feel like an outsider in your own home. And they hadn’t done anything to dissuade you of that notion. If anything they’d made it worse, amplifying the sense of inadequacy you’d experienced.

Glancing over at Missy, who was trying to hide an enormous grin, you remembered the talk you’d had with Marcus at the Parent/Teacher Conference. She was, essentially in the same place you’d been back then. But, Marcus made her feel loved and accepted for who she was. As you moved your gaze away from your students your eyes met Steven’s and you gave him a determined tilt of your chin before turning back to Marcus.

Leaning forward you whispered, “I can’t wait.” Then kissed him on the cheek.

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likeawildthing · 3 years

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Not to be morbid on main, but everyone dies and people are rarely prepared for it. It’s so much easier when you know your loved one’s wishes. So even if you’re a teenager or twenty-three and healthy, I hope this helps you start thinking about end-of-life wishes, because it can happen to us all (both the dying and, rudely, being died upon).

Cremations are an affordable way to subvert the funeral industry, but going this route puts the burden of “the little things” on the family. I’ve learned a lot in the last 36 hours and wanted to pass those things that weren’t on any checklists, because the burden is on you to navigate the process.

Putting this under a cut because it’s so long (although not comprehensive). Obviously some of this is altered because COVID and some is meant to be applicable in some distant, theoretical future when we can go out to lunch again.

Before you die

Think about it, talk about it, write it down

Think about what kind of rememberance you want, if any. If it doesn’t matter, tell people that so they don’t fret about it and grieve in whatever way works best for them.

Communicate now to save your family and friends angst later.

Build an “in case of death” binder, zip drive, google doc with links, etc. Make sure your passwords are up to date so that’s not an administrative nightmare for your loved ones.

Advanced directives. Here’s a great article explaining the types of medical advanced directives and decisions to make before an accident or illness happens, including whether you want to donate your organs.

We lost grandma for about twenty minutes yesteday because we couldn’t find the paperwork and grandpa couldn’t remember where they signed up for services. Death. Binder. Have a death binder/folder/zip drive so no one loses grandma.

Insurance.

You likely have insurance through work, so consider that. It will also expire if you leave your job.

You can usually get, with minimal fuss, a 10- or 20-year term policy with enough to cover your arrangements and debts for less than $20 a month. Death expenses are anywhere from $5-$20k, conservatively.

Talk to your auto insurance agent and score a multi-line discount.

Body snatchers.

If you want to be cremated, talk to a local crematory beforehand and give them your basic information. It can be paid out of your estate (i.e. by your family or a life insurance policy) when it happens.

Most funeral homes (I believe) require pre-payment. It’s super morbid but there are TONS of heavily discounted grave sites for sale on Craigslist if that’s the route you want to go.

Here’s a list of certified green burial sites in the US.

Donating your body to science 101.

Memorial service.

The idea of a “proper” funeral is more or less out the window, especially in the time of COVID. Celebration of life? Religious ceremony (or not)? A picnic at your favorite park? Anything goes, so figure it out now.

When my sister-in-law died, we had a celebration of life at a non-profit who donated the space and had a poker tournament with her ash tin (she lost).

Whether you have strong or no preferences, write that down to guide decision-making.

Memorials.

Traditionally people would donate money in the event of a death to a charity, foundation, or family account, or flowers to a funeral home or church.

Family accounts (like for children) are traditionally done in care of the deceased’s bank but online fundraisers are a thing.

If you have a particular charity you love, add this to your list of wishes.

Food.

Before COVID it was pretty typical for there to be some kind of meal after a funeral. Will this be a restaurant?

This is ultimately up to the family but if you have strong preferences (i.e. no church or Italian food), tell people now.

Obituary.

Writing down the basic facts of your life, hobbies, and accomplishments you want included in your obituary means your family doesn’t have to do a guessing game.

Plants, animals, stuff, etc.

Do you want your clothes to go to a specific charity?

Do you NOT want your stuff to go to a specific charity? (Goodwill is terrible!)

Who will get your car (person, donate, sell)? Want to have your record collection to go one sister? Obviously family will divvy up stuff how they like, but write down any special considerations.

Have a plan for your pets (insurance, vet info, guardianship).

Please organize and digitize your photos if they aren’t already.

If you lose someone close:

Identify the primary griever

Support that person/those people by providing feedback when solicited, running errands as needed, and running interference so they aren’t inundated with all the little things.

Notifying people

Use the phone tree method. Great Aunt M will be happy to help by calling your cousins. Your boss, coworkers and HR. Your mom’s best friend/your adoptive aunt, your mom’s bunco group.

Ask that family not put anything on social media until the principal people are informed. I found out my grandpa died on facebook!

Esp these days, set boundaries for visits (who, where, and in what capacity).

Designate one person to be the primary contact for extended family to keep the burden off the primary griever(s).

Give this persons’ information when the first phone calls are made. It also makes sense for this person to be the travel coordinator.

This person should have a good handle on family dynamics (i.e. my aunt is flying in and would drive my grandma nuts so she’s staying with Mom).

This should be their only task because it’s time consuming.

Food

When people die, people gather, even in the time of COVID. Be responsible but expect a ton of drop by food. Clean out the primary griever’s fridge in anticipaton.

Organization

Start a shared family Google doc or sheet. Consolidate to do lists, anecdotes, important contact information, questions and inquiries, etc.

Pay to have the houses of anyone hosting (gatherings, people coming in from out of town, etc.) cleaned. Or, delegate. This can be an act of service for someone who wants to help and doesn’t mind doing the work.

Find the death binder (hopefully), legal documentation, etc. Get a folder or binder for papers if one doesn’t exist. And start a shared google doc for loved ones to track everything.

Delegate

I know I have said this three times, but it’s important. If you’re a primary decision maker do not be the primary do-er. My mom is the primary decision maker so my sisters and I are doing literally everything else.

Say YES when people ask if they can help you. Look at your running list of to-dos and say yes.

Pay to have the houses of people who are hosting cleaned. It will seriously be such a life saver, or this can be an act of service for someone who wants to help.

Social media

You will need to decide what to do with a person’s social media. Do you start a tribute page? Turn their facebook (if they’re old) into a tribute page for a time? Indefinitely? Things to think about.

Thank yous

Keep a running list of people to thank after via hand-written thank you notes. The link includes guidelines on

who should receive a thank you note (gave flowers, brought food, made donations, helped with arrangements or the service(s), did readings, or went well out of their way to warm your heart or show up)

when to send them (ideally 2-3 weeks after the funeral)

here’s how to write them (it doesn’t matter if you buy fancy, ones or dollar store ones, make sure they’re hand written).

Receipts.

Don’t be the petty biatch your cousins hate, but do save significant receipts to be reimbursed by the estate. (I.e. catering hundreds of dollars of food, paying $250 for programs and thank-you cards like I just did, etc.)

Service.

You will have a million decisions to make including

what kind of service to hold, if any

where to hold it

costs

hymns, readings, and anecdotes to share

who will be pall bearers, readers, vocalists, and give eulogies

Crematories handle cremation only, not the service details.

you will need photo boards (Hobby Lobby has nice black foamcore ones) or a powerpoint (and a way to display it depending on the venue)

a guest or memorial book

a card basket,

memorial cards, possibly programs, and thank you cards

Officiants, musicians, religious institutions, etc. all need to be paid (and tipped) for their time.

If we ever wrangle this pandemic, donating funeral flowers to a nursing homes is a fantastic way to brighten residents’ days.

Obituary.

Obituaries are expected, but traditionally costly ($200-$800). As part of the publishing fee, most newspapers keep the obituary on legacy.com indefinitely.

A funeral home will assist you with this, but the burden will be on you and your loved ones if using other methods.

These take hours to write and many hands does not make light work. Keep it to 2-4 key people. Having the facts laid out will help, and so will looking at other obituaries. I read a great tip which was to write about your loved one in present tense first, then change the tense before submission.

Newspapers will update your spelling and grammar but that’s about it. Cheaper alternatives:

Death notice which gives age, date and location of death, and who is handling funeral arrangements. Our crematory put in the death notice for us because they had her body, but the requirements on this likely vary state-to-state.

Here is a place to put a free online obituary.

Plants, animals, stuff, etc.

Save the plants and pets.

Household misc. are usually not dictated by the will, except in special circumstances or contested items. Closest members will go through possessions first. Voice early if you want something in particular, but understand that you may not get it. That’s ok.

Going through someone’s life is an overwhelming process. You may be repulsed and sad and overwhelmed and amused, all at the same time.

In deciding what to keep, as I’ve now cleared out three houses, I��ve found that quality over quantity is the way to go. The sweet spot? 1-2 sentimental + useful things. My great grandmother’s thimble and juicer? Use them all the time, and I remember her lemonade.

It’s okay to throw away some keepsakes and let things get thrown out or donated, depending on the thing.

Don’t give into guilt if you don’t want the china your Aunt Karen is pressuring you into taking when she doesn’t want it either.

Legal stuff.

If someone dies, there will be all kinds of legal things you will need to do (bank accounts, utilities, debtors, education, etc.), investments or 401k, etc.

This varies too much by state and circumstance to talk about in depth but there are guides to specifically help you.

If someone you love has lost someone they love

Do not give platitudes or ask if they’re ok

Don’t expect a response from someone grieving

Do send a card! It’s so thoughtful. I keep a stack of blank condolence cards and a set of forever stamps in my closet. It doesn’t have to be a $20 card to be special.

Don’t judge someone by how they grieve

Offer specific, actionable help if you’re close enough to give it

I am going to come over and clean at 10, leave the house unlocked

I’m at the store and am going to buy cheap vodka unless you tell me what kind of wine you want

oops I got you an uber eats gift card in your gmail sorry/not sorry

Buy thank you cards with stamps as a condolence gift, depending on the person and situation

Send a plant instead of a bouquet of flowers

Make a donation in the loved one’s name if you have the funds

If the grieving person is someone super close (best friend, sister, etc.) add the date in your recurring calender so you can check up on them this day next year with a card and/or phone call

#cw death #grief #end-of-life decisions

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madnessinwrighting · 3 years

Text

When They Know (You're the One)

(Summary: There's a moment, one distinct moment, when you know you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone. This is the Avengers (plus Loki and Bucky) having those moments.

Reader Insert, inspired by an imagine I have long since lost the link too. Open to writing a part two for the other characters.

Notes: Hey all! This is something I've pretty much sat on for a year, but the convincing of two best friends has pushed me to post it. Basically, it's just a quick bite of little moments with each Avenger, with a reader insert. Yes, it was slightly self indulgent. Hope y'all enjoy.

Read on AO3

Steve

It was how you welcomed him home.

He comes back to your shared floor in the tower after a day of meetings. He was tired, and wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and wait for you to come back from your training with Wanda. He paused when he heard music softly playing. Glenn Miller’s "Moonlight Serenade" drifted around the corner, pulling Steve into the living room. His guard dropped when he saw you curled up on the couch in one of his sweatshirts, book in hand. Regina, your cat, and Doger, his dog, were laying at your feet.

Steve was always captivated by your beauty, but in this moment, with your attention completely held by the book in your hand, thinking no one is watching you, is when he found you the most stunning. Before he could clear his throat to let you know he was here, you glance up at him. A breathtaking smile broke out across your face as you got up to welcome Steve home. It was in that moment, he knew that he would never let you go.

Tony

It was in your careless beauty after an event.The two of you were in his room, lounging on his bed, after the monthly Avengers Gala that Stark Industries held. Every month, the Avengers and Stark Industries held a fundraising Gala to help different organizations in need. It had been your idea; being the Avengers PR person, you had proposed the idea after seeing the growing interest the public had in seeing the “real life superheroes” more, but still being unsure of the Avengers after New York and Sokovia. The galas let the general public mingle with the elite, all while the Avengers mingled with both. (You had started to notice how much the heroes spent less and less time with the elite and more with the general public (especially Steve and Bucky)).

You were wearing one of Tony’s button ups and a pair of pajama shorts. A champagne bottle rested against your leg as you grabbed for another slice of pizza. Tony laughed at you; you were always hungry after the galas. He reached for a slice too. He glanced up at you as you took a bite, just staring for a moment. Your hair was in an imperfect bun, wet strands falling around your face from where you missed a few pieces after your shower. There was a smudge of black under each eye from leftover makeup. As you wiped some sauce from the side of your mouth, Tony could see where your fingernail polish had started to chip. You noticed his staring. “What, playboy? Do I have something on my face?” He laughed at the nickname. Any other time, he would have sassed back. But the whiskey that had been coursing through his veins finally reached his head. Or maybe it was your beauty. Maybe it was a combination of the two that made him say, “No. I just realized I’m going to marry you someday.” You rolled your eyes at him, laughing. You thought he was joking. But Tony knew the truth, and that’s all that mattered; for now.

Clint

It was how you interacted with his kids, and how you could read him.

He had just come back from a mission. He and Nat had gotten banged around, nothing serious, but he knew his ribs were going to be hurting for a few days. He heard laughter the moment he stepped off the elevator to your shared floor. His smile grew when he saw you and his kids in the process of building a blanket fort, you standing carefully on a leaning chair to get the blanket on a high hook. Lila hid her face behind her hands as you made a show of “almost” falling, before doing a flip and landing perfectly. Little Nathaniel clapped his hands as the three cheered. The four of you took a step back to admire your work. The three kids all come in close to you, Nate hugging your leg. Your hand came down to play with his hair. You all talk quietly about what to add. Clint’s heart clinches at the sight. While his and Laura’s split was mutual, and they still cared for one another, it had been hard, for both them and the kids. To see you interact well with the three people that made up a big portion of his world, and them to do the same with you… Clint really couldn’t ask for more.

He caught the repetitive tapping of your fingers on your leg. “Take your time. Love you.”

Natasha

You learned Russian for her.

Any time she came into the room when it was just you and Bucky, the two of you would stop talking and a red hue would cover your cheeks. It didn’t take a spy to know you were hiding something. At first, Nat had a fleeting thought that you might be cheating on her, but she knew you, and knew Buck, and knew that that wasn’t the case. So she let the secret go for the time being; well, that’s a lie. She actually decided to turn it into a game and see if she could find out what it was that you were keeping from her. But sneaking up on the Winter Soldier proved to be difficult, considering most of her skills she had learned were from him.

She thought she had figured out a way to catch you. She was thinking through her plan while making her coffee that morning when your arms snaked around her waist. She smiled as you rested your head on her shoulder, placing a kiss on the bare skin. “Доброе утро Любовь. Спать хорошо?” you asked.

“конечно, ты был следующим -” Natasha froze as she processed what just happened. She spun in your arms to face you. “That’s what you and Barnes have been doing?”

“Yes. Were you going to say because I was next to you?”

“Yes. Why are you learning Russian?”

You rolled your eyes. “Because of you, silly. Your Russian, are you not? And while most of your Russian adventures are in your past and not really you anymore, they and Russia are still a part of you. I love every part of you and want to know every part of you, so I asked Bucky it he would be willing to--”

Natasha cut off the rest of your explanation by placing a kiss on your lips. If there were tears on her checks, neither of you mentioned it.

(Translation: Доброе утро Любовь. Спать хорошо? - Good morning, love. Sleep well?конечно, ты был следующим. - Of course, you were next -- Done with Google. I'm sorry if they are incorrect. Please let me know if they are so I can fix it.)

Thor

You didn’t treat his brother like a villain.

None of the team was thrilled when Thor announced that Loki would be coming to live with him on Earth. But considering the alternative was for Loki to be executed, Thor convinced them to allow Loki to stay in the tower. But of course there were rules. Loki and Thor accepted these; Loki just wanted to leave the place that never felt like a home to him, and felt even less so now, no matter what his mother did to try and help. Thor was excited to see you once again, to be able to be with you once again, but he worried about how you would react to Loki. You had been badly injured when the Chatiri attacked. Thor loved both you and his brother; he wanted, no, needed you two to get along.

When the time came for Loki to move in, all the Avengers were waiting in the teleportation room. The alarm alerted you to the brothers incoming arrival. You all shielded your eyes as the Bifrost opened. The blinding light cleared, leaving the polar opposite sons of Odin in its place. Everyone stayed still for a moment. You rolled your eyes at all of them before throwing yourself at Thor. He caught you with a laugh, spinning you around.

Loki rolled his eyes. “Maybe I should have chosen execution.”

You sensed the movement of the team tensing and gripping their weapons. Placing a kiss on Thor’s cheek, you walked over to Loki. You knew he recognized you from when he fought against you during the Chatiri invasion; you also knew it wasn’t his fault. Hardly any of the New York Attack was Loki’s fault, directly. Knowing that, you placed your hands over both of the bracelets on his wrist, said a small incantation, and melted them away. You felt and saw Loki’s magic return to him. His eyes were swirling with questions. All you said to him was, “No one, not a single being, deserve to be cut off from something that makes them whole.”

Thor had tears in his eyes. He had been trying to convince others that his brother wasn’t the enemy, and here was the woman that he loved, showing that she believed that too.

Bruce

You loved him despite his inner demon.

Bruce Banner had felt ever since his… accident, that he was very much two different people. You once joked he was a modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Tony thought it was hysterical, Bruce not so much). Despite his green friend always being just under Bruce’s skin, you never once feared him. The Hulk and Bruce were one person, and that was something you accepted very early on; Bruce knew he loved you then.

But the moment he knew he would spend forever with you was when you didn’t shy away from his true inner demon. Not the green one, but the one that was very human. The self doubt that he was nothing and only ever became something because of a gamma radiation explosion. The anxiety that he would one day lose control and destroy everything that he held dear. The depression that came from every so-called mistake he thought he had made in his scientific career. The depression that manifests in self isolation so no other mistake could be made, or at least no one was there to be hurt when they were made. He was certain that these monsters would be the ones to push you away from him; they would be the ones that would make you run away screaming.

You never once left his side, though. You calmed the anxiety attacks; you silenced the dark thoughts in his mind. You were his voice in every moment that he needed you. You were his protector, and he would do everything in his power to keep you.

Loki

You saw through the illusion.

Loki moved into the tower not long after everything that happened with the Battle of Sokovia, which was when you joined the team. He was brought to Earth to atone for his sins; Odin thought it poetic to banish his son to the place where he caused destruction.

Besides Bucky (shared trauma in brainwashing and all), you were the first one to accept Loki as he was. A connection flowed easily between you, bonding over books and similar battle styles; you both favored knives and daggers. One night, you two were in the living room of the comunal floor. Loki and you had only been dating for a few months, but your friendship led to a strong bond already. You were reading; Loki had been too, though he was now asleep, head resting in your lap. Your hand stilled in his hair as he started to fidget. Twitching and moaning, you recognized the signs of his nightmares immediately. Your gentle coasting to awake still startled him. A moment on the couch, the next on the floor staring into red eyes surrounded by a blue tinged face. As quickly as it was there, Loki was his blue-eyed, pale skinned self, helping you from the ground.

“Apologies, my love. I do not know what came over me.” He ran his hands through his hair.

You rolled your eyes. “Bullshit. Are you okay?” You reached out for him.

He smiled softly before turning away from you. “Yes, yes, I’m fine, love.”

“Loki, you are not--”

“I said I’m fine, Y/N,” he interrupted. He started to walk away.

“Wha- No, wait.” He didn’t stop. “Loki of Asgard, you stop right now and look at me, damnit!” He stopped, but didn’t turn. “Loki. Please. You can pretend with the team, with your brother even. But don’t lie to me. You’re not fine, not have you been for a long time. Look at me.” While you spoke, you walked closed to him. You reached out to place a hand on the back of his shoulder.

He caught your wrist, half turning to look at you. “You see through the illusions.”

It wasn’t a question. You still answered. “Yes, I do.” You used your captured hand to turn his face to you. “You may be the God of Mischief, but your lies have never worked on me.” You whipped a tear from his cheek.

He’d never admit it to you, but his heart clenched and he was at a momentary loss for words. All he could think to say, as he pulled you into his arms, was, “I know not how I got so fortunate to have you in my life, but I thank whoever it was that allowed it.” You just hugged him tighter.

Bucky

It was how you celebrated his 37th birthday.

Bucky had a doopy smile on his face as he read one of the texts from you; he and Steve were disembarking from one of Stark’s planes. Bucky brought his head up at the sound of laughter. “What, punk?” Bucky shoved Steve’s shoulder.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Nothing. Tell y/n hi from me, jerk.”

Bucky shot back that he would as he headed straight to the garage.

When he did get home, a wonderful aruma tickled his nose while Janet Blair’s “You’d be so Nice to Come Home To” floated to his ears. Dropping his bag by the door, he rounded the island. All of his weariness from the mission vanished once he saw you. Your hair was pinned up and you wore a y/f/c swing dress. He caught the reflection of your makeup; simple, with eyeliner your top lids, just a kiss of it on the lower, massacre gracing your lashes, and a red perfetingly complementing your skin coating your lips. When you faced Bucky, he had to grip the island slightly for support. You looked just like the dames he knew growing up. But unlike all of them, you were his, and you took his breath away.

“Buck! I didn’t hear you come in,” you exclaimed.

He reached out to you; you willingly stepped into his arms. Bucky placed a kiss on your lips, humming as he pulled away. “You look stunning, doll. What’s the occasion?” He started swaying you to the music.

You laughed. “You are, you dork. Or did you forget you turned a whole century while you are on this mission?”

“Ouch, doll. You really know how to make a man feel loved. I’m only 37,” he tried reasoning as he dipped you.

“Is that so? Then why does your birth certificate say you were born in 1917?” Bucky raised an eyebrow at you. “Fine, happy 37th birthday, even though you were born 100 years ago. Do you want some cake? I made this one special.” You began biting the side of your lip.

“Sure, babe. I’d love some.” Bucky gave you once last peck before letting you go.

You went to the cake, cutting two slices. Bucky saw you fidget slightly as you set them pieces down on the island. Not sure as to why you’d be so nervous (you’d made him chocolate cake before, it was his favorite), he picked up his fork and took a big bite. The explosion of flavor in his mouth caused him to pause for a moment before he kept chewing. Unsure if his senses were playing tricks on him, he took another small bite. Nope, that tasted exactly like-- “Is this my mother’s recipe?” Disbelief clouded his voice. You nodded your head. “And her icing?” You nodded again.

“It wasn’t easy to replicate, or even find the recipe, but this birthday is a big deal so I thought--” you were cut off by Bucky pulling you to him and crashing his lips to yours. You could taste the chocolate on his lips.

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soulmate-game · 3 years

Text

Okay, so here’s the story. Let’s rewind to 2010/2011. (Actually, it might be closer to 2008... you get the point) I’m a seventh grader in middle school, that’s the important part. And up until this point, I was pretty heavily bullied in middle school. My entire science class once yelled profanities and called me names all at the same time, when we had a substitute once. Like, I went through the whole fake friendship narrative, people calling me ugly at every available moment, people trying to frame me, etc etc.

BUT! I was also somehow that one person that everyone knew. Sometimes the rest of the school, no matter what grade level they were in, knew things that happened to me or things that were said to me almost before I did. It seemed like everyone was constantly aware of my whole life, it was kind creepy ngl. People would, on a weekly basis or more, walk down the hallway and say, “hey (my name)” and wave. I almost never knew who those people were, they were usually in a different grade and I hardly ever shared any classes with them. It was really confusing.

Well, by the time seventh grade came I was absolutely boiling for revenge. I was never a physical fighter, especially considering that it seemed the whole school was against me, so I was on the lookout for anything I could do to ruin the day for my emotional abusers. And then it happened.

I was in GT (the gifted and talented class— don’t be fooled, it was basically just theater kids. The majority of the test to get into GT was creativity based) and we were working on some project or another. I think we were in the middle of trying to make functional chairs out of nothing but old cardboard boxes and hot glue. And one of my friends let’s it slip that the golf club she was in was doing a fundraiser, but their sales were low as hell and they were scared they wouldn’t make enough to afford their supplies for the season. Considering the golf club was less than ten people, that was an issue. So I, always willing to help and always the person people oddly enough went to for pseudo-marketing help, I waltzed over and asked for details. The club was apparently selling beanies with the school logo on them (the logo is a hawk in flight) but nobody paid attention to their fliers.

First, I knew that anybody who legit wanted a beanie with the school hawk on it were not gonna be the ones that looked at fliers. All of my fellow beanie lovers were the sort that stared straight at the floor the entire time we walked through the halls. So I got the info for the golf club and got permission from their club supervisor to brainstorm ideas. They almost immediately approved my idea of making a sales jingle, a little song, to help sales. I spent a good hour, just an hour, thinking up the catchiest, corniest, yet professional-sounding thirty second jingle I possibly could. To make things worse (better, way better) I based it off of a KidzBop rendition of a song on purpose. Add that cringe factor, ya know?

And I went straight to the vice principle. This dude would bend the school rules for me, and I have no Fucking idea why. But damn if I wasn’t gonna make use of it for my revenge. I showed him the written lyrics for my jingle, and explained my heart-wrenching story about just wanting to help my friend and her club be able to afford their golf clubs and supplies. I felt so bad that such a small club wasn’t getting any attention or support, etc etc. He ate it all up. He asked me how I planned to share the jingle so that the sales could go up, and this is when I struck: I asked for permission to sing it in my classes first to see how people responded to it. He agreed, and offered for me to use the cafeteria stage if all went well.

Let me back up: in my middle school, there was an iron clad rule. Before the bell for the first classes rang, everyone in sixth grade and everyone eating breakfast HAD to stay in the cafeteria. No exceptions. If you were in seventh or eighth grade, you could go to the library or the back courtyard to wait for the bell to ring, or the computer lab, but that was it. So every single day, there was at least 800 captive kids in the cafeteria who either couldn’t leave because they were sixth graders, or because they were busy eating. My school had 2000+ kids, so this was a good number for me. On a good day, I might even have half of the school quite literally trapped in the cafeteria as my captive audience.

So I sang the jingle in my science class first. Yes, the same class that just a few weeks earlier had all yelled profanities at me as one horrible, toxic group. They laughed and teased me as much as they could get away with in front of our awesome teacher, but this time I felt no shame and I was not at all discouraged. They didn’t even suspect the fact that singing it to them first was just a warning; a taste of the Hell to come. Several people commented (away from the teacher’s hearing) that I sucked at singing and shouldn’t do it again. Honestly, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. I just smiled fake-apologetically and said I would try better next time.

But my science teacher loved it, she was completely supportive of me and said that the sales jingle was a great idea to sell beanies. She loved how supportive I was of our school’s smallest club, etc etc. which was honestly all I needed; that day, I went straight to the vice principle with the good news. My teachers loved the song and thought it was a great idea to help the fundraiser. Later, back in GT, I told my friend the good news and asked her to print me as many of her sales fliers as she could. I would hand them out when I launched my big plan the next day. She was excited and thanked me profusely, and we got the all-clear from our GT teachers to spend the rest of the class printing and cutting out a good 200-ish fliers so that everyone knew what colors the beanies came in, where to buy, and how much they were.

The next day, the vice principle gave me full access to the cafeteria stage before the first bell rang, and a fully functional microphone. You better fucking bet I got the attention of every last one of the 800+ captives there, and sang my jingle at full belt for everyone. At first, people shrugged it off and laughed and playfully covered their ears.

But then they noticed I was there again the very next morning. And I sang the jingle again, over the microphone. Everyone was noticeably a little less entertained by this point. But I didn’t stop there— oh hell no. Every morning for the rest of that week, I got up on the stage and horribly sang my sales jingle to all of the captive kids. Some of them started yelling for me to please not sing again by the third day, to which I ignored gleefully. People started trying to bribe me in the hallways to please, please not sing again the next morning.

I had never felt so powerful before in my life. It was amazing.

On the last day of the fundraiser, the vice principle asked me and two of my friends to sing the jingle again— over the intercom during morning announcements, when literally nobody in the whole school could avoid hearing it. I was absolutely ecstatic because I hadn’t even considered that as a possibility. So we were able to end my reign of terror with one last song when everyone thought they were safe, but literally couldn’t escape it. It was even better because my friends and I hadn’t rehearsed for even a second, so we were all out of pace and not in tune and it was gloriously bad.

My friend ran up to me later that day with the biggest smile ever on her face, and told me that someone had literally donated $200 to the club, not even wanting a beanie, just asking that we stop singing the damn song. By then, she had caught on to my plan and kept thanking me for purposely annoying the hell out of people so that they donated. I think they ended up making somewhere around a $1,000 in sales along with a few smaller “stop singing” donations.

For the rest of that year and even the year after, all I had to do to get people to leave me the fuck alone was start singing the jingle. Anyone who had attended the school in time to hear it immediately covered their ears and ran away, or shut up immediately. I got random ass people I never met calling me by name in the hallways complaining about how my song was still stuck in their head literal weeks later, and they couldn’t even intimidate or properly threaten me because I just started singing the song and they were gone faster than I could say “what are you gonna do about it?”

this is revenge. And I have never been more proud of myself.

#soulmate-game #the heroes’ game #story time #revenge #revenge story #bullying #tw: bullying #singing #fundraiser story #middle school #sweet sweet revenge #petty #I was so petty #it was glorious

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melmac78 · 3 years

Text

Of leather tooling and love

(Tag mini bang 2021)

Here’s my story for @tagminibang. I want to thank @tracybirds for their amazing art and working with me. Also, I thank them being extremely patient with learning about leather tooling and for adapting to the time zone difference to get this put together.

(I added my own art piece - “John’s” astronomy cuff… mark I, and will link directly to tracybirds’s art when I can fully figure this out).

•••••••

John Tracy was mad... so mad he was making an indelible mark that would take forever for someone to wipe away or cover up.

Fortunately it was leather, and he was tooling a design so no one would really want to cover it up, but he still was at points surprised he wasn't punching holes in the design… or the table.

A chirp however made him question the latter.

“John, please do not hit the table so hard. You are making my processors overload,” gently scolded EOS as the man was swinging the rawhide mallet.

While fortunately her interruption didn’t make him miss, allowing him to add to the octopus design, John set the leather tools down and sighed. “I’m sorry EOS,” he said gently.

“I accept your apology, but I do not understand why stamping cowhide will help your anger,” said the AI.

“As I said, it’s leather tooling, and it’s better to use my anger for something creative,” John said quietly.

“Even this … item?”

He looked at the cuff he was working on again and gave a half smile. “Even this wallet,” the astronaut chuckled.

After giving EOS a task to do, reminding her not to adjust the gravity back to zero to avoid any spills from his work, John looked at the project again.

He sighed, understanding his curious “data child’s” curiosity. Leather tooling, while a bit outdated in some people's eyes, was one of the few learned talents and gifts he still had from his Grandfather as well as his Dad.

And - it reminded him of Gordon, in good and bad times.

Gordon… his brother with the wacky sense of dress.

The aquanaut preferred to wear on average two leather bands and then a woven smaller band with the first two oyster pearls he found.

That's why he stopped - at the moment, it felt as though if he took out more anger on the mallet and metal stamping tool, he was hurting Gordon. Triple if he managed to hit it so hard it tore through the damp leather.

Who knew Gordon’s penchant for being the only one to wear leather wrist bands would save his life?

A week and a half prior... he chose to wear two broader bands on one arm and his usual one on his other.

They were nearly the width of a cuff, with designs that took forever to explain to EOS. It was an unusual decision, but one that the brothers were thankful Gordon made.

They had been called out to a rescue - a skyscraper fire in Houston, and all land based brothers had been called as it required high rise rescue.

Gordon had been on level 70 of the building, rescuing an unconscious woman. He had secured the victim in with his harness and started to use the pulley to get them to the top of the building for Thunderbird to lift them to safety.

An explosion had knocked them for a loop, smashing Gordon into the building.

Gordon took the brunt of the hit, slamming into the frame.

In spite of the helmet, he too was knocked out. Worse, the grapple slipped, and glass shards, still stuck in their mounts, sliced down his forearms.

It cut the neoprene... and through part of his thick leather cuffs.

When they recovered both victims, Virgil and John immediately triaged the two. She had a minor concussion and smoke inhalation.

Gordon however not only too had the bump on the head - thanks to the helmet taking the brunt, he also a dislocated shoulder, and a few cracked and broken ribs.

But what was the immediate concern at the time of the rescue was his arms, particularly the wrists. They took the brunt of the damage.

The leather bands however, saved his life. They made what would've been life threatening - if not fatal, slashes on his wrist to mostly superficial cuts.

The bands though were completely destroyed as far as wearability. Virgil would have to apologize for cutting them completely off - but not why - later.

Gordon was taken to a hospital in Houston's esteemed Medical Center, where he went through multiple surgeries, a few pints of blood, and lots of rest.

That was a week ago, as Gordon had a healing rib rebreak, nicking his lung. It was repaired, the bleeder stopped, but Gordon had to be put under sedation for a couple of days to ensure the site healed.

Though they had lifted the sedation the day prior and were waiting for Gordon to come out of it, the family would have to wait couple of days before he could return to Tracy Island.

That lead to where he was today.

John sighed, and looked around Thunderbird Five.

He had been practicing some leather tooling at University of Houston's art department.

That was before a space rescue needed both him and Alan, and afterword, he stayed on Five to keep apprised of a possible hurricane.

Well that and have an excuse to decline another lecture invite from NASA.

John was thankful that U of H understood his need for privacy, and that having a PhD in Aeronautics and Space allowed him some special favors.

The positive it included the use of one of the art studios to leather tool...

The negative? The trade off was as long as he also donated one of his famous astronomy tooled leather cuffs for a fundraiser.

He had already finished the band for the auction two days prior, complete with the antique leather dye, golden paint accents in the star constellations, and steampunk like swing hinge cuff. Not the easiest to make, especially setting the rivets for the cuff.

Worth it to John - small price to pay, but would reap rewards for U of H’s generosity. He’d bring it to them when he visited Gordon again.

The astronaut then looked at the octopus carved and stamped on the wallet. "It was too damn close," he said out loud, but at the same time, he was thankful. This was for Gordon later on.

John then smiled at the thought. It was indeed for his aquanaut brother, one they could’ve lost in that fire.

He was about to stamp the leather again... when a beep startled him.

The astronaut asked EOS to answer it, and the image of Virgil came out of the monitor.

"Gordon's come to," said Virgil.

"Fully?"

The older brother shrugged. "Mostly, but he should be fully alert by the time you get to the hospital," he said, then frowned. "He's asking about the leather bands... especially the one that was 'Mom's belt'."

John furrowed his brow.

Yes, that belt bracelet.

Fortunately the one bracelet Gordon hadn't worn that day.

Unfortunately, the one Gordon duplicated - with varying degrees of success, he did wear nearly daily.

John could imagine Gordon’s initial reaction… he’d feel the same way.

"Virgil, Gordon didn't wear that cuff that day," he said. "He intentionally put a small Thunderbird stamp on his so he didn't confuse the two."

Virgil nodded. "I know, but you know him and anesthetics... gives him the wrong memory if he's not goofy from it," he said, then chuckled. “Last time he was trying to feed Parker poster pancakes on the USS Lexington.”

John scoffed at the memory. "That one still has Parker perplexed," he said, then stood, stretching. "Try to talk him down from his confusion. I'll be there in a few minutes. I need to get something."

Virgil noticed John’s labors on the table and quirked an eyebrow. "What about the wallet you're working on?"

"It'll be fine. The leather can be dampened again to finish it up. I expected it to be a longer project over the bracelets I made at U of H,” he said, putting the stamping tool and mallet down.

The artist noticed John’s attempt to deflect, and his eyes twinkled in mischief. "So… how many projects did the University ‘con’ you out of for the auction this time?" said the artist with a teasing smirk.

He wasn't going to give his younger brother too much grief - he still owed the University at least one hand blown glass vase.

"Just the one - the astronomy cuff."

Virgil gave a soft whistle. "That one? You won't even make that one for me."

"Then bid on the one they're selling," snarked John as he cleaned up the rest of the leather tooling supplies.

Virgil merely laughed - yeah, he was going to bid if anything to help a department who helped his brother cope through this.

John then picked up a box wrapped in sea turtle wrapping paper. "I'll be there shortly,” he said walking to the space elevator.

“FAB.”

********

Gordon Tracy looked out the windows of his hospital room from his hovering hospital bed and signed.

He was thankful he wasn't stuck with a view of the generators. The hospital still hadn't gotten over teasing him - gently - about calling them "Donald Duck" in a post-anesthesia comment the other time he was there for an injury.

Here, it was a view of one of the garden parks the area had.

What he wasn't thankful for was the fact he lost the leather band that was made from his mother's belt.

He looked at the long bandages wrapped on his wrists and lower arms and sighed.

Sure, Virgil kept insisting it was not the band, but he knew his bracelets.

Yes, he had to admit they had to be fully cut off too keep him from bleeding out through his wrists - he knew one cut was still too close.

Still though... he had to concede if it was gone, it was his mother protecting him.

Even Scott had told him point blank it was the only time he was thankful Gordon had forgotten to take the bands off.

Rumor had it Scott was even considering consulting with Brains to create leather arm bracers.

His theory was if it worked for the cowboys in the 1800s and 1900s, why not the technological cowboys of today?

Gordon looked at the sky and smiled. "Thanks Mom for watching over both that woman and me," he said, then looked at the bands.

There were blood stains on them, which were not going to come out.

Sure, they could be dyed dark before being stored, most likely black, and he could have John help him there. That said, it was not going to matter when they had been made unwearable when Virgil cut them off.

There were the button and hole fixtures sure... but the aquanaut understood Virgil was going to slice first, apologize for saving Gordon's life later.

Blood loss didn’t wait for bracelets.

A knock at the door shook him out of his thoughts. "Come in," he said, adjusting the bed to where it floated back to connect with the main vitals scanner.

John entered and smiled at seeing his alert brother, the first time he'd been fully awake since before the accident.

"Hi Gordon, how are you feeling," he said, wincing slightly at the cliche.

His fish loving brother just smiled, but the astronaut didn't miss the sadness in the cinnamon colored eyes. "I'm having a whale of a time... too bad the lake below probably only has ducks," he said, chuckling slightly.

“Must be going ‘quackers’ then,” joked John, only to watch as Gordon fiddled with the remains of the bracelets. John coughed. "Gordon..."

"I know. They had to be cut off in order to save my life," the aquanaut said, sighing. "It's just... this was mom's - look at the paisley here..."

John put his hand over both his younger brother's and smiled. "It isn't the one made with Mom's belt, trust me,” he said, smiling, then pointing to a detail. "See? Here's the thunderbird stamp you used for yours."

Gordon took a closer look, and his eyes widened slightly.

John was right... it was indeed there, just had been cut in half by the cutting tools. Well he hoped so and not the glass, but that was a story left unsaid at the time.

"It's not mom's," the aquanaut whispered instead, tears of happiness flooding his eyes.

The astronaut smiled and gave his brother a gentle hug. "No it isn't. I made sure the one with Mom's was in the fire safe - just in case, on the Island before Alan brought me to the hospital," he said gently.

The two hugged gently for a while, the mix of hospital bluster and soothing sounds from the Muzak in the hallways mingling between the brother's hushed tones.

After a few minutes, Gordon sat up, and noticed the sea turtle box his brother was holding. "Funny looking NASA paper," the aquanaut teased, chuckling softly when John rolled his eyes.

He knew John tried to avoid the facility if possible.

Not because he didn't enjoy it, but because the last time he visited the center, Mission Control crowded him the point he fainted from the social claustrophobia.

Alan found it amusing.

EOS found it amusing to force Alan to eat freeze dried brussel sprouts and liver with onions meals every day his last rotation on Thunderbird Five for his "rude behavior."

Both men chuckled in the memory, and John handed his brother the box. "Nope, this is for you, a get well soon present," said he said.

Gordon carefully opened up the box, which John had purposely wrapped the two parts separately due to the shoulder being strapped, and gasped.

Inside were two bracelets.

One was similar to his mother's belt, but the paisley and flower design that was in his mom's band was adjusted slightly to include southwestern printed sea turtles and a squid stamp John had custom made. Like his mother's, it was dyed a medium brown.

The other... took Gordon's breath away.

The edges were done in a simple border - scalloped with the occasional octopus and sea turtle stamp in between the scallops. It was dyed mahogany.

It was mostly just border stamped... because the concho fastened in the center was the showstopper.

It was a golden sea turtle, swimming in the middle of a pewter center. “How?…”

Seeing Gordon's eyes water, John chuckled. "Yes, I remembered that concho. Had trouble finding it, but fortunately the store on the Sam Houston Tollway found one and put it aside for me," he said as he put a hand on his brother's uninjured shoulder.

Gordon put the box down and wiped away the tears with his good hand. "Got a bit of hand sanitizer in my eyes. Strong stuff," he said, and John scoffed.

"Yeah, sure... you want me to help put it on your … good wrist?" John said, and coughed when Gordon shot the arm out. "Whew... you weren't kidding on the hand sanitizer,” he laughed, waving the fumes away.

"Yeah... apparently it's 'essense of moonshine' I think. It probably kills germs 10 years before they’re born," Gordon smirked.

The bands fit perfectly, and had a simple button and hole fastener so the doctors or even Gordon could take it off with a push if needed.

John watched his brother admire the bracelet, even taking a few photos of the laughs and chuckles his brother made as he showed it off.

Gordon then paused and looked at John. "You made these right?" he inquired, looking at the antiqued looking band.

The astronaut nodded, and Gordon continued, grinning slightly in memory. "How many bands did the University get you to make in exchange for the use of the studio this time?"

"One - and before you ask, the astronomy one,” John said, touching a button on his baldric to ensure EOS didn’t talk about the wallet. She still had a proclivity to ruin surprises - especially if it was one of John’s younger siblings.

Gordon, knowing how much money usually got raised to but one of these bands, looked at the bands and then John. "Worth every cent," he said, smiling warmly as the nurse came in to check Gordon's vitals and bring dinner.

John took this as a note to head out, but before he left, he looked at his brother, who was bragging about the bracelet his older brother made.

And making it very clear how to take it on and off so this one was not cut off.

The astronaut gave a gentle wave to his brother. "I'll be back later," he said, and headed out.

Hearing the chuckles Gordon made again, John's smile broadened. "Yes, it was worth every single minute and cent to hear that laughter," John murmured, but it was priceless to have his brother saved by those other bands.

Now... how he was going to steal the remnants of the old bands to repurpose into a hippie cuff for Gordon was another story

#tag mini bang 2021 #tracybirds #john tracy #gordon tracy #virgil tracy #tag fanfic #tag fanfiction

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thekillerssluts · 3 years

Photo

My Relationship to Performance Has Changed

A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

Last October, before the second pandemic wave took off in New York City, I had one last band practice in my backyard in South Brooklyn. Five of us were working on songs from my new solo record. Normally we’d play in the basement, but it’s pretty low-ceilinged, and we’d read Zeynep Tufekci’s recent Atlantic article on viral spread, so we were all hyper-focused on air circulation. My bandmate Sara had contracted COVID-19—and recovered—in March, but the rest of us had no immunity. Besides, we suspected that we were in for a long winter and might as well hang out outdoors.

It was warm in the sun. After hauling the drums, keyboards, keyboard stands, guitars, and amps outside and plugging everything in, I hadn’t wanted to bother setting up microphones, so we had to play softly to hear ourselves harmonize. When we paused for lunch, someone leaned out of a fourth-story window in the apartment building next door and yelled: “Are you done or are you just taking a break? I have things to do, but I really miss live music!” “Me too, man!” I called back. “Should be just a break.”

Six months and a difficult winter later, the break is ending. I’m seeing more and more Instagram posts for shows that aren’t just wishful thinking. Low-capacity indoor shows are popping up in New York. Outdoor—maybe even full-capacity indoor—concerts are coming this summer. Am I ready to play? Ask me every other day and the answer changes. I’m torn. I’m desperate for sound engineers to get back behind the board and bartenders to start earning tips. I want venues to thrive again, both as places for art in neighborhoods and for the sake of the network that keeps music culture alive in America. I want my booking agent to feel excited again; he loves music so much. And I want musicians to make a living. So many people have been so screwed by the past year. I guess I just want everyone to get paid.

But the actual performance; the rebuilding of the sonic cathedral, as Dave Grohl wrote last spring; communally reaching for rock-and-roll transcendance? I’m not there yet. I’m not concerned that I’ll get sick. I received my second vaccine shot at the end of March and am ready to high-five strangers on the subway. My hesitance has an element of crowd-shyness, which we’ll all get over. But in my own performance, I don’t know how to meet this moment. A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

I used to think of performance in purely aesthetic terms. In the movie La Strada, a clown wearing angel wings does a high-wire act across a crowded piazza. For his finale, he brings out a table on the wire and, while balancing, tries to sit and eat a full plate of spaghetti. The heroine of the movie watches him with an almost religious ecstasy. When I first started performing, I strove for transcendence and stupidity, high concept and low art. My focus was on keeping myself in the air.

When my band Arcade Fire was playing mostly to people who hadn’t heard us before, we felt that the best way to get them to open up was to blow the windows and doors out. At an early show in Lawrence, Kansas, my brother, Win, bashed Styrofoam tiles out of the venue’s ceiling with his mic stand. We pushed as hard for an audience of six people (two of them my parents) upstairs at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, as we did in front of tens of thousands in the desert at our first Coachella show (during which I accidentally cut Win’s guitar cable in half by repeatedly smashing a cymbal into the ground).

At a certain point, as people got to know our music, my relationship to performance changed. The energy from the crowd was greater than anything coming from the giant speaker stacks. The audience wasn’t a challenge to overcome, or an opponent to conquer. We became a team. Not in an abstract, lovey way but how a sports team operates—pushing one another to do better, sometimes failing, sometimes frustrating one another, sometimes just joking around.The high-wire act of live performance—Will the music come together?—was still there. I’ve even sometimes tried to make the metaphor real, climbing arena scaffolding with a drumstick in my teeth and a drum strapped over my shoulder to play 30 feet in the air. Some of our crew members hate it—“Will! You have children now!”—but climbing up there doesn’t actually feel that dangerous, and a little nervousness is good. I’m reaching for primate simplicity and catharsis: The crowd needs tension to experience release.But now I have no desire to make tension. I want people to feel safe and comfortable, and I wonder whether creating a feeling of danger and openness is antithetical to that. I know that cultivating a perception of safety and actually making people safe are different. On tour, in a big venue, every night our management and local security have a briefing. It’s partly to set a vibe—People are here for music. Everybody be chill. If some teenager sneaks into a closer section, please let them. But the briefing is also serious—where the medics are located, what the escape routes are. Most of the time, these safety measures are invisible. I worry that post-pandemic precautions, as welcome and necessary as they are, will be depressingly visible. Some elements, such as temperature checks, will be inane. Some, such as requiring vaccination, will be important. Regardless, they will also set a tone—not You are entering a place for music, but You are entering a secure location. Dancing is hard when you’re looking at your feet; singing is hard when you’re thinking about everybody else’s breath. I bet the crowd could get over this. I’m not confident I could. With limited capacities and tight procedures, I worry that the stage will feel like the VIP section of the VIP room at a members-only club. Sterile, lonely, all of us chillingly aware that we are part of a ticketed event.

I have another concern that’s hard to shake. After this pandemic year, I’m more aware of the responsibility I have not only to the people who buy tickets, but to the driver making deliveries to the show and to the family of the woman working arena concessions, people who really don’t care about what I’m doing onstage. Vaccination numbers will grow, and the pandemic will end, God willing. I’m not worried about the spread of the coronavirus in particular. But these links of responsibility remain. The analytical part of my brain turns off when touring starts. Before scrambling back to normalcy, I want to make sure that this sense of connection becomes embedded in how I think. I would really love to just be a musician—but I’m also an employer and a player in an industry that has chewed up and spit out plenty of people, especially in this past year.

My hesitations are all about shows, though, not music. Over the past year, I’ve rarely played music with others—a few practices and filmed performances; work on the new Arcade Fire record in November; a handful of Zooms with bandmates to help a school’s PTA fundraiser or support a candidate in the city-comptroller race. But in all of those instances, I’ve experienced an ease, a rightness to the communication—not through the screen with whoever was listening, necessarily, but the people I was playing with. That connection felt restorative, like having a night of deep sleep that repairs parts of yourself you don’t know how to access.

I know people are ready for live music, ready to forget themselves in a wash of sound, ready to loudly talk with their friends over the song they don’t like that much. And so, for heaven’s sake, go to Neumos in Seattle when shows come back. Go to the Hideout in Chicago. See your favorite band, or somebody new. Plenty of artists don’t share my nervousness. I don’t want to add worry to the world; I’m just figuring out my new relationship to performance.

The magnolias are out in New York, and some of the apple trees are blossoming. Temperatures are creeping past 60. The vaccines keep rolling out. The future seems more possible. If I miss an emotion from live shows, it’s not any moment of transcendence. I miss the time just after, when, dazed and excited, you still feel the reach of some universal gesture, but the only thing concrete is the people around you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/world-changed-what-makes-live-show-successful-didnt-arcade-fire/618625/

#Arcade Fire #will butler

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

Text

A Christmas Liar

After Ms. Bustier mentioned the annual school charity fundraiser in class, Lila seems determined to raise funds for her own "charity", aka herself. There's no way that Marinette is going to let that fly, but how successful will she be in taking Lila down in time for the holidays?

links in the reblog

It started with a normal morning in Ms. Bustier's homeroom class.

"As you all know, it's fast approaching the holiday season, and our collège always does a fundraiser for a charity before Christmas," Ms. Bustier told the class, smiling widely. The first few cut-out paper snowflakes had appeared in the classroom window that morning, and they all knew that the collection would only grow as December went on. "So remember to remind your parents to check their emails for details soon! Our student representatives have been hard at work brainstorming what to do this year."

Marinette smiled, even as she kept drawing in her sketchbook. Jagged Stone had commissioned an outfit for his Christmas present to Penny from her, and wanted the design ready to be sent to his seamstress as soon as possible so that he could have it ready in plenty of time. He had told her not to rush, of course- "you have so much going on, and I don't want to put you behind in your studies!"- but Marinette wanted to try to get things done early.

After all, akumas could appear and eat up her free time without any notice, and so she was going to take advantage of any extra time when she could.

"Oh, a charity fundraiser?" Lila asked from the back of the room, and Marinette mentally sighed before setting her pencil down. Clearly she wasn't going to get anything done now, if she had to deal with Lila's nonsense, and her nonsense-o-meter was going wild. "That's so wonderful! Do you think that- oh, no, I suppose it would come off a little self-appreciating, never mind..."

"No, go ahead!" Ms. Bustier reassured her quickly. "What is it that you wanted to ask, Lila?"

"Well, I was wondering if maybe I could put forth one of my charities to be considered for the fundraiser's proceeds," Lila told the class, and even without turning around, Marinette could picture the way that Lila would press a hand to her chest delicately, doing her best to look bashful. Adrien's eye roll from in front of her told Marinette that her mental picture probably wasn't very far off. "But I suppose that could come off as, well..."

Ms. Bustier perked up. "Oh, how could I have forgotten that we had someone in our class who had done so much charity work before? I don't think it would come off as self-serving at all! In fact, it could add an extra connection and an element of interest to the whole thing if the school picked one of your charities. Marinette, could-"

"Student council has already settled on a charity for this year's fundraiser," Marinette said at once, not even bothering to look up. She could see exactly where this was heading, and she was going to put a stop to it. Now.

In front of her, she could see Adrien's hastily-hidden grin out of the corner of her eye.

"But this is special, Marinette," Ms. Bustier implored. "Surely they'll understand and want to support a fellow student's charity efforts! This is a pretty unique opportunity!"

"We've had multiple meetings about it, thinned our selections down, did all of the background checks and verification on our final pick, filled out all of the paperwork to submit to Mr. Damocles, and let the charity know so that we could get more information to post around," Marinette informed her, because seriously? Ms. Bustier was going to fall for it, just like that? Also, she was super glad that she had pushed for the council to make the decision early this year, because at this time the previous year, they had been working on finalizing everything still, which would have made a last-minute change like this possible. It wouldn't have been fun, or easy, but it could have been possible. "We can't change it now."

Lila let out a small sigh from the back, and Marinette turned around just in time to see her shoulders slumping. "Oh, that's really a shame, then. For a minute there, I was picturing how much good I- we could do for the children in Africa with a bit of extra funding, but I suppose if they've already picked a charity..."

Ms. Bustier glanced from Marinette to Lila. "Marinette, do you think that we could do two charities instead of one, perhaps? It would just be so nice to be able to support Lila's charity!"

Marinette was honestly going to scream.

"I'm afraid that that would make things too complicated," she said instead, politely as she could and with as little teeth-gritting as possible. "We had a couple fundraiser activities in mind- which we agreed was important, in case an akuma attack keeps people away from an in-person event- plus a couple volunteering opportunities that we wanted to offer. Plus, there would be all of the paperwork and the background checks that would have to be done to add in another charity, and that's not exactly a short process. It's a lot of work."

There was also the fact that Lila didn't have any charities, and any money they earned would- if she managed to sneak her way through their careful screening process- no doubt go straight into her own pockets.

"Oh, I could fill out paperwork so that you guys don't have to!" Lila offered eagerly. "I don't mind, it's for the kids-"

"And the email letting parents know about our fundraiser and our selected charity is already scheduled to go out today," Marinette continued, raising her voice just ever-so-slightly to drown Lila out and making a mental note to talk to Aurore to actually get that email sent over lunch. It had originally been planned for tomorrow, actually, but Marinette wasn't going to give Lila any ins. "So the deadline for any changes has passed." She pasted on her best fake smile, trying not to let any signs of a smirk through as she looked back at Lila. "It's just not possible for this year, I'm afraid. Maybe you can bring it up for consideration earlier next year."

"I suppose that's fair," Ms. Bustier agreed. She smiled over at Lila. "It's my own fault for not bringing it up earlier, it just slipped my mind. Hopefully your charities will still get plenty of support! But right now, we're going to move on to today's lesson. If everyone could please get out your notebooks, we're going to start with a quick video..."

Marinette smiled to herself as she put her sketchbook away and opened up her notebook to a fresh page. This probably wasn't the last that she would hear about Lila's so-called "charities", but at least Ms. Bustier had dropped the subject and she wouldn't be getting pressure from that angle.

Now she just had to be ready for Lila's other attempts to get her hands on charity money.

"I am so glad that you already had stuff all finalized," Adrien said in Marinette's ear as they headed for their next class. Lila was ahead of them, surrounded by several of their classmates. "I got worried for a minute there when Ms. Bustier hopped on the Lila's charity thing."

"I'm just glad that it's a school-wide thing, not just a class-wide fundraiser," Marinette admitted, glancing around to make sure that no one was going to overhear them. She had managed to get out of being blamed for deliberately denying Lila's "charity" a chance to get more money because she wasn't the only person in charge of the fundraiser, and she didn't want anyone in their class mishearing and blowing things out of proportion. Again. "I mean, it's obvious that Lila jumped on that because I'm class representative and she wanted to put me in a bad spot, but she couldn't when I'm just one of the people involved in that process."

Adrien nodded. "Yeah. I was so sure that she was going to drop it after you mentioned the background check and verification thing, though, and then she didn't. Which is...weird, honestly."

"Not really. If we tried going forward and I was the one doing the check, she would probably just say that I was making stuff up about her charity out of jealousy or spite and that was why it failed or something." Marinette had thought the same, honestly, but it became apparent pretty quickly what Lila was up to. Lila wasn't nearly as sly as she thought she was. "I'm surprised that she didn't jump on that and complain that I was just making the background check thing up because I was doubting her. Ignoring, of course, that we want to have statistics in our flyers and posters and emails about how the money is used, and how much work they get done, and their rating by a charity watchdog. That's standard."

"Which is why she wanted to do her own paperwork," Adrien added. He made a face. "I bet that she's still going to try to piggyback off of the fundraiser somehow, or at least rope people into donating some of their own money. I already heard Rose bringing it up, and Alya mentioned something to Nino about posting something on the Ladyblog."

Marinette winced. That wasn't good. She would have to forward the link to their charity watchdog site to Alya later on, maybe under the guise of providing a resource to get all sorts of charity statistics at once to put in her posting. That didn't guarantee that Alya would look at it, of course, but it was worth a try.

(Also, she could use her throwaway account to point out the charity's questionable status, and then- well, hope that other people would see her post and upvote it.)

"She's really going too far now," Adrien said after a moment, pulling Marinette out of her brainstorming of how she could keep Lila from pocketing a bunch of charity money. "I mean, she has been for a while, especially when she tried to get you expelled, but this is just the cherry on top of a heap of awful. I just don't know... I mean, she's sunk her claws in really deep now, I don't know how to fix it. I guess I should have recognized it earlier, but..."

"Well, there's no point in worrying about what we should have done earlier now," Marinette said as they went through the door for their next class, though she couldn't help but feel a bit validated, since she had wanted to stop Lila's lies ages ago. "We can brainstorm later, if you can get away for lunch. I was going to talk to Aurore then anyway."

Adrien looked puzzled for a moment, then caught on with a grin. "Aha, right, since she's on student council too. Is she the one in charge of submitting paperwork?"

"No, that was me. She's in charge of sending out the emails to families." Marinette grinned up at him. "And I bet that we can do a bit of damage control with that."

-0-0-0-0-

Aurore was all too willing to bring her lunch over to the Dupain-Cheng bakery instead of eating in the school cafeteria. After all, she told them as they headed upstairs, her lunch was leftovers and best served warm, and the cafeteria microwave was gross.

Marinette could believe that. Aurore had already floated the idea of setting up either a roll of paper towels near the microwave so that people could cover their dishes to keep the contents from exploding all over, or going the more environmentally-friendly route of having microwave plate covers instead, which could then be washed daily in the industrial dish washers that the cafeteria kitchen had. Clearly it was a Big Deal for her.

"You said you wanted to talk about the email right?" Aurore asked finally, finishing her grumbling about someone who had apparently microwaved fish and ugh, the smell was awful. "I thought it was meant to be going out tomorrow? I have a draft that's almost complete, I was just going to review it tonight to make sure that it was perfect, but do you need something changed?"

"We had a situation come up in our class this morning," Marinette told her, leading the way into their kitchen. Her mom had left out food for her and Adrien, it just had to be warmed up and assembled. "I don't know how much you've heard about the new girl in our class..."

Aurore frowned. "Lila? The one with the questionable stories?"

Adrien laughed. "Okay, so we aren't the only ones with working brains in the school, that's good to know. Yeah, her."

It didn't take long to get Aurore caught up, and predictably, she was furious at the idea of Lila trying to hijack their fundraiser funds.

"This is going to go one of two ways, I know it," she told them, pulling out her laptop and getting it set up next to her on the table. "Either this girl is going to make up a charity- name, mission, and all- or she's going to find a charity that already exists, and then she'll claim credit for it. The first one is easy enough to disprove, because no one will be able to find anything about the charity. We could just put a reminder in the email about checking charities out before donating to them, and then enter that link we've been using. But the second one...well, she could use their rating and reputation to collect money, and then- if I'm reading her character right- keep it all for herself."

They all thought about that.

"Well, if Alya posts anything on the Ladyblog, in theory any donations would have to be electronically, though a website," Marinette pointed out after a minute. "As for in-person donations, I would say that people should use checks instead of cash, but I don't know how many people use checks anymore, and besides, that's not going to stop her from cashing them if she wants."

Adrien made a choked, horrified noise in the back of his throat. "It- it won't? How do you even know that?"

"But it might deter her, since that's a traceable crime," Aurore pointed out, her eyes gleaming. She snapped her fingers. "And as for the Ladyblog- if she's capable of creating a website that looks decent, she might give Alya a link for that. So that's still a problem-"

"-unless we notice that and bring it to the attention of the police!" Adrien exclaimed, sitting up straight. He winced. "I'd hate to get Alya in trouble, but otherwise people will be thinking that they're doing something good and helping people in need when actually, they're just giving Lila spending money. And if she told them that Lila gave her the link, then she'd get off pretty fast."

Marinette nodded. Alya would probably be a thundercloud that they had gone to the police first instead of her, but she couldn't say that they hadn't warned her. She just never listened when it came to Lila.

"So we can put in a line reminding people to check charities before they donate and to make sure that any links they follow for charities go to the actual website," Aurore finished. Her fingers tapped away at her keyboard. "My older brother is a computer whiz, so I can text him and ask about things people should look for to make sure that a site is the real deal. Then I can get that typed up and sent during study hall, so it'll go out today."

Marinette could only grin. Maybe Aurore could be hotheaded at times, but there was no denying that she could really pull through. "That would be great."

Unsurprisingly, Lila sold a sob story to Alya about her charity's website being down at the moment, so she couldn't provide a link right away.

"We're working on it, of course, because this is the best time of the year to get donations and we're going to fall so far behind with every day we miss, but the entire system is down and our tech guy is having trouble," Lila told Alya, looking positively wilted. "It's so upsetting! The longer it's down, the fewer people find out about our work, and the less budget we have to work with next year."

"That's terrible!" Alya exclaimed, frowning, and Marinette exchanged an exasperated look with Adrien. "I just wish there was a way to help..."

"Maybe you could post about our school charity instead, for the time being," Marinette suggested dryly. "Since Lila's charity is on the table for next year anyway."

"But we need budget for this year!" Lila repeated, and- yep, she was gritting her teeth. The glare that she flashed Marinette left no question that she had been trying to set up some sort of fake website and the email the night before had thrown her off. Either she was trying to make a more convincing website or- more likely- she was just hoping to wait until the reminder to be careful had faded from people's minds. Or she had had to abandon the online idea entirely in favor of throwing a pity party for herself in hopes of getting cash donations with the help of their classmates, if that hadn't already been the plan all along. "If we wait for a maybe next year, we could go into debt and collapse!"

Alya was looking worried now. "Marinette, are you sure that the student council can't switch charit-"

"It's all set up. We can't change anything, Alya, we established that yesterday." Marinette spared a glance at Lila, who was clearly working to keep a poker face. "Maybe Max can help you with your website issues, he's quite good at stuff like that. We wouldn't want you missing out on donations, after all."

"Oh, I couldn't," Lila simpered, glancing towards Max as well. "We, uh- well, my tech guy is back in Italy, so they wouldn't be able to work together, and he's quite protective of the system. Plus we were in the middle of upgrades when everything crashed, so that makes everything more complicated."

"We'll figure something out, Lila," Alya promised, patting the other girl's arm. Marinette took that as her cue to leave, but she wasn't going to go far. She needed to be able to overhear, after all. "We don't want those kids in Africa to suffer, after all! We can brainstorm before class."

Adrien caught Marinette's eye as she came back to her seat. "It sounds like she's just going to go another way, but isn't about to give up."

"No, she's got the idea of getting money into her head, and she's not about to give it up." Marinette kept her voice low, so that no one would overhear. "Which means that we need to come at the problem at a different angle. Any suggestions?"

Adrien looked unexpectedly delighted at being consulted, but then he paused, clearly not coming up with any ideas. "Uh."

"My first instinct would be to try to warn Alya and Rose and whoever else is going to get sucked in, but we all know how well that would go over," Marinette said, just to fill in the space. "They would clamp down and refuse to listen."

Adrien nodded. "Yeah. But I like what you did yesterday, where you made it sound like you would have gone along if you could and suggested trying next year. Then everyone thought that you weren't fighting against her-"

"-and was actually willing to listen!" Marinette finished, smiling. It was an approach that Tikki had suggested, and she was glad that it had worked. Well, sort of. It had worked in the moment, but just- apparently- pushed the problem off for later. "Yeah, that was nice."

"Maybe we could do something similar now," Adrien suggested. "And offer to be helpful by providing that link still. Like, it doesn't need the website, right? Just the charity name."

Marinette grinned. "Right. And there's no way that she can get around not telling anyone her charity's name. And if she does...well, either it's made up, or she's going to pick a real charity and we can find the real website."

"And congratulate Lila on her site getting back up so quickly," Adrien added with a small laugh. "It's a pain to deal with her, but I'm actually curious about what she's planning on doing going forward. Like, how long can she play this game? She's going to run out of escapes soon enough."

"Yeah, I don't know..." Marinette trailed off as Alya slid into her seat, and she and Adrien exchanged one last look before he turned back to the front, greeting Nino as his best friend entered the classroom.

"Man, I can't believe what bad luck Lila has, to have her charity's website crash at a time like this," Alya said glumly, sliding into her seat. "Lila is stressed about it, of course, but she has so many other obligations for her other charity work that she can't go out and do a collection, not that it would be easy with her throat still recovering from her laryngitis surgery. She can't be out in the cold for more than ten minutes without it causing a ton of pain, which can't be fun at all."

...Naturally.

"I want to help, but if we don't have a working link to put on the Ladyblog, I just don't know..." Alya trailed off. "I mean, we could do a door-to-door, I guess, but that only ever gets fairly minimal donations. And there's so many people who set up near the Eiffel Tower, we wouldn't have a chance. But- oh!" Alya perked up as another thought hit her. "We could put posters up at school, so more people know about it and maybe help us!"

Yeah, how about no.

"That's actually against school rules," Marinette said idly, flipping through her notebook as she waited for Ms. Bustier to call for a start to class. "All posters posted in the building have to be approved by Student Council normally, so that the walls don't get too cluttered, but there's an amendment to that that say that if the school is doing a charity fundraiser, posters promoting other charities can't go up during that time. I think it's to keep the effort from getting too splintered and distracted."

Alya slumped. "Oh."

That was not actually a lie, though clearly Adrien thought it was, if the slight frown on his face was anything to go by. Marinette had picked through the guidelines to make sure that she knew every rule that she could use to turn Lila's attempts aside, and apparently the Student Council had come up with and voted to implement that particular rule at some point in the past.

"Maybe you could do a surprise collection," Marinette suggested. "As a Christmas gift to Lila." She was improvising, admittedly, but this would be a good way to keep Alya and Rose and whoever else was getting sucked in from asking Lila too much and giving her chances to control the narrative. "If you ask her what the name of her charity is, and then you can use the website that we were using on Student Council to look at charities- it has all sorts of stats that you could use, information about charities and their work. That way, you don't need to bother Lila for all that when she's so busy."

"Oh, good idea!" Alya exclaimed. She grabbed Marinette's arm. "You know, none of the rest of us has ever organized any sort of charity fundraiser before- if we put you in charge of that-"

"I'm already busy, Alya," Marinette pointed out. She wasn't about to go make a fool of herself collecting money for a charity that didn't exist, not when she had a million other things to do. "The fundraiser for the school is already going to take up all of my time. I can send you the link that we used, but that's it."

"Oh, but-"

"She already said no, Alya," Adrien cut in, so Marinette didn't have to. "Marinette was telling me about that entire process yesterday, and it sounds like a lot of work and planning to pull something off at the level the school is planning. Asking her to plan another thing on top of that for you, instead of doing it yourself- that's not fair to her."

"I just thought that it might be a good way to repair the bad blood between the two of them!" Alya objected, frowning. "Since Marinette wasn't very welcoming when Lila first arrived."

Marinette narrowly withheld a snort. Gee, I wonder why?

"But if you're busy, I guess you can wait to try to mend that bridge later," Alya added. She sighed. "We probably won't be able to raise as much money, though, since we don't have your experience."

"Mmm," Marinette managed noncommittally, ignoring the clear attempt at a guilt-trip in favor of checking her email on her phone. Alya really had been spending too much time with Lila if she was starting to act just the same. Hopefully she would cut that out after Lila's lies had been exposed and everyone realized what a manipulator she was.

Marinette's phone lit up with a text, and she didn't hesitate to open it at once.

Adrien: Remember, if you commit homicide, you won't be around to gloat when people discover the lies.

Marinette snorted in amusement.

Marinette: I'm going to gloat for a solid MONTH after she gets found out. I wasn't very welcoming? Try SHE was a bully from the start and I wasn't about to tolerate that.

In front of her, Adrien's head gave a tiny nod as he put his phone away, just in time to start class. Marinette locked her phone and put it away, resigning herself to what was probably going to be a week of poorly-concealed efforts to get her into the extra fundraising before Alya either dropped it or realized that something was up with Lila's "charity".

At least now she had Adrien on her side.

The school fundraiser was going well as they marched steadily closer towards the holidays, their online portal showing just how much money had already been raised by people going through the link that they had both sent out and posted on the school site. There was going to be a bake sale before the break too, with each family asked to donate two dozen cookies for them to sell at their booths near City Hall and (courtesy of Chloe) in the Grand Paris.

Marinette was really happy. People were being generous, and it really was a very deserving charity to receive the funds. On top of that, Adrien had asked for her help in baking his family's two dozen cookies, so they would get to hang out together.

(She was going to ignore the fact that Alya had tried to convince her to make another extra two dozen cookies because Lila "wasn't going to have time" because "all of her charity work"; that attempt had fallen flat when Marinette had just point-blank asked Alya why, exactly, Alya didn't just do that herself. At least with Adrien, he was just a novice baker and was going to be actively participating in the baking, but he just wanted help to be sure that his attempt turned out edible and it was a good excuse to hang out with one of his friends.)

And possibly best of all...well, Aurore's tech-savvy older brother had pulled through for them again.

"I was looking at the email that we had on file for Lila, and something about it just didn't seem right," Aurore told them as they sat together in a private study room in back of the library over lunch. "The domain on it, to be exact, because it was '.net' instead of, oh, I don't know, something actually related to the government. And my brother agreed, so we did a little searching."

Marinette was pretty sure that her jaw was on the ground. Next to her, Adrien wasn't doing much better. "You mean she was keeping her mom from finding out about everything school-related? I wondered how she got away with skipping so much school! And she was probably emailing as her mom, too, to confirm whatever stories she was telling."

Aurore grinned. "Exactly. So we did some digging, and found Mrs. Rossi's actual email. It's almost the same, just with a different domain. So I'm trying to think of what to send that wouldn't sound weird, because obviously we need confirmation that this is the right address so we can get Mr. Damocles to change it for the school system, but I don't want to come off as accusing or anything and have her tip Lila off accidentally."

Marinette exchanged a look with Adrien as she thought about it. "Well, we could just send the fundraiser email again with a comment about how we think that maybe her email was mis-entered before and is this one the correct one that we should be using. That's pretty straightforward and it asks for a response, and she might not even think to say anything about it to Lila."

"Ooh, I like that." Aurore typed that in at once, giving it a quick once-over to make sure that there weren't any errors and that the email had been entered correctly before sending it. "So, what else is going on in Ms. Bustier's homeroom? Anything new with the not-a-charity?"

"Alya's been confused about why our watchdog site doesn't list anything about Lila's 'charity'- she decided to go for the make-one-up route, apparently- and she's still been trying to find stuff on it just on Google, but apparently no connection has been made," Marinette told them, trying not to roll her eyes. "I know she and Rose were talking about trying to just go ahead with a collection of sorts anyway, so I forwarded an email talking about the importance of keeping track of how much money they raised, down to the last cent, in a ledger sort of thing." She couldn't hold back the grin. "Which Rose is really into. So even though they're trying to collect money for Lila still, at the end she won't be able to keep any of it because there'll be record of how much money they collected."

"Which, if we get in contact with Mrs. Rossi, we can make sure that that gets paid back in full!" Adrien exclaimed, scooping Marinette up in a hug for a long few seconds. Marinette prayed that she wouldn't turn red and make things weird. "Genius!"

"As long as Rose doesn't give that to Lila," Aurore pointed out. She raised an eyebrow at Marinette's head-shake. "No? You've already taken care of that?"

"She'll give Lila an electronic copy, but not the hard copy. I suggested that she might want to hold onto that to show what she did for future charity work. Which I still think is a good idea, even if Lila's charity is a sham. It doesn't change the fact that she was doing all of the bookkeeping."

Aurore made a face. "I am so glad that Samuel is doing our bookkeeping for the non-online donations, because that stuff is not fun. It's really fiddly, and if anything gets off..."

Marinette nodded. Things had gotten off fairly early on, and she had head Samuel- another member of Student Council- complaining about having to go through everything to figure out where his mistake was. Since then, he did regular, frequent checks so that he wouldn't have to go through absolutely everything again, just the most frequent donations. Admittedly, Rose was working with much smaller amounts of money- most people wanted more information on what they were donating to than just the name and "helping kids in Africa" if they were going to toss more than an euro or two into the collections basket- but it was still good practice.

Aurore's computer let out a ding, and she pulled up the student council email at once. "We already got a response! Mrs. Rossi says that yes, this one is correct, please keep using it and thank you for catching the error and were there any other recent emails that she might have missed. I'm going to forward this to Mr. Damocles with a message to note the change in email address, just a second- and done."

"Nice job," Marinette told her, leaning across the table to bump fists with Aurore. After a second's thought, she fist-bumped Adrien, too, so that he wouldn't feel left out. "That's one more thing off of our plates."

Their fundraiser finished right before holiday break with a silent auction, with all of the items up for purchase having been donated by parents, teachers, extended family members, community business owners, and- in the case of an array of signed CD cases and posters- Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, and several of their musician buddies, after Marinette had approached Jagged Stone with the request.

And of course, everyone was invited. Posters had been put up outside of the school and emails had been sent out, reminding everyone about the time and date and their charity, plus attaching a list of the items up for auction to get people's interest.

"My mom so wanted to make it, but work came up," Lila told several of their classmates when she arrived at the auction, looking sad. "And there were several things that she was really interested in, like the-"

"Ooh, barf, I can see what you mean," Aurore said, materializing at Marinette's side and wrinkling her nose at Lila. "That's a pretty obvious ploy to get people to buy things for her, isn't it? Or at least to pitch in some of their own money to help her, so that she won't have to pay them back."

Marinette nodded. It really was disgusting, but at least now Lila was moving off with the group towards one of the items so that they didn't have to hear her. She was steering clear of the signed Jagged Stone things, oddly enough, but maybe that would be a dead giveaway that she didn't actually know him. After all, Jagged Stone would sign anything put in front of him, so her going out of her way to buy a signed item when she was supposedly on great terms with him would be pretty strange.

"Do you think her mom actually can't make it, or Lila just assumed that she wouldn't know about the auction and didn't tell her?" Adrien asked. His arm was tucked through Marinette's, though she was pretty sure that it was just so that he wouldn't lose her in the crowd. "Is the fake email still on the list?"

Aurore nodded. "Yeah, up until this morning. I cleared it off so that there wouldn't be any confusion going forward."

"And I would place bets on Lila assuming that her mom doesn't know anything," Marinette added. "She wouldn't want to risk anyone asking her mom about her charity." She grinned and pointed as she noticed someone new stepping into the school. "And look, over there."

The other two looked. There, standing in the entryway and looking around, was Mrs. Rossi. She really didn't look much like Lila, but it was easy enough to recognize her from her official embassy photo.

(Her official embassy photo, where she wasn't listed as the actual ambassador, but just one of the embassy staff, but that- well, that was an interesting little tidbit that Marinette was going to sit on for a little bit longer.)

"Oh, she's spotted Lila," Aurore said gleefully, craning her neck to follow Mrs. Rossi as she wove through the crowds. "And- whoops, Lila sees her!"

Marinette hastily smothered a laugh. If Lila's expression was anything to go by, she definitely hadn't realized that her mom was getting emails from the school and was going to be coming. She had never seen the other girl look so pale before.

"I'd ask if I should go get some of that amazing-smelling popcorn that they're selling so that we can watch, but honestly, I kind of just want to let things take their course and find out later," Adrien said, glancing down at Marinette. "There's some pretty cool items up for auction that I want to check out."

Marinette considered that. On one hand, she wanted to watch Lila's downfall. On the other... well, she had been keeping an eye on the whole Lila fiasco for a while now, and she was kind of tired of it. It would probably be a bit awkward to watch, too, and there was no guarantee that it would happen right away, and they were too far away to hear anything besides.

...yeah, her decision was pretty well made.

"That sounds like fun," Marinette told him, before glancing over at Aurore. "What about you?"

"I might go point Mr. Damocles in her direction," Aurore commented, glancing around the crowd. "Or maybe that can wait until later, since I don't want to throw everything at Mrs. Rossi at once and disrupt the auction with an akumatization." She sent them a slightly sheepish grin. "But you know I like my gossip, so..."

Marinette had to laugh. That was so very Aurore. "All right. We'll bump into you later, then."

Aurore grinned in return, and then was off. Marinette watched her go for a moment, then let Adrien lead the way off into the crowds surrounding the tables. It was amazing to be able to sit back and relax after the past weeks of planning and making sure that everything, from the online link to the cookie sale to this, was going to go off without a hitch. They were well on track raise more money this year than they had any other year, and that was amazing.

And to think that she had had a hand in setting all of this up...well, Marinette just couldn't be prouder.

It was fun investigating all of the donations with Adrien, even though- as part of Student Council and also part of the team that had photographed and logged all of the donated items- she had seen them all before. Marinette couldn't help but peek at the bids despite herself, grinning when she saw some of the higher ones.

"This is amazing," Adrien commented once they had made the rounds and had gone to browse through the assorted refreshments available for purchase. "There were a lot of nice things donated. And people are definitely bidding plenty of money."

"Yeah, some people will spend more to win the prize than it's worth," Marinette told him. "Like with the voucher for stuff from our bakery- the top bid right now is for more than the value of the voucher. It's interesting, but I think that people see it as buying the item, and then making a donation on top. Or something, I don't know."

"That's really cool," Adrien commented, then pointed. "Oh, look, Nathalie and the Gorilla are here! They said that they might show up and do some shopping. I honestly thought that Nathalie was just saying that to be nice, because she's been sick and hasn't wanted to go out, but I guess she's been feeling better lately."

"Oh, that's good," Marinette said, before a memory made her frown. "Wait, I thought you commented on her being sick, like, three months ago. Is she still having problems?"

Adrien shrugged, but he was frowning, too. "I don't know. She had been having these weak, dizzy spells like Mom used to before she disappeared for a bit before I commented on it at school, I think. Maybe whatever treatment she was getting finally kicked in, I don't know."

Marinette frowned even deeper. Nathalie had been showing the same symptoms as Adrien's mom before she vanished? That was a really weird coincidence. And for both of them- presumably both, at least- to have those same symptoms for an extended period of time?

If Mrs. Agreste and Nathalie had been related, Marinette might have guessed that it was a genetic thing. But since they weren't- again, that was an assumption- then the chances of them both separately having the same condition...

"I cannot believe that I fell for such a manipulative, thieving, disgusting liar!"

Alya materialized at Marinette's side, clearly steaming. Rose, Mylène, and Juleka weren't far behind her. Rose looked like she was close to tears, and the other two just looked lost.

"Pardon?" Adrien asked politely, but Marinette could see the amusement glimmering in his eyes.

"Lila's been leading us all around by the nose, making up stories about her life and about her nonexistent charity- and I've missed a dozen akuma attacks because I was wandering around in the cold, trying to raise money for her! I offered to make a posting on the Ladyblog so that I could put up a link to her site to raise more money! She was probably just planning on pocketing it all!" Alya scowled deeper. "I can't believe we fell for it! And aren't you even surprised?" she demanded when neither Adrien nor Marinette reacted. "At all?"

"Are we meant to be?" Adrien asked dryly. "After Marinette's spent so long calling Lila a liar?"

Alya faltered for a moment, then scowled deeper. "You- you knew, but you didn't warn us?"

"Yes, because pointing out the obvious lies worked so well the first several dozen times I did it," Marinette said, adopting the same dry tone that Adrien had used. "And I gave you the watchdog charity link to use. I rather thought that its complete lack of anything about Lila's charity might tip you off."

Alya faltered. "Oh."

"But we still gave Lila money that was meant for charity," Rose said tearfully. Juleka pulled her to her side, trying to comfort her. "And it was a decent amount, too."

"You have your log, right?" Marinette reminded her. "If you tell Lila's mom how much Lila got for her 'charity', then I bet that she can get that money back to you and you can donate it to another charity."

Rose perked up at once, tears drying up magically. "Oh, that's right! We can still put that money to good use! I'm glad you suggested that we keep track of everything, Marinette."

"Yeah," Juleka agreed. "Lila sucks, but at least we can get the money back."

"We should go talk to Lila's mom before she leaves," Rose decided. She dug in her bag, pulling out the ledger notebook that she had been using for their charity collections. "Aha! Yes, I have the amount we gave Lila yesterday written here. C'mon, let's go make sure that Mrs. Rossi knows!"

"Well, all's well that ends well," Adrien said cheerfully as the other girls headed off. "I bet this isn't how Mrs. Rossi saw her evening going, and Lila definitely wasn't expecting any of this, but at least now the adults can figure everything out and Lila can actually see some consequences. And hopefully next semester, there'll be less drama now that she'll be restrained- or gone, if Mrs. Rossi or Mr. Damocles decides that Lila staying here wouldn't be a good idea."

"Hopefully," Marinette agreed. She grinned over at Adrien. "But that's enough worrying about Lila and her nonsense for tonight. I think we should just sit back and enjoy the evening, don't you?"

Adrien beamed back. "I couldn't agree more."

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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