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golbrocklovely · 3 years

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remember me // colby brock (pt 2)

A/N: as i mentioned before in a different post, this took me FOREVER to write. i loved writing this story but something about it just made me drag it out for so long. nonetheless, i love this and i'm excited to see what you all think. please lmk what you thought about this. thank you to everyone that has supported me and sent me kind messages. yall are the best ! hope you enjoy :) also lmk if you want another part...

prompt: she's the only one that remembers colby, or so they both thought.

trigger warning: ANGST, heartbreak, AU mention, friendship problems, cursing, happy-ish ending (but not the end...?), kissing

word count: 5526

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Colby was relieved that the waitress, the only one that remembered him, decided to help. The moment she agreed, Colby gave her his number and left. She texted him not too long after, and he realized for a moment she never said her name. He planned to ask her the next day when they decided to meet up at his place.

It was weird to come back to his apartment, knowing that down the hall his best friend, his brother, lived there and didn't know who he was. Usually when Colby felt lonely, he would walk down the hall to Sam's and hang out for a bit. It was always nice to talk to Sam about anything and everything.

But now... he couldn't do that.

Colby tried to sleep during the night, but barely any rest came from it. He tossed and turned, hoping that when he would wake up, this would all just be some weird-ass nightmare.

When his cell phone rang the next morning at 9:34 A.M., it was an unfamiliar ringtone. As he rubbed his eyes awake, he glanced at the caller, the name 'Waitress' appearing on his screen.

I guess this wasn’t a dream after all.

"Yeah?" Colby groaned, squinting his eyes at the sunlight.

Her voice came through cheery, the tone too loud in Colby’s ears. “Let me up to your apartment. I'm here.”

He cleared his throat. “This early?”

“I figured you would want your normal life back as soon as possible, yeah?” She sassed.

He rolled his eyes. “Alright, give me a second. I'll come down and get you.”

Colby stumbled out of bed, running his fingers through his hair as he threw on a random shirt and jeans, slowly trudging down to the lobby of his apartment. She sat on a couch, tapping her foot against the carpeted floors. Her eyes were staring out the door, almost like she was looking at someone. When she heard Colby’s footsteps, her gaze pulled away from outside.

“Did I wake you?” She frowned, grabbing her bag next to her and standing up.

He shook his head. “You can't really be woken up if you barely slept.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” She lightly bit her lip, following Colby to the elevator.

He shrugged tiredly. “It's okay.”

They both slowly got into the elevator, climbing up to Colby's floor. The loud 'ding' of the elevator broke their silence moments later. They walked to Colby's apartment, and he unlocked his door quickly.

She whistled quietly. “Woah, nice place.”

A half smile spread across Colby’s face. “Thanks.”

“No offense, but how do you pay for this place if you're not a social media person?” She questioned, stepping into the kitchen.

He raised an eyebrow. “That's... a good question. From what my mom told me over the phone yesterday, I worked all throughout high school and college, so maybe it's from that?”

“You only worked at Dairy Queen while you were in high school. You must have gotten a better job in college because there is no way you can afford this place.” She disagreed.

Colby smirked. “How'd you know I worked at Dairy Queen?”

“Well, for starters, my friend told me. And also, I did some research about you. But I'll get to that in a second.” She continued, her voice falling to a serious tone, “So... would you like to hear my theories?”

“Theories?” He puzzled.

“As to why everyone forgot about you.” The waitress explained.

Colby sat down on his barstool, exhaling. “Let's hear it.”

“Okay. For argument sakes, you're gonna have to just go with me on this. Because otherwise, I literally have no way to help you.” She started, already pacing slightly.

He cautioned. “...okay?”

“So last night, I tried to think of a reason why everyone would collectively forget about you. And the only conclusion I could come up with is that you're in an alternative universe.” She hypothesized.

Colby’s eyes widened, bugging out of his head. “A what?”

“An alternative universe. Basically, everything is pretty much the same in your life, except a few minor details,” she revealed. “That’s why you still live in this apartment, but you didn’t get here the same way you did in your other life, your real life.”

“This... it's way too early for this.” He grumbled, astonished.

She sighed, her hands resting on her hips. “The only other option is that this is a very long-winded prank that your friends are still pulling on you. Have you tried talking to any of your other friends besides Sam?”

“No, everyone else’s number is gone in my phone, which I can only assume means they don’t know me either.” Colby retorted. Then he took a deep breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “But, this doesn't make sense. How did I end up here if this isn't my life?”

“I’m not sure how you got here, but I think you’re here for a specific reason. I think you’re here to right a wrong that this Colby Brock did. I’m just… not entirely sure what that wrong might be.” She answered, unsure.

He huffed. “Okay… what am I supposed to do then? Stay here and hope we figure that out soon? I don't even know who I am in this universe.”

“And that's where my research comes into play.” She pulled a laptop from her bag quickly, placing it down on the counter and opening it. She scrolled through her browsers until she came across Colby's Facebook, which surprisingly looked active for someone who hadn't been personally on it in years.

I use Facebook? Gross.

“First, I started by seeing if you and Sam were friends on here, but that didn’t amount to much since Sam doesn’t have a Facebook. However, what I found out is that you and Sam did live in the same town, go to the same high school, and played in the same marching band. Sam talked about his early years before he was ‘famous’ in one of the first videos he posted, and I crossed referenced that with your profile and it all matches up.” She informed.

“That's strange,” he mumbled. “What did we do after high school?”

She stated. “You went off to college and majored in Business Management with a minor in Philosophy. You graduated early too.”

Me? Graduating early? I couldn’t even get through math without Sam’s help.

“What did Sam do?” He asked.

The waitress scrolled to another tab, opening it to show a search of Sam. “Well, a very quick Google search shows that he actually went to the same college as you but dropped out once his Vine career started to pick up. Then he went on to Musical.ly when Vine died. He moved out to LA in 2017 and started a YouTube channel after he met Katrina, and slowly met all of his- your, friends that way. He got a bump of followers once he started dating Kat because of her following.”

Colby’s mouth gaped at her words. “That can't be true. He would have never wanted that. I mean, I had to convince him that we should be on social media so that we could spread our message. Plus, he hates those channels that use their relationship for views.”

“Not this version of Sam. Or at least, it doesn't seem like it.” She commented.

He covered his face, groaning into his hands. “What the hell am I here for? What wrong have I done in this universe?”

Her voice low, she replied. “I think it might have to do with Sam.”

“But... he doesn't know me.” He dissented, sitting up.

She nodded. “I thought so too. However, after scrolling through all of your public photos, I found this.”

Colby squinted at the screen, an old photo of him and Sam stared back. They looked super young, probably sophomores in high school. They were both smiling, laughing at something. He vaguely remembered this day.

“So, we did know each other.” He bit his lip softly.

She hummed. “Yeah. And weirdly, it’s the only photo of the two of you on your profile. But it’s not the only strange thing.”

Scrolling to a different tab, she pulled up an old tweet of Sam’s. It read ‘Never thought you would be the one to hurt me. But I guess everyone can be surprising.’

Colby noted the date. “That was back in high school.”

“Yeah, and there’s a bunch like them. He talks about being betrayed and someone hurting him deeply. He never mentions, of course. But his tweets line up with some that you were tweeting at the same time.” She confessed.

The waitress clicked on a different tab and another tweet showed up, one from Colby’s account. He gazed at it, reading the words ‘If you hate me… imagine how I feel about myself.’

Colby’s face dropped. “Wait, what?”

“You don’t tweet that often, but when you do, you talk about righting wrongs and fixing things you fucked up.” She added, “You also hate on yourself a lot.”

He doubted, crossing his arms. “You think they’re connected?”

“I do. I think in this universe you fucked up somehow and hurt Sam. And I think you are here now to fix what the other you did.” She explained.

He ranted. “This is all so fucked! When I saw him yesterday, he acted like he didn’t even know me. How am I supposed to even go about this? What, do I just go down the hall and apologize for something I don’t even remember doing?”

“No. Sam's not in his apartment anyway. I saw him leave while I was waiting for you.” She mentioned nonchalantly.

He grunted. “Great, he could be anywhere in LA right now.”

“I know exactly where he is.” She smirked.

“What? How?” He questioned.

The waitress divulged. “This version of Sam has a favorite restaurant he goes to all the time. A lot of his fans know about it, thus one look through any of his fan accounts and you'll see it. It's called ‘Paradise’.”

“Sounds like a strip club.” Colby deadpanned.

She pouted. “It's not. But he goes there all the time, and I got us a table there last minute.”

“What exactly are we gonna do when we get there?” He crossed his arms.

“I was planning on going up to his table and talking to him, maybe asking him about you, see how he reacts.” She described.

Colby furrowed his brow, confused. “And what about me?”

She slid her laptop into her bag, zipping it up hastily. “Well… I didn’t really think that far ahead. But hopefully, whatever you did is forgivable, and we can just fix it right there.”

He murmured. “That's a lot to hope for.”

“It's better than sitting here and wasting daylight.” She grabbed her stuff and headed for the door. Colby followed suit, grabbing his keys.

He spoke as he locked his door. “What if this doesn’t work?”

She turned back to him. “It will. It has to.”

~~~

Paradise was a themed restaurant, which Colby thought was strange because his Sam never really liked those types of restaurants. The theme was nice, however, tropical and Hawaiian. It felt like something he, Sam, and a few friends would have gone to after a fun, drunk night.

As Colby and the waitress were escorted to their table, they both kept an eye out for Sam, glancing around nervously for the blonde boy.

“I think the worst thing about this universe version of me is how messy my car is,” Colby joked. “It’s like I live out of it.”

She shrugged, smiling. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“You should see my real car. My honey wagon is spotless.” He expressed, waving his hand.

“Honey wagon?” She queried.

“Long story,” he chuckled. Then abruptly, he gasped. “Holy shit, I just realized I never got your name.”

She cocked her head. “What? I never told you?”

He blinked. “No.”

She started. “It's-”

“Hi, I'm Tony, I'll be your server for today. Can I get you something to drink to start you guys off?” Tony greeted, cutting her off.

“Yeah, sure. A water for me.” She blurted out.

Colby added. “Coke, please.”

Tony smiled. “Okay, coming right up.”

Once Tony left, the waitress started scoping out for Sam again, her eyes widening once she saw him.

Her body stiffened, turning back to Colby. “He's over there, three tables down to your left.”

Colby gazed over his shoulder at his friend. Sam looked lost in thought, staring at his phone as he ate his food.

“Why is he alone?” He muttered.

“From some of the blogs I read, he likes to go out and eat by himself. Also, apparently, him and Kat are on the rocks.” She admitted.

“They love each other so much, it's kinda gross to be around them sometimes,” He quipped, but shook his head. “So to hear that...”

“I'm gonna head over.” She announced quickly.

Before he could speak, she left the booth. Colby watched her walk over to Sam, listening closely to their conversation as he ducked his head down.

“Hey... sorry to bother you, but are you Sam Golbach?” She asked sweetly.

“Yeah I am. Did you want something?” Sam stared blankly at her.

“Um, yeah?” She almost scoffed at his tone. “I’m a huge fan and I know this might be a weird question, but do you know someone named Colby Brock?”

Sam’s face remained stoic, but his eyes intensified. “No, I've never heard of that name before.”

“Are you sure, because I'm pretty certain that you and him are best friends.” She insisted.

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

Colby watched nervously as she pulled out her phone and showed Sam the photo. Sam scrunched up his face, his eyes scanning the image. “Yeah, no. Still don’t know who he is. What was his name again?”

“Colby Brock.” She stated.

“...Sorry. I’ve never heard a name like that before.” He mumbled, almost inaudibly. “Sounds stupid anyway.”

She cocked her head. “Wait, what?”

Colby clenched his fist, unable to hear this conversation any longer. He needed to come face-to-face with Sam. He slid out of his seat, walking hastily over to Sam and the waitress. Sam’s eyes narrowed as he gaped at Colby.

“Sam…” Colby started.

Sam growled. “Are you fucking serious, Colby? Did you really have to get one of my fans involved?”

“What?” Colby puzzled.

Sam jumped out of his seat, grabbing Colby’s arm and pulling him out of the restaurant. The waitress followed behind them, confused just as much as Colby. Sam’s feet stopped behind the back door of the building, turning to Colby without warning.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sam barked.

Colby stepped back, surprised by Sam’s anger. “...Uh, I don’t know what you mean by that.”

Sam scoffed. “Why the fuck are you here? After all this time?”

“So, you do remember me.” Colby remarked.

“Yeah, I do. When you showed up at my place yesterday, it took me a minute to realize it was you, since you decided to dress up like a Hot Topic employee, but yeah, I knew it was you. Are you really gonna pretend in front of her that we don’t know each other?” Sam teared his eyes away from Colby’s, staring at the waitress suddenly. “Let me guess, he hasn’t told you the whole story, right?”

“I guess not.” She shrugged uncomfortably.

Sam chuckled darkly. “Of course not. If he told the whole story, he would have to admit he was an asshole, and God knows he’s not gonna do that.”

“What are you talking about?” Colby panted.

“Do you not remember? Well, I’ll give you a refresher. You and I became friends freshman year of high school. You were my best friend and I was yours. I trusted you. I trusted you with a lot of shit that I’ve never told anyone. Senior year of high school, right before we were about to graduate, right as we were starting a social media career, suddenly you don’t want anything to do with me; which would have been bad enough, but then I go and find out you and my girlfriend were hooking up behind my back,” Sam snapped, catching his breath for a moment. “So yeah, I remember you, Colby.”

Colby’s mouth fell open, his breathing speeding up.

None of this sounds like me. I would never hurt Sam like that.

“And now, you have the fucking audacity to show up when everything in my life is going great and I’m succeeding. I have fans, friends, and a girlfriend that all love and care about me, and you’re here trying to what? Stir up drama? Get some clout from me?” He demanded.

“If your friends and girlfriend love you, why are you eating all alone?” The waitress jeered.

Sam glared at her, biting his tongue. “And you made one of my fans hate me. Dope, dude.”

“Sam, look; I’m sorry for what I did. But that was years ago. I’m not who I was back then.” Colby choked out.

“I don’t care. I don’t want you in my life. Do you not understand what you did to me?” Sam persisted.

“I know I was an asshole, and I apologize for ever hurting you like that. But I miss you, and I want to work things out. Let me prove to you that I’m better.” He trembled, getting closer to Sam.

Sam backed up, blocking Colby. “No. No! You don’t get to miss me. You don’t get to miss a relationship you fucked up. It took me years to trust again. Hell, I’m still going through it. You don’t get to decide whether or not you’re in my life. Not anymore.”

“Sam… please.” Colby whimpered.

“Don’t show up at my place again. Don’t talk to my fans about me. Don’t act like you care about me. Because I’m done,” Sam stared into Colby’s eyes before going back into the restaurant. “I don’t care about you. Fuck off forever and leave me alone.”

Sam’s words punched Colby hard, taking the breath out of him instantly. He caught himself against the wall, his legs turning to gelatin under his weight.

He stuttered. “I… gotta leave. I-I have to…”

“Colby, relax. It’s gonna be okay.” She grabbed his hand.

He shook off her embrace. “What? No it’s not! Did you not hear what he said? Why would he want to be friends with a piece of shit like me?!”

“You were eighteen when this all happened. Give yourself a break.” She argued.

“No. I’m fucking terrible. This version of me is terrible. Of course he doesn’t want to be friends with me! I don’t even want to be me.” His voice quivered with anger, his body racing away from her.

She furrowed her brows, trying to keep up with him. “Where are you going?”

“I just need to leave. I can’t be here right now!” He grunted, his pace picking up.

She called after him, but Colby didn’t care. His heart slammed against his chest over and over again. Tears weld up into his eyes, blurring his vision as he began to run. He wanted to keep running until his legs gave out, until he couldn’t remember all the words Sam had said to him.

It dawned to Colby how much worse this universe was.

He wasn’t just stuck in a universe where Sam didn’t know him.

He was stuck in a universe where Sam didn’t want to know him.

In a universe where Sam didn’t love him.

And he had no way of escaping.

Colby must have blacked out while he ran, somehow maintaining to stay upright, because once his thoughts started to subside, and his body basically gave out under him, he noticed he was in a part of LA he had never been before. Some random neighborhood that was unfamiliar.

He shoved his body up against a metal telephone pole, sliding down to the ground. He tried catching his breath, gulping back breaths as he forced down the nausea overwhelming his senses. He wiped his face with his sleeve, feeling more tears rush down his cheeks.

His throat and chest burned with each sharp inhale. He whimpered into his hands, covering his face from the slowly retreating sun.

He slid his phone out of his pocket once he caught his breath, calling the only number he knew.

“Hey honey. What’s up?” His mom’s voice rang back sweetly.

Colby’s voice was monotone, exhausted. “You know who Sam is, don’t you?”

The line went quiet for a moment, all Colby could hear was her light breath.

“You told me not to talk about him. After you two stopped being friends, you said you never wanted to hear his name again.” She exhaled deeply, “I was taken aback when you asked about him yesterday.”

“He’s out here… in LA.” He responded.

She gasped lightly. “Did you run into him?”

He laughed bitterly. “You could say that.”

“Oh, Colby. I’m so sorry.” His mother consoled.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, mama. I just…” Colby trailed off, unable to explain.

“Why don’t you come home this weekend?” She offered. “I miss you, you know.”

“I would love to. But…” His chest heaved as hot tears drifted down his cheeks. “That’s not my home.”

“Nonsense. You will always have a home here.” She assured him, her voice almost trembling.

He wiped a fallen tear, a broken smile coming to his face. “That’s good to know. I love you.”

She hummed. “I love you too, baby. Call me again soon.”

“I will. Bye.” He uttered breathlessly.

The sky was getting darker and darker, and Colby remained against the phone pole. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but suddenly his phone vibrated, a new message from ‘Waitress’ asking where he was. He sent his location, and she arrived twenty minutes later in his car. He stood up, stumbling to his passenger door. His legs were weak from the sprinting he had just done. As he got in, the cool AC blasted the sweat and tears off his face.

They didn’t speak, a quiet radio station playing in the background the only sound. She drove through the hills of LA, eventually hitting a peak. She parked the car as it overlooked LA, the lights looking like stars on the horizon.

She got out a minute later, walking over to the hood and leaning against it. He could see something in her hand but didn’t recognize it. Colby sat in the car by himself, not able to physically move his body from how exhausted he felt. Eventually, he achingly stepped out of the car, sitting next to her on the hood.

“I’m fucked.” Colby breathed.

She started. “I don’t think-”

“Please don’t try to make me feel better. I know you mean well, but I am fucked,” he rebutted, his voice dark. “I’m stuck here, in this universe, where Sam hates me. And as if that weren’t bad enough, I did terrible things, things I know I would never do to him. How the fuck am I supposed to apologize for those mistakes? I wouldn’t take him back if the roles were reversed.”

“Read this.” The waitress stated, handing him a journal.

He glanced down at the leather-bound book, slightly faded from years of writing. He unclicked the lock and opened it, looking down at the pages. It was his, a journal full of writings he had done.

“Where did you get this?” He inquired.

“You were right about your car being messy. But you’d be surprised what you fine if you just look.” She teased.

Colby read over the words, the first entry catching his eye. It was dated a year after him and Sam had graduated high school.

Sam is succeeding without me. I knew he would. He was always so smart when it came to business decisions. He just hit 10k followers on Vine. That’s crazy!

“What the hell is this?” Colby questioned.

She answered quickly. “This whole journal was you keeping up with Sam without him knowing. This version of you always paid attention to what he was doing, even if you guys were no longer friends.”

“I’m obsessed with Sam? That’s great.” He deadpanned.

“You’re not obsessed with Sam. Read this entry.” She skipped a handful of pages, finally stopping on one and showing it to him.

I hate myself everyday for the hurt I caused Sam. I can’t believe what an idiot I was back when I was 18. We could have gone so far together… but I had to go and fuck it up.

He scowled. “Am I supposed to be sad for myself?”

“Keep reading.” She pushed.

The night I chose to never speak to Sam again, I knew I made the wrong decision. But I had to. Sam was ready to go on and do bigger and better things. I was just gonna hold him back. I was terrified of failing, not only myself, but him. He deserves success. That’s why I had to ignore him. I have never been as smart as him. I would have ruined our chances of doing something great. And I have been proven right by how far he has gone without me.

“You stopped being his friend because you were scared, not because you didn’t care anymore.” She repeated.

He slid off the car, scoffing. “So what if I was scared to fail? Sam didn’t deserve the hurt I caused just because of that. And what about me cheating with his girlfriend?”

She jumped off the car, striding up to Colby. She grabbed the journal from his hand. “You didn’t cheat, look.”

She pointed at the bottom of the page, his eyes following her finger.

“Me and Lexi were never together! I hate her for telling him that. One night, they had a really big fight and she came over to my house to ask what she should do. I told her to break up with him if she really didn’t care anymore. And then she tried to hit on me. I told her off and threatened to tell Sam, but she got to him first. She must have told him her and I were together.” The waitress read aloud.

“Wait, if I never hooked up with his girlfriend, why wouldn’t I tell him that?” Colby hissed.

“I think at that point, you wanted the friendship to be over, and I think this solidified it.” The waitress responded.

“All this time I could have been friends with Sam, but I ruined it because I was scared? What a fucking idiot.” He spat.

“You weren’t an idiot,” She interjected. “You just disliked yourself so much you didn’t think you deserved happiness. At least now you know that this version of you isn’t as terrible as you thought.”

“Even with that being the case, Sam’s never gonna accept my apology. Why should he?” Colby lamented, “I let him down the worst ways. I broke his trust and loyalty.”

She shook her head, stepping towards him. “Give him some time. You might be surprised."

Before Colby could speak, his phone rang. He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the number. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Hello?” He answered.

“Did you really mean it when you said you were sorry?” Sam spoke, his tone hesitant, but dry.

His breath hitched at the sound of Sam’s voice. “Of course. I never meant to hurt you, Sam.”

Sam paused for a moment, before breathing out. “I’m giving you one more chance. Tomorrow. Come by my place. You apparently know where I live.”

“Yeah,” Colby laughed awkwardly. “I’ll come by. Thank you… Sam.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll see you later.” Sam stated, hanging up.

Once the call ended, Colby’s eyes stared down at his phone widely. He almost couldn’t believe that happened.

He inhaled sharply. “Sam just called me. He wants to meet me tomorrow.”

“That’s great.” Her voice just above a whisper.

“He wants to hear me out… he wants to give me another chance.” His face dropped with confusion. “How did he get my number?”

It hit Colby like a brick as he gazed up at the waitress, who bit her lip hiding her smile. “You…?”

“You weren’t the first person I showed the journal to,” she explained. “When you ran off, I was gonna go after you. As I got in your car, I saw this journal sticking out from under your seat. I read through it and… I knew I had to show Sam. I went back in and talked to him for an hour, showing him how much you were actually sorry. How much you had beat yourself up over hurting him. And then I gave him your number. I wasn’t sure if he was gonna call but-”

“Oh my God, you’re amazing!” Colby ran up to her, grabbing her by the waist and spinning her around. She gripped his shoulders tightly as they spun, laughing loudly into his ear. As her feet touched the ground, he stared into her eyes, his smile the brightest she had ever seen it. His hands glided up her body to her face, cupping her cheeks quickly. He smashed his lips against hers, his heart pounding as he did. Her hands lowered to his chest, her grasp on his shirt tightened as she felt herself lose her footing and back up into the car.

As they stumbled, he realized what he was doing, pulling away quickly. “Shit… I’m sorry. I-I shouldn’t have-”

“No, it’s okay,” She giggled. “I’m just… surprised.”

He exhaled, letting his arms fall away from her body. “Me too.”

They leaned against the car, keeping a slight distance from each other. A light blush rested on both their faces; however, it was hard to see with the setting sun, something they were both grateful for.

The waitress sighed, breaking the moment of silence. “I think I know why this happened. Why I was the only one who remembered you…”

He raised an eyebrow, slightly side-eyeing her. “Really?”

“I lied to you when we first met. I wanted to seem a bit cooler than I am, but I don’t think I can hide that anymore.” She began, nervously.

Colby’s face relaxed a little, surprised at her words. “Okay.”

“My friend didn’t introduce me to you guys… I introduced her… to you.” She confessed.

A soft grin came to his face. “I had a feeling.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did! I totally did,” he snickered. “Not every fan knows I worked at Dairy Queen. And… no average fan would have helped me get Sam back the way you did.”

“I think there’s a reason for all of this. I think in your universe, your life… you don’t know me.” Her voice dropped suddenly, making Colby turn to her.

“That’s true, I don’t.” He nodded.

Her eyes met his, a sad glint reflecting in the moonlight. “But I think the reason for that is because… you’re not supposed to.”

“What do you mean?” He replied, his face twisting in confusion.

“I think you and I are only supposed to have met here, in this universe. But not in yours.” She glared up at the sky, “Maybe in some weird way, I’m your guardian or guide or something.”

Colby’s thoughts raced. “So, what you’re saying is-“

“This might be the last time you’ll ever see me. You did what you had to do. You got Sam and you to talk again.” Her voice cracked as she held back tears, “You can go home.”

He grabbed her hands, holding them close to his body. “But… I don’t want to leave if it means I don’t know you.”

A hitched breath fell from her lips, a smile appearing from his words. “If we’re meant to be, we’ll see each other again.”

“That’s not fair.” He shook his head, a deep frown settling on his face.

“I know, but it’s how it has to be.” She whispered.

He rested his forehead against her, breathing deeply. “Can I… get one more kiss?”

She bit her lip softly. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They leaned in, his breath fanning across her lips for a split second before he pulled away.

“Wait…” He shuddered. “I never got your name.”

A soft smile came to her lips. “I’ll tell you after.”

His arms wrapped around her, pressing her body into his as their lips collided. He held onto her for dear life, terrified that the moment he pulled away, she would be gone.

He could feel things around him slow down, almost melting away, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the beauty of their kiss making him dizzy. A whirling silence overcame his senses. A burning sensation sliced through his abdomen; his breath ripped from his lungs.

A heavy darkness overtook his vision and for the briefest of moments, he felt absolutely nothing.

Except her lips.

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#colby brock #colby brock fic #colby brock story #colby brock one shot #colby brock fanfiction #colby brock fanfic #colby brock oneshot #colby brock angst #sam golbach #sam and colby

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bloodorangesoup · 3 years

Text

Oh, Don't Mind Me | B.B.

Summary: Reader is having a very good day, including a damn good sandwich and an adorable dance session in the kitchen. Bucky observes with heart eyes. Slow dancing ensues.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: None, complete fluff

My Masterlist

Notes: This is my first writing on here, let me know what yall think! Hopefully, as I continue writing I’ll get better, but for now, I liked this. Also, I do not and will not respect the rules of grammar surrounding punctuation and quotation marks because they do not, as Marie Kondo says, spark joy. Happy reading!

Spring had finally settled in Upstate New York leaving the air fresh and the flowers bright. It was one of those days that just flowed. Gliding by breakfast, you had already turned in a mission report that was supposed to be completed a few days prior, took a shower, tidied up your room, and started lunch. There was a steady buzz of contentment in your head, a result of the day’s effortless productivity and quiet atmosphere.

Putting together the last pieces of the sandwich you made for yourself, you chose to ride the high of your productive buzz and wash the dishes you used before eating. Never had you felt so happy washing dishes. The water was just a little hotter than warm and felt relaxing. Even after the knife and cutting mat were clean you let the water run over your hands, taking in the steam rising to your face causing goosebumps to appear on the area of your arms that the water didn’t cover. Everything just felt like it was in place, it just felt good. When you finished, you dried off your hands and poured yourself some water, admiring how pretty the droplets of condensation looked on the glass.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., play my favorite playlist, please,” you chimed into the empty kitchen.

“Playing your most played playlist on Spotify,” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice echoed through the room. You silently thanked Tony for his genius idea of connecting all the team’s Spotify accounts to F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s system. With that silent thank you, When A Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge began softly drifting through the speakers in the kitchen and adjacent living room.

You felt like you were floating. The floor to ceiling windows in the hall let in the sunlight and you closed your eyes as it touched your face and spread warmth all over you. Leaning against the counter, you opened your eyes and turned for a moment to pick up the first half of your sandwich. Closing them again, you took a slow bite and slowly chewed, letting your shoulders drop and letting out a hum of pleasure. Maybe it was the perfection of the moment, but it was a damn good sandwich.

With a small smile lifting up the corners of your lips, you began softly rocking your head side to side with the slow rhythm of the song. The smile on your face grew as you felt the music course through your ears, down your neck, into your chest, and through the rest of your body down to the tips of your toes. Taking another bite of your sandwich, you pushed off from your spot leaning against the counter and stood in the space between the counter and kitchen island for a few seconds before letting your whole body rock side to side just like your head had before. With the combination of the lack of duties to worry about, the satisfaction of such an excellent sandwich, the sun glowing across your skin, and the music coursing through your veins, you felt completely and utterly at peace.

About fifteen minutes prior, Bucky had just finished a workout session. Once his hair was literally dripping with sweat he decided it was about time to get cleaned up and see what you were up to. He happily got to his room, showered, and changed into fresh clothes with nothing but you on his mind. He checked your room to find it empty and assumed that, without a text telling him otherwise, you were probably in one of the living rooms or the kitchen.

Not wanting to disrupt the quiet that settled over the compound on this day, he didn’t call out for you and figured he would see you eventually. He padded through the hall and heard the distant drone of music playing from the kitchen area. Smiling to himself, he remembered how excited you were when Tony had sent out the text telling the team he added Spotify to F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s system.

He recognized the song as one you had put on a playlist you had made for him at the beginning of your relationship. He had worked up the courage to ask you out, after a few months of intense pining and a lot of pep talks from Steve, and later that night received a goodnight text from you including a link to a playlist titled “For Bucky”. The song was about two decades after “his time”, but after seeing how much you melted at it, it quickly became one of his favorites to listen to.

Once he finally reached the source of the sound, he halted to a stop at the doorway of the kitchen. To his delight, you were exactly where he thought you would be. However instead of simply making something to eat, you were dancing in the middle of the kitchen. Eyes closed, grooving to the sounds of the speakers, the light hit you in a way that made his breath hitch and a lump form in his throat. You looked adorable, gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. The song playing also brought right to his attention that, in addition to adorable, gorgeous, and absolutely beautiful, you were also all his. All of that, your soft humming to the music, your unabashed smile, your hips swaying back and forth, was all his. The sight of it alone made his mouth gape open a little and the back of his eyes sting with tears that hadn’t yet formed.

But before he could get completely swept away with his overwhelming adoration for you, you turned around and opened your eyes for a second to take another bite of your, once again, amazing sandwich and came face to face with Bucky. It startled you enough to make you jump and look away in exasperation of the small scare. Bucky chuckled to himself at how cute you could be and leaned against the doorway. You looked up at him with a face that clearly said “how long have you been standing there and how much did you see?” Ignoring the silent question, Bucky decided the opportunity was just too good to pass up teasing you a little.

“Oh, don’t mind me, doll, keep going.” He couldn’t help the little grin that crept up his face.

At this point the song had faded out and transitioned into another song. Bucky identified it as one that was also on the playlist you made for him and it made his grin a little wider realizing that it was in fact “For Bucky” that you were playing.

You rolled your eyes, leaned your hip on the side of the island, and decided to verbally repeat your question.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh hey, Bucky! It’s nice to see you, I missed you, how was your day?” Bucky mocked, pretending to be you. “Oh hey, y/n! I missed you too, my day’s been good,’” Bucky replied back to himself, making you groan and roll your eyes again.

“Hey Buck, how was your day?” You asked him in the most monotone voice you could use, making sure to exaggerate the annoyed expression you wore.

His grin turned into a smirk as he opted to answer your initial question rather than answer the one he mocked you into.

“I’ve been standing here long enough to see you dancing to our song, angel. Very cute, really.” He teased.

“Oh, shut up and come here” You pouted while lifting your arms, inviting him to take up the open space. He smiled at your change in tone and pushed off the doorframe to meet you with arms wide open. You slipped your arms around his neck, resting them on his shoulders, while he snaked his around your waist. He turned you both so that your back was to the island and he caged you against it. You let your head fall against his chest while he leaned down and buried his head in your hair. You could smell him on his clothes, the subtle musk of his skin that lingered anytime you slept in his bed or cuddled him.

Inhaling and exhaling with a sigh, you ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head, returning to that state of absolute peace, now having with you another reason to feel it.

From inside your hair, a grumbled voice came through, “You know that song you were playing when I first came in, I listen to it all the time, always makes me think of you.”

You couldn’t control the giddy feeling that hearing that left you with. You looked up at him, prompting him to lift his head and peer down back at you. Your eyes met and you smiled wide at him, loving the feeling of being wrapped up in him. He grinned back at you and you couldn’t avoid seeing the look of bliss that graced his face, if you could have it your way you would keep him in this moment forever.

“You said that song was our song?” You asked.

“It’s the song I think of when I think of you, and it’s the first one on the playlist you made for me,” he blushed but then quickly followed up, “it doesn’t have to be our song if you don’t want it to or if you want a different one or someth-”

You moved forward away from the island, pushing him backwards with your hips until you were both standing, still embraced, in the middle of the kitchen.

Shaking your head you hummed, “I love it. Dance with me?” Bucky simply nodded his head, staring at you like you put the stars in the sky.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., play the first song on this playlist again, please.” The sound of the old 60s love song started tuning into the room. You didn’t think your smile could get any wider than when Bucky started rocking the both of you side to side, his eyes never leaving your own other than the occasional glance at your lips.

“You’re so amazing, angel, you know that?”

“You’re one to talk, you’re absolutely perfect yourself, Mr. Barnes.”

This made Bucky completely smile down at you. In that moment neither of you needed words to express the loved and adoration you two shared for each other.

Steve walked through the compound looking for Bucky, on a mission to give him back his watch that he’d left in the gym. Hearing your and Bucky’s voices in the living area, he smiled to himself and made his way there. Arguably one of the things in the world that made Steve the happiest was Bucky’s relationship with you. He knew as soon as he had introduced you to the team and could see the way Bucky blushed and got nervous around you that he was a goner. After months of waiting for Bucky to feel okay with dating and feelings and the whole shabang that came with those, he made it his main goal to set you two up. He knew how much you genuinely cared for Bucky and knew how undoubtedly happy you made him, when he saw you two together it served to him a reminder that the world could be good, that things could be bat shit crazy but there was always a silver lining.

Making his way to the kitchen, he ironically stopped at the door frame just as Bucky had, hearing you two together.

“You’re so amazing, angel, you know that?”

“You’re one to talk, you’re absolutely perfect yourself, Mr. Barnes.”

He saw his friend smile down at you and felt the pang of happiness that hit him whenever he listened to Bucky talk about you. He could feel the love from where he stood, rooted in place.

Bucky looked down at your lips once more, you copied him. He leaned in while tightening his hold around your waist, bringing your whole body closer to him, and kissed you softly. The kiss sucked the breath from your lungs. No longer swaying to the music, you let yourself lean into him and kissed him back with passion, making him feel how much you loved him. When your body couldn’t supply you with any more air, you were forced to pull back and look up at him. He looked totally smitten. He peered down at you with red cheeks and a relaxed grin, taking you in.

“God, I love you so much, y/n.”

“I love you more, Buck”

“Impossible.”

You gave him a soft peck in response and dropped your head back on his chest as you continued swaying to your song. Finally tearing his eyes away from you, he noticed Steve standing where he had minutes before, with a satisfied smile, nodding his head in approval.

Bucky just smiled and nodded back, closing his eyes and resting his chin on your head. You were his reminder that the world could be good. Things could be bat shit crazy, but you were always his silver lining.

#bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #tfatws #the winter solider #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x avenger!reader

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a-very-tired-raven · 3 years

Text

EEEEEEE so I've been in a writing mood as of late and I needed some help for a writing prompt. One of my best Tumblr friends(@let-love-run-red go check her out!!! She writes amazing garcello fics and headcanons and is a big inspiration for me!!)helped me out! This'll be a lil angsty sorry not sorry lol

•Nothing to lose•

(Trigger warnings!:Mentions of abuse,death,homelessness, multiple past abusive relationships,and bad cigarette habbits!)

You burst out laughing for what seemed to be the 10th time day as your buddy Garcello told yet another joke. "Seriously tho cello! That one was terrible! " He shot you a wink "heh your smiling though." You tried to wipe the smirk off your face. Unsuccessfully. "Am not" you playfully swatted his arm. He just shrugs "Whatever helps you sleep at night kid."

You roll your eyes, "Hey I'm not the one wearing a long sleeved coat and Jeans in the middle of summer" You sent a playful glare. "Your absolutely nuts!" He returns your glare. "Hey at least I'm not the one who's only clothes are T-shirts,shorts and Hoodies! All you ever wear are T-shirts and shorts. Your the crazy one. I don't see how you don't ever get cold"

You smile softy as you see the way he talks with his hands moving everywhere while he rants. I mean.. you do too its just nice to see someone else not pick on you for that. Its... nice to have someone who doesn't judge you for who you are whatsoever. It's been hard,taking care of three siblings all by yourself. Most would shy aways and call you crazy weird,disgusting,freak you've heard it all. Garcello...

Garcello was different.

"Y/n?"

You snap your head up effectively cutting off your somewhat depressing thoughts. "Hm?" You look over. "Are you alright? Ya kinda zoned out on me. I mean I know I can be boring at times but I didn't know I was a snooze fest" Besides his joking banter he has a face full of worry, Beautiful golden eyes scanning your face as if searching for the answer to a murder mystery.

"Nahh your not that boring. Promise. And..yeah I'm fine. Just kinda spaced out y'know?" He nods his head in agreement. You both slow to a stop. He chuckles a bit and turns to you. "Yeah yeah I know, it's just... I recognize that look, Y/N. Believe me I do.. im sorry to be a buzz kill but.. you know you can talk to me. About anything right?" You give that soft and kind smile that melts his heart every rare occasion he gets to see it. You never smile enough..

Sure there's the joking but... genuine smiles,ones that don't cover a dark and rough interior. He knows first hand what that feels like. So.. he tries. He's tries all he can to get you to smile that genuine smile as often as can be. For both your sakes.

"I know garcy. And thank you. Glad to know it still stands." You give him a quick hug that immediately makes his cheeks warm. He's really thankful for the shade his cap gives his face right about now. "I'll see you later alright? And tell Annie I said hey!" "Alrighty will do! And get some rest tonight okay? Cya." You nod a okay and walk inside your apartment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------You stare holes into the ceiling. Past memories flash through your mind. Your mother, and father. You were disgusted to call them that. Helping and raising your siblings. Her...death.. being homeless..heh something both you and garcello share in common. Picking up your smoking habbit.. heh another thing. Meeting him.. These past few months.

Its been hard...but its been good. You have a roof over your head. Your four siblings are okay. You haven't seen your older brother in a while but he gave you a call. You have food, water,and.. Garcello and Annie. A smile works its was on your face.

I'm glad I met him' a soft smile works its way onto your face until you realize you thought just garcello and not both him and his sister. YES you love them both- like a family-its not like that- ugh why does thoughts have to be complicated!! You roll over,you have to get to sleep. Garcello told you to! And he said he wanted to meet up for something again. You slowly drift off.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Garcello was antsy the whole walk to the park;the place you two agreed to meet. His face was a mad red. He had your favorite flowers and your favorite candy! Reeces pieces and snickers. He's never done anything like this before. Confessing he means. Sure he's asked a few chick's out but... Nobody important or someone he cares about, nobody like you. You changed his entire life in just the few months he's knew you.. He hopes you'll say yes. then again.. his hopes are all the way up.. who'd wanna date guy like him?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You look up from your phone to see garcello approaching you. He's very...stressed? No... anxious? Yes Anxious for lack of a better work. With his hands behind his back...Hmmm....

"Hey cello, whatcha got there? You got murder on your mind?" You give a teasing smirk. He just immediately freezes. "I-um-uhm. No. I uh got ya somethin' if that's alright?" He very stiffly sits in front of you. He's sweating bullets. Geeze what's got him this worked up.. "Dang cello with how your acting Ida thought you were askin' me out" you give a light chuckle. He freezes completely.

"Heh uh yeah heh...um..here..you go.. I bought these. For you.. Noone else. Heh" He awkwardly places a two boxes of your favorite candy and holds out a large boutique of your favorite flowers. You freeze completely, mouth hanging open in shock."Y/N...I've liked you for a while now.. your so nice and thoughtful...and you understand me. I was maybe hoping you'd go on a date? With me?" His face is cherry red.

What. He can't be serious? Really he can't. Nobody would ever like you that. Yes you love him.. but you can't afford to love him. Caring gets you hurt. And being vulnerable gets you killed mentally as well as physically You've long sense learned this from your past three relationships

"Are you serious?..Garcello... I cant.. I can't accept this.."

Your heart sinks as you watch the hope glittering off his eyes dim

"Of course I am! Y/N I love you..." Your both standing up at this point. Your both shaking.

"And garcello... I know-i know but please-i just cant!"

"At least tell me why? Am I not enough? I thought... maybe you'd understand.." He drops the boutique. He..he knew it..your too good for him...He really does disappoint everyone..

"Garcello I just cant!can't"! You don't notice the tears spilling down your face at this point.

"But why! I love you! I really do! You mean so much to me!" You take a step back.

"Just stop! don't do that to me Garcello! Dont give me hope! Never ever give me something I want, something I want as bad as you!"

"Why" he's pleading with you so hard..please...just tell him..

"BECAUSE THEN I HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE!" You hadn't ment to scream. Your fists are clenched and eyes shut tight, you feel as if you might collapse at any moment. Garcello's stunned into silence. "And then I'll be open to get hurt... and I just.." You let out a broken sob. "I'm just so tired of being hurt" you don't move as he engulfs you into a hug.

"And as much as I love you too.. I can't risk being vulnerable again... raising 3 siblings and protecting them so at least they can have a good childhood while you haven't even had on yourself..." You don't notice tears of his own dropping on your shirt. "Being backstabbed and left broken with Noone to fix you...I just can't do it again..." He let's out a broken whisper. "I know Y/N.. I know more than you ever will."

Your just left there hugging in silence. You've decided. You can talk it out because as you were too blind by fear. Fear of being hurt again... he's just like you,two broken puzzle pieces that fit together.

Hope yall like it! Promt idea goes to @let-love-run-red ! Go follow and check her out!

I accept any and all constructive criticism!,

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peaches-writes · 4 years

Text

seven hundred and one

description: seven centuries and you always seem to bump into hyunjin at least once in every one of them member: hyunjin genre: fluff, childhood friends to lovers au, slow burn (technically it is), historical au, vampire au (vampire!skz, implied incubus!hyunjin idk yall decide), witch au (immortal!reader), a sprinkle of established relationship towards the end, implied fem reader word count: 10.3k warning: explicit language, mentions of blood, murder, death, trauma, arson, suggestive (i turn 19 & suddenly i get brave lmao) note: hyunjin playing a thousand years on his post-mucore vlive that happened to fall on my birthday did things to my feelings + took a lot of liberties w the history & nature or vampires if that’s okay + if the narration is confusing just tell me lmao + established relationship au’s in detail makes my head spin ew cheesy stuff

zero

You have always been a traveler even in 1319 when you were still twelve and mortal. Being born and raised into a coven of witches at a time when witchcraft and other non-conforming practices were punishable by death, you naturally had to be for your own safety. Growing up, you had to move from village to village with your family, helping villagers in secret as your main source of income then leaving before word would inevitably and uncontrollably spread; thus leaving you with little to no room to grow intimate attachments with people who are not kin.

Not that you minded the last, anyway, because your mother would always remind you that you can always go back after some time. Korea was vast, then, but there were only a few places you could go to in a cycle. Then, you met Hyunjin.

Hwang Hyunjin has always been a prince, but especially in 1319 when he was still twelve and human. Besides his undeniably regal looks and naturally graceful disposition, he was also a noble in King Taejeong’s court. Of course, you’ve already forgotten his exact title at the time after centuries of living but you do have an inkling of a memory wherein he mentioned something about being related to the king somehow—this said memory being the first time you met him.

You don’t remember all the specific details now but you’re quite certain that you moved to the capital Hanseong in the first place because your mother’s services was requested by the king himself to treat one of his daughters, the only time the monarchy acknowledged you. You can also faintly remember being allowed to wander on your own at the marketplace right outside of the palace courts on the day you arrived only because you competed with your cousins over who can unpack their belongings the fastest and won.

Even now, over seven hundred years later, you’re still thankful that Chaeyeon and Chaeryeong somehow forgot some of their bags in your carriage that day or else you would’ve missed bumping into Hyunjin completely.

He was receiving his chosen bouquet of carnations from a flower stall at the market entrance when you approached, the bright colors of the display chrysanthemums initially catching your eye. As you asked the stand owner about the blue flowers, you noticed that Hyunjin didn’t seem to have any intentions of paying, prompting you to stop him from walking away to ask, “Aren’t you going to pay for that?”

Hyunjin momentarily froze in his steps before turning around to you with raised eyebrows, his head slowly turning from you to the pink flowers in his hands. After this brief pause, you then heard him laugh in amusement for the first time, confusing you further in the moment. “I, uh, I don’t have to. It’s—it’s free for me.”

Ever the curious child, you then asked next, “For you? Why?”

Hyunjin would confess to you later on, some time when you briefly met at an art exhibit in 1880s Spain, that he only entertained you because no one has ever asked him such question in a long time when you did. Because of his status, people both inside and outside the court would leave him alone to do whatever he wants and so he thought it was refreshing that you did otherwise when you first met. He also mentioned something about finding you cute in the fashion of your time but you always dismiss this in embarrassment. You were only seven, for crying out loud.

And so, taking a step closer to you, he then lifted the bouquet up to the level of your faces after he leaned down to your height and, with a mischievous smile, loudly whispered to you, “I’m from the palace courts—an important person to the king!”

Hyunjin still insists at present that he did tell you exactly what his title and relation to the king was but every time you challenge him to tell you what he said, he would clumsily steer the conversation away to something else. Besides this, you have always agreed that you furrowed your eyebrows deeper at him in response and replied, “Still, you should pay. Earning money is difficult these days.” which piqued Hyunjin’s interest in you further.

“I will,” He assured you smoothly, bringing the bouquet down after and turning to the stand owner. Gesturing to the chrysanthemums you’ve been eyeing, he then continues, “if you let me pay for your chrysanthemums. The reason why I couldn’t pay is because my money right now is too big, anyway.”

You protested against his offer politely, reasoning out that you had no intention of buying, but with Hyunjin’s status as a noble also came a persuasive charm to him. “Didn’t you just move here? I can tell with the travelling hanbok.” He pointed out to you, already gathering the best-looking chrysanthemums before he could even hear you say ‘yes.’ You started showing signs of giving in after some five minutes of friendly banter, prompting his optimism. “Consider this as a welcoming gift!”

You had no choice but to accept the flowers in the end with the promise of giving him something in return when you meet again around the palace courts after briefly mentioning your reason for moving to the capital. Holding your bouquet on your left hand to mirror Hyunjin’s bouquet on his right, you then extended your right hand to him before you could part ways. “I’m Y/N, by the way.” You then introduced yourself, already too focused then on thinking of how to repay Hyunjin. “In case I forget and you want to look for me.“

“Hwang Hyunjin. I would definitely not forget but really, you don’t have to repay me.” He smiled as he took your hand in his, reluctantly letting go only when older passersby gave you curious looks. “I just hope you have a good stay here in Hanseong!”

You then made a bracelet out of one stem of the chrysanthemums almost a month later as payment, preserving the petals inside transparent beads with an enchantment that would prevent them from losing their vibrant blue. By this time, you have been seeing Hyunjin almost every day around the palace grounds and with this, he has been slowly piecing together the entire reason for your court presence. With the bracelet, you indirectly confirmed your true nature to him and he wholeheartedly accepted you with a hug behind the hallway pillars.

“Your secret is safe with me.”

You‘ve been best friends ever since, even when you had to leave two years later. At present, Hyunjin still wears the bracelet—even when you insist in making him a new one.

“I like it.” He always tells you whenever you would bring it up. “I liked it then, I like it now, and I’ll like it forever.”

“It’s ancient.” You would scrunch up your nose in response. “You could literally sell it at the local museum.”

“Well, that says a lot about your age, doesn’t i—ow! Ow, I won’t say that ever again just sto—ya, stop hitting me!”

seven

Your family briefly returned to Hanseong five years after your stay to attend one of the elder princesses’ wedding, the same princess your mother has been tasked to treat when she was hired by the king. You were eighteen and almost ready to part with your coven in the event that your mother will ask when you turn nineteen in the fall, having grown particularly proficient in brewing potions after you first left the capital. Hyunjin, on the other hand, became a more prominent public figure in the courts at nineteen as talks of the king appointing one of his sons as crowned prince become more frequent, thus initially making your first reunion awkward.

“Should I address you as Your Highness?” You asked between your teeth as you carefully curtsied back at Hyunjin, glancing on the corners of your eyes in case the passing servants were sparing you looks. “I don’t really know how these things work.”

“No, no need, I don’t think anyone really cares.” He chuckled with a shake of his head as the two of you then simultaneously stood up straight. Looking around the two of you after, his grin then grew wider when he looked back at you before he engulfed you in a hug, startling you— even more when he lifted you up slightly from the ground and spun you once. “Oh, Y/N, I missed you!”

“Y-Ya! Hyunjin, p-put me down, someone could see!” You scolded him instinctively while frantically looking around for any signs of his or your relatives. “Hyunjin!”

“Don’t mind them!” He countered back at you, burying his face into the crook of your neck with a deep inhale after putting you down. “I missed you. You haven’t written since late Spring!”

You shrugged, feeling strangely cold when he pulled away after. “I’ve been—well, we‘ve been busy. It’s the summer so a lot of people are asking for us and most of my cousins, um, parted with us after my last letter.”

“Oh.” He frowned, having thought of it negatively at first. “I’m sorry about that.”

You remember distinctly shaking your head reassuringly at him over his apology, waving your hand dismissively in front of him at realizing that he misinterpreted. “No, it’s alright. When you turn nineteen, you’re given the choice as tradition—most of my older cousins just so happened to choose parting ways with us.” You then explained, even giving him a small smile. “It’s nothing personal. It does give us the younger ones more work, though, hence why I couldn’t write.”

With your explanation, Hyunjin then smiled. “Oh, oh, I see.” He muses. “Then, I’m glad we meet again after a long time! I really was starting to worry you were taking longer to reply!”

“Well, we’ll be staying here for two weeks—that should be enough time to catch up.” You then matched your smile with his, following him to the palace gardens when he offers you to, ‘for old time’s sake’ he reasoned. “Then at the end of the week, we get to attend a wedding! Honestly, I’m really excited, I’ve only ever seen weddings from afar when my aunt would perform rituals for good weather.”

“Then you’ll be in for a great time! Weddings are absolutely lovely, especially here in court!” He promised you that afternoon before proceeding to recall to you the countless weddings that have happened within the confines of the palace courts in his life.

Only, the wedding somehow ended in catastrophe when the day actually came because of a group of hired assassins who managed to get to nearly every one of the royal family in attendance including Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin!” You cried for him amidst the stampede and the fire that has somehow started from one of the guest tables, Chaeyeon and Chaeryeong tugging you in the opposite direction by your arms and waist waist and preventing you from running back to his bloodied body. “Hyunjin!”

“Y/N, no, we have to leave!” Chaeryeong scolded you countless of times that night, tears streaming down her own face in fear as your mothers and aunts ushered your entire coven to retreat back to the woods. “We have to go!”

“B-But Hyunjin!” You insisted in between sobs every single time, your attempts at escaping your cousins’ grasps becoming weaker and weaker until they eventually managed to reunite you with the rest of your coven after. “We can still save him—I can save him! He’s still conscious, for God’s sake!”

Hyunjin received two fatal stab wounds to his chest and stomach that night as one of the assassins’ last few victims before fleeing because of the fire, pushing him on his stomach to the ground in his own pool of blood. Even with the fear and panic coursing through your veins and your blurry vision as you navigated your way through the chaos, you knew that you could heal him quickly with the right enchantments and potions and that you could carry him with you all the way to the forest where your needed herbs could possibly be available but your cousins wouldn’t listen to you, forcing you to abandon your friend that night for your own sake.

You remember vividly, even to this day, this particular image of Hyunjin seemingly dying on the ground, eyes pleading you to follow your cousins as he clutched his chest and choked on his own blood, because it still gives you nightmares every night despite the assurance that he was eventually saved. Hyunjin laughs at you over this now but whenever you would scowl and hit him in the arm for making it seem as if he thinks of his human death as a joke, he would immediately pull you into his embrace and apologize.

“I’m sorry.” He always whispers in your ear at present, stroking your hair and hugging you significantly tighter each time. “It’s just that it’s all in the past now and I’ve let it go way back. I just hope you do too because I’m still here—and I’ll always be.”

“I don’t think I can—not in a hundred more years, I think.” You would frown in response, also recently acquiring the habit of gathering fistfuls of his shirt in the process. “It’s too—it’s too—“

“I understand. Shh. I’m sorry, again...”

nine

In the event that a family member turns twenty-one, your entire extended family gathers to perform a ritual on the full moon after their date of birth in order to grant them immortality which can only be broken by willful death. It was an ancient and seemingly controversial tradition unique to your family, the elder generations were close and wanted to be close with everyone in this fashion.

When you were younger, with your innocent sense of adventure, you’ve always looked forward to being the recipient of this particular ritual at the thought that it would give you more time to explore both in and, hopefully, out of Korea. But when it came to the first full moon after your twenty-first birthday, you felt nothing but dread throughout the entire night.

“I just think it’s meaningless!” You cried into Chaeryeong’s shoulder once you’ve managed to return to your lodgings, pulling your knees closer to your chest as the two of you sat in your bed. “Why should I continue living when I have nothing to look forward to anymore? When someone else deserved to live?”

Chaeryeong still feels guilty about it even at present, often apologizing to Hyunjin whenever she would come across him, but she felt this feeling the heaviest in this moment hundreds if years ago as she stroked your back comfortingly. “I’m so sorry, Y/N...I know anything I can say right now wouldn’t make you feel better or make what happened right but I’m so sorry. It was you or him and Chaeyeon and I had to make a choice.”

“But w-we could’ve—we could’ve s-saved him!”

“I know, I know, and I’m sorry...”

“Hyunjin, my best friend—“ You sobbed until morning despite Chaeryeong’s pleas for you to sleep. “My Hyunjin, he’s gone because of me.”

And until morning, Chaeryeong kept an eye out for you in case you did something to yourself as you mourned. “None of it was your fault. If anything, it was mine.” She told you over and over again until you fell asleep at sunrise. “Y/N, please...”

Chaeryeong and Chaeyeon ended up watching over you closely for the two months that followed, wary of your actions until you confronted them again about it and assured them that you weren’t thinking about doing something else that could potentially harm you.

You then completely parted ways with them after.

eighty-eight

You have already travelled the entirety of Korea on your own once when you unexpectedly meet Hyunjin again. Eighty-one years after his supposed death and with a new king already on the throne, you‘ve almost forgotten all about your childhood best friend because of the passing time that it completely startled you when you saw a glimpse of his face in the crowd of a village somewhere in Pyongyang.

He smiled at you from afar in the brief second your eyes first met, even subtly tipping his hat as he walked towards you from the opposite direction which effectively froze you in the middle of the street.

Shaking your head in thought, you frowned and look away at the seemingly random remembrance of the past. You’ve always thought then that you’ve already forgotten most of your childhood, especially those that ended in tragedy, and so you instantly felt a wave of disappointment in yourself at suddenly seeing a familiar face of the past in the crowd.

But when you looked up and see that Hyunjin has already reached you on your spot, your breath got caught in your throat and your eyes began to sting in the moment as tears threatened to fall at the sight of seeing your best friend’s smile again in person. You then instinctively held out a hand to touch his hanbok. “Y-You—y-you’re—“

“I-I’m alive...” He stammered out almost in the same fashion as you, his grin only growing bigger after the longer you stood frozen in front of him. When you don’t respond immediately in prolonged shock, he then lifted you up in a hug, planting your feet right on top of his this time as he pulled you impossibly closer to him. “I missed you, very, very much. I thought I’d never see you again.”

It took you a long moment to hug him back, making some passersby look. “I thought I—I thought that I’d never see you again.” You reply once you find your voice again, warily lifting your hands up to his shoulders as if he might disappear. “How are you—h-how are you alive?”

Pulling away briefly to examine his face, you then added, “A-and you look the same...”

At first, Hyunjin only shook his head at you, still overwhelmed at finally seeing you again to care about explaining. “I’ll, uh, I’ll explain everything later.” He whispered to you, pressing his forehead to yours and closing his eyes as he sighs in relief. “Please, just...let me hold you for now.”

After this scene in public, Hyunjin then took you to the lodgings where he was staying at with his friend, Seungmin, whom you would eventually came to realize was the vampire who saved him that night along with the fact that your best friend was now a vampire himself. “I was passing by the palace grounds on the way to a safe passage to the next village.” Seungmin elaborated further on Hyunjin’s story over a cup of tea and buckets of crying. “When I saw the fire, I got curious and approached then I saw Hyunjin trying to crawl out to safety so I helped him up, took him to the forest, and turned him.”

Seungmin would also tell you much later on, when you meet again by chance centuries later in 1930s Thailand, that he also didn’t know first-aid at the time so his immediate alternative was to turn Hyunjin in panic, having seen another friend of his, Chan, do it in a similar extreme emergency situation. Hyunjin also laughs at this at present, especially when he first found out, and you’d let yourself giggle occasionally but you always make sure to thank him sincerely after, even when he always assures you that it’s nothing. “You helped me reunite with my best friend.” You would tell him, your voice always low enough so only Seungmin would hear even with Hyunjin’s enhanced hearing. “You didn’t just saved him that night, you saved me too—just eighty-one years later—so thank you.”

And so, you ended up travelling with the two for almost a hundred and fifty years, eventually meeting Seungmin’s other nomadic friends while helping Hyunjin adjust better to his new lifestyle and developing skills. You only had to forcibly part ways after because your mother sent you a letter all the way from Xinjiang, China, requesting for your presence at a family member’s funeral.

“The mourning period for our family is is fifty years,” You explained to the two on the morning you had to leave them. You were staying in Beijing during this time in 1657. “and she was my mother’s favourite sister, I have to be there for her, especially.”

Hyunjin had a slight frown in his face until you left on a horse-drawn carriage that day but he straightened it out into a thin line and pursed his lips once: when he came to hug you goodbye as you were packing, wrapping his arms around your waist in a back hug. “Write to me, please?” He pleaded over your shoulder. “If we really have to be apart again for a long time, then at least write to me.”

You nodded at his request, swiftly turning around to prperly hug him back. “I will, promise, just tell me where you’ll be next.” You instructed him, pulling away after to hug Seungmin goodbye. “Please take good care of yourselves and always be careful.”

“We will.” Seungmin assures you sincerely, having grown fond of you in a familial way over the years. “You take care, too.”

“I’ll see you again very soon!”

Hyunjin received a letter from you almost two months later, thus beginning your hundred years long correspondence.

three-hundred eighty-eight

When the fifty-year mourning period for your family ended, your mother asked you to stay with her longer, prompting you to write to Hyunjin that you’ll have to extend your time away before being free to meet him again. Simultaneously, Hyunjin began writing to you about his and Seungmin’s adventures with Chan, Minho, Changbin, and Seungmin around Asia, especially the possibility of him and his friends of the same nature forming a coven amongst themselves and how he had somewhat developed a vampiric gift, the latter of which he couldn’t write to you about explicitly until you accidentally met again in person a month before your extended stay was over.

Well, you’re still not sure at present if you really did meet in person at the time because, besides some subtle inaccuracies in the memory itself, there would be times at present when Hyunjin would insist that you did and times when he would deny it completely in embarrassment. “You know, maybe you were just fever dreaming me up, then!” Hyunjin would tell you now whenever he feels like denying it as a slight blush creeps up his cheeks, coughing awkwardly in between and making sure to run as far away from you as possible. “Or maybe—ha!—did you have a crush on me as early as the 1600s? You know, they do say that distance makes the heart grow fonde—ow!”

But dream or not, this memory is still burned at the very back of your head even hundreds of years later and it’s embarrassingly awful that all of your telepath and clairvoyant friends either joke or complain to you about it from seeing fragments of it replay in your thoughts often.

In this memory, you met Hyunjin in your house at Xinjiang while your mother was away to run errands. You consider this as one of your biggest hints that this was a dream since Hyunjin and his friends were in Laos until you met with them halfway later on along with the fact that he appeared in your bedroom of all places when you have long made it a habit of placing all kinds of protective charms in this particular space of yours.

“H-Hyunjin?” You called out for him when you saw his reflection in the mirror as you worked on your desk, glancing over your shoulder with a fond smile on his lips. Turning around, you then jumped up from your seat and right into his arms, laughing in disbelief when you felt him encircle his arms around your waist. “Hyunjin! When did you get here? How did you get here? I thought you’re in—”

His laugh that followed still echoes at the back of your head occasionally, even more the feeling of his lips pressing a feathery kiss on the fabric draped over your shoulders. “Doesn’t matter, I’m here.” He dismissed with a sigh, pulling away from the hug after in order to gently cup your face in his hands. Tilting his head down slightly to level with your eyes, a smirk then formed on his lips as he studied your features carefully and added, “I missed you. You look even more beautiful than when we last met.”

Hyunjin insists that you’re exaggerating this part but his closest friend and current roommate, Jeongin, is a mind reader and the poor boy accidentally sees through your thoughts that it isn’t every time he brings it up, making everyone in the vicinity feel awkward and embarrassed. It also doesn’t help that, in this memory, you’re quite sure that Hyunjin surprised you with a kiss after, urgently crashing his lips onto yours and backing you up to your desk.

You always make sure to keep it in a part in your thoughts that Jeongin can’t read but, besides your genuine shock, you initially didn’t pull away from the kiss because of the feeling that the gesture somehow affirmed your previous doubts on your almost four hundred years-worth of feelings for your best friend. You didn’t kiss him back with as much force as he did, even when he almost drew blood from biting your bottom lip or when he smoothly slipped his tongue in your mouth as his hands took hold of yours on the sides of the desk, but you thought a lot about him in the moment—mostly about how you were questioning your feelings for him prior to when he appeared out of nowhere.

It also definitely didn’t help that he kept whispering ‘I missed you so much’ in between gasps of air too. It still makes your heart melt to this day (and Jeongin disgusted whenever he passes by you and accidentally hears your thoughts. “Can you two please just stop being horny over each other all the time? It’s been 700 years.” “Yang Jeongin, get back here!”)

You realized, as Hyunjin moved to trail desperate kisses down your neck, that maybe you did have a crush on your best friend and it was okay even if it was just because of the longing to see him after years or the loneliness of eternal life. You liked him a lot, maybe you even loved him as early as this moment you’re not even sure anymore but you’ve always been certain from that this very moment, you never wanted to be apart from him for too long.

But it still scared you after a while, even when you already felt assured over your previous qualms, and you unknowingly pushed him away because of this, right as he tugged on your clothes and snaked a hand up your dress. “Hyunjin, stop!” In a wave of fear, you pushed him away with an enchantment, making him fly all the way across the room until his back hit the opposite wall. “S-Shit, I’m so sorry, I—“

In response, you remember him shaking his head reassuringly. “It’s fine, don’t worry.” He assures you, his voice just barely above a whisper. “It’s just that I—nevermind, I should be sorry. I’m so sorry, Y/N...”

Before you could even say anything else, however, he vanished into thin air right in front of you, leaving you even more confused than before.

When you do actually meet Hyunjin and the others a month later, you couldn’t bring yourself to confront him about it somehow even when you were quick to notice that he was avoiding you after Minho proudly boasted to you that he started training Hyunjin to navigate other people’s dreams. Besides the fact that it made heat rise up to your face alarmingly that Changbin started joking about you trying to lure all vampires within the vicinity into sucking your neck dry, you also didn’t know how to approach Hyunjin in the case that you had to inevitably tell him your feelings. Though you had a clearer idea of your feelings then, you still weren’t ready to confess it to him yet.

So, reluctantly, you had to part ways again because of this, you coming up with a lame excuse to see your cousins all the way in Europe at the thought that you wanted to think your feelings through again while also giving Hyunjin his much needed space. You ended up leaving the group in 1763 somewhere in Shanghai, a hundred and nineteen years after the incident.

“Ah, I don’t think I’m suited for the coven life anymore.” You pointed out awkwardly at Hyunjin as you hugged him last at the ports. “It’s just—not the same, I guess. I think I have to travel on my own for a while...”

Even with the awkwardness, Hyunjin still hugged you tightly anyway and even planted a familiar kiss to your shoulder. “Write to me again, okay?”

“Always.” You assured through the frantic beating of your heart. You notice him catching your hand in between the two of you when you pull away from the hug, almost rendering you speechless. “I’ll see you when I see you. It’s just goodbye for now.”

Jeongin once spilled to you one day that of all the similar situations after that Hyunjin has let you go after seeing you again, he always thinks about this one in particular the most and how he should’ve asked for you to stay; and you hit the younger boy with one of your books in response for snooping. But still, it has also made you start wondering lately if things would’ve changed if you parted ways differently then.

“Yes, it’s goodbye for now.”

four hundred ninety-nine

The next two hundred and four years would then be spent in an unconscious game of cat and mouse between you and Hyunjin. Whenever Chan and Minho would let him, he would follow you by your letters around Europe and Africa and he would more often than not miss the opportunity of approaching. When he did manage to catch up with you, you would go to lunch with him and show him around the place you’re staying at until the tension eventually died off as you occupied yourselves with other things.

Hyunjin first saw you again in Crete in 1818 when you started to learn foreign forms of witchcraft, missing the chance to approach you only because you disappeared from his watch because he chickened out last minute from recalling your previous incident in his mind. He would then see you again in 1825 Austria, studying the stars with Chaeryeong and a friend, Yuna, until he missed you by a boat ride to Egypt, then again in 1861 Congo when he would got in the wrong carriage and somehow ended up in in Algeria.

You eventually noticed, of course, how his return addresses seemed to pattern yours but you never brought it up until you he first caught up with you in 1884 Spain, when you went to the same art exhibit and ended up talking for hours until the tensions from almost a hundred years before completely vanished. “Are you following me?” You asked him teasingly mid-conversation as the two of you observed the Spolarium. “You have accumulated wealth from 400 years and you spend it by following me?”

Hyunjin froze instinctively, an easy giveaway from him in your years of knowing each other. “What? No! I’m just—ya, you’re not the only one who can like travelling!” He quickly denied until you giggled in amusement, making him confess everything truthfully later on over lunch.

You then ended up dedicating two hours to recounting all the times you almost met, laughing at almost every one of them because of Hyunjin’s undeniable clumsiness. By the end of his tales, he’s pouting at all your teasing in defeat as he asked, “Can’t you really live with us again? We’ve all moved back in Korea, you know—well, except Seungmin since he’s back in his trying to get all kinds of educational degrees in the world phase again.”

You didn’t want to admit it to him then up until now but you’ve thought about the exact same thing countless of times in your travels. Learning new skills and travelling the world has always been something you thoroughly enjoyed, you are a traveler after all, but you also couldn’t deny that you’d miss seeing Hyunjin more than anyone else you’ve met in your whole lifetime.

Without you knowing, you’ve realized that somewhere in between the correspondences you’ve managed throughout the centuries and the frequent meetings around the world, you’ve completely fallen in love with your best friend. You were sure of it then.

However, before you parted ways again three years later to head further West while Hyunjin had to hurry back East for sneaking out from Minho this time, you answered his question with, “Let me think about it.”

And, surprisingly, he understood. When you wrote to him from Brazil six months later, he replies with a long letter detailing his adventures halfway across the world in New Zealand as well as Middlemist’s Reds pressed in between the papers—one you would scold him later on once you found out that they were extremely rare.

“Where did you put those rare New Zealand flowers, by the way?” Hyunjin asked you just last week, almost as if he remembered at the same time as you.

“It’s somewhere.” You mused absentmindedly over your cup of coffee, hand instinctively going up to fiddle with the pearls on your ears where you discreetly hid the flowers.

six-hundred eleven

When you met Seungmin by chance in 1930s Thailand, you immediately asked him about one of the earliest models of the 35 mm film he acquired from his own travels and the photos he took. Since Hyunjin was in California with Jisung, Jeongin, and Felix while Chan, Minho, and Changbin stayed behind in Korea, Seungmin showed you how the film worked by letting you see the photographs he took of your friends, especially Jeongin and Felix who were still new to their family at the time but you’ve immediately welcomed as your little brothers. The photographs mostly depicted them candidly in their day-to-day and though you have countless of similar photos now in your own smartphone, you couldn’t help but tear up at seeing these photos in particular at the time.

“Hey, don’t stain my photos now, the film’s expensive.” Seungmin chuckled as he patted your shoulders comfortingly with one hand while the other took the photos from your side of the table. “What’s wrong?”

You sobbed into his shoulder that afternoon, attracting the attention of some passersby at the restaurant you had breakfast together at. “I-I, uh—I missed everyone.” You told him, the first time you ever confided in someone else these very thoughts. Not even Chaeryeong, whom you would stay with every five years or so, knew this. “It’s just—it’s so lonely now and I...I love travelling but it just feels empty now—”

“Then come home. Come home when you think you’re ready, we’ll all be waiting for you—Hyunjin will be waiting for you.” Seungmin finished your thought for you gently, momentarily removing his hand from your shoulder to separate Hyunjin’s photos from the pile. Passing them to you again, he then adds, “If it makes you feel better, you can keep his photos if you want but for a little request.”

You then left Thailand to live with your mother in India four years later with Hyunjin’s photographs tucked neatly in the pages between his letters you’ve collected over the years in an enchantment pouch, acquiring them from Seungmin in exchange for photographs of you he would pass on to Hyunjin later on.

Along with the other photographs you would collect of Hyunjin and your other family and friends, these particular photos now line up almost all walls of your apartment in Seoul.

Hyunjin, on the other hand, though you’ve never confronted him about it, keeps your photos in his wallets and at the back of his clear phone case. Every time someone from the art gallery where he works in would ask him about it, he would always say that he DIY-ed them with his grandparents’ film and a coffee staining technique he got from YouTube.

six-hundred forty-eight

Your mother willfully passed away in 1967 by ingesting a concoction of poisonous herbs you reluctantly helped her make. She was 2,022 years old and surrounded by all of her daughters in her deathbed on that fateful Sunday morning—some of whom you’ve only met when you came to live with your mother again. Your relatives then came a week later for another 50 years of mourning and, as one of the elder daughters, you were tasked in helping cater to everyone in the time that you had to be secluded from the world in old rituals and traditions; thus, halting yet another plan of reuniting with Hyunjin.

It impacted you greater this time, not only because your mother was the one who passed away but also because you’ve already planned on returning permanently to Korea and reunite with Hyunjin this time. After six hundred years, you’ve finally sorted out your feelings for your best friend and fifty more years of being apart suddenly felt too long with this.

And, as if he had read your thoughts, Hyunjin visited you in your dreams on the night before you would enter into the fifty-year mourning period. Having gained more experience in honing this gift of his by this time, he somehow managed to fashion your dreams into happening against the backdrop of the familiar 1300s Korean landscape.

You dreamt of approaching Hyunjin at a flower stall in front of a marketplace akin to when you actually first met. Instead of having his back turned to you to pick on the carnations, however, he was waving at you with his arms outstretched for a hug, hanbok and everything.

“How did you do all this?” You asked in disbelief as you hugged him back, taking in all the detailed scenery from his shoulder. You knew that, in the real world, he was back in Korea by this time and helping Seungmin set up his own film company, easily giving away the dream nature of your meeting. Still, you touched all of the flowers and the fabric of his favorite red hanbok anyway, marveling at how his gift has grown since the last and only other time you experienced it.

“Lots of practice.” He shrugged with a proud grin, reluctantly letting you go after to take a good look at you. “I didn’t do anything weird to practice though, I mostly just terrorized Jisung in his dreams.”

You scoffed at him, hitting his chest playfully. Looking around again and even chuckling at how your dream was even filled with people, you then commented, “It’s beautiful.”

“I thought you needed some cheering up after what happened with your mom.” He explained, picking up a handful of carnations from the stall. Passing them to you, you were quick to notice how he didn’t let go of your hand after, prompting you to encourage him by lacing your fingers together. “I’m so sorry again. I’m sorry I can’t be with you right now, too.”

“It’s okay.” You assured him with a shake of your head, mustering up a smile. “Just reading your e-mails and receiving your photos were already comforting for me.”

"I can hop on a plane right now, if you need me.” He offers only to receive more assurance from you otherwise. “Are you sure?”

You nodded, finally letting go of his hand after. “I’m sure just...let me dream with you right now.” You confirmed, earning you an understanding nod from him. Smiling at this, you then asked, “So, what do you have for me here?”

Hyunjin then led you around your dream for the entire night, happily taking you to places you frequented when you were still children. You ran around the palace grounds, recounted village stories, ate popular foods of your time period, and laid in the grass of the palace gardens until you had to leave for an early start of your day when you suddenly felt someone shaking you awake from the physical world.

Reluctantly, you parted ways at the marketplace at the end of your dream.

“See you in 50 years?” He smiled sadly at you as you bid your goodbyes, awkwardly standing in front of you with his hands on his back. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

You nodded with a hum, a stray tear suddenly finding its way down your cheek. “I’ll come home in 50 years, I promise.”

Hyunjin’s eyes widened at this, his mouth hanging agape as he stuttered, “W-Wha—?”

Before he could even coherently form his thoughts, however, you’ve already reached up to his cheek for a kiss before disappearing, leaving him alone in his own thoughts.

Before you could enter isolation with the rest of your family in the morning that followed, you then made sure to e-mail Chan and Seungmin instructions to arrange your flight back to Korea in 50 years, asking them to not tell Hyunjin towards the end of your long message.

six hundred ninety-eight

You returned to Korea on February 18, 2017 just as Chan and Seungmin have arranged for you, moving into one of Minho’s old apartment buildings where you still live at present. Following their further instructions, you then spent a whole month visiting all of your friends in their respective homes all around Korea (even Jeongin whom you met right under Hyunjin’s nose by visiting him in their home while his roommate was away for work) with your money you’ve entrusted Changbin to manage for you until you returned. You made sure to meet Hyunjin last, timing your reunion right on his 719th birthday.

Your closer group of friends threw him a surprise party in Gangnam on this year, renting an entire hotel building for yourselves and your other friends from all around the world. When you met Hyunjin that night, you had helped Felix bake and deliver his seven-tiered birthday cake for him, casting a spell on the candles so that they would explode in colorful fireworks and dust sprinkles all over the red velvet cake before they eventually fade. You eventually made your presence known to him when Jisung and Minho turned off the lights to the halls as he made a wish, standing next to him when he opened his eyes.

“Happy birthday!” You greeted him with a sheepish smile, laughing nervously when he jumped back in surprise.

Hyunjin, however, quickly recovered from his initial shock and lifted you up the ground easily, moving the two of you away from the cake so he could spin you around twice in a hug. “You’re here!” He exclaimed happily to your shoulders before putting you down, hugging you even tighter now that you’re stationary. “You came!”

“I’ve actually been here for a month.” You confessed bluntly, hugging him back by his shoulders. Your friends all cooed and gushed around you, eliciting heat to rise up your neck again (especially when Seungmin took out his camera to take photos) but Hyunjin only moves you away from everyone, still hugging you close. “I, uh, I moved in Minho’s old penthouse and everything. I’m staying this time.”

At your last revelation, only then did Hyunjin pulled away from you, his hands moving down to your elbows as his eyes widened in disbelief. “R-Really? You’re staying this time?”

“Permanently.” You answered with a smile, chuckling when he releases a relieved sigh and turns to everyone, happily telling them of your plans to stay. “I told you I was coming home.”

“That was what you meant?” He repeated, earning him a nod from you. With that, he then hugged you again. “I’m glad...finally.”

You then spent the rest of the night catching up with everyone at the party but most especially the birthday celebrant himself whom you couldn’t seem to get off of your side throughout most of the night. You ate, drank, sang, and danced with until early morning, until Hyunjin pulled you away from the naturally dying festivities to watch the sunrise with him at the rooftop.

“I wondered why you’ve rarely replied to my messages on social media lately.” He frowned at you once you’ve reached the rooftop, settling on a random bench with the perfect view of the rising sun. “You could’ve told me you already arrived! I wanted to show you the gallery I’m working in these days!”

“I’m still getting used to social media!” You defended yourself with a chuckle, pinching his cheeks and pulling them up to a smile which immediately makes Hyunjin laugh. “And I wanted to surprise you! I planned it with Chan and Seungmin 50 years ago—actually, even way back with Seungmin when we met in the 30s.”

Hyunjin raised an eyebrow at you with this. “Hm? You did?”

“You remember when Seungmin and I met in Thailand in the 30s?” You asked, Hyunjin nodding along in response. “Before we exchanged our photos, he sort of talked me into it. I figured that I was getting tired of travelling for a really long time and he assured me that I can come home when I want to...that I can come home to you and everyone else...”

Next to you, Hyunjin smiled as you spoke, the side of his face glowing faintly in the oranges and pinks of the early sunlight as he sat with his body turned completely to you. When you trail off with your words, he then muses, “Yeah, you can always come home to me...I missed you so much.”

“You always say that whenever we reunite.” You point out without any hint of malice in your tone, pulling your legs up to the bench and pressing them close to your chest.

“Don’t you miss me too?” He frowned teasingly, poking you on your sides.

“Of course, I missed you too. I missed you everyday when we’re apart.” You assured, shrugging. “It’s just...”

When you turn to Hyunjin, your eyes widened when you realized that he has leaned in closer to you, pressing his forehead to yours when you finally meet his gaze again. “Can I confess something?”

Speechless, you could only muster a weak nod then.

“I’ve always missed you, even from when you first left me when we were younger because I’ve loved you even then.” He whispered just inches away from your lips. “I’ve loved you and waited for you for almost seven hundred years.”

You thought he’d kiss you after his declaration but he only looked up at you in anticipation after, as if he was expecting you to say something. Caught off-guard, you let a brief pause pass by first before replying, “I-If you’ve always had, then why did you let me go each time?”

“Because you’ve always been a traveler.” He answered, slowly closing his eyes and leaning in again. At this point, it felt as if he was only waiting on you to lean in on your own accord, the realization knocking out the air in your lungs. “And I’ve always hoped that you’d come back to me forever when you wanted to, if you wanted to—and now here we are.”

“Here we are.” You repeated slowly, finally closing the small gap between the two of you with your hands going up to his hair.

Unlike when Hyunjin first kissed you centuries before when you were still unsure of your feelings, this particular kiss was slow and almost feathery against your lips but somehow it also felt similarly urgent and heavy, bearing all of your hidden emotions of seven hundred years. Hyunjin only deepened the kiss when you whispered ‘I love you’ to him when you first pulled away to catch your breath, smiling uncontrollably when you kissed him again.

“I love you too.” He replies when you have to catch your breath again, pulling away completely this time so he can gaze down at you fondly with his hand on your cheek never leaving your side to pat your head affectionately. “Always.”

Hyunjin didn’t ask you to be his significant other afterward, not even when he took you home, but you both agree that there was an unspoken agreement between the two of you that day, especially when he didn’t leave immediately after dropping you off, preferring instead to trap you in between himself and the back of your front door while peppering kisses all over your face.

“Still not cool, though.” Jisung teases every now and then at present, making Hyunjin roll his eyes every time. “You could’ve at least been a little more romantic with a confession or something! You’re from the 1300s, for crying out loud! Didn’t you guys court people and stuff?!”

“But we’re in 2020 now.” Hyunjin has resorted to replying to this lately, even doing as much as chucking something at the younger boy (often Seungmin’s baseball bat for some reason). “Anyway, I’ve known Y/N for 700 years. It’d be even more uncool when you say you’ve pined over each other for 700 years and have only been dating for a year.”

“Yeah so better start now than never, ri—ow, Y/N! I’m trying to defend you and you hit me with a pan?!”

Without anyone knowing, however, Hyunjin did formally asked you to be his significant other when the summer came, sending you all of your letters for him by the traditional post. The delivery man looked at you weirdly when he arrived at your doorstep, there were seven boxes full of old all kinds of envelopes and bundles of papers after all, but you only smiled sheepishly at him and tipped him extra.

“Ya, why did you send me all of your letters?” You feigned complaint at Hyunjin once he arrived at your place and successfully helped you getting all the boxes in your living room. “The shipping company probably thinks I’m stealing museum artifacts right under their noses or something.”

“I thought it’d be cute to do send it traditionally!” He pouted before pulling you down on your sofa next to him and opening the first box. “I didn’t even know it was gonna arrive today!”

“What are we doing with all these anyway?” You asked, carefully picking up a random envelope. “You know some of these could break from the air, it doesn’t take a Chemist or a Curator to know that.”

“Ah, yes, but I did got these scanned on a hard drive in case they do break! We have to keep up with the times, Y/N! I’m going to have to scan yours one of these days.” Hyunjin grinned proudly as he swiftly swapped your envelope for the chronologically correct one. “Now, we’re going to look through these letters in the right order!”

As it turns out, Hyunjin had hidden his original unsent letters in between the letters you gave him, reading them aloud to you and using them to ask you to be his significant other. “We could’ve been dating ages ago!” He commented playfully in between the more intimate ones, giggling when you frowned or tear up in response. “Ah, Y/N, don’t cry please! Shh, it’s okay, baby, I’m reading these to you just how much I love you, okay? Don’t cry...”

“T-That’s exactly why I’m c-crying!”

“So, does that mean, you’re, you know, you’re saying—”

“You didn’t even have to go through all this trouble!”

Hyunjin still teases you for crying then, mostly because he feels proud that you think he outdid Changbin’s lavish proposal to his fiancé in the Maldives with this gesture.

seven hundred one

Though most of Hyunjin’s family of vampires have had and/or currently have their own history of relationships, Changbin is the first of Hyunjin’s coven who announced plans of getting married. His fiancé, Haseul, insisted; something about having waited 900 years because they weren’t ‘as lucky as some people.’

You know she’s subtly hinting at you, even going as far as winking at you from across the room when she repeated the words at rehearsal dinner earlier this evening, but you only rolled your eyes at her playfully, dismissing the thought.

“Why did you even sleep for 900 years? I still don’t understand.” You asked her after once you’ve gotten her alone, sharing a bottle of champagne on the side of the dance floor while giggling at Jeongin and his date trying to out-fluster each other on the dance floor. The DJ Chan hired has long shifted the songs from lively EDM tracks to slower love songs so, with everyone assuming that her and Changbin are busy dancing together, no one would bother the two of you for a while.

Haseul only shook her head as she chugged down champagne straight from the bottle, making you wonder if older vampires really just act as casual as she and Changbin do by default. “It’s really complicated stuff, the practice probably died down when you were born.” She waved her hands frantically in front of you, pretending to stumble after and laughing when you don’t fall for it. You’ve had enough experience living with the boys to know that vampires don’t get drunk with alcohol. “Anyway, that’s not the point! Point is, don’t wait for a sorcerer to curse you with ancient blood magic and make you sleep for 900 years before you decide on taking a big leap in a relationship like getting married! Do it now, especially now while wedding fashion still looks cute!”

You only pouted at her, taking the bottle from her hands and refilling your glass. “You know how I feel about weddings.” You pointed out in a smaller voice, effectively turning her teasing smile into a serious thin line. “And it’s not like we actually need weddings. It’s just an old ceremony that doesn’t even hold up much for us since we’ll be spending the rest of forever with each other, anyway.”

“Yeah, but...you know...” Haseul opened her mouth to counter your argument before pursing her lips at seeing your now downcast expression. “...Sorry, I...that was insensitive of me.”

You glanced over at her for a moment, furrowing your eyebrows before mustering up a reassuring smile and a shake of your head. “I—no, it’s fine. It’s just—I respect weddings for people who want them...I think I might even want them for myself if things from the past didn’t turn out the way they did. Because of that, I don’t think I’ll be in one myself...maybe if Hyunjin wants to but I don’t know how he feels about marriage or how he feels with how I feel about it...does that make sense?”

Haseul really wanted to tell you right there and then that Hyunjin personally asked her to ask you about it in exchange for him to tone down his groomsman’s speech at the wedding next week. Instead, she only slung a comforting arm over your shoulder. “I get what you mean. I wasn’t sure about how to bring up marriage to Changbin at first, too—being in a relationship even when I woke up a century ago.” She comforted you with a lighthearted chuckle towards the end, rubbing small circles on your shoulder blades. “But whatever you and Hyunjin decide to do together, I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.”

But still, the thought lingered at the back of your mind for the rest of the night, especially when Hyunjin asked you to dance later on.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked you curiously once you’re facing him again after twirling you once. “You know you’ve had that same thinking look since you and Haseul started drinking champagne. What’s wrong?”

You looked up at him from your daze, eyes widening momentarily as you processed his words. When you regain composure, you shake your head and answer, “N-Nothing, I’m just, a bit sleepy.”

Hyunjin frowned slightly, slowing your movements. “Must be the punch, I knew we shouldn’t have let Felix put in that weird blood mix on it.”

“There’s blood on the punch?”

“Type AB, I think—”

“—What? Gross!” You scrunched up your nose in disgust, making Hyunjin laugh.

“I was just kidding, at least now you’re awake!” He pointed out in between laughter before going back to being serious. “But seriously, what’s wrong?”

You took a moment to respond, eventually settling for a sigh. “Haseul just talked to me about marriage...”

“Oh.” Hyunjin mused out loud and you’re quick to observe the way his expression falters ever so slightly, as if expecting the worse out of your next words. “What did she say?”

“She just told me again how marriage and other ‘big leaps in relationships’ need to be timed correctly or something.” You answered, pursing your lips in between. “So I told her that yeah, I agree, but I don’t know how I feel about it on a personal level.”

Hyunjin’s gaze then softened from the corner of your eyes. “Is it because of what happened before?” He asked carefully, tucking the loose strands of your hair behind your ear.

“A bit, yeah.” You nodded. “But if you’re—i-if you think otherwise, if you want to get married or something, then I’ll be okay.”

“I’m only following you, Y/N.” He reminded you, halting the two of you from dancing altogether as he becomes much more sincere with his words. “Whatever you want to do, I’ll follow.”

You smiled up at him appreciatively, lacing your fingers with his in between the two of you. “I was hoping it’d be the other way around, you know how indesicive I could be sometimes.”

“But do you want to get married?” He asked nervously after, slowly inching the two of you away from the dance floor now and into a quieter area on the sides of the hall. “Or...anything of the sort?”

“Maybe...I don’t know...” You frowned, more to yourself in frustration.

But Hyunjin only nodded in understanding, patting your head before pressing a kiss to your temple affectionately. “It’s okay, I understand. Don’t beat yourself too much over it, okay?”

Now, a week later, while you and Hyunjin were spending the Saturday afternoon in his bed, he suddenly pulls you on top of him so you’re laying on top of his chest, taking out a single blue chrysanthemum from his bedside table. “I bought this last week and asked Jeongin’s new friend to preserve it with an enchantment.” He hurriedly explains before you could even scold him for suffocating a flower inside the drawers of his bedside table. “Hear me out first.”

“What’s this for all of sudden?” You ask curiously, taking the flower and picking on the petals as Hyunjin then lifts you up with him while sitting up straight, moving you to straddle his lap.

“I’ve just been thinking...mostly about what Haseul said.” He explains, his hand then moving over to something else in his bedside drawer. “...and, of course, she has a point, I’d take someone’s word for it especially if they’ve been asleep for a huge chunk of the years humans have been on Earth but I also know that we’re a little different from her and Changbin because of what happened in the past.”

You’re immediately rendered speechless from the very start of his speech, even more when he finally finds the velvet box in his bedside drawer. Opening it in between the two of you, you wanted to laugh at the way an extra copy of the keys to his new apartment peeks out from the cushions supporting the main purpose of the box, a ring with a simple round cut diamond and two sapphires, but you end up crying first before chuckling, easing Hyunjin’s own nerves.

“Is the key really that visible? I thought I hid that pretty well when Changbin and I picked this up.” Hyunjin pouts, briefly turning the box in his direction to examine it properly and take the key out before directing it to you once again with a chuckle. “Anyway, as I was saying, marriage is cool and all but it’s not like one of us is being chased by a psycho sorcerer like Haseul so we can definitely take our time if we eventually want to.”

“But still, a little reassurance wouldn’t hurt so...will you move in with me?—or just wear the ring, come over more often, and maybe tell me you love me more than you usually do; that’s also fine.”

You hit him on his shoulder with a laugh, making him lean his head back in laughter too at his own silliness. “You really aren’t that romantic when it actually comes down to it, Jisung was sort of right.” You muse out loud, taking out the key from the cushions.

“Ya!” He protests, taking your hand anyway and sliding the ring on your finger. “If it was still the 1300s, I would’ve had to ask people’s approval, carved ducks, and everything and it would’ve taken forever! It’s been 700 years so cut me some slack here!”

Still, no matter how much you laugh after, you say yes anyway but not without making him promise that he’ll re-do his ‘proposal’ again so Jisung would stop roasting him about it.

“I will, I will,” He assures dismissively, pulling you in for a kiss. “when you’re actually ready to marry...or say cheesy vows in front of everyone, whichever you prefer.”

“That’s going to take 700 more years.” You joke against his lips with a giggle, making him scrunch up his nose in disapproval.

“Fine, I guess I can wait a little more.”

431 notes · View notes

yaku-soba · 3 years

Text

all roads lead home

༶•┈┈ general m.list

༶•┈┈ tsukishima kei x gn!reader | angst with a hopeful ending :”)

tags/warnings: language, childhood friends, they’re exes but it gets better i promise, almost all the karasuno boys stay on in miyagi

word count: 3.7k

a/n: the edited version of an old fic i wrote for a followers event on my old blog :”) the prompt was i’ll name this city after you :D i hope yall enjoy this!!

synopsis: You want (an apology, an explanation) to forget, and to get on the next train back to Tokyo, never mind that this is your first time visiting Miyagi in two years. Tsukishima wants to quit his shitty job as an overworked barista (at your favourite cafe, as if the night shifts weren’t tormenting enough). Tadashi just wants the three of you to have lunch together again.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

The sun is setting when you step off the train and onto a platform that you haven’t laid your eyes on in nearly two years.

(It’s been a lifetime.)

The vending machine that you used to rap your knuckles against in the hopes of knocking free an extra drink is still in the corner, as dirty and forlorn as you remember. It’s oddly reassuring - in a liminal, jarring sort of way - like you’ve stepped off the train and into the past, like you’re eighteen again.

“Y/n!” Tadashi looks much the same as he had when you’d graduated high school - smile maybe a little brighter, hands a little larger. Heart still as huge as it had been when you’d left.

He holds his arms out and you jump, throwing yours around his neck. Tadashi wheezes at the sudden weight, and you laugh as his hands wrap around your waist to crush you to him by the small of your back, barely managing to keep the both of you upright.

“It’s nice to see you again, Y/n.” He smiles earnestly, and you let go of his shoulders to pull at his cheeks, cooing. “Hey, stop that,” he whines, and when you refuse, he eyes you warningly, “I’ll drop you!”

You stick your tongue out at him childishly, but relent. He sets you back on the ground gently, and you turn back to pick up the bag you’d dropped.

“Come on,” he says, “let’s go home.”

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

The peace doesn’t last.

You really should have known, with the way Tadashi has been sneaking glances at you on the way out of the station. You’ve known him long enough to know what that expression means - he looks at you like he has something to say, but isn’t sure if he should, and that’s perfectly fine with you.

You’re starting to think you just might make it all the way home when a corner of the night sky chips and falls away, cracking right down the middle as your best friend says softly, “You should go home.”

You freeze. You know, instantly, what - who - he’s talking about.

The betrayal stings the back of your throat like bile.

You look away, fixing your eyes angrily - you can’t help it, Tadashi knows that you hate talking about this, about him, but he’d asked anyway - on the dried leaf skittering across the abandoned playground, at the mercy of the wind.

“I am home,” you point out uncooperatively, feeling childish, “that’s why I’m back in this shithole.”

“That’s not what I meant,” your best friend says into the night air, still in that annoyingly gentle way of his that makes you want to scream into the empty streets of this empty town. You wait, an open heart raw in the world, but he says nothing more.

(Two years later, and Tadashi still reads you as easily as he had when the two of you were six and tracing the lines on your palms. Dancing on the edge of a cliff but stopping just short of falling over.)

“Y/n?” Shit, of course you’d wander into him on your first night back, the universe has a personal vendetta against you, how could you have forgotten.

Next to you, Tadashi has gone very, very silent. And still. A little like a mouse stuck between a cat and a snake; relieved to have been momentarily saved from the clutches of one, newly worried about both, and too afraid of drawing attention to run away.

You’d laugh, if it weren’t for the rage rising in the back of your throat like bile, jagged like a broken promise.

“Y/n,” the bastard behind you repeats, and the sound of your name leaving his tongue is nothing short of heartbreak, “I didn’t know you were back.”

Slowly, you turn. Tsukishima looks just as you remember - stupid glasses on a stupid face, his hair longer but no less beautiful. As aggravating as he is breathtaking.

(Something in your chest - no, not your heart - aches. You reach down and crush it between your fingers the way you used to crumple the torn pages of your notebook into little balls, to throw them at Tadashi, or-)

“Tsukishima,” your voice is even, good, “I don’t see why it’s any of your business.”

He flinches, a minute action you would have missed if you didn’t already know him better than the old callouses on your palm. Good, you think again more vindictively - except his eyes are widening just slightly in shock, two gold pools like shadowed streetlamps, and suddenly you’re eighteen again.

You’re eighteen, and in love, and you’re blind enough to say, I would do anything for you, I would scrape my knees on metaphorical sidewalks everyday for the rest of my life if I had to, just to make you smile.

You’re eighteen, and you’re foolish enough to think, I would give you the world if you asked, surely you’d let me have your heart; your tiny hometown, your little safehouse.

You're eighteen, and you’re in love - and then you realize he’s not, not the way you are, and you fall on your empty sidewalks because it hurts and it tears you apart, but most of all you hate that you still care.

You hated being eighteen.

“If that’s all you wanted to say,” you continue coldly, “I’m leaving.”

You turn on your heel, avoiding Tadashi’s eyes. You won’t make him choose - you can’t do that to him.

Tsukishima says nothing as you stalk away down the empty streets and towards the house you grew up in.

(Somehow, you’re disappointed.

You tell yourself it’s because it’s been a long day.)

“Y/n, wait!” Tadashi calls, and you lengthen your strides angrily even as you hear him puffing up the slight incline behind you. “Y/n!”

“What,” you hiss, stopping short. You don’t turn - you don’t want to check if Tsukishima’s still there.

(You’ve seen enough of his back to last you a lifetime.)

“Are you okay?” Your best friend asks, and you look at him in disbelief.

“I thought you were on his side,” you say dumbly, before realizing that that’s a road that leads to ugly places.

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Tadashi says diplomatically before you can try to apologize, “I just want us - the three of us - to have lunch together again.”

You scoff, and start walking, adjusting your bag. “Sure, I’ll text Hinata, I’m sure he won’t mind as long as we agree to volleyball practice with him first.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tadashi says for the second time tonight, this time with a hint of frustration, “and you know it.”

“I do,” you acknowledge, “the same way you know that I want nothing to do with the four-eyed bastard.”

“You liked his glasses,” he tells you indignantly, catching up with you easily, “you used to steal them-”

“Liked, used to,” you snarl as the taut string of your patience finally snaps, “as in past tense. Leave if you’re just going to torment me. We both know I’ll get enough of it once I’m back home.”

Tadashi falls silent at that. A small part of you feels guilty, till you remember that it’s not your fault that he’d chosen to drag up old, unpleasant memories from beyond the grave, where you’d buried them.

“Do you want me to stay for dinner?” He asks finally. An olive branch.

You throw him a tense smile. “If you’d like.”

“Okay,” he breathes, and it’s like you’re looking at six year-old Tadashi again - young, painfully innocent, apologetic. “Okay, I’d like to. It’s been two years, after all.”

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

(You still think of him.

You could be baking in your kitchen in your apartment in Tokyo and all you can see is the curling steam of buns he bought at Sakanoshita store after practice. You could be walking past an electronics store and you’d find yourself looking at the TV screens, half-wondering if they replay the matches from a no-name high school in a far-away part of Japan.

They never do.

It doesn’t stop you from seeing in your mind’s eye the surge of a block, the curve of taped fingers.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

Because the universe hates you, you run into Tsukishima again, just a day into your brief return to Miyagi.

Walking through the glass doors of what had once been your favourite cafe and not paying attention to anything beyond one feet of you as you text Hinata that you’re there early, you don’t immediately notice that the barista has frozen in place.

You look up.

Tsukishima is staring at you, a carton of milk in one hand, the other resting on the blender. Even against the battered machine, his fingers are painfully elegant.

(Bandaged fingers against red and green and white. Pale fingers entwined with your own. A flash of memory, too painful to be anything but a curse.)

“Y/n?” He says, and it’s too much, it sounds so much like the way he’d said your name when you were seventeen, when you were eighteen, that your heart stutters and does a few flips on its way up your throat. A bad habit you never quite managed to get rid of.

You turn around, and walk back the way you’d came.

The bell tinkles mockingly as the door swings shut behind you.

“Y/n?” You flinch, but it’s just Hinata. “I knew it! It really is you, Y/n!” Hinata, bless him, beams. Then, as his eyes fall to your white-knuckled grip on your phone, he asks, “Is something wrong?”

Nothing, you want to say, let’s go for brunch, shall we? Instead, what comes out is, “You didn’t tell me he worked here.” It ends up sounding a tad accusatory. You only regret it a little.

“Oh, Tsukishima?” He asks casually, and you barely resist the urge to flinch at the name, “Sorry, I forgot.” He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, and - it looks genuine. Hinata’s a terrible liar; you’d know if he was pulling a fast one on you.

You sigh. It’s not even eleven in the morning, and you want to go home. “It’s fine,” you reassure him, even though it’s very much not, “let’s just find somewhere else to eat.”

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

“Do you have to leave?” He’s leaning against the door to your room, but there’s no relaxation in his posture. With his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, his face shut like a window screen, all Tsukishima looks is aggressive.

Something about the way he says have to, like it’s something unreasonable and selfish that you can’t let go of, grates on your nerves.

(Sometimes, when Tsukishima gets like this, he makes you feel small. More childish than child-like.)

“It’s a good opportunity for me,” you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said those six words, in that order, “and it’s a scholarship, too.” You can’t quite keep the irritation out of your voice.

This is good for you, why can’t he just see that?

“Oh, so you’re one of those,” your boyfriend says, and there’s something ugly in his sneer that has you recoiling, “just going to-to up and leave, aren’t you? Build a new life for yourself in the fancy city now that you’re too good for this nowhere town in a no-name prefecture?”

You frown, properly frustrated now. “I’m not severing ties,” you say, “I know being in different prefectures will be tough, but it’s something that we can work around.”

You hate that it almost sounds like you’re pleading. You shouldn’t have to.

“We’re still in the same country - it’ll be easier to visit and call each other, with no time-zone differences in the way.”

Tsukishima laughs. It’s as sharp as the broken glass of a shattered photo frame. “Yeah, like I don’t know how these stories go.”

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

Tsukishima sighs as eight p.m finally hits and he can turn the open sign on the door to closed.

He goes through the routine that comes with working the last shift mindlessly - wiping down the tables and counters, pushing the chairs back into their neat places.

(He wonders how long you’ll be in Miyagi.)

The trash bag crinkles as he ties it up, dragging it behind him to the back door.

He’s only just hefted it into the dumpster specifically for un-recyclables when someone punches him in the face. Hard.

His glasses go flying, his annoyance skyrockets, and he barks, “What the hell?”

“I should be saying that!” His assaulter yells right back at him, “What the heck, Tsukishima?”

At the familiar voice, he stops, a retort on his tongue.

Tsukishima squints, and the person who’d punched him shifts, hair glowing orange in the flickering light of a half-dead streetlamp.

Ah, it’s the annoying, tiny boy.

“What do you want,” Tsukishima says as flatly as he can muster, even as his stomach sinks and he knows, he knows what Hinata is here to talk about. “Hinata.”

Hinata only grows more upset. Then he squares his shoulders and says, cold and unforgiving, “You didn’t tell Y/n.”

Tsukishima’s blood freezes in his veins. Suddenly, it’s the last set and the last point against Shiratorizawa, and the air is so thick and the eyes so cutting that he can’t move.

“You didn’t apologize.” Hinata steps forward till they’re chest-to-chest, and Tsukishima doesn’t need his glasses to know that Hinata’s eyes are accusatory and angry. “Y/n came back and you still didn’t apologize.”

I know, he thinks, I know I fucked up. Tsukishima isn’t dumb; even if Hinata hadn’t said it, he knows he should have gone after you last night.

(He should have gone after you two years ago.)

He thinks Hinata already knows what he’s feeling. It’s not a pleasant thought.

Tsukishima deals with this the only way he knows how, even as a voice that sounds like yours, small and heartbroken, says, don’t do it, not again.

“It’s not your business,” he snaps, tone disdainful enough to cover his regret, and it reminds him of your words; it sinks into his flesh like a knife cutting into pliant bread, it tugs him apart like a million tiny hooks, “don’t stick your nose into things you don’t understand.”

“I understand enough,” Hinata hisses right back, “to know that you hurt Y/n and that you never bothered to apologize.”

He pauses before going in for the kill. “And I know that you know that Y/n knows that it was complete bullshit. All you’ve managed to do is hurt the both of you.” Cocking his head slightly, he adds, the edge to his voice mostly gone, “And Tadashi-kun. All of us, really.”

Tsukishima opens his mouth to argue, but - he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what he can say, because nothing Hinata has said is wrong.

It’s not surprising - Tsukishima has known all of this for a very long time. He’d been deliberately ignoring it in the hopes that it would gather dust and fade into some distant corner of his mind.

I’m just as much of a coward as I was two years ago, he thinks, and he still remembers the way your tears had caught the sun that terrible day in your bedroom, he remembers turning away so he didn’t have to look at the promise he’d broken.

Hinata sighs, and trudges in the direction Tsukishima’s glasses had flown in, bending to rummage about on the ground.

Tsukishima takes this brief moment of quiet to get his feelings under control before his body decides to do something uncooperative and ridiculous. Like leaking tears.

“Don’t break things you don’t intend to fix,” Hinata says into the silence as he hands Tsukishima his glasses. The barbed words he’d been trying to find die on his tongue. He slips his glasses on just to have something to do with his hands, and immediately wishes he’d just stayed half-blind instead.

Hinata’s eyes aren’t angry, or even disgusted. They’re disappointed, and that makes everything so much worse.

Tsukishima loses control of his body. He opens his mouth, closes it.

What could he even say? It’s not Hinata that he owes an apology to.

“Thanks,” he says instead. Hinata nods and smiles.

(“Y/n misses you,” Hinata says later, as they’re walking down the street. He offers no elaboration, but it’s enough.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

“I’m sorry,” Tadashi says as the last whistle for your train blows and Tsukishima still isn’t here, “you know how Tsukki is on the weekends, he might have slept in-”

“Till four in the afternoon?” You raise a brow. Tadashi’s mouth snaps shut, his face stuttering, and you sigh. He shouldn’t be apologizing.

“It’s fine,” you say, as you step onto the train. You take your heart into your hands and rip it apart like a party favour.

Tadashi, and the rest of the Karasuno team, waves at you long after the doors have shut and the train departed.

You watch them through the window till they fade into shadows into specks into sky, and you know that you won’t be coming back for a long time.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

You’re only in Miyagi for the weekend.

It’s been nice, seeing everyone again. You’d even had dinner with the rest of the team.

(Tsukishima hadn’t been there.)

But the weekend has come to a close, and now it’s just you and Tadashi on the platform again. You experience a dizzying sense of deja vu.

“Will you visit again?” Your best friend asks, and you tear your gaze from the tracks to meet his eyes.

(You know what Tadashi is really asking.)

“Maybe,” you answer after a pause, “you’re my friend, after all. And I won’t put it past Hinata to get lost in Tokyo.”

Tadashi smiles in understanding.

You feel terrible. All you’ve been giving him is compromises.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally, glancing to the old vending machine on the opposite platform out of habit, “but I just-”

“He misses you,” Tadashi cuts in, “and I think he wants to apologize.”

His words take you aback. Then, “He wants to apologize,” you repeat, and it’s like you’re eighteen again, “but Tsukishima’s too proud for it, isn’t he?”

“Tsukki’s changed,” Tadashi mumbles, “maybe next time-”

“Y/n!” The both of you turn at the voice.

The breath rushes out of your lungs. A boy with hair like sunlight and eyes like gold coins catches his, bent over with his hands on his knees, a glowing figure in the middle of a dreary platform.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

For you, Tsukishima has always been synonymous with Miyagi.

Miyagi with the pork buns, with the school full of crows. The prefecture with the hills and the mountains, the small stores and marts run by ex-volleyball players.

Miyagi, your hometown, where the sky above and the grass below and the people beside you had witnessed you asking a boy for the second button of his gakuran at graduation. Your little safehouse of dreams dreamt of flight.

Tsukishima was the boy with the gakuran whose second button you had wanted. He’d been the boy with the glasses you’d hated on anyone else but him, the boy who had dreamt of the endless blue with his feet still on the ground.

He’s the boy you see in every empty, half-lit street at midnight, and behind every fading sign. The lamps in every lit house become his eyes, golden like the light of a possibly-dead star, and every window reflects the shine of his glasses. Like a haunting - a boy becomes a town becomes a memory.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

“What do you want?” You ask when it becomes clear that Tsukishima isn’t going to break the silence. “My train’s coming soon.”

(Tsukishima has always been Miyagi to you.

You don’t really want the train to come. Not when you’re finally about to get a goodbye two years overdue.)

“I’m sorry,” the boy with the glasses that you had liked, the boy with the gakuran whose second button you had held in your palm like he’d held your heart, says finally. “I was afraid.”

He doesn’t say what of. You already know, and for now, it’s enough that he’s here at all.

“You were too proud,” you tell him softly, “I was willing to be afraid together.”

This isn’t anything new either. Tsukishima isn’t dumb. He must have known.

“Did you regret it?” You ask as the train pulls into the station.

The boy who is Miyagi to you smiles. “I’m glad you got the scholarship.” His eyes are bright. His hair is a little longer, now.

You step forward as the last whistle blows in warning, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

You turn, getting onto the train with a backwards wave.

The doors close.

The boy who is pork buns and dimly lit streets holds up a hand even as he fades into the distance, joined by a shorter silhouette.

They get smaller and smaller until they’re shadows, then specks, then nothing but sky.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

For you, Miyagi has always been a boy.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been - there’s Tadashi, after all, and your senpais.

You tear your safehouse down brick by brick. You hand one to everyone you’ve ever talked to in Miyagi, to everyone you’ve ever loved.

Tsukishima is joined by Tadashi, and the homeroom teacher who’d confiscated most of the balled-up notes passed between the three of you in class. You add Hinata, Tanaka, Nishinoya, Sugawara; you build a volleyball court and see crows in the sky.

Miyagi is Tsukishima is Karasuno is volleyballs is the sting of skinned knees on dimly-lit streets.

(Tsukishima’s contact is still saved in your phone. You had never been able to bring yourself to delete it.

You think about your next holiday break. You think about the extra shifts at your part-time job you’ll have to take in order to afford the train tickets.)

You miss Miyagi. You’re relieved that you’re allowed to admit to yourself that you miss Miyagi, now.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

as always, likes and reblogs are appreciated!! :D

#haikyuu x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #haikyuucreations #tsukishima kei #haikyuu!!#kyouka writes #see it all in bloom

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anonsservice · 3 years

Text

Just text me!

Prompt: Jade doesn't like talking on the phone, but Reader always calls her instead of texting. Reader admits that it's because they want to hear Jade's voice. | or: Two times reader got away with calling instead of texting, and one time they didn't. | Jade x Gender-Neutral!Reader |

-ONE-

Jade hated lots of things, wet door-nobs (but then again, who likes them?), ducks, and this list could go on but then it would take hours to read. And one of the things she hated most was talking on the phone. She never understood why anybody would want to talk on the phone when you would just type and not have to listen to anybody's annoying voice. Hence why she only answered the phone 5% of the time and hung up the rest of the time. By now everybody had gotten the memo to stop calling her, and they did. Only calling when it was an emergency. Everybody but you understood this unsaid contract. You always opted to call her rather than text her, and nine times out of ten she always answered, because anytime she didn't you'd send her voice memos of you pleading for her to answer. She was always rendered powerless to you when you sounded just so sad.

Now was one of those nines times. Jade had been reading 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell when you called. She groaned and went to press the little red button until she saw your face in the contact picture. Her thumb quickly switched course and she immediately pressed the green one instead.

"Hi~ Jade!"

"Y/N."

"So I just saw the cutes-" She cut you off.

"No! Do not start about a cute dog again!"

"But it's just so cute! the owner said his name was Mr.Doodles! Mr.Doodles!"

"This was just something you could've texted me you know." Your line went quiet for a moment before she started again.

"Why do you always call me? I think I've only ever gotten texts from you when we were in class."

"...What's wrong with me calling you huh!? You meanie!"

"I'm not mean! Don't lie you liar!"

"If I'm a liar you're a meanie!"

"I'm no- Hold on. Don't do this."

Whenever you wanted to get away with something you just went off on a tangent and distracted her until she forgot what she was even talking about in the first place.

"Do what?" Your tone was almost sweet and almost innocent. Almost.

"Forget it, but next time you see a stupid dog with an even stupider name, just text me."

You hummed in response and she hung up the phone.

-----------------------------

-TWO-

You always found a way to bypass Jade's no calling rule. You always made sure to curve her questions so that you'd never be lying but not exactly telling the truth. It wasn't like Jade ever truly hated your calls. She did, of course, hate everybody else's but when your number popped up on her screen she'd answer always. She loved your weird squeals, snorts, and giggles you made when the two of you were talking. Everything you did was cute to her. But after a while, she got suspicious of you. The way you'd always call her over the smallest things. As if looking for any reason at all to call her. The way whenever she asked you to just text her you never directly said 'yes' or any time she asked about your calling addiction you just changed the subject.

Right now you had just noticed a bunny hopping along through the long stretch of grass of which you were walking along. You'd often take an afternoon to just wander this 'park' that was really just grass, trees, flowers, and animals. Few children were ever spotted there but you and a few others were frequent visitors. Your favorite thing to do there was just sitting on one of the many benches and watching for any and all animals. One of the animals being bunnies. Animals of which happen to be your newest reason to call a certain loud-mouthed-dark-haired girl.

It only took two rings before her voice came from the phone's speaker.

"Y/N! Again? What is it this time?"

"Bunny!"

Jade grumbled about you wasting her time but you just went on about the small animal you'd noticed. You didn't talk for very long as there wasn't much about the animal to describe. It was fairly small, grey with some brown patches, beady black eyes, ears that stook up toward the sky, and two long front teeth.

"I will ask again, why did you call me for this?"

"Because the bunny was so super cute and you needed to hear about it!"

"Needed, did I?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Then why didn't you just text me."

"What's that Jade?" You started to blow into the mic of the phone.

"You're breaking up! Call you later!"

You stuffed your phone back into your jacket pocket and started the longish walk back to your car.

-THREE-

This time you called her when you were in the supermarket, getting snacks for you and Jade's monthly movie marathon. You two got together monthly to watch movies all night and spend the day together the day after, every last Saturday and Sunday of every month. It started when Jade's parents went on another business trip for the weekend and she had gotten lonely and invited you over for the weekend. Though she would never admit to being lonely, you knew. Anyway, you each took turns buying the snacks. Last time Jade bought them so now it was your turn. And at the moment you were trying to decide between strawberry pocky or cookies and cream. It took you a minute but you ended up deciding to call Jade and ask which one to get.

And, in true whipped sapphic nature she answered almost as soon as you called.

"What!"

"hi, love."

It took a minute but she mumbled a 'hi' in return.

"Should i get strawberry or cookies and cream pocky?"

"Really, Y/N?"

"hm?"

"You call me.. over Pocky?!"

You pouted, even though you knew she couldn't see you.

"Mhm! Now tell me!"

"You could've tex-"

"I know I know I could've texted you, but I didn't, so tell me now which one to get!"

"If you know to text me, then why, why, do you always call?"

"because i- forget it, ill just get Oreos."

You pulled the phone away and went to press 'hang up' but a 'wait!' coming from the small box stopped you. You pressed the phone up to your cheek once more.

"Hm?"

"Get the strawberry ones."

"Okay! Bye-bye, love you!"

you hung up before she could say it back.

--------

It was an hour after the whole pocky incident and you were now on your first movie of the night, which was of course, 'The scissoring'. You always started the night off with some type of horror movie, per Jade's request of course.

She was pulling out one of the four pocky boxes you had purchased.

"Y/N?"

You turned your head from the screen to her.

"Why do you always call me! And don't call me mean, or a liar, or anything! Just tell me the truth. Or I'll end this weekend early. I swear on it!"

At that, you frowned. You were on one hand embarrassed at the true reasoning behind all your calls, but you wanted to be with jade for the next twenty-four hours so you gave in almost immediately after she said that.

"Well I just," you tilted your head down and mumbled out the rest in a confusing sentence. "Ilikehearingyourvoiceandijustiguessitrytolookforanyreasontohearitagain"

"Huh? Speak slower, love. Look- I won't make fun of you, I swear."

You look up at her and nod slightly.

"I said, I call you all the time because I like hearing your voice, so I guess I kinda just started looking for any reason to call you and hear it again. I'm sorry..."

At this, she tried to bite back a smile but in the end, the smile won and she look your face into her hands.

"You don't need to say sorry, Y/N. It's kind of cute."

You smiled once more and nestled yourself in her arms after you gave her a sickeningly sweet kiss.

A/N: *me walking in after not updating for like a month or two* hey yall... how yall doin?.

No, but for real, I just started streaming and I guess it's distracted me a bunch. I took it up after my hamster died cuz I used to talk to my hamster a lot and since she was gone I needed to talk to somebody who wasn't my large stuffed animal collection. Any-who, I'll try to update more! And i wrote this at 3 am after streaming for like an hour soooooo, sorry for the fuck ups.

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mcyt-sh1t · 3 years

Text

writing prompt #23.ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴏʟᴅ ᴛᴏɢᴇᴛʜᴇʀ -sᴀᴘɴᴀᴘ

Words: 670

Not proofread

A/N: i am NOT good (at all!!) at writing past tense but here you go :]

you and nick had always planned on being together forever, having your own family, growing old together. yet you didn't expect it to happen so soon. 30 years ago you had had 2 beautiful children, parker and and aria. you had decided to do it in a vlog that you, nick, wilbur, niki, tommy and (yes, his girlfriend), tubbo and his girlfriend, karl, dream and george had planned for a few days. you had told niki, karl and tubbo first as you trusted them the most out of them all. then you all agreed to tell everyone else and then eventually tell nick on the vlog.

it went like this:

"heyy guys! its tommy here and i'm here with my GIRLFRIEND, yes she IS my girlfriend and the others and we are going for a picnic."

"nick, can you go and get our basket?" "can't you go get it?" "NO! i mean, i'm going to help wilbur and niki with their stuff and you can just bring the basket here." you see the trick was that ontop of the basket was the pregnancy test. you had wanted to tell nick for a while now but didn't know how. you, karl, niki and tubbo all agreed on 'telling' him this way.

"fine." he said kissing your cheek before walking back to the car. as he opened the truck you watched apprehensively wanting to see his reaction as he grabbed the basket.

"what the fuck- what- THE FUCK-"

you chuckled softly. he sprints to you as quickly as possible.

"is this yours? is this real? or is it a prank? please tell me its not a prank.."

you kissed him softly, before taking his hand and putting it on your stomach and saying: "its real nick.." he stared at you dumbfound. at first you thought that he wasn't happy but then he picked you up and spun you around while shouting: "I'M GOING TO BE A DAD!" everyone else looked at you two confused,thinking it was a prank.(apart from niki, karl, and tubbo, because they were the first to know) tommy just pointed his camera back at you two and started yelling.

"Y/N AND NICK ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS. THEIR BECOMING OLD! I REPEAT THEIR BECOMING OLD!"

"tommy! you don't have to tell everyone! let y/n and nick have their private moment for once!" tommy's girlfriend, ava said sternly to the boy.

"right.. i'll cut that bit out. sorry y/n and nick."

"its fine, we were going to tell everyone soon anyway, you might as well do it now." you say softly as nick kisses you again. tommy smiled. "thank you!" as he turned his camera back on and started yelling about how you and nick were becoming old.

aria and parker. 2 years apart but closer then ever. parker has always been protective over aria since he was older, he felt the need to protect her at all costs. true, they did have their arguments(especially over dating-) parker always was mad at guys who would check aria out(LMFAO-) and aria kept on telling him(parker) that she was never interested in any of them. a few years later (aria was 16, parker 18)aria told you and nick that she was lesbian. you all accepted her, as a good family should(ISTG IF YOU DON'T-) parker eventually found 'the girl of his dreams' at the age of 17. you also bought 3 dogs. everyone was happy.

now 30 years later (yall are about to turn 50-), parker and aria both had their own families. parker (and his now wife) had a child named abbie. aria was engaged to her fiance kayla and they had adopted a toddler which they both named matthew.

"i never imagined we would be forever.." "hm?"

"i- i mean, i did but i never imagined it would be so quickly."

"i did. i knew it when we first met."

"you did? how come?"

"we were just meant to be.."

you giggle as he pulls you in for a kiss.

"i love you y/n."

"i love you too nick."

#sapnap #dream mcyt #sapnap x reader #sapnap x y/n #sapnap x you #shorties #writing prompt #writers #mcyt-sh1t

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binniedeactivated · 3 years

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𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 ↺ || 𝐡.𝐤.

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 | 𝐡𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐚𝐢 𝐱 𝐦𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐝!𝐩𝐨𝐜 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄 | 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞!𝐚𝐮 , "𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐚𝐮.

𝐖/𝐂 | 15.389k

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 | (𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐞 "𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫") 𝐮𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞'𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭. 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬, 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐞𝐥, 𝐡𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐚𝐢.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 | 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟, 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬.

a/n; i miss making legit fics for yall ;(((((( and I feel bad because I haven’t been writing as much as I should I’m so so sorry <3

“so what are you? sophomore? freshman?”. bria asks, stuffing her foot into her platformed converse. gabrielle nods, folding a shirt and inserting it into her drawer. “wow I wasn’t expecting them to give me a freshman for a roommate”. she scoffs kind of smug. “is that a problem?”. gabrielle speaks up, pushing a puffy curly strand of hair over to the other side of her head. bria only grinned and shook her head no. “nah. that just means I have a lot to teach you”.

“teach me?”.

“yeah”, bria agrees, in the mirror coating her lips with gloss. bria was a dark skinned five foot eight beauty. if gabrielle didn’t know any better she’d mistake her for a model almost. she had gorgeous curly afro hair, similar to that of a lion’s mane. gabrielle hadn’t saw much of her wardrobe yet but just by the edgy outfit she was already wearing she could tell that her style was to die for. her lips were thick and full and complimented her cat-like eyes well. gabrielle thought maybe she could pick up a few tips from her, especially with makeup. it was so perfect she could feel herself shrinking into her own insecurities. she thought she was pretty decent looking but no where near bria's level. gabrielle herself had honey brown skin, big brown curly hair with lots of volume. heart shaped lips. large brown wistful eyes with clear glasses frames worn over them. she was sort of chubby. her physique wasn't something she saw as a win in her eyes. her chest was average sized and her ass was there yet barely visible. and her waist definitely wasn't as snatched as bria's. but still, if she was going to be in college amongst those who looked different from her she had to try and gain some type of confidence about herself.

“what is there to teach me?”.

bria scoffs again, screwing the cap back onto her gloss. “you don’t want to know what it’s like to live the life here? trust me girl I’m almost a senior I can teach you a few things”.

“like what? if you’re talking about partying and all that I’m going to have to pass. I just got here and I don’t want to be running into trouble”.

“girl how is partying going to get you in trouble? you’re grown now. you don’t have you parents watching over you anymore. you can be free and do what you want to do”.

gabrielle grabs another shirt. “yeah but suppose one of ya’ll do some illegal shit? and then what? I can’t tell the cops that I wasn’t involved because I’m just a freshman. I’m going to jail right with ya’ll”.

bria tilts her head back and laughs. “you’re a trip if you think we ever do illegal shit and get caught”.

gabrielle shuts her drawer, moving another box across the room to her desk. “yeah well, I don’t want to be involved anyway. even the risk is too much. plus I don’t know how my boyfriend is going to feel about me out partying with other guys and shit”.

bria made a tsk noise with her lips prior to walking to her closet for her collection of purses. “you really came to college with a boyfriend? just how dumb are you?”.

“what? what’s wrong with having a boyfriend?”.

“girl do I even have to ask? look at you. you’re already uptight. you don’t want to party, you’re worried about what he might think. he already has you right where he wants you. living a boring life like him”.

gabrielle shifts her weight on her feet. “he doesn’t--live a boring life. he’s just protective”.

“tsk. that’s what he told you?”.

“well yeah--”.

“how old is your little boyfriend?”.

“he’s seventeen”.

bria tilts her head back and does that laugh again. the one that made gabrielle seem out out of place. mostly because she didn’t know what was funny to begin with. “yeah he’s young he’s still a senior in high school so what?”. she quickly defends.

“girl that ain’t gonna work. you’re in college you have to level up”.

“my boyfriend is fine. he’s all the leveling up I need”.

“mhm. we’ll see about that. anyways, I’m going to my girlfriend’s suite later you should come”.

“suite?”.

bria rolls her eyes. “girl relax we’re not going to be doing anything illegal. just chilling. maybe a little drinking or smoking but--i wouldn’t call that illegal”.

“drinking and smoking? I’ll pass”.

“you don’t have to do it. you’re acting like there’s going to be people there forcing you. it’s going to be her friends and a little bit of mine. if you want to make some lit friends quickly then I suggest you come so you can get yourself out there a little”.

“don’t worry. I can make friends in my classes”.

“aren’t you a biology major?”.

“yeah”.

“then you definitely need to come. or else you’re going to be playing battle of the nerds these next four years”.

gabrielle rolls her eyes, “what’s your major anyways?”.

“fashion design”.

gabrielle nods her head in response. that made a whole lot of sense.

“so? gabby? you coming or what because if so I want to see what you’re wearing”.

“it’s just a suite gathering right? I’m not trying to wear nothing special. probably like a sweater, some ripped jeans and sneakers”.

“pft ‘gathering’. you are so proper. outfit sounds cute but don’t you want to wear something a little revealing? you need to get a new man”.

gabrielle rolls her eyes. “like i said before I’m happy with the guy I have. and no I don’t want to wear anything revealing, have these guys out here thinking that they’re going to get a chance to fuck me”.

“and what’s wrong with that?”.

“everything”.

“whatever. I’ll be back to come grab you later. be ready.”. bria prompts before swinging a bag over her shoulder and leaving the room. gabrielle rolls her eyes. she continues organizing the knick knacks on her desk, most importantly the picture of her and her boyfriend. she missed him dearly and with her college being two hours away from home she didn’t know what she was going to do away from him from so long. texting and facetiming helped but there was nothing like being around him. she huffs her breath though, trying to push the thought to the back of her mind until she was ready to think of it again.

when she started getting dressed she was thinking more and more about what bria was saying. she wanted to look like herself but she still wanted to look cute because at the end of the day, she didn’t know bria or her girlfriend’s friends. this would be their first impression of her so she wanted to make it count. she pulls a scrunchie through her ponytail in a half up half down hairstyle and throws on a couple of hand rings and necklaces to go along with her outfit. she wasn’t too keen on makeup but she did apply winged eyeliner and a bit of lipstick just to keep herself from looking too plain. she looked over at herself in the mirror almost one hundred times, posing so she could see herself from different angles. she wondered if she really looked as good as she thought she did.

“girl you ready--ou okay! so you want to get a new man tonight after all?”. bria says while barging in, scaring the hell out of gabrielle. “damn can you stop screaming? no I don’t want a new man. I just want to look nice”. bria smirks. “whatever. if we don’t leave now we’re going to get there hella late so let’s go”.gabrielle nods and takes her phone off it’s charger. it was getting kind of dark outside but she could already hearing laughing and playing inside the quads of campus. she figured night time was only the beginning of all the fun.

“so? how is it here for real?”. gabrielle asked while they were walking, bria held her phone in her face preparing to take a selfie. “it’s actually not that bad. it’s just like every other college. has it’s pros and cons but at the end of the day, it depends on who you know. as long as you surround yourself with lit people you’ll have a good time”. gabrielle nods. she wanted to surround herself with those kind of people but she needed to focus on her studies. in high school she wasn’t in the mix too much. so she didn’t really know how she was going to function being around them in college. for the most part she had good control over herself, so she wasn’t worried.

when bria said suite, gabrielle wasn’t taking it quite literal. she hadn’t known the seniors practically had two floor suites together. gabrielle had never felt the sudden urge to rush and be a senior in her life. the living room was full with a bunch of people which automatically gave gabrielle anxiety. bria kisses her girlfriend on the lips before intertwining her fingers with hers. “babe this is my roommate gabby. gabby this is my girlfriend diamond”. gabrielle gave her a shy greeting trying to figure out if everyone bria knew looked just as good as she did. diamond was also a fair-skinned doll. “she’s a freshman I’m trying to make her make some friends”. bria comments. “they roomed you with a freshman?”. diamond asks. “right? that’s what I thought. but don’t worry she’s gonna be lit soon”. gabrielle rolls her eyes and scans around the room. there were people in the living room and kitchen it seemed. there was music playing and some of them was drinking and/or smoking and some weren’t which gabrielle liked.

when scanning though she wasn’t expecting her eyes to land on a certain someone, or rather, a certain someone’s eyes to be landed on her. his hair was black and long down the nape of his neck and over his eyes a bit. he wore a black hoodie, black jeans and sneakers. his overall aesthetic was dark gabrielle noticed, he also had a couple of finger nails painted black and a large cuban linked necklace peeking from his hoodie collar. his lips were pink and supple and his eyes were deep set and light brown, boring into hers. needless to say gabrielle thought he was the most gorgeous thing she’s ever laid her eyes on. she looks away to avoid his gaze and he smirks in response.

bria went around introducing her to everyone before going elsewhere with diamond. it kind of scared gabrielle because now she was forced to fiend for herself. everyone seemed considerably chill though and welcoming, offering her blunts and drinks to which she kindly declined. they didn’t seem to care, instead talked to her about other things like asking her her major and telling her how pretty she was. and every so often she’d try to join in the conversation to stay on her toes. she thought college gatherings would be much more crazier than this, maybe some project X party type of scene. she was shocked to see how cool they actually were, and how easily she clicked with them. things didn’t start getting a little wilder until later when a bunch of them gathered in the middle of the floor to play a drunk spin the bottle game. something gabrielle declined also, well, her and others. specifically that guy that was staring at her earlier, whom was leaning on the wall talking to some of his friends. his eyes broke away from them and fled to her every so often, admiring how pretty she was. and if anyone knew heuning kai, which everyone had, they knew that girls like gabrielle were the type of girls he aimed for.

“I take it that you don’t drink or party often?”. he spoke lightly, making gabrielle almost freeze in place. his voice was smoother than she imagined it. subtle, yet serious. “um--yeah it’s not really my thing”. she assures nervously, wanting more than anything to detach from his eyes but he was leaning on the kitchen counter near her and he had this addictive gaze that she couldn’t get enough of. not to mention he was six feet even, tall enough to be quite intimidating over her five foot five frame. “what’s your name?”. he smirked a little at her nervous fidgeting. “gabrielle”. he nods. “hm. gabrielle. you pretty. you know that?”. he took a quick sip of his drink and it was there where she noticed the silver rings around his fingers. why the hell was he so attractive?

“thank you”.

“i don’t really do all of this either. maybe we can chill somewhere together”.

gabrielle scoffs. “no, I’m fine. I know what guys mean when they say they want to chill. and I’m not that type of girl”.

“I’m not the type of guy to beat around the bush. if i wanted something from you I would’ve just said it. but”, he shrugs. “I want to hang with you. and if you don’t want to that’s fine”.

she bit the inside of her cheeks thinking, which was a bad move because by the the time she conjured up an answer he already walked off, leaving her feeling kind of stupid and the scene ate at her for days. she kept thinking of other answers she could’ve given him to make her seem less rude. he probably hated her now and thought she was uptight. one thing’s for sure she wasn’t going to tell bria about this just to avoid the teasing and taunting about it all. but gabrielle couldn’t help herself. she found herself wanting heuning kai’s attention. she wanted to be the girl that he desired. and ever since that night it seemed as if she saw him everywhere.

“he’s so fucking cute--”. her seatmate mutters in philosophy, gabrielle was too busy doodling on the edge of her notebook sheet to pay attention. “who?”. she asked without even looking up. “him”.

she shifts her attention away from her paper and captures a sight of kai. his hair was parted over his eyes this time and he wore a white turtleneck underneath a black ripped jean jacket. he still had different fingernails of his painted black, and a thin silver necklace wrapped tightly around his neck. gabrielle watched as his hair sifted every time he walked. he was the type of gorgeous where every time you saw him it was like everything was happening in slow motion. he had the fair share of girls surround him and his guy friends who encouraged him to sit by them. while he was on his way to his seat his eyes locked with gabrielle’s for a swift moment. her heart raced. her seatmate tapped her vigorously. “girl! who was he looking at?! was he looking at you?”. she whispered excitedly. the professor arrives and sits his bag down on the desk in front of the class. “I don’t know”.

“I’m assuming you’re all coming to class with a fresh memory of the reading from last night”, professor witman started, “I want you to take out your notebooks, laptops, phones or whatever you use to take your notes on and I want to ask you this, would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? and why?”. he takes a piece of chalk and scrawls the letters on the blackboard. “I want you to be really thinking about this”. almost instantly gabrielle could see everyone writing or typing away. but she was too deep in thought. about the question, and about heuning kai. he stared at her like that frequently and she never knew what it meant. or how she could reproach him. she was far too intimidated to. maybe he would’ve shrugged her off. maybe he would’ve just flat out ignored her. he had enough clout and divine looks to deny anyone and still have a line of people waiting to date him. gabrielle just wanted to smack herself. what the hell was she doing thinking about him? she had a boyfriend back home. a boyfriend whose been loving her for almost two years now.

“heuning kai. share your thoughts”. professor witman directed. and like always, but much more literal now, all eyes were on the attractive tall boy at the back of the lecture hall.

“the way I see it it’s kind of like a double edged sword”, he talked with his hands and with certainty, “if you’re a big fish in a small pond you’re among the privileged. you have life going for yourself. you do the best at everything, you’re at the top of everyone’s list, you cross every t and dot every I. life is good. but at the end of the day it’s just because you’re in a small pond. outside of that pond you’re just a normal fish like everyone else. however if you’re a small fish in a big pond you’re hidden. no one really notices you, everyone looks over your intelligence, talents , and wit. there’s going to be people miles ahead of you and people miles behind you. but in this big pond there are big fish that you can learn from and help you overall grow as a person. so even though you’re a small, you’re gradually improving yourself. you’ve made mistakes and you harness them to your advantage. so yeah”, he continues. “I’d rather be a small fish”. all eyes rested back on the professor who nods his head in agreement. quite impressed with his answer.

“well said heuning. well said”.

he began calling on others but gabrielle kept her mind fixated on kai. there was no way he was attractive and smart at once. she never heard of that before. attractive and rebellious yes. attractive with horrible grades yes. but she never came across someone like kai before. she was intrigued.

"cute right? I think I'm going to ask him out". gabrielle heard a voice beside her while she was walking out of class. the sudden voice startled her a little, she wasn't expecting to be interrupted by anyone especially when she was staring at the boy for what it felt like the umpteenth time. she quickly tried to act like she was looking for someone. "ask who out?". gabrielle asks. the girl nudges her, directing her attention to the infamous rebel at the end of the hallway, talking and joking around with some of his boys. "kai", she nods with certainty, "I think I'm going to ask him to go out with me this weekend or something. then again I probably shouldn't have told you that. you probably were planning on doing the same thing". gabrielle quickly shakes her head no. "I wasn't actually I was trying to figure out which way to go for my next class". the girl curled her lips into a dubious grin of disbelief. "yeah right. you're telling me you're not attracted to heuning kai at all?". gabrielle pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I never said that it's just I wasn't planning on asking him out or anything". the girl hummed. "yeah well don't tell anyone that I'm planning on doing that. I already know everyone else is going to try to rush to do it before I do". gabrielle fiddled with the corners of her notebook pages. "yeah no problem". and with that they parted ways. the girl went to meet him at the end of the hallway and gabrielle walked past them both, trying to process the fact that kai took a quick look in her eyes before he looked at the girl in front of him.

within a few weeks her newfound friend from her biology class observed her well. especially while they were walking in the quads. it seemed as if gabrielle couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. all the while he kept his attention elsewhere, either horsing around with his friends or talking to them.

“don’t tell me you’re falling for him too”. michelle insinuates.

“too?”,

“heuning kai has enough girls swooning over him that they all could probably wrap around this campus”.

“look at him. you don’t think it makes sense?”.

“well yeah it makes a whole lot of sense but you don’t want to get caught up with him. i heard he’s trouble“.

“what kind of trouble?”.

“trouble. why are you worried? i thought you had a boyfriend anyways”.

“I do but for some reason I just-- I can’t help who I’m attracted to”.

“well you need to. he’s no good”.

gabrielle exhales, listening. yet her eyes peered up at the boy anyways. what a mistake that was. she caught him doing the same thing. no smirk, no smile or anything. just a stare that captivated her enough to where the rest of the world blurred around her. she took heed to michelle’s advice for a couple of days, where she only focused on her school work and seeing what her boyfriend was up to back home. he was doing well and from the looks of his snapchat and instagram stories it seemed that he was having some fun of his own. he too was partying and hanging with friends also. it only made gabrielle think about the other possibilities. how was she so sure that he wasn’t with some other girl? or took interest in someone else? everything was so unclear while she was far away. she never took her boyfriend to be the cheating type. but the both of them were living in two separate worlds now. in his world he was still trapped in his high school lifestyle. but in hers, becoming appealing to heuning kai was all she could think about. and she hated it.

she drains the water out of her hair and fluffs it, throwing a bathrobe on to go to her room and study. she hoped bria wasn’t there because she really needed some alone time to collect her thoughts for a while. and let’s just say bria wasn’t the quietest person to study around. she twists the doorknob of the room and jumped back with shock, dropping her toiletries and clothes right in front of the door. it was heuning kai, relaxing on bria’s bed scrolling through his phone as if he belonged there. once his eyes laid on gabrielle’s he covers them with a hand and turns the opposite direction.

“heuning kai! what are you doing in here?”. “bria told me to meet her in here so she could give me the homework that’s due tomorrow. I’m not trying to be a pervert”. gabrielle squats to pick up her belongings, placing her clothes in her hamper and toiletries on her shelf. her heart was pounding through her ears almost but she tried her best to keep calm.

“well, she should’ve told me that. she didn’t tell you she had a roommate?”.

“well it’s common sense that she has a roommate but she made it seem as though you weren’t going to be here”. he says, speaking to the wall. gabrielle folds her arms.

“you know you can uncover your eyes. I’m not naked”. slowly but surely he reveals them, sliding his hand down his face until it was on his lap. their eyes met again, the same heart wrenching stare that they always gave each other at a distance. the one that made gabrielle just want to pass out right then and there. “why do you always do that?”. she mutters breaking the silence between them. “do what?”.

“stare at me. why do you always stare at me like that?”. she swallows nervously, afraid of the answer. “why do you always stare at me like that?”. he replies. she swallows again searching her mind for a response. how the hell does one tell someone that they stare at them because they want to be noticed without sounding too desperate? she didn’t want to sound that way. even though to an extent, she was.

she turns on her heels to place her phone on the charger, figuring maybe if she avoided his gaze she’d be able to think of something. kai licks his lips before he speaks again. “I like looking at pretty things”. by now her hands were practically shaking. she could’ve sworn he hated her by now. “what’s the matter with just telling someone that you think they’re pretty? you don’t think you’re going to look like a creep by just staring at them?”. kai shakes his head no. “whose to say I stare at everyone?”. she reaches into her drawer to grab some pajamas. she couldn’t believe she was even talking to him. “i thought you hated me”. she mutters. “why would I hate you?”. ,

“that night at diamond’s place. you walked off before I could even give you an answer”. kai thinks for a moment. “you made an assumption about me and brushed me off. and I’m not interested in courting girls who don’t want to be courted. so I left you alone”. “whose to say that I didn’t want to be courted?”. she blurted without even thinking. shit. she probably sounded desperate as hell right about now. “so tell me. what’s it going to be? because I’d love to take a pretty girl out on a date tomorrow night”. gabrielle played with her fingernails wanting to pinch herself. or run maybe. either way the question made her just want to curl into a ball and hide. “tell me who the pretty girl is and maybe she’ll provide an answer”. she shortly replies. kai laughs a little. “the pretty girl is you. go on a date with me”.

“mm - how do I know you’re not some serial killer or something?”. kai laughs again and god, how her heart fluttered at his laugh. “wouldn’t I have killed you already? we’ve been in the room alone for almost ten minutes now”. she nods and giggles soon after. “makes sense”.

“so yeah I have a car, maybe you can meet me at the side building tomorrow night? we don’t have to go anywhere far. downtown maybe”. gabrielle shrugs through the fact that she was practically dying inside. “that’s fine. does seven work?”. kai smiles a little. “seven is perfect”.

“damn kai how long you been waiting in here?”. bria marches in, more than late for the time she arranged with him. “since the time you gave me. by the time I turn this assignment in it’s going to be overdue”. bria playfully slaps him on the shoulder before sliding the homework sheet for him to copy out her folder. he laughs and rubs the spot in pain, “thank you mean ass”. she shoos her hand. “yeah whatever. get out my room I’m tired. did you say hi to my roommate on your way in?”. kai continues sliding his jean jacket over his arms before getting up to walk towards the door. he rolls his eyes. “yes I said hi. didn’t i say hi gabrielle?“. he smirks. she tried her best not to smile too hard. “yeah he did. get out like she said though. I’m tired too”. kai laughs and grabs the doorknob, “fine, I’m out”. bria was flipping him off but halfway between him closing the door he gave gabrielle a little smile that made her heart warm, almost as if to say “don’t forget about tomorrow night”.

which gabrielle hadn’t. hell, she straightened her hair hours prior just to prepare. she was happy that bria was out for almost the whole day, leaving her to get ready in peace. she wasn’t quite sure what to wear but she wanted to be comfortable. so instead of wearing a skirt or halter top she settled on a stylish oversized t shirt look with baggy pants and sneakers. and to be a little more girly, she grabbed a small purse. it was weird you know, just leaving her dorm and not having anyone to report to. not having to tell her mother or father that she was going out. not having to explain that she was going out with a boy and not them not having to meet him. it kind of felt nice and it was kind of freeing. she exhales deeply while walking to his car. he was parked where he said he was, in a car that was pretty gorgeous might she add. out of her dorm and now into the passenger seat of his car was an unbelievable feeling. that’s for sure. “you look pretty”. he compliments with a toothy smile that gabrielle couldn’t stop looking at. her cheeks flush deeply. “thank you. heuning”. he laughs at the name and shifts gears preparing to drive. “heuning”. he repeated. “just call me kai”.

“what if i like the sound of heuning?”. he laughs again. “no one does. but, if you do I wouldn’t mind you calling me that. it sounds cute coming from you”. she exhales for the umpteenth time, “please, with the flirting”. she smiles. he was truly killing her on the inside. “where are we going?”.

“shouldn’t that be a surprise? it will ruin the whole date if I told you”.

“how would it ruin the whole date? what if i want to prepare myself?”.

“you will. once we arrive”. she giggles and settles for his answer although she really wanted to know. cutting through her thoughts though was her boyfriend sending her multiple text messages at once. explaining to her how his day went and asking her how was hers. but while on a date he was the last thing she wanted to think about so she switched her phone to silent mode and shoved it back into her purse. “whose that? your boyfriend?”. kai jokes. she sat there with a frozen expression for a while until kai elbows her a little. “it’s just a joke relax”. he laughs. she tries her best to laugh through it when it really kind of scared her. she hadn’t planned on telling him a thing. especially since she really wasn’t obligated to. it wasn’t like heuning was her boyfriend anyways.

out of all places to take her an ice skating rink wasn’t on that checklist. she had no type of coordination, nevertheless skating in a rink full of pros. “have you ever been ice skating before?”. kai asks while slipping the money to the box office worker to pay for their tickets. he gives her a small thank you once she exchanged them. gabrielle shivers a bit, she forgot how cold the rink could be. maybe she shouldn’t have left her jacket in the car. “I have. i wouldn’t say I’m good though”. once their skates were all tied up kai slips his jean jacket off his arms and positions it behind her. “here put this on. you have to be warm when you skate don’t you?”. she shakes her head, “no it’s alright I got it. I think I’ll be fine”. he chuckles. “just put it on. I don’t want you getting a frostbite in here trying to be modest”. she finally gives in allowing him to slide her arms inside of it. it was much more oversized on her and warmer than any jacket she had in her closet. kai eyes the way the sleeves slip past the tips of her fingers, he thought it looked adorable on her.

stepping onto the ice was a brutal nightmare for her. she had no balance and hasn’t been ice skating in almost four years. before she could slip and fall to the ice in embarrassment kai catches her fall and lifts her back to her feet. “baby steps love. do you want to hold my hand maybe?”. her heart sank at the sound of his voice being so overwhelming when he was much closer to her. and as nervous as she was the last thing she wanted to do was fall. so she obliged. she clutched his hand and took glides with him, trying to get the hang of it but it was obvious that she was only surviving because of him. well kind of surviving. once a little boy zoomed past her it went downhill from there. she immediately lost balance and plopped right down on the ice on her butt. “this shit is embarrassing”. she shamefully admits and kai smiles. he squats down to her level and lifts her to her feet again. “it’s alright you just have to try harder. do you want to hold my hand again coldbutt?”. kai chuckles and holds his hand out for her to grab. she rolls her eyes pretending to be annoyed with him. “not if you’re going to call me that”.

“okay fine. I won’t. come here stop being a baby”.

she takes his hand again and he guides her around the circumference of the rink slowly. she had her hands in front of her just in case though, trying to brace any future falls. “see? just carefully shift your weight around. it’s not that bad”.

“for you it isn’t. I almost died a couple of times. and you laughed”.

“i wasn’t laughing at you I was laughing with you”.

“I wasn’t even laughing!”. she said aloud with a light chuckle at the end of her sentence making kai chuckle as well. “you and bria must have a grand time together with your matching attitudes”.

“oh please. she gets on my nerves sometimes. how do you even know bria anyway? aren’t you a freshman?”.

“sophomore. and I know everyone”. she scoffs. “oh yeah of course. you’re thee heuning kai“. kai hums. “why are you emphasizing my name like that?”. she shrugs. “that’s how everyone else emphasizes it”.

he swallows. “I’m not what everyone says I am”.

“I figured”.

“you figured?”. she points. “yeah look at your face. you have too much of a baby face to do anything rebellious”. kai chuckles, “what’s that saying? don’t judge a book by it’s cover?”.

“yeah. I’m just saying. why you single anyway? with all those girls after you”. kai shrugs, gripping her hand a little tighter sensing that she was drifting off and on the verge of falling again. “I don’t want them”. gabrielle makes a pft noise.

“what?”.

“you mean to tell me out of all the thousands of girls that want you, you’re taking interest in absolutely none of them?”. kai looks away for a second before looking back down at her. “I’m taking an interest in you aren’t I?”. gabrielle waddles for a second before standing straight up, trying to glide her feet again. “oh please. who said I even wanted you?”.

“why would you be on a date with someone you don’t want?”. she playfully rolls her eyes. “whatever heuning”. he glides in front of her, facing her and skating backwards, holding her hands that way. “how about we do it like this?”. he starts picking up his pace leaving her dragging with him. “wait! slow down a little”. he grins. “the only way you’re going to learn is if you take risks”. she panics. “I’m not playing you’re going to make me bust my ass on this ice”. he grins a little more and completely lets go of her hands skating circles around her making her dizzy and unstable. she tries her best to stay afloat but every time she looked up he was at another angle around her. she laughs. “stop playing! I’m going to fall“. he laughs along with her and continues his 360 circles until she put out a hand in attempt to push him out her way. he instead grabbed her wrists and leans forward so that she was dangling from his back. “come on hop up”. he coaxes, she breathed watching her breath become frost in the wintry air. "I'm too fat for that. please".

“oh shut up”. he hiked her legs up around his waist and dashed around the rink a couple more times, she had to admit it was fun riding on his back like this. more fun than she thought it would be. it was kind of like she was riding on a sleigh of some sort. she was nervous though, she hasn't really been carried by anyone before and it shocked her that heuning didn't care much about her weight. in a way she felt seen. she felt more appreciated. “heuning if we fall I’m beating your ass”. he chuckles. “why would I put you on my back if I knew there was a chance I’d drop you?”. he turns his head to the side to look over his shoulder at her features, never minding the fact that his lips were dangerously close to hers. she melted into the warmth of his eyes. they were pretty. so were his lips. so was his face. his voice was soothing and he was gentle with her. she turned her head the other direction to keep herself from becoming too flustered. “I’m hungry”. she babbles switching the subject of focus.

she begged for the bill but kai refuse to let her pay for her own food. had she known, she would've gotten something cheaper. but nevertheless the black haired boy was pooling out cash to pay for not only his own but her expensive meal as well. he clutches the tray and stuffs his wallet in his back pocket. he shoves one of his fries in his mouth heading towards the table. “are you mad at me coldbutt? I’m not letting you pay for your own food on a date. what kind of gentleman would I be”. he assures with his mouth full. she crosses her arms again pretending to be annoyed at the pet name. it was cute. she just wasn't going to admit that. “heuning i’m not afraid to fight you. you know that?”. he laughs when he sits down across from her. “so aggressive”. she grabs her slushie cup. “thank you though. you’re actually nicer than I thought you’d be”. he chews on another fry. “am I? thank you”. she carefully dips a nacho chip in it’s cheese. “so. heuning kai. if you’re not the person that people portray you to be, who are you?”. he pulls a couple of napkins out of the dispenser and wipes the excess cheese from the corner of her lips while she chewed. “that’s for gabrielle to find out isn’t it?”. he finished his sentence with a smile so bright it could've blinded her.

and yeah, i guess you could say bria was right. how dumb was gabrielle to come to college with a boyfriend. every time she had a bit of free time she was out, spending it with kai. she felt like she was in high school again, waiting for his texts and swooning over the selfies he often sent her. she thought about him in her passing time. thinking about how she gotten lucky enough to catch a guy like him. as much as she wanted to deny it she was a bit happier too. god, it felt like she was obsessing over some celebrity. she didn’t want to make love and relationships the center of her college life. she came here to study and do well after all. but she couldn’t help herself.

she scrawls down her biology notes in the cafè with michelle in between classes. she had another class in about an hour or two and she wanted to have some downtime before then. “wait--do you know how to solve this?”. she questions, feeling completely out of focus. michelle eyes her paper and slides it toward herself and nods. she plucks up a pencil so she could show her. the bell at the top of the door chimes and in walks a couple of guys laughing and goofing off with heuning kai following behind. gabrielle’s eyes were soon fixated on his and he notices of course, and gave her a soft smile. she was studying so he didn’t want to go over and bother her. michelle follows her line of sight and scoffs. “gabby are you listening?”. gabrielle nods. “I’m listening I only looked away for one second relax”. she turns her attention back to the paper for a while prior to looking up again, seeing a group of girls surround kai.

he was good looking, it was normal for that to happen. at least that’s what gabrielle was trying to convince herself. but even if she wasn’t fond of the attention he so often got, she had no place to say anything because she wasn’t kai’s girlfriend. he wasn’t required to claim her. technically, he was still on the market. and there was nothing she could do about that.

“I think it could be a good way for you to mingle”. bria spoke in front of the mirror. gabrielle was too lost in her thoughts to listen to her though and once she finally heard the last word of bria’s sentence she jumped. “huh?”. bria turned back to look at her oddly. “girl you okay? you been out of it”. gabrielle sits up and sits her textbook on her lap. “I’m fine. what were you saying?”. “I was inviting you to a party but you seem a little too out of it to come....you sure you alright?”.

“I’m fine I’m just tired. and you know I don’t do parties anyway I already told you that”. bria swings her bag over her shoulder. “well excuse me I was just trying to invite yo-”. cutting through her sentence was a knock at the door. she went to open it and there was kai, hitting her on the head with his homework binder. “bri I need the study guide answers”. she throws a hand on her hip. “when are you going to start doing your own homework? nobody got time to be feeding you sheet after sheet”. she starts going through her drawers and kai rolls his eyes while her back was turned. kai peered over at gabby who in turn was peering over at him. “here. you’re about to make me late”. she handed him the packet and he snatches it playfully giving her a soft thank you. she gives him another eye roll and grabs her phone off her bed. “I’ll be back gabby”. she scurries past kai and out the door leaving him standing there awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“so? how was your day?”. he spoke trying to break the silence. “heuning if you’re going to be into other girls while you’re ‘interested’ in me then we can just stop this”. he exhales, already knowing that was coming. “I’m not into them. I can’t help who approaches me. plus haven’t I told you that I don’t beat around the bush? if i was into someone else I’d just tell you”. he plops down at the edge of her bed. she pushes his thigh with her foot. “whatever”. she turns her body over as if she was preparing to sleep. “aw. you’re jealous?”. he teases. she kicks his thigh a little harder. “stop it heuning”. he rubs her ankles. “my pretty girl is jealous isn’t she?”. she grasps a pillow and hits him over the head with it. he chuckles and caged her body between his arms, hovering over her. she refused to look him in the eyes though. he was much too good looking this close. he twirled his finger around the coils of her hair. “gabrielle. look at me. you know you want to”. he could see the small smile twitch at the corner of her lips. “no I don’t. get out”. he cups her cheek with his hand. “you’re so pretty”. she stifled blushes from rising through her cheeks. she finally turns over with his face just inches from hers. he looked just how she imagined him to be. utterly breathtaking. “I’m sick of you”. she lies, making kai smile. he deposits a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“no you’re not. and if you are that sucks. I wanted to take you out”. she rubbed shapes into his sharp jawline with her thumbs. “hm. where did you want to take me?”. “and why would I tell you that? you’re sick of me remember?”. he teases pretending that he was going to get off of her but she only pulled him back down begging him to stay. “no wait I was just kidding! I was kidding stop”. he laughs at her pleas and takes a glimpse in her eyes. it was moments like this where he enjoyed the silence. the silence that allowed him to admire her in every way that he could. in ways that her boyfriend hadn’t. the butterflies inside her stomach were on a rampage. he leaned in not too far but just enough for her to meet him halfway. he didn’t want to just go for it if she wasn’t onboard. but she was and she meets him with hesitance, shadowing her lips over his. he caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, making the connection of their lips painfully slow. but once they touched, magic was there. electricity sparked through her veins as his lips waltzed upon hers, dissociating her from the world and taking her to another reality. a reality where she was finally living the life she always wanted to live. not being known as the smart chubby girl and finally feeling normal. finally feeling like she deserved a love story of her dreams. whenever he broke away her world shattered. but she was always grateful for him distracting her from life's troubles for that moment.

"you ready to go? love?". he questions while still caressing her.

the burger joint was loud and rowdy but that was expected among college kids. the bar was full with drunk students watching the heated sports games and yelling obnoxiously without reason. gabrielle was grateful that was here at least with kai so it wouldn't bother her much. other than the reprehensible students she enjoyed the vibe of the place. it looked like something straight out of a 90's film with the pink neon glow lights and old license plates and polaroids hanging along the walls. "this place is nice huh?". gabrielle nods across the table from him, dipping her fry in the small cup of ketchup. "yeah it is. how do you find these places on campus?". kai shrugs, taking the tomato off his burger. "when you hang out with upperclassmen they show you the hotspots. I mean other than those drunk ass students over there this place is actually nice". gabrielle laughs. she remembers something. "so? when am I going to find out about you?". kai folds his arms on the table. "you think you still don't know me?".

"no i feel like I don't", she takes a minute to swallow her food, "I think you're too perfect. what's the catch? are you crazy or something?". kai laughs at her accusations. "no I'm not crazy. this is just me. I'm really a genuine guy and I want to start something with you. perhaps a relationship if I could". she hums even though it was kind of inaudible over the roaring music. "why me? that's what really raises a red flag in my head. I remember just a couple of weeks ago, this girl from our philosophy class told me that she was going to ask you out and she told me not to tell anyone. I guess what I'm trying to say is, why not her? why not the others". kai waits until his food was chewed and swallowed before he spoke. "what is with you and these others? I told you I don't want them. and the girl you're talking about is clara. she asks everyone out if you haven't noticed. I'm surprised she hasn't asked you out yet". gabrielle laughs a bit. "I'm sorry It's just I'm not the best looking and I know that. so in my mind me and you just don't make sense". he takes a sip of his milkshake. "gabrielle stop it. you're beautiful and I'm attracted to you. you make perfect sense". her cheeks began to flush but she ignored them of course. "well riddle me this because I'm curious. what do you want out of life heuning?". he gives a half smile and adjusts his seating. "I want love".

"love?".

"yes. why are you shocked?".

"most guys want you know, to be famous. to have lots of money. a big ass mansion somewhere. sexy super model ass wife. a pitbull or two".

"that sounds nice. but is it fulfilling though?".

"well...I'd think so".

"most guys want that because they want their ego to be stroked in every aspect of their life. there's highs and lows in life but they don't want to see the low of anything. no one wants to, really. but you have to. and when you put your ego first before everything, you become nothing. while a garage full of expensive cars and a mansion on a mountain side sounds nice, those things get old. I want something that never gets old. something that's timeless. like love". gabrielle's heart flutters and she got lost in the sea of his eyes again. "so above all else, love is what you aim for?". he nods. "i want to love someone the way I wish someone loved me". there was a swift moment of silence before he spoke again. "how about you? what do you want out of life?". she thoughtlessly shakes her head. "I don't even know how to respond to the question anymore after you said that. I'm very much questioning my morality now". he laughs. "what? did you want money and cars and a hot wife?". he jokes while dipping a fry into honey mustard. before gabrielle could answer she was interrupted by a drunk girl, approaching the table and grabbing the hem of kai's sweater before she sat beside him. "i m-missed yoooou kai", she pouts and leans in, giving him clumsy kisses along his neck. he annoyingly pushes her off. "jessica get off me. you're drunk and you need to go home". she pouts her lips again. "when are you coming back to me?". gabrielle was grateful for another guy reaching for the girl's wrists and helping her out the seat. he seemed to be her much sober friend. "come on we're leaving. leave them alone". she blew kai kisses before she staggered away.

gabrielle kept silent while taking a bite of her burger and wiping her face shortly after. kai only stared at her, sensing that she may have felt some type of way about the situation. "look, she's just an ex. I haven't been seeing her at all". she swallows. "I know, heuning. I'm not angry". that's what she said, but kai felt otherwise. he reaches his hand across the table just to intertwine his fingers with hers. "come on. let's ditch this place I got something to show you". she furrows a brow. "this late at night?". he took out his wallet and pooled out some cash to stamp on the table for their meals. "yeah. it's hilarious trust me".

with the utmost confusion gabrielle takes his lead and his word for it. the campus was rather dark at night with a light here and there but lights were often hard to come by. this is what made gabrielle the most scared while she was running through the woods in the darkened quads with kai, with him tugging on her wrist egging her on. "heuning slow down! I'm scared what if I fall?". she whispered with her heart racing and all she could hear was the leaves and twigs snapping beneath her and kai's moving feet. he chuckles. "you're not going to fall stop being a scaredy cat. we're almost there". she tried to ignore every ounce of fear she withheld until they were finally approaching a small light at the side of a building. she was still catching her breath while she was nearing what looked to be a small window low at the base of the building. kai was crouching down right beside it, waving her over and pushing his index finger to his lips to silence any further noise she made. "I'm about to fucking die". she gasps for air and kai shushes her again to point to the window.

she peaks her head in just a tad bit to see a security guard in the back of an empty library at his desk on the computer. gabrielle shrugs her shoulders. "you made me run through the fucking woods just to show me this?". kai laughs and points again. "no look. look at the computer screen". gabrielle takes another look and scrunches her eyes a bit. her heart dropped at what she saw and she immediately tucked her head into kai's chest in disgust. "ew! that's so fucking digusting". kai laughed at her reaction as quiet as he could. "this old guy watches all kinds of shit. felching porn is his favorite". she shivered at the thought. "I just don't see what's arousing about seeing someone suck semen through a straw out of someone else's ass". kai shrugs and peers through the window again. "to each their own I guess?". she fixed her lips to reply but felt something crawling along her leg and she panicked, she gripped kai's shirt. "heuning! something is on me something is fucking on me". he looked down at her body but it was hard to see any creepy crawlers due to the lack of lighting around. "calm down calm down, I don't really see anything". whatever bug it was had quickly made it's way into the palm of her hand and it felt abnormally large and furry. she freaked out, flailing her body around and in turn kicked the window, gaining the attention of the security guard who quickly closed the tab and got up hastily to go outside and chase after them. "oh shit! come on". kai shrieked pulling her upwards to her feet and tugging her through the woods once again. by now she was wiping her hand on the pants of her jeans running as fast as she could go wanting to just pass the hell out.

sweat trickled down her forehead and she struggled to breathe. after moments of running they were finally out in the open in the quads, which was a terrible mistake because their movement set the sprinklers off. she wanted to get agitated but she couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous kai looked trying to block the projectile shooting water from hitting him when his body was already drenched. "heuning stop you look like an idiot". his hand was still in hers when his feet slipped on the wet grass underneath an oak tree, causing their wet bodies to fall on top of one another. they breathlessly laughed at their efforts of trying to get up but eventually slipping due to how wet the grass and the bottom of their shoes actually were. normally gabrielle would get mad about wetting some of her favorite clothes and wetting her hair even. but for some reason she didn't care. kai sat up on his elbows once he finished laughing, taking a minute to admire her even in the messy, muddy condition that she was in. she removes her glasses trying find a dry part of her shirt to dry them with and he strings his hand through her tangled hair. "you look like a beautiful disaster". he commented with a small grin. she blushes trying not to smile. "yeah well, it's your fault anyway. had me watching an old guy beat his dick to felching porn". kai laughs and pulls her in so that her face was adjacent to his own. he brushed his thumb over the tiny water droplets on her cheeks and waited for her lips like he always had. she got lost again. swept into the sea of his eyes and the heat of the moment, clashing her lips onto his once again.

"girl look, there he goes again". her seatmates jeers in philosophy, watching kai enter the room like she always had. gabrielle continues doodling. "you say that shit everyday. give it a rest". she starts eagerly tapping gabrielle in excitement, "oh shit he's coming over here". by the time gabrielle looked up she saw kai standing in front of her, smiling, plopping his things into the seat right beside hers. it took everyone by shock, gabrielle knew it even though no one had quite said anything. but she knew they were surprised that he was sitting beside someone else today. a girl in particular. "why are you looking at me all weird?". he grins before sitting. "I wasn't expecting you to sit next to me". he dug around in his bag for his utensils and notebooks. he was wearing a black oversized zipper hoodie and a graphic band t shirt. looking just as attractive as he did any other day. "I can't sit next to you? were you saving this seat for your other lovers?". when he said that it made her mind resort to her boyfriend, whom she hasn't texted in a while. she quickly shook the thought out of her mind though and playfully punches kai's shoulder. "oh shut up. you're the only one with other lovers here". kai laughs, "see now you shut up". professor witman finally arrives and sits his things on the desk at the front of the room like he always had. he began speaking briefly about the reading from last night. kai rests his head on his hand. half paying attention to what the professor was saying and half sneaking glances at gabrielle, whose beauty he admired so much.

"girl are you and kai... a thing?". her seatmate whispers discreetly. gabrielle didn't quite know how to respond to that. she keeps a blank expression. "something like that, I guess you could say". she responds but still unsure if that was the right answer either. kai nudges her. "so? you and me tonight at my dorm? what you think?". gabrielle was still doodling along the edges of her pages. "I think it's time that I catch up on my chemistry notes once and for all. that's what I think".

"well after you catch up? take your time it's no rush. my roommate is going to be out for the night so. maybe we can watch movies?".

he raised his intonation like a kid convincing their mom to buy them candy at a candy store. it was adorable to say the least. needless to say, she was at his dorm like he asked that night with no further questions. it was kind of fun being out often to be honest. it gave her a break from her studies at least. entering kai's room though was something she never thought she'd be doing throughout her whole four years here. but here she was, plopping on his bed and gazing around at the posters and decals he had plastered on his side of the room. it was pretty neat to be honest. organized too. "you like it?". he questions while standing in front of the tv with the remote controller in his hand. he was switching through the selection of films. "yeah. to be an active student here your room is actually clean". kai chuckles with his eyes still fixated on the tv screen. "what are you trying to say? that I'm dirty?". she pushes her glasses up a little. "no but--the fact that you have time to keep it neat while doing everything you do. I expected it to be a little messier than this at least".

"you really think I'd invite a pretty girl in my room and leave it messy? you're crazy". gabrielle hums, "so what are we going to watch?". kai grins. "I should make you watch something sappy like the notebook". gabrielle scoffs. "please heuning. let's watch something funny". kai continues flipping until he finally settled on dumb and dumber. he sits the remote down and walks to the bed, grabbing the pizza boxes off his nightstand and sitting them between them. "you can eat as much as you want. I think I bought a little too much". she opens the box and laughs. "boy I'm not about to sit here and scarf down all this pizza. I have enough weight that I have to lose". kai chews into a slice. "where?". she deadpans him before gesturing towards her tummy. “right here. you don’t have to act like you don’t see it. it’s okay”.

“well, I don’t. you think every time I look at you I’m thinking about your weight?”.

“yeah. chubbier people have anxiety when it comes to our weight”.

“I think you look fine. And I’m never looking at you like that so don’t worry. eat all you want”.

“I’m going to throw this pizza at your face”.

kai chuckles at her response. “what? why? why are you so aggressive?”.

“you’re sweet. I don’t know how to respond other than being aggressive. I don’t want the moment to get too soft”.

“just kiss me”.

“heuning, that’s a soft response”.

“I know I just want a kiss from you”. he admits, she thought it was kind of cute the way he asked. “maybe when we’re finished eating”. kai held her to that though and made sure she cuddled with him as soon as they were finished just so he could get the promised kisses. his chest was comfy and warm, and she always felt safe in his grip.

she thought for a moment. “heuning?”.

“hm?”. he hummed with his eyes still fixed on the tv screen. she toys with his hoodie strings. “give me three confessions about yourself. go”. he chuckles but kindly obliged. “okay well 1. I hate math. 2. I have a horrible ‘losing my virginity story’ and 3. I think I’m actually a very lonely person”. gabrielle laughs and perched her head up just to look at him. “okay the first one I understand. but you’re lonely and your first time didn’t go good?”.

“yeah. I mean I have friends and everything but. I just feel like I’m not fully connected with them sometimes. feel like we’re all just there to entertain each other. and as for my first time, well. that shit was a nightmare”.

“I feel you. I know the feeling. It kind of feels like you’re just floating. but I guess that comes with growing up. you just have to find your people. don’t think that I’m not going to ask you to share your story though. I’m curious”.

kai laughs. “you’re right I guess I do have to find my people. so far, I think you’re my person”.

“do you mean that or are you just saying that to distract me from telling me the story?”.

“no I’m serious”.

“well I think you’re my person too heuning”.

kai scoffs, “pft. heuning”.

“hey you said I can call you that. and tell me the story please”. kai playfully groans. “no it’s too embarrassing”.

“it can’t be that bad”.

“how about this? if you tell me yours I’ll tell you mine?”. she reaches up to cup his cheek. “how am I going to tell you mine when I don’t have one?”. kai breathes and brushes his thumb over the back of her hand. “you’re precious gabrielle”. she hums while swimming in his eyes again. “why? because I’m a virgin?”.

“no. you’re just pure. I think it’s precious. don’t let anyone pressure you into doing it alright? It’s okay to wait”. gabrielle nods in a daze. “everyone always says that shit. wait until you’ve found the right person. but how would you even know whose the right person. what if you do it and then things don’t work out with them and then you find the right person later on in life”. kai thinks for a moment. “I think it’ll just happen without thought”. gabrielle chuckles. “don’t be cheesy”. he smiles. “I’m not being cheesy I’m just saying. you’re always being mean to me”.

“aw? are you getting sensitive?”. she playfully mocked like kai always did. “no I’m not I’m just saying”. she walks her fingers up his chest teasingly. “my heuning is sensitive for me isn’t he?”. Kai looked rather cute when he was blushing. a red hue splotched around his cheeks. “I’m not sensitive”. she perks her lips up to peck him on the cheeks which he greatly appreciated since he loved her kisses dearly. they made his heart flutter. “kiss me again”. he begged.

“and just where the hell have you been?”. Bria asked finally seeing gabrielle come into their room after her morning shower. “I’ve been here. you the one that’s been going out. that’s why you don’t see me”. Bria gives her the best ‘yeah right’ grin. she continues tidying up her side of the room. “well since you don’t be doing anything diamond is having people over at her suite again. same crowd. you should come through this time”. gabrielle looks in her wardrobe to find some clothes. she felt kind of weary. “honestly I’m beat. I need to nap or something before I do anything else. I don’t know if I can go”. wait. if it was the same crowd that meant kai was going to be there. she quickly changed her mind. “I’ll try to make it though”. Bria tosses one of her dresses in her hampers. “good. I’m glad you’re being more open to going out”. well she really wasn’t. just more open to going wherever kai was. when she arrived he was sitting on the couch in the living room conversing with a few of his friends. everyone was sporadic as usual, either in the kitchen drinking, in the living room, playing games somewhere, or upstairs. kai was more than happy to see her especially when she plopped down on the couch right beside him.

Bria eyed the way he smiled at her and she grinned. “oop don’t get yourself caught up kai! she has a boyfriend you know”. she blurts while making her way upstairs. gabrielle’s heart dropped and her eyes widened. she was lucky no one else in the room knew what was going on so they continued with their festivities. but kai’s smile disappeared. “what is she talking about?”. she tried to wave it off. “that’s just bria. you know she be saying anything”. the cold look that he gave her right after that line made her world stop. “gabrielle? what is she talking about?”. she swallows before responding. she knew she had to tell the truth or things would be much worse. “I kind of.. have a boyfriend heuning but -“.

“kind of have a boyfriend? what the hell does kind of have a boyfriend mean? how long have you had a boyfriend?”. kai looked sweet when he was smiling but god, when he’s angry he’s lethal. his sharp stare could split her in two. “we’ve been dating since high school”. he clenched his jaw. “so you’ve had a boyfriend this whole entire time? and you didn’t bother telling me? so what were you trying to play me or something?”. she quickly grew nervous. “no it isn’t like that I was going to break up with him I swear”. she tried to explain herself but he was already getting up, making his way out of the house with a slamming door.

good. she felt like complete shit. this is exactly what she needed. she didn't mean for it to all happen like this. she was really going to break up with him but it was hard doing that to someone you've been in a relationship with for years. the party for gabrielle was essentially ruined. she didn't even want to be there anymore. well, she didn't really want to be anywhere anymore. kai hadn't responded to her texts and calls for days on end. even when she apologized. and even when she lied and said she broke up with her boyfriend. nothing worked. seeing him in the quads was quite different now, he didn't make eye contact with her even when she tried to make it with him. instead he continued talking to his friends, continuing on whatever conversations he was having. while they were in the library michelle could sense that gabrielle was a little more off than usual. she finally laid her pencil down and addressed her. "alright gabby. what's the matter?". gabrielle continued writing with her attention on her paper. "nothing I'm fine".

"oh please. you've been more down than usual lately. what happened? what did kai do?".

"he didn't do anything. it's my fault".

"your fault? what did you do?".

"he found out I had a boyfriend".

"gabby? you didn't tell him that?".

"it's not that easy michelle. I wasn't expecting all of this shit to happen. hell, I wasn't even expecting kai to even ask me out".

"you've been hanging with kai for weeks now. you don't think you had time to tell him in between any of those times?".

she deadpans her. "how do you have time to tell someone that? in the middle of dates you think I'm just like hey I really like hanging with you and I'm starting to like you but I have a boyfriend".

"you could've said something. you have his number right? you could've made it easier on yourself and said it through a text message or something".

"but I was planning on breaking up with him. i swear I was".

"either way you should've told him".

gabrielle sighs. shit. she should've. michelle was right. but how would the timing ever be right to tell someone that? her mind was swarming with ideas for how she could resolve everything. she waited patiently after philosophy class. even though her heart was practically pounding through her eardrums she exhaled before she approached him down the hallway. for the first time he didn't smile when he saw her. he looked at her as if she was every other girl that approached her.

"what do you want gabrielle?".

"heuning. I'm sorry. that was wrong of me to just continue on with this without telling you. i wasn't trying to be two timing I just didn't know how I was going to do it. when I'm with you I don't think about him, i forget about him".

"I'm glad then. this time away is probably finally getting you to remember him again?". he spoke calmly while walking away, out of the doors of the building and to the parking lot where his car was. gabrielle followed.

"it's not like that. why the hell would I try to play you? after all you've confided in me, why would I play with your feelings like that?".

"why don't you ask yourself that question?". he pulled open his car door.

"you're acting stupid as shit right now. for real. you should basically know me by now. I would never intentionally do something like that to you".

"why would you go on a date with me if you knew you had a boyfriend? huh? when I first asked you, you knew full well you were with someone. all of this could've been avoided if you told me the truth".

"go on a date?". a familiar voice repeated behind her. she quickly turned her head to see her boyfriend, noah.

"noah what are you doing here?".

"I drove up here thinking that since it's been a while, I should take you out or spend some time with you. I didn't think you'd be up here seeing somebody else".

"noah it's not like that I swear to god. we have to talk".

"this is what you wanted to happen right gabrielle? you didn't want to break up with him and you didn't want to tell me so you got what was coming to you. go deal with that. I have problems of my own to deal with". and with that kai got in his car, pulling off and driving away before gabrielle could say anything else. she shamefully turned back to noah who looked so disappointed that it actually broke her heart.

"you promised me that even while you were away your love wouldn't stop for me. and then you go do this shit. I'm done gabrielle".

"my love didn't stop for you".

"you don't do that to people you claim you love. I hope you're enjoying it here". she stretched her arm to grab his wrists but he shrugged her off and walked back to his car, leaving her feeling absolutely stupid by herself. her face felt extremely hot on her way back to her dorm and she didn't want to look up because she already knew her eyes were rimming with tears.

"girl? you alright? what's wrong?". upon entry bria could already sense that someone was off. and since gabrielle was in the comfort of her room now she figured she might as well let her tears fall. "you remember that night you told kai that I had a boyfriend?". bria nods before a lightbulb went off in her head. she covers her mouth. "gabby. don't tell me he didn't know. ya'll was talking?".

"yes. we've been hanging out for a while now and we've been into each other. I didn't tell him about noah. so when you said that it pissed him off. he didn't talk to me for days and then finally today when I confronted him, noah decides to show up and overhear us. he broke up with me. and now kai wants nothing to do with me because he thinks I was two timing him".

out of guilt bria pulls her roommate in for a hug. "I swear I didn't know I'm sorry that's my bad. why didn't you tell me you and kai was talking? you know I joke around a lot. I wouldn't have said shit if he didn't know".

"I was scared to tell you because I knew you would tease me about it and to be honest I was just ashamed of the fact that you were right. I shouldn't have came to college with a boyfriend if I've never really been on the dating scene before. when kai asked me out I didn't think about any of that shit".

"girl. this is a mess and is one of the reasons why I don't deal with men and their attitudes. and if it makes you feel any better I could understand why you didn't think about noah when kai asked you out. that boy is fine as hell".

gabrielle playfully punched her in the arm with a small laugh. "shut up bria. I know and I feel bad. like why would I play kai? who in their right mind would play kai?".

bria curls her glossed lips into a small smirk. "aw? you're in love with kai? aren't you?".

gabrielle ignores her to keep from blushing. " this is not the time. I just got broken up with".

bria laughs and tugs on gabby's cheeks. "aw my gabby is in love! I'm so mad that you didn't tell me about this. how did this all even happen?".

"I'd tell you if I wasn't in shambles. he probably doesn't even want to talk to me anymore".

"girl bye. I don't date men anymore but trust me when I did, one thing I learned is that if they like you they'll never leave you alone. that boy is just a little mad now. he's not going to stay mad forever".

gabrielle moves a pillow to the other side of her bed. "yeah, well. until then I'm just going to go to sleep. I need a nap after this shit".

"aw. well I'm going to get some food later. you want me to bring you back anything?".

gabrielle shakes her head no while clutching a pillow, ready to drift off. she wasn't keeping track of how long she slept but she just wanted to sleep long enough to where she could forget about everything. or at least to where everything didn't hurt as much. when she woke up her forehead was clammy and her room was dark, not a sign of bria anywhere. she figured she stayed over at diamond's. she turns the lamp on beside her bed and was greeted by a food tray container sitting on her nightstand. she didn't know what was in it but she was grateful for bria. maybe she wasn't as obnoxious as gabrielle made her seem.

she couldn't eat though, not right now at least. she couldn't stop thinking about what happened earlier which kind of pissed her off since she thought sleep could lessen the blow. but her heart ached just as much as it did when she was awake. she thought about what bria said. she's right. if kai liked her then there was no way he could stay angry. with that being said gabrielle discarded every bit of fear she had and threw on more comfortable clothes and made her way to his dorm. it was late so she wasn't expecting him to answer but she hoped he would. she knocked softly and her heart pounded with each knock. she didn't know what he would do or even say if he saw her.

to her surprise there was light shuffling behind the door before it opened, revealing kai in an oversized grey hoodie and messy hair. his face was flushed and he looked as though he were crying too. but she didn't want to make any assumptions. he folded his arms, not expecting to see her at his door at all. "what? what do you want?".

"I know you've probably heard this one thousand times from me but heuning I'm sorry. honestly. what I did was shitty. I should've told you. I only didn't because like I said, when I'm with you I don't think about noah, or anyone else for that matter. when I first moved into this school me and noah made a promise that even while I was away we'd stay together. so when I got here i had no expectations of being interested in someone else. but you make me feel things I've never felt before and I didn't know how I was going to tell him that I fell in love with someone else. I'm in love with you. and I'll admit that". she croaked. she didn't want to cry. no-- she was going to try and stay strong. kai starts swiping her tears away with his thumbs.

"don't cry gabrielle. i wasn't doing any of that to hurt you but I was angry because I thought you were trying to hurt me", he presses a kiss into her forehead. "I'm in love with you too". he pulls her in for a warm hug. "cmon. I have a place where we can go to blow off all of this".

and when he said that gabrielle didn’t think he meant the empty recreation center where the swimming pool and gyms were. once he brought her in and shredded his shirt he dived in the deep end in the shorts he already had on, then swam to the shallow end where gabrielle was standing there poolside with her arms folded, grinning at him. he shook his wet hair and combed it back with his fingers. the pool room was warm and she felt comfort in the fact that it was just them two in there.

“heuning are we even supposed to be here?”.

“why would they leave the door open if we couldn’t? I come here all the time. mainly at night where I can be alone. just to clear my head sometimes. you should come in with me”.

“I’m wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. I’m not prepared to get in. plus I can’t even swim. don’t worry though I’ll just watch you from the pool chairs”.

“just wear my shirt. It’s not scary I promise. plus this water is warm”. gabrielle stood for a moment in thought. he could tell she was still trying to decide. “please? I’ll teach you”.

she swipes his shirt off the ground and playfully rolls her eyes. “fine heuning. fine. turn around”. he smiled at that and turned his body, waiting for her to give him the signal that she was done changing. once she had though he marveled over her features as soon as he turned back around. he hated the fact that she was self conscious about her body. especially when he loved every part of her, and every part of cellulite and series of stretch marks that came with it. his oversized shirt dangled just above her knees and she stood there shyly.

“why are you staring at me like that?”.

“because you’re beautiful”. he walked to the pool stairs and held his hand out for her to grab. she did so and felt her body shudder a little at the sudden contact with water. it was easy to get used to since it was fairly warm. they were already at four feet but she was already getting anxiety thinking about sinking underneath the water.

“we can stay here if you want. we don’t have to go to the deep end”. kai informed leaning back, letting himself float on top of the water. “how do you do that?”.

“what? float? just lay back and relax”.

gabrielle thought about it and positioned her body to do it but she quickly got frightened feeling her head almost sink into the water. kai clutched her body just in time. he was holding her bridal style just at the brim of the water.

“relax. don’t think about anything”.

“I’ll try not to think about how a cute boy is holding me right now”.

“and while I’m holding you I’ll try not think about how a cute girl is swimming in my shirt”.

“other than the fact that it’s clinging to my body right now it’s kind of comfy. I think I’ll keep it”.

“go ahead. there’s plenty more where that came from”.

“sounds like I need to go shopping in your closet?”.

“you’d probably wear my clothes better than me”. kai smiles. “look. you’re doing it and I’m barely touching you”. her eyes widened with excitement.

“wait I’m doing it? Oh my god I’m floating!”. he laughs. “calm down before you sink. you’re supposed to stay relaxed remember?”.

"I'm relaxed I'm just excited!". her voice bellowed off the pool room walls and soon she began to quickly submerge in the water with her frequent movements. she hadn't sunk that deep, maybe a couple of inches or two but water still filled her nose and lungs when she breathed it all in. kai panicked and lifted her out the water and threw her over his shoulder, he walked to sit her on the pool ledge so she could take a break from the water. she was coughing and her nose burned a shit ton, she mentally vowed to never do it again. kai pats her back and consoles her, wondering how everything even happened so fast. "you have to be careful baby I told you to relax". he consoles. yeah, she was still trying to get her eyes to focus on earthly things but her ears were open enough to hear the pet name. she got butterflies when she was finally feeling well enough to look down into his eyes.

"what?".

she shook her head, implying that it was nothing. "you called me baby".

"yeah. because you're my baby".

she blushed. "I am? without permission? you didn't even ask me".

he gives her a gentle smile, taking her hand and hugging her torso from the middle of her legs. "gabrielle? do you want to be my baby?".

"yes. yes I'd love that".

he smiles again, the smile that she loved. there wasn't a delay in the kiss that he gave her, it was swift and smooth and he held her close enough to where the world around her blurred and suddenly there was no noise. just the beating of their hearts together, hopelessly, cynically in love.

after swimming she didn't want to leave him. maybe she found herself a bit attached but she didn't care and neither did he.

"I know you're devising a plan to steal my hoodies so. I might as well donate some to you while you're here". gabrielle shuts the door behind her looking over at the vacant bed across from his. "where's your roommate?". kai digs around his closet. "he's probably at some party or spending the night somewhere". he turns and throws a hoodie at her chest and she catches it promptly. she turned to the mirror and pulled it over her head to see how it would fit. firstly, it smelled just like heuning so she was already starting to love it even if it fit a little big. she turned to the side and posed so she could see different angles of herself as she did with every new article of clothing she had. she didn't notice kai lowkey watching from the side in admiration and amusement. she was adorable in his clothes.

her heart dropped when he appeared behind her. she was too busy thinking about the things she could wear with the hoodie she completely forgot that she was even in his room. he smiles sweetly at her through the mirror. "you look so cute". it was hard for gabrielle to keep trying to hide her reddening cheeks so this time she embraced it. she embraced him. she embraced the fact that no matter what she thought she looked like, kai would always see her differently. she embraced the way he embraced her. "thank you heuning". she mutters, meeting his stare. it wasn't a creepy stare but rather wholesome, he saw paradise in her eyes even if it was through a reflective piece of glass. for the first time in his life he felt something. he felt a connection. and she felt his hands encompassing her waist and his lips sprinkling soft, heedful kisses along the expanse of her neck. gabrielle drew in a sharp breath, observing it all through the mirror ahead. she reaches her hand up and allowed it to entangle in the damp curly strands of his hair. her head tilts back a bit further, giving him the opportunity to kiss the places that he abandoned. her heart was pounding but she no longer cared. the butterflies in her stomach was wrecking her much harder. she tilted her head back enough for him to look into her eyes again before swooping in for a delicate kiss that rippled fireworks through their veins. they were stuck like that for a while, enveloping in each other's warmth while their lips moved en masse. it was was one foot after the other until they fell onto the bed, giving themselves to the ardent love that they were yearning for.

when gabrielle awoke the next morning she faintly remembered falling asleep on kai’s chest but it was hard to remember much of anything with the yelling that was ringing through her ears. her eyes flickered open to see that she wasn’t cuddled with Kai anymore but instead gripping a pillow, and kai was at the door arguing with some girl whom she couldn’t see.

“can you quiet down? you’re being too loud”. kai exclaimed, wanting to just shut the door on Jessica’s face.

“no! no I’m not lowering my fucking tone for what?! you need to hear me. shit everyone does. you’ve taken this too far! you need to tell her already!”.

at the sound of her words gabrielle leaned up a bit rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “tell me what? heuning? what’s going on what is she talking about?”.

when kai looked back at her a guilty expression was drawn across his face. he looked as if he wanted to say something, he just didn’t know how. “It’s nothing gabrielle”. Jessica pushes his room door open and storms past him, approaching the bed where gabrielle was. “Jessica stop”. kai warned. but she ignored him and gave gabrielle an angry gaze anyway.

“kai never liked you. he never wanted to date you or any of that shit. since you rejected him the first time he made a bet with his friends that he could get you to fall in love with him and then sleep with you. all this shit is a lie”.

gabrielle clutched the blankets with her stomach churning and hands growing clammy. the walls around her seemed as if they were closing in and there was a large lump in her throat. she darts her eyes over at kai who was still wearing the same guilty expression from earlier. “heuning? what the fuck is she talking about? is it true?”.

“gabrielle”.

“tell me the fucking truth heuning kai”.

he swallows, just wanting to disappear. “it was true at first but—“.

before he could continue she felt sick to her stomach. she was upset beyond measure and instead of staying and listening to another lie she throws on her shoes and grabs her clothes, making her way out of the residence hall and into the quads. such a bright warm day contrasted the way she was feeling. her body was on fire and she didn’t know if whether she wanted to cry or go completely numb. she knew she probably looked stupid staggering through the crowded quad full of students in the midst of their Saturday festivities. gabrielle couldn’t even make it fully out the quad until she felt lightheaded and fell to her knees, puking her feelings onto the blades of grass. she couldn’t believe him. she couldn’t believe he would do something like that to her.

she hadn’t known that he followed her, stopping at a distance once he saw her throwing up. “gabrielle none of that shit is true anymore. here let me help you”. he reached his hand out but she spoke quickly with her stomach heaving. “don’t you fucking touch me heuning kai”. she wipes her mouth and dizzily stands to her feet, giving him the deadliest stare he ever saw in his life. fear and guilt washed over him. “gabrielle you have to believe me”. she draws a hand back and gifts him a stinging slap across his face. one so loud that it drew the attention of everyone surrounding them. kai was stunned, shocked even. he held his cheek in pain.

“that was such an asshole move I should’ve known. I was told to stay away from you and that you’re nothing but trouble but I decided to give you a chance because I thought that’s all that you probably needed. a chance to show someone who you really are but now I fucking know who you are. a lying piece of shit who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself”.

“gabrielle—“. he tries to grab her wrist but she swiftly pulls away. “I fucking gave myself to you. that’s something I vowed to do only when I felt like the timing was just right and you took advantage of that didn’t you? you got a kick out of knowing that I was a virgin freshman didn’t you? you’re such a bitch it isn’t even funny”.

“no you didn’t let me finish it was true at first I’ll admit that. I’ll admit I’m an asshole for even devising a plan like that but all of that changed once I met you gabrielle. I fucking forgot about the plan. I meant everything I’ve ever said to you. I want you and I’m so in love with you I can’t even put it into words. please. you have to believe me. I’m sorry”.

she shook her head in annoyance, unable to even withstand the sight of his face.

“fuck you, heuning kai”. she made those words her last before she turned on her heels to cut through the crowd, vowing to never speak to him ever again.

#heuning kai #heuning kai fluff #heuning kai angst #tomorrow x together #netflix fanfic

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cunningambitousdetermined · 3 years

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i need a plot for this

yall so ive been trying really hard to get back into writing and i went to a writing camp this summer. im going to post a poem that i wrote there later bc im super proud of it but right now i have something else i need help with. SO basically there was a prompt about someone finding a letter or a note. that’s the prompt. so i wrote something, really liked it BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO TAKE IT FROM HERE. my basic ideas involve the two characters meeting each other again to do SOMETHING WHICH I DONT KNOW and slowly arcane (youll see when you read the story below) thaws and falls in love with kalon and kalon has always been in love with her and its like best friends to enemies to friends to lovers ya know? ANYWAY if you dont hate me for being inactive and needy, please read this and help me.

Dear Arcane,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 10 years. Wow. I don’t even know if you’ll ever get this, you could’ve moved. You could be dead. Oh god, that’s dark. You’re not dead, someone would’ve told me, I’m sure. So that must mean that there’s a good chance you have this, but I’m not even sure if you’ll read it.

He was right, as he most often was. Arcane had not planned to read the letter from the moment she read her name on the envelope, written in a neat sort of messy handwriting that could only come from one person. The letter had been sitting at her desk for a week before memories began to drown her and she knew she had to open it.

That’s not the point though, I’m sure you’ll read this. You’ve always been a sucker for the intimacy of written letters. Maybe that’s why I wrote to you instead of calling.

Arcane closed her eyes, the pounding of the memories at the door slowly consuming her. She took a deep breath and let them in. The whispers started to fill the room, every word echoing off the walls, like her past had become a living, breathing thing in her room. How could he write her now? After all these years. Anger reared it's small head in the back of her mind. How could he be so casual as if he wasn't the boy who ripped her heart out and tore it to pieces.

Maybe it’s because I did read all the letters you wrote to me. Even after the voicemails stopped filling my phone and the emails ran dry, your letters kept coming.

She remembers writing those letters, the pen shaking in her hand as it hit the paper. She remembers wondering what you said to someone like him, a friend who left you behind. The squeeze in her chest that tightened each time he didn’t reply. The break in her heart when the last letter she ever wrote was returned to her doorstep.

If you’ve read this far without tearing my letter to pieces, then I would say this is a good start to our reunion. I’ve missed you. Your stubborn ways, always trying to keep me safe. But you always came with me wherever I went anyway. I miss your secret smile, the one you saved just for me. The treehouse we built in your yard. Do you miss that? I wonder if you wonder about me. I wonder if I can even ask that of you.

She did miss them. But, those things that she missed were long gone. The treehouse was overgrown with vines, Arcane was sure you couldn’t even get into it anymore. She went with him on his stupid adventures because what would she do if he left and met new people? He would leave her and she would be alone. So she desperately followed him blindly, hoping it would keep him close. Arcane missed her secret smile, the genuine one she had always saved for him. He missed it. How could he miss something that he destroyed. With his one and only letter to her, he demolished any leftover love for him that hid in her heart. He couldn’t ask if Arcane wondered about him. That wasn’t fair. That night, ten years ago, was still a raw wound in her soul that she was pretty sure would never heal.

The rain was relentless that night, banging against every edge of the house, but a little girl was waiting by the door, not even flinching as the lightning and thunder clapped furiously. Arcane peeked her head above the window frame to find the mailman running through the storm, his frantic steps pounding through the floor of the house. Her eyes lit up with a hope that was slowly fading with each mail drop. She opened the door and hid the small smile that started to spread up her face with a cough.

“Hi, Dan!” Arcane’s voice gave away the excitement that was flooding her system.

“Hey, Arcane.” Dan couldn’t help the pitiful grin that he gave her. She waited by the door for him every day and each day there was no letter for her. It must be soul-crushing, he thought, waiting for a letter that never comes.

“Is there…?” Arcane was practically on her tiptoes at this point. Dan rifled through the letters, dread settling as her name wasn’t there. Again. And then there was a squeal. “Oh, Dan! I found it! I knew- I knew it- I told them!” Her sentences didn’t even come out fully as she beamed, her smile brighter than any ray of the sun.

Arcane had run into the house, a breeze following in her wake. Plopping down into the soft plush couch, she ripped open the envelope, not caring about the paper that flew everywhere in the room. A paper fluttered out, floating toward the ground. Arcane grabbed it, hands shaking, she could practically feel the sweat dripping down her face. Words were the easiest way to break someone. The letter only contained eleven words, yet they would stick with her for the rest of her life.

Stop writing me. None of it was real. You were nothing.

Eleven words. And they shattered her. Crumbling, shattering, a million pieces breaking. Sobs racked through her whole body, her chest shaking and trembling with each broken breath. She caught her face in the mirror hanging off the pale wall and didn’t recognize the girl that stared back. You were nothing. A scream tore through her, the ache of her heart so raw that even the sun seemed to cry, rain dripping onto the panes of the windows. And slowly, so very slowly, Arcane buried the ache and gathered the shattered pieces of her heart and encased them in an impenetrable cage, never to opened again.

The ache was still present now, ten years after the letter had arrived. The dullness of her buried hurt made her clench her fists around the letter that sat in her hand now, the same lopsided handwriting adorning it.

But, that’s not why I’m writing this letter. I’m writing this with an actual purpose, if you can imagine that. I didn't just write to rehash our friendship.

Arcane could feel her eyes narrowing, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at the inanimate piece of paper. An actual purpose? To break her heart all over again? This time she did roll her eyes, even though no one was there to see it. But, it wasn’t the fact that he wrote her after all these years or that his tone was friendly throughout that made her body freeze. It was the last line that had the hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention.

In all the years that Arcane had known him, he'd never been very dependent. He often just struggled in silence and figured them out on his own. Not once, not ever, had has asked for help. But, there the sentence was inked in his slanted, loopy writing.

I need your help.

Love,

Kalon

~~everything below here is stuff that doesnt have to be a part of the story but i still liked it and where it was going (idk please give me ideas)~~

The quiet, shock of the room seemed to weigh on Arcane. She flopped back onto her bed, the soft pillows cushioning her landing. I need your help. Those few, simple words, tugged at the strings that bound her heart. He needed her. The thought was fleeting as just as quickly as it came, it left. In its spot was anger. Now he needed her? After all those years when she needed him? What did he do then? Nothing. And that’s what she was going to do now. She huffed in satisfaction, tossing the envelope to the side. Her fingers reached into her hair, massaging her head. There were too many things to think about right now. Arcane squeezed her eyes shut as memories stung her eyes in the form of tears.

“Please, don’t leave me.” Arcane had whispered, her small breaths filling the one room of the treehouse.

“I don’t have a choice. You know I don’t want to go.” Kalon’s voice broke and he looked away so Arcane couldn’t see the tears in his eyes. It was silent.

“We’ll still be best friends right?”

“Yeah.” Kalon’s reply didn’t hold much conviction, causing Arcane to look over at him, confused, glossy eyes narrowing.

“To the moon and back, Kal, remember?” She said, her tone desperate. It was a promise they made one night as they were watching some cheesy movie on the old television set. The boy had told the girl that he loved her too ‘the moon and back’. Kalon had then explained that the two characters said that so that they would never be apart. They could meet at the same moon, always and then they could go back. And then, they would never be fully apart. Arcane had liked that. So naturally, she had grabbed Kal’s face and made him promise that they would go ‘to the moon and back’ if they were ever apart. It became a goodbye for them, a way of saying ‘I’ll see you soon’.

“Yeah,” Kal had replied, a smile barely curling through his lips, “I’ll race ya there.”

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, letting her memories flow down her cheeks and into the bedsheets, but eventually she had to get up. She pulled herself up and off the bed, limbs protesting at the use. She just needed a few days is all, then she wouldn’t even remember what she was crying for. Kalon didn’t mean anything to her anymore.

thank you for reading this far, i love all of you. just throw out ideas please. or give me some advice, i would love that. whether its about my writing or the plot i would love to have tips and constructive criticism on how to get better! tagging some moots who i hope dont hate me after this below the cut:

@natashxromanovf @pad-foots @griffxnnage @voidmalfoy @flxss-bxbblxs @alwaysreading @herondalesunsetcurve THANKS YALL I LOVE YOU MORE THEN I EXPRESS AND I DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT DESERVE ALL OF YOU AND YOUR LOVE

#my writing #a book?#writing a book #plot ideas #please give me some ideas #writing #original characters #and an original storyline #found letter prompt

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julemmaes · 4 years

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Love her like she should be loved

Cassian and Nesta Archeron modern au

So, this morning I was scrolling through Tumblr and I saw this post who said “i just want a fic with cassian defending nesta!!! idc what the context even is i just want to see him being offended on nesta's behalf and being ready to throw hands” and I obviously couldn’t resist. The post is this one.

Nesta is not really present in this specific part, if you want more of this au you can always send an ask (and a prompt if you want) and yall know I would continue this without hesitation. Hope you enjoy, as always:)

Word count: 3,266

His day was not going well.

He was supposed to give an analysis exam that morning, but the professor had not warned any of the students that he wouldn’t show up because of something personal. After an hour in which they waited, one of the secretaries of the university came to inform them that no test would be held, Cassian just wished he was dead. In addition, he had spent the entire afternoon serving at Elain's small café and now he was exhausted. Especially since he had to argue with an old lady who insisted on ordering something that wasn't on the menu.

Sometimes the girl would ask him to help her, when it happened that the staff was not available and the customers were much more numerous than one would expect on a Wednesday in the middle of February. Cassian didn't mind, he would have nothing better to do anyway. With his part-time job at a bookstore and his classes at the university, he found it hard to have days to himself and never made plans unless he was sure he could get them done. Then, however, a little extra money would help.

He had just arrived at the door of the apartment he shared with his two brothers when he heard Morrigan's shrill voice, followed by Feyre's loud laugh.

Shit, he had completely forgotten that they were all going to be home tonight.

Puffing, he opened the door and as soon as he walked in he was welcomed by the exalted cheers coming from the living room. He closed his eyes, grimacing. They were all already drunk. He heard Rhysand calling out to him and, taking off his shoes very slowly, went to the others.

"There he is! Fucking finally," shouted Mor, lying halfway down on Amren's legs, "You took your time. Ellie said you left the shop more than two hours ago, where have you been?" she asked with shiny eyes because of the alcohol. Cassian took a look at the others and saw that the only one who seemed to be still sober was Azriel, but looking at the glass in his brother's hand he knew he wouldn't be like that much longer.

He moved his gaze back to the blonde and shook his head, "Taking a walk." he simply replied, then ran a hand over his face, "Well guys, I'm going to sleep. I would kindly ask you to keep it down, but I know it's impossible, so if you could not drag it out too long, you would do me a favor."

Rhysand burst out laughing and Cassian turned to him, noticing only now that Feyre was curled up on his lap, "I don't think so. You haven't partied with us in almost a week." Azriel made a sound of approval, whispering a faint true, "We miss you," he added, sulking.

Cassian snorted again, they were right. Actually, he hadn't been on the couch to have a drink with his friends for over a week, but there was a very specific reason. And the reason was called Nesta.

It had been five very long months and keeping their relationship hidden was starting to get tough.

"Listen," began Cassian, trying to find a way to escape it one more time and go to sleep. "I'm very happy that you only have three classes a day and then you can come here and get shit-faced, but-"

"Oh come on, my sister's coming later too." Feyre interrupted him, slurring her words. "We could play Risiko, with your rules. Would you stay in that case?"

He knew very well that it wasn't Nesta. No, it couldn't have been her. They never invited her. And he wasn't in the mood to play Drunken Risiko at all.

Cassian glanced at her involuntary, clenching his jaw and starting to walk backwards towards his room. "I repeat, I'm very pleased that you still have so much time to lose in these things, but tomorrow I have to work all day and I'm exhausted."

Armen scoffed, "God it's like hearing her sister," said the friend looking him straight in the eye, pointing with her chin to Feyre, who had tightened even more on her boyfriend. Cassian stopped at the living room door, looking at Amren in turn. Feyre nodded, with her eyes closed, "It's true, she’s been a bit of a bitch lately.”

As Feyre spoke, Cassian saw the image of Nesta smiling at him as she sat on her kitchen island, telling him he was an idiot.

Rhysand chuckled and leaned his head against the back of the armchair, "Take the 'a bit' away."

"The other day I met her at the mall and, like any sane person would do, I went to say goodbye to her and she just looked at me and left," Morrigan said, settling better on the couch, in what everyone in their group called the gossip pose. Legs bent under her body and a glass of red wine in her left hand.

Cassian wanted to leave, but couldn’t move. That was the reason why he hadn't been able to go out with his friends in the last few days: whatever they did, in one way or another, they were able to drag Nesta into the conversation and talk shit about her.

"I just can't figure out what's wrong with her," said Rhys, looking annoyed by what Morrigan had just told them. Cassian remained silent. He didn't want to argue with his family and it would have been avoided if he had simply left.

Feyre stood up to pour herself another glass of wine. She sat down next to Amren, resting her head on her friend's shoulder, "I really wish I knew that."

It would be enough if you talked to her from time to time, thought Cassian, crossing his arms on his chest. He caught Azriel's gaze for a second and saw that his older brother was watching him attentively. Too attentively for his liking. He raised an eyebrow, as if asking what he wanted. Azriel was about to open his mouth when the doorbell rang. Everyone's attention sprang towards the door.

"It must be Elain," said Azriel as he stood up, "hopefully she's not as dead as someone else is tonight," he said, making a snide remark to Cassian, who took advantage of the moment to turn on his heels and go to sleep. Elain wouldn’t have been offended if he didn't say hi.

As soon as he closed the door to his room he took a deep breath.

He undressed and lay down on the bed without worrying too much about getting under the covers. He let his hair loose, letting it fall on the pillow and then he starred at the ceiling. He picked up the phone shortly after and opened the gallery, starting to scroll through the photos in the folder called books' stuff.

Rhysand had a nasty habit of taking his cell phone and looking through his stuff and this was the only way to make sure he didn't see the hundreds of photos he had of Nesta and himself.

He thought about the last half year they had spent together.

He thought about how almost five months earlier Nesta had felt sick while she was alone with him and how she thanked him when he was able to calm her down and how she ran away soon after.

He thought of himself, losing whole nights of sleep thinking about what to do, whether to try to talk to her about what had happened or whether to let it go.

He thought of when Nesta had insulted him when he had given her the number of his therapist and when after talking to her for hours about his personal problems Nesta had looked at him with a completely different expression on her face.

He thought about when she had refused his therapist's number again, but promised him she would seek help.

After a month, she asked him if he wanted to go out with her. On a date. Cassian was a bit shocked at the invitation, convinced that Nesta was not looking for anything serious at the time. He had accepted regardless and this had led to several other dates, before they made it official about two months later.

Neither her sisters nor his brothers suspected a thing and both were inclined to keep it a secret. Nesta had had no problem doing so, as she hardly ever went out with the group, there was no risk of it slipping out of her mouth. For Cassian it was something else entirely. Especially in the last period.

Nesta was going through a very difficult period and Cassian was always nervous, on edge, ready to do whatever Nesta needed. While their families did nothing but insult his girlfriend.

There had been days when Cassian, worried that Nesta hadn't answered him for hours after calling him desperate because of something that had happened at work, nearly broke down. He had run to her apartment that time and Nesta had not opened the door. He had almost called Feyre to ask her for the spare key, but he managed to convince Nesta to let him in.

They had spent two days in her bed together, Cassian making up a stupid excuse with his brothers for not being home.

His flood of thoughts was interrupted when he heard the others laughing.

He put the phone on the bedside table again and lay down on his side, trying not to listen to what they were saying in the other room.

It proved impossible.

"Have you heard from Nesta lately?" Feyre asked. Cassian brought the pillow over his ears, but it was of no use. "No, not really. She doesn't even answer the phone," answered Elain.

"Yeah no, because I ran into her the other day while I was shopping and she didn't even say hello." Mor repeated in that shocked tone.

Cassian loved everyone in that house so terribly, but if they had continued like that, he would have had to go out.

"I really don't understand how she can behave like that." a little pause, "I've tried so many times to get her to do something with me, but every time she insults me and tells me to mind my own business." Cassian knew about Feyre's various attempts to help her sister. Nesta had told him about all the times she had tried to force her to dress up in a certain way so she could go dancing and meet some guy. Of all the times Feyre had told her that she needed a holiday, that they could go together to places like Adriata or on the south coast, where the beaches were populated with life and people their age.

"God that girl really gets on my nerves," said Rhysand. Cassian wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

"I feel sorry to even talk about her like this, but there are times when I can't understand why she hates me so much." Feyre spoke again. Cassian scoffed, knowing full well that she didn't feel sorry at all. Elain replied, "Oh no, Fey-Fey, don't feel bad. She's the one who gets away from everyone."

"But does she realize that if she continues like this she will die alone and sad?" this comment broke something inside Cassian's chest. Even more so because it was Mor who had said those words.

"Maybe she deserves it. With how she treats you, she doesn't even deserve you looking after her in this way".

"Maybe you are right. Every time I try something new, she pushes me further and further. It makes me feel like a bad sister," continued Feyre, in a lower voice than before.

"See? It also makes you feel bad. She's just a selfish bitch who seeks attention," concluded Rhysand.

Cassian couldn't take it anymore and got out of bed, slamming the door against the wall when he opened it.

"Cassian-"

When he entered the living room Mor looked at him with wide open eyes. She had got up and was coming towards him when he raised his hand to stop her.

"Shut up!" he shouted as he looked at Rhysand immediately afterwards. "Repeat what you said." he challenged him, keeping his distance. They were all looking at him in shock. His breathing ragged.

"Cass...what's going on?" asked Elain, getting up and standing next to Mor.

"I said shut up," he said, keeping his gaze fixed on his younger brother. "Again, repeat what you just said."

Rhysand looked at him with blurred eyes. Perfect, he was completely drunk, "Calm down man, we were just talking about Nesta." He looked at him frowning, "What's wrong with you?" said Rhys getting up and stiffening, staggering slightly. Azriel stood up in turn, shifting his gaze quickly from one brother to another.

Cassian contracted his jaw, clenching his fists.

"Why are you so upset?" asked Feyre, always sitting, probably too drunk to stand. Cassian looked at her and took a deep breath. Feyre looked at Amren as soon as she burst out laughing.

Everyone’s focus shifted to the girl, who looked like she was about to be sick from all the laughter. Mor kept looking at him though and he just wanted to tell her to stop staring.

"Why are you laughing?" Rhysand asked, even more confused than before.

Amren wiped her tears away, "It’s so fucking obvious that Cassian and Nesta are dating at this point that I really don't know how you haven't figured it out yet."

Cassian looked at her with his mouth wide open, "How...?"

"You have no idea how much of an open book you are for those who know where to look." replied Amren without even glancing at him.

"I was waiting for you to tell me about it." Azriel confessed in a low voice. Cassian turned toward him, frowning. Azriel raised his hands as a sign of surrender, shaking his head, "You have hardly been home for a long time, and perhaps I should have asked earlier, but I had my suspicions for a while." he smiled at him, "Well, congratulations." Azriel said, tilting his head and drinking a sip of beer. A toast. Cassian felt a weight lifting from his shoulders.

A weight that fell on him once again when he heard a choked laugh on the other side of the sofa.

"Congratulations? Azriel, are you serious?" Rhysand asked incredulously, passing his hand over his face.

Feyre and Elain were looking at each other in dismay.

"How can you think of getting with-" Mor was staring at him with her mouth open. "-shit, with Nesta? How can you be with such a person?"

Cassian saw red with anger. "Such a person you say?"

Rhysand approached him, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Yes Cass, such a person. You know that she has no emotions other than disgust and hatred." Cassian moved to avoid his brother's touch. Disgust. Hate.

He saw Nesta smiling at him with one of his T-shirts on, lying in her bed, whispering I love you.

Cassian shook his head. "I really can't tell if you're joking or being serious when you talk about her." he whispered not being able to believe what they were saying. "Nesta, your sister," he said, addressing directly the two Archeron present, "is not doing good."

Elain had the decency to seem surprised. Feyre looked at him with shining eyes, whether it was alcohol or emotion he couldn't tell.

"Nesta is sick and the only thing you can do," he pointed out, "is to sit and drink and insult her until you feel satisfied with yourself.

"We've tried so many times to intervene," Feyre defended herself, in a small voice. She put her hands between her thighs. Cassian laughed and threw his hands to the sky.

"Intervene? Intervene, really?" he asked her sarcastically. He laughed again, no trace of amusement in that sound. "You mean when you went to her house, a few weeks ago, and yelled at her because she didn't want to go out with you and she answered you badly when you told her she had to stop being depressed?" now he was shouting. "Or when you told her that she sucked as being a sister and that she should be a better example for you and Elain?" Feyre held her breath, shutting her eyes.

Cassian turned to the other girl, "And you?" he asked her, a false smile on his lips, "Jesus, Ellie, I see you treating the rest of the world with gloved hands every day. You talk to people as if they were wounded animals and it never occurred to you that your sister might be the only one who really needs it?"

He no longer knew who he was talking to as he raised his voice further and started walking around the room. "If instead of telling her what to do, every day. You always say, say, say, try for once and ask for fuck’s sake. If for once you asked instead of doing whatever the hell you want. It would be enough if you were more interested in what she wants to do and less in what you would like her to do" his head was pounding.

He turned to Rhysand at the end. He gritted his teeth, a grimace of repulsion on his face. "You disgust me the most." his voice broke.

"Cassian-" Azriel got in the way.

"No, Az." as he looked at his older brother he thought that he too was no less. He had never said anything about Nesta, never, but he had never even stopped the others or tried to justify the behavior of the older Archeron.

"You were sick once." Cassian said, as he approached Rhysand. He looked at him raising his chin, breathing heavily. "You were sick and I helped you. You treated me the way Nesta treats her sisters. You treated me worse," he whispered, referring to when he and Rhysand ended up beating each other, because Cassian had pushed him over the edge, "You know what she's going through better than anyone probably does, and yet you're the first one to throw shit at her." Rhys looked towards Feyre. "You don't even know her. And yet you’re ready to act like your dad.” Rhys’ eyes shot to him, any trace of color draining from his face. Cassian knew he’d just hit the right spot.

"And you Mor." He turned to his oldest friend. "You're better than that. You all are." he said to no one in particular.

He closed his eyes and ran both hands over his face.

"None of you ever tried to ask her how she was. None of you have ever made an effort. A real effort." he whispered, with anger coursing through his veins. "I get that Nesta can be difficult at times, but we are the only thing she has. The only thing she should have at least."

with that, he left, going to his room. He got dressed quickly, put on his shoes and grabbed the car keys. Before he left he turned towards the quiet living room, where everyone was staring at one another.

"Perhaps it would be better for us all if we searched our own hearts," he said, opening the door, "If something happens, send me a message. At least now you know where to find me."

Rhysand opened his mouth to talk, probably to apologize, but Cassian had already closed the door behind him.

acotar taglist (if you want to be removed or added, let me know with a dm or an ask) (I also tagged the people who seemed interested in the comments of the original post, I’ll just tag you for this part)

@tottenhamboys20 @sjm-things @kris10maas @awesomelena555 @sannelovesreading @queenamydien29 @ireallyshouldsleeprn @nxssian @lovelynesta @maastrash

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