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deniigi · 3 years

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Blame @petrichordiam for this.

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Title: centerstage

Summary: An academic goes to a conference and is jazzed to see a jedi speak there. He unknowingly sits next to this jedi’s Support Squad.

The jedi Support Squad is like 85% clones, and 15% Jedi Generals.

No one mentions that the jedi speaking has never done this before and is petrified out of his blessed little mind.

*Anakin is like 19-20ish here.

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Sion Jissard has spent the last ten years of his life in the dredges of archives, digging through documents and testing fibers found between the flimsy, papery pages of old texts—scrounging for clues to recreate the conditions of the great conference halls and small, tucked away offices in which some of the most powerful people in the galaxy once gathered to whisper and shout over the fate of whole planets.

He has a hypothesis that the conditions in those rooms affected the decisions made in them. His hypothesis is strong enough that it has endured several rounds of peer-review and escaped those vulture-like clutches mostly unscathed in published form—both in journal and, his chest swells to recall, in book formats.

His book has sold several hundred copies and been cited in a plethora of upcoming article submissions.

The last eight years of tension in his marriage has eased in light of this. The salary from the professorship obtained in light of the book certainly hasn’t hurt it either.

His two doctorates are set on the wall of his office and when he receives word that a conference on ‘Intergalactic Unionism and Peace Negotiation’ is to be held in two months time, he opens up the speakers list and raises his head to gaze upon those two solid frames.

There will be jedi speakers at the conference. Several, actually. The whole thing is to be held on Coruscant, in the small visitors’ wing of the Jedi temple itself.

Sion Jissard pinches the fabric of his suit and then lightly slaps at his cheek to make sure that he is not dreaming.

He has only recently begun studying the jedi order’s material world and the role that world plays in their intergalactic peace-making practices. Prior to this, he considered the subject too on-the-nose. Jedi studies are rampant. Everyone wants a piece of that pie—the allure of it being that the jedi themselves, scholars in their own rights, refuse to partake in examinations of their culture.

They are notoriously obstinate. Their grandmasters refuse to let outsiders into their archives. Their masters shut down any and all attempts to obtain interviews or transcripts or documents with empty expressions or gentle, pitying smiles. Their knights blink with confusion at personal and personal-adjacent questions, and the little ones, the apprentices, are shielded behind all of these people as though the elbow-padded questioners are threatening their precious little lives.

In short, the jedi are happy to listen but loathe to teach. If you are not one of their soldiers or one of their fellows, they will lie to your face and tell you that it is their religion to do so.

And yet here they are, offering up a scholar’s wetdream and even allowing a handful of their own to present on their areas of expertise.

Sion Jissard will pass up this opportunity only upon pain of death.

He applies for the conference as a participant, not a speaker, and is delighted to receive confirmation of his place within mere minutes.

He puts the date on his calendar and starts looking into transit to Coruscant for the event in two months time.

Sion arrives on Coruscant, at the foot of the Jedi Temple itself, and stares up at it for so long that he begins to feel sick to the gills.

He fumbles for his confirmation at the little table set up in the interior courtyard behind a side-entrance door. He is distracted by the fact that the woman he is standing in front of is a Jedi. She is helped by two small children and holds a baby who is dead-set on unraveling the knots that decorate her thick waist band. Even the baby is dressed in double-collared cream-colored robes.

Sion has so many questions he wants to ask.

The jedi asks him for his name. She has a collection of name badges before her, but none of them are his. He gives his name and the master turns to the little girl sat at her right elbow with a brush in hand and instructs her to write it out.

The jedi child—not an apprentice, her robes are cream still, there are no additional earth-colors layered on top of it—writes Sion’s name in beautiful script on a little card and hands the card to the master, who puts it in a holder with a pin on it and places it into Sion’s hand.

She instructs him to go through the side door and enjoy some refreshments before the event begins. The baby in her lap looks up at her abruptly and bonks his sweet little head against her chin.

Sion forgets himself.

“How old?” he asks automatically, gesturing to the baby.

The master looks down into her lap.

“He is eight months and 75% lung,” she says affectionately.

“Ah. Mine was like that, too,” Sion says. “He grew out of it. He’s only 40% lung now.”

The master smiles.

Sion removes himself from her table before he embarrasses himself further.

There are enough people inside the front room of the jedi’s visitor’s wing to nearly fill it to capacity. The volume, though everyone is whispering, is great enough to be heard from outside the door. The room itself is earth-colored with a high ceiling. Its walls all contain niches with rounded borders. Columns with deep-cut creases in them arch high to the skylights.

It is all beautifully geometric, stoic, and clean. And even though the walls and floor are built from materials of warm tones, the skylights overhead and the surrounding addtion of books and holorecords set into the walls lend it a cooling quality.

What should have been imposing architectural feels more like holy space. The room is one that reverberates with reminders to respect all around you.

Sion’s fingers yearn to document this, but there is a sign right by the room’s entrance that asks politely for no recordings or holographs to be taken.

“Professor Jissard,” a familiar voice says.

Sion feels his whole body droop. He turns to see Teo Detras stood before him in his obnoxious, roaring red robes.

“I’m pleased that you too were able to secure an invitation, sir,” Teo says as though he has not attempted to place Sion on the metaphysical chopping block for each of his premises since the time they began their academic programs.

Sion opens his mouth to point out that this is also his area of study and that Teo has no monopoly on the field of Jedi architecture when a quiet passes over the room. Sion watches the heads around him lift and searches for the source of the sudden shudder of silence.

He finds it in a tall master with dark skin standing at the very front of the space. The man has tucked his hands neatly into the mouths of his sleeves.

He is Jedi Master and General Mace Windu. Sion has read and reread his essays, not caring so much for what he is talking about but how he is talking about it. His metaphors and examples should have been insight into the common experiences of those living in the Jedi temple.

Sion has found, however, that Jedi Master Mace Windu does not especially care for eloquence or metaphor. He cares only to methodically destroy the argument (if it could be called that) published by a jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn many years ago. Though Master Jinn has not published for several decades now, Master Windu’s writings remain agitated by his interpretations of the jedi’s Spiritual energy, the Force.

Just gazing upon the man now, Sion would not think him capable of agitation.

Master Windu welcomes the academics to the temple and says that he regrets not having more time to speak with each of the attendees as individuals, but there is a war on and his clone troopers require his services. He encourages people to refrain from any recordings of the temple due to its sacred nature, and he asks that attendees be mindful of the jedi Initiates (the white-robed children) who are confused and intrigued by all of the non-jedi people inhabiting their usual playroom.

He cautions everyone that if anyone slips on a toy, he warned them, and the temple is not liable for their medical bills.

This is a joke.

People are unsure of whether or not to laugh. Some laugh awkwardly far too late. Master Windu gives no sign on his face that he appreciates or disapproves of this.

Instead, he steps from his space of honor and leaves in his place a young man with feathery blonde hair and a highly expressive countenance, who drops his armload of documents on the floor obnoxiously and flings himself down to snatch up only the conference program, as if this was the most efficient way of finding it.

People know to laugh this time.

The young man begins announcing panel topics and rooms and give his strong opinions on each of them.

More people laugh. It feels less like a sin.

“And that’s all, my dears and darlings,” the young man says, “Mind your step into the conference rooms, our predecessors derived joy from an unexpected drop.”

Sion has only one panel that he will kill at minimum three bodies to sit in on. It is the one on peace strategy and resource management. He is not here for the peace strategy or the resource management parts of the talk; his burning interest yearns instead in listening to how and if people talk about their space and things. He wants to write down the language they use. He wants to learn about the physicality of peace.

He thinks ‘The Physicality of Peace’ would make a very compelling title for another book.

So he slips through the arched doors of conference room 3 and finds himself in a tiered lecture theatre. There is a small balcony with rows of pew-like benches that hangs over a lower seating area. He takes a seat at the edge of the front pew and sets his datapad on his lap for note-taking. At the front of the room there is a long bench—not a quite table, but definitely a tall bench, and behind it, there is an enormous screen for displaying images and information. Someone has very kindly thought to place a jug of water and some cups at the center of the bench by a microphone.

Sion gets the impression from its awkward, dead-center placement that it is an addition that the jedi themselves usually forego.

He wonders what that means. He only wonders for about 15 seconds before a hand touches his shoulder and he jerks in alarm.

“My apologies, sir. We were just wondering if the space next to you is available?” says the smooth-faced, copper-haired man standing above him.

He is wearing white armor on top of his layered robes. The arms and legs that emerge from his long off-white tunic are dark in color, but his boots are hard and white and come up and over his kneecaps.

Sion is speechless.

This is General and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

General and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi has touched Sion’s shoulder and apologized to him.

He doesn’t have words. He can only make fish-mouthed motions and then point and nod.

General Kenobi accepts this with grace and stands up straight. He waves behind him to call his companions over to join him on the balcony’s edge.

They arrive as a pack.

Instead of coming around and staggering past Sion’s knees at the edge of the bench, General Kenobi climbs over its back and settles in. He then twists back over the row and holds his hands out; a Clone Trooper in full armor hands to him a strange bundle of woolen, brown robe. It produces legs and arms and then bright blue and white lekku once Kenobi has situated it next to him.

“Fooled ‘em,” the little Togruta that emerges from the cloth says brightly.

“Shh,” Kenobi says. “Cody, you next.”

“No, I want Rex to sit with me.”

“Ahsoka, shhh.”

“Rex.”

“Child, this is how people like me get banned from meetings; you’re not even supposed to see—”

“REX.”

“HUSH. Okay, okay. Rex. Pst. Cody, get Rex. Cody, oh for the love of—Wolffe, yes—no. Wolffe, look at me. Get Cody to get Rex.”

Sion cannot believe what he is seeing. General Kenobi appears to be sneaking half of his command into the balcony area. There are more than a few clone troopers there are at least twenty. They are somehow visibly excited despite their matching helmets. The General is able to tell them apart easily. He leans over the back of the bench again and crooks his finger at one of the troopers who leans forward. He tells them to throw something at their commander.

The Clone takes off his glove, stands, and nail a clone standing in the aisle in the head with it. The slap of contact makes this clone cease speaking in serious low tones with a clone decorated with blue edging in front of him. The first clone draws himself up perfectly straight and turns around with a fury that even Sion can feel the heat of.

His armor is painted yellow in places.

He holds the glove in his hand like a threat. The clone who threw it winces and points wordlessly to General Kenobi, then sits down in a hurry. Kenobi smiles wide and white. He has freckles on his face that do not appear on any of the images of him that appear on the news.

He’s also shorter than Sion himself, even sitting.

“Sir,” the white and yellow clone says stiffly.

“Rex,” Kenobi says through that threat of a smile. “Get over here.”

The Togruta child twists around excitedly as the clone in white and blue exits the conversation with the one in white and yellow and surveys the rows of his fellows piled into the space behind the General and the child. He has to squeeze past the line of knees and then climb over the bench to sit down next to the child, who immediately cuddles up to him.

“Hey, that’s my seat,” a new voice whispers.

Sion looks back to see General Quinlan Vos with his arms crossed over his chest, recognizable in any setting. Behind him is General Koon. General Kenobi slaps a hand to his forehead and grumbles, then shoos the blue edged clone and the child a few seats down.

The generals clamber just as awkwardly as the blue clone through the sea of knees of the troopers and then over the back of the bench.

Somehow, Sion has won the jackpot. He is now surrounded by jedi culture, literally.

“All of you, back,” Kenobi snaps down the bench when everyone is just starting to get comfortable. “Cody. Commander, come here.”

The clone trooper with the yellow edging does not want to play this game. He shifts his weight back onto his other heel as Kenobi pats the newly vacated space next to him. General Vos croons in a teasing tone something about Kenobi being especially fond of this clone.

Kenobi lurches out across the empty seat to punch him in the gut and then returns peacefully to patting the space over the sound of Vos’s moaning.

The Clone Commander has no choice. His general is giving him a directive. He gives in to the inevitable and makes his way through the knees and—much more neatly than the others—steps over the back of the bench to its seat and then into sitting. Kenobi beams at him, practically purring.

Sion needs desperately to take notes, but the subjects of said notes are right there and rudeness is intolerable in retaining his vantage point.

He fights the urge to vibrate in space as the lights begin to dim overhead and the panel chairman comes out to introduce the topic and speakers. It is only about a minute or so when a hand lands firmly on Kenobi’s right shoulder—the one by Sion’s arm. Sion jumps, but Kenobi resolutely stares directly down at the speaker.

“Obi-Wan,” Master Mace Windu’s low, low voice says right into the space between Kenobi and Sion’s ears, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Kenobi begins to melt but catches himself.

“You didn’t for a while,” he said.

“Get her out of here.”

“She has a right to see her Master.”

“What part of these orders are challenging for you?”

Kenobi still does not turn around to see Master Windu, but his eyebrows sink and his brow becomes more pronounced.

“No padawans,” Master Windu says. “Ahsoka. Out.”

The togruta, still bedecked in that heavy cloak, turns to stare owlishly at Master Windu while the person at the front of the room moves on to introducing the next speaker.

“But I’m not a padawan,” the child says. “I’m obnoxious. Master Kenobi said so.”

Kenobi holds his face in a hand.

“You can be both. Come,” Master Windu says, holding out a hand.

“But I’m a cloak,” Ahsoka tries instead.

Kenobi crumples further. Master Windu’s hand finds his shoulder again. Sion can feel its heat.

“If not her, then you,” he says.

“After,” Kenobi says.

“I’ll be waiting, Obi-Wan.”

Master Windu vanishes from behind them. Sion shudders. Kenobi turns to the side and hisses at Ahsoka,

“Now look what you’ve done.”

“You’re my co-conspirator,” Ahsoka hisses back. “My—my—Rex, what’s the word?”

Clone Commander Rex does not want to give her the word. Ahsoka tugs at him.

“Rex,” she insists.

“Enabler,” Commander Rex says with bitter regret coating his words.

Ahsoka beams over the laps of the other Generals at Kenobi. He glares back through a squint. He starts to say something, but General Vos tells him to shut up in a sharp tone.

Sion looks back to the front of the room and finds that a young man with dark hair has come out to the center of the front table-bench to speak.

He is a jedi. His robes, however, are dark in color. Blacks and browns with knee-high boots.

He’s very young. Very, very young.

And nervous.

Very, very nervous.

Even from the balcony seats, Sion can see his hands shaking. He is holding a stack of white paper. It is trembling like a branch on a windy day.

“Go, go, Master, go, go,” chants little Ahsoka.

Sion finds himself abruptly appalled by the realization that the child on center stage is the master of the child a few seats over from him.

General Koon gently shushes Ahsoka. Commander Rex helpfully wraps a gloved hand over the bottom half of her face to keep her distracted.

Sion looks from them to the young man and finds that he’s already knocked over the jug of water on the bench and looks about ready to sob about it. He gathers himself, though, and brings the microphone closer to him.

He is General Anakin Skywalker, Sion now understands. He is the first speaker and he’s never in his life presented a paper at a professional conference before.

His voice shakes as he reads out the title of the article that he published (and that Sion has read) on battlefield surrender. After the second paragraph, Sion brings a hand to his lip to help him contain the emotions that come with the understanding that this boy is about to read his article, word for word, in front of a room full of academics.

He thinks now that he has been too harsh with his students.

General Skywalker is not a strong public speaker. Clearly, his expertise is in action. He stammers. He loses his place in his reading and accidentally rereads three whole sentences. Only twice does he look up from his paper, and each time it is not at the audience but at Obi-Wan Kenobi, sat next to Sion, serious as a plague.

Kenobi nods sagely.

General Skywalker is General Kenobi’s apprentice. Was General Kenobi’s apprentice. However, it is clear to all who are present today that General Skywalker is still General Kenobi’s apprentice. Desperate, the poor thing is, for Kenobi’s reassurance.

His confidence in reading grows under his former (current?) master’s approving eye until he turns a page and—horror of horrors—drops the stack of paper.

Sion’s whole body tenses in sympathy and second-hand embarrassment. Skywalker flings himself down and messily collects the papers. He hurriedly reorders them, all while stuttering ‘ums’ and ‘uhs.’

Yet, when Sion chances a peek down the line of Generals next to him, he finds that not a single one has winced. No one has laughed. Even the clone troopers all around them are as silent and steady as the night itself.

It seems like they are all listening intently to their young General on center stage. The only giveaway that sympathy is being had by any is the tiny gesture Clone Commander Rex is making with his hand. He is moving it almost imperceptibly in a circle, as if to say ‘come on, come on.’

Sion looks back to young Skywalker and waits patiently as he finds his place and carries on reading again, this time faster. This time he does not look up for his master’s eye.

He wants only for the torture to end.

He gets to the end of his paper without dropping it or repeating himself and is flushed red. He does not ask for questions. He merely says quietly into the microphone, “Thank you.”

The panel chair waits a beat before walking over to Skywalker and asking the crowd for questions on his behalf. Skywalker becomes even more luminous. Sion cannot decide whether asking a question would be more or less stressful for this poor boy.

No one asks a question.

The panel chair then starts to ask for applause for Skywalker, but before he can even finish the sentence the whole balcony breaks into uproar.

General Kenobi hoots and whistles piercingly in Sion’s ear. General Vos claps and shouts what sounds like ‘You FUCKING did it, kid. You FUCKING did it. Hip-hip—”

“HUZZAH,” the Clone Troopers behind General Vos finish for him in perfect unity.

“Hip-hip—”

“HUZZAH.”

More applause and congratulations erupts after this.

General Skywalker slams his paper into his face and bursts into tears at the front of the room.

He bolts for a doorway that Sion hadn’t even noticed was right next to the bench. General Kenobi whacks at his Clone Commander’s shoulder, and Commander Cody wraps hands around his waist and hoists him up so that he’s standing on the guardrail at the edge of the balcony. He leaps from there to the lower level then goes jogging out the same doorway his former apprentice ran through.

After another moment or two, Commander Cody stands up and snaps at the whole collection of troopers in their language. Everyone shuts up and sits back down. Commander Rex gestures for Ahsoka to put up her hood and takes from General Vos a small datapad which he gives to the child—presumably for her to occupy herself with for the next hour and a half of papers. She takes it and immediately becomes absorbed in its lightly-glowing screen.

The balcony is once again on its best behavior.

Sion doesn’t bother with listening to any of the other papers. He feels no shame at all in beginning to furiously take notes on his last twenty-five minutes with the jedi.

Upon leaving the conference room nearly two hours later, he finds himself swept up in the clone troopers’ swift and orderly exit from the space. They line up outside the hall in lines by regiment and they wait for their commanders and generals to arrive before marching back towards the visitors’ wing’s exit.

After two or three minutes, only two lines remain.

Clone Commander Rex and Clone Commander Cody stand perfectly at attention beside their lines of men. Clone Commander Rex has his jedi’s apprentice thrown over his shoulder; he has balanced her on one arm while she sleeps.

It’s very sweet. She obviously trusts the Clone Commander very much.

“Gentlemen.”

The clones snap to even tighter attention as General Mace Windu appears, walking briskly their way.

“You’re dismissed,” he says to them. “Commanders, you will remain. Obi-Wan and Anakin will join us shortly.”

“Sir,” both commanders say simultaneously.

There is a pause, and Sion sees that all of these people are now looking at him.

“Can we help you, sir?” General Windu asks.

Yes. And Sion will pay any amount of money to just know this one thing. This teeny, tiny detail.

“Sir?”

“Is that normal for you?” he blurts out.

The Clone Commanders stare. The general stares. The apprentice coughs lightly in her sleep.

“I regret to say that it is not only normal, but expected of these general and units,” General Windu says. “Please vacate this area.”

Right.

“Thank you,” Sion says.

He stiff-legs it back to the crowd of other academics and hunts down a liquid to soothe his parched throat.

The new book’s title will not be ‘The Physicality of Peace.’ It will be ‘All is Fair in Love and War: The Jedi Order and Ideologies of Family, Part I.’

--------------- Yeah, so anyways, Myth and I decided that Anakin is bad at public speaking and nothing anyone says can take this from me now, I’m invincible. (If you want this on Ao3 let me know).

#anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #the clone wars #clones #guys sometimes anakin is allowed to be cute #but only like every so often I don't want him getting uppity #and thinking I actually like him or something like that #ahsoka and rex's relationship is everything to me #fic #ficlet

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oh-for-merlins-sake · 4 years

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TRICK & TREAT | fw

a/n: okay, so i KNOW we’re not exactly in october yet, but spooky season is my FAVORITE season, and i couldn’t resist. if i could have an interminable spooky season every year, my heart would sing tbh. also, side note: thank you to those who have interacted with my previous fic, or who have followed me, or who have showed me any ounce of love at all. like, i’m just hear to party and obsess over the weasley twins in the midst of all of these stellar writers. i just hope to be up to par with them someday. CHEERS! xo

pairing: fred weasley x reader (fem!reader)

word count: 3k

warnings: swearing (fred’s a potty mouth, yeah?), gets a little steamy at the end but nothing heart-stopping.

┈┈┈┈

You looked up from your dreadfully long piece of parchment in the library to gaze longingly out of a nearby window. The leaves were finally an amalgamation of bright reds and oranges, and you could almost feel the autumn breeze on your fingertips. Fall was your favorite season, and not just cause it hosted your favorite holiday.

This year, however, Snape decided that he was in no such mood for the Halloween spirit. As a result, an exceptionally long essay on potion making was due bright and early Monday morning, despite the holiday falling on Saturday — today.

You rubbed your eyes, blinking a few times to keep yourself awake, then resumed frantically scribbling on your parchment.

“And how long have you been at this, may I ask?”

You didn’t have to divert your gaze from the parchment to know exactly who was striding toward your table.

“In the middle of something, Freddie,” you mumbled.

“What, that dreadful essay for Snape?” He asked, sliding into the seat across from you.

“Yes,” you sighed, twirling your quill between your aching fingers.

“Oh, come off it — don’t let Snape ruin your Halloween. Put the quill down, and let’s get going,” he insisted, reaching for your quill.

You retracted your hand, raising your brows at him in response. “As if! I can’t fuck around, Fred. This is N.E.W.T. level Potions. He’ll toss me if I hand in anything less than exemplary.”

“The way I see it, Y/N,” he began, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the table, “The only reason Snape assigned this essay this weekend is because he’s a proper miserable prat. Just wants to ruin the fun for everyone, I reckon.”

You rolled your eyes, partially at Fred’s persistence, but also at Snape’s total arrogance.

“I propose that you put the quill down and come to the festival! C’mon, assigning an essay on Halloween weekend? Bloody mad, he is!”

You sighed again, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth and weighing your options.

On the one hand, you needed to do well on this essay (not that you hadn’t been doing well in Snape’s class, but given that it was Snape, one minor error could be one too many).

But on the other hand, you’d probably plucked and polished as much cluttered information from your brain as you could; and there Fred sat, beckoning you with that cheeky grin and those sweet, brown eyes to go to the Hallowe’en Festival in Hogsmeade.

“I don’t have a costume,” you said with a frown.

“Not to worry, love!”

Fred lugged his book bag onto the table with a mischievous grin, rummaging around inside and extracting various crumpled pieces of parchment, empty sweet wrappers, and the occasional contraption. Finally, he chucked a muggle entertainment magazine onto the table that was dated 1989 and began flipping through its pages.

“Dad’s latest obsession are these muggle magazines, and I found this in one of them...”

He eagerly pointed to a spread that celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. You let out a rather loud laugh (to which Madam Pince responded by shushing you both).

“What?” He whispered, giggling and playfully shoving your arm.

“You want to go as characters from The Wizard of Oz?” You shook your head, smiling sweetly.

“So you’re familiar?” He beamed at you.

“Yes, Fred, as a muggle born, I’m quite familiar with one of the most famous muggle movies of all time,” you teased.

“So you’ll go as her then?” He asked, pointing to Dorothy.

“Me? Go as her?” You asked incredulously. “I don’t have anything that would work for that costume. And I’m not so sure that anyone would recognize me without — ”

“The rest of them? Don’t worry, love, thought of that too!”

“You just think of everything, don’t you?” You quipped, narrowing your eyes.

“You’re a fucking witch, Y/N. I’m sure you’ll conjure something up,” he reminded.

You opened your mouth to counter, but he swiftly interrupted, "And if you’re concerned with anyone recognizing you, well... you’re looking at none other than Scarecrow himself.” He straightened up and tugged at his collar, wiggling his eyebrows.

You laughed again. (“Shh!”)

Fred lowered his voice, “Listen, Georgie’s gonna be the Tin Man, and Gin’s borrowing Luna’s lion’s head for the other one,” he explained. “All we’re missing is Dorothy.”

“Oh, I see,” you said, returning to your parchment with a smirk, “You just need me to complete your costume, ay?”

Suddenly, Fred plucked his wand to summon your quill from your hand to his.

“Come to the Hallowe’en festival with me, Y/N,” he insisted, tossing your dainty quill from one immense hand to the other.

You paused, glaring at him, for he knew exactly the effect he had on you.

“Fine!”

Fred punched the air in celebration before tucking your quill behind his ear and moseying out of the library.

“You’ve got two hours, Y/L/N,” he called over his shoulder.

The instant he turned the corner, you stuffed your parchment into your bag and scampered towards your dormitory. Butterflies erupted in the pits of your stomach as you pondered the possibilities of the night to come, and you felt a slow burning warmth trickle from your cheeks to the tips of your toes.

Yes, you were relieved to elude Snape’s brutal homework for the night, but deeper within you resided the covert, overwhelming desire that drove your final decision to go. After a wearisome couple of hours brimful of several twirls in front of the mirror, you ultimately decided your haphazard costume would have to do.

You’d managed to procure a white dress and pair of heels from your wardrobe, enchanting the former to mock the pattern of Dorothy’s dress and the latter to radiate a shimmering ruby red. You straightened out the hem of your dress before skipping out into the entrance hall in search of Fred.

You weaved between clusters of costumed students, noting several muggle characters along the way, including an Ariel, a Marty McFly, and even a Ghostbuster. You spotted a straw-hat poking out from above the crowd and rushed over.

“Well, good evening, Mr. Scarecrow!” You exclaimed, tapping his shoulder.

He spun around. “Bloody hell, it’s Dorothy!”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his costume, particularly the bright orange dot carefully painted on the tip of his nose. You appreciated the fact that faux freckles weren’t necessary for his costume, as his sweet speckles did the trick just fine. You were also fairly amused by George’s dingy, silver hat and Ginny’s small head being consumed by Luna’s lion contraption.

“Putting Dorothy to shame, I reckon,” Fred declared, winking down at you.

You were embarrassed at how quickly your cheeks turned color at the compliment.

The four of you nearly sprinted to Hogsmeade, bubbling over with excitement. All of Hogwarts had been feverishly babbling about the Hallowe’en Festival for weeks now, mostly because it served as an excuse to flee Umbridge’s reign of terror. When the announcement came that the shopkeepers of Hogsmeade would be hosting a festival for the students, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief that there was something outside of these walls that would provide a sense of warmth and security that had been missing as of late. It was refreshing, to say the least.

And hell, if it gave you an excuse to spend time with Fred, you surely weren’t complaining.

“Holy shit, Y/N!” Fred exclaimed, vigorously rocking you back and forth, “Bobbing for apples!”

You giggled and bounced along as he tugged you by the hand toward the festivities. George and Ginny followed suit, trailing behind with just enough space behind you and Fred.

Without hesitation, Fred sunk his head into a bucket of water in search of an apple and surprisingly succeeded on his first attempt. He resurfaced, teeth clenched around a scarlet apple, and winked at you before spitting it into his palm. You giggled at the orange paint on his nose; now smeared from the charade.

“Your turn,” he urged, taking a hearty bite from his reward.

Though you weren’t as quick at retrieving one as Fred had been, you eventually managed to reap a bright green apple from the pail. You kept the apple nicely snug between your teeth as you shook the water from your face with a laugh. You held the apple in your palm, turning it over in the moonlight, before taking a bite to indulge in its sweet and sour flavors.

Fred gently pushed back the wisps of hair that were now plastered to your forehead. You swallowed your bite and your staggering desire to taste him too.

“Shall we retrieve some sweets from Honeydukes, Freddie?” You blurted.

“‘Course,” He breathed, hand lingering on your forehead.

You quickly tossed the remnants of your apple in a nearby bin before skipping towards Honeydukes. Fred scampered behind you, laughing at the way you kept balance in your heels.

“Quit laughing at me, Weasley!” You exclaimed, arms shot out on either side of you.

Fred caught up to you and clutched your waist, murmuring, “You can hold me for balance anytime, love.”

Your heart pounded as his fingers tightened their grip before dismissing the feeling with an eye roll and a playful slap to his chest.

The two of you approached Honeydukes, which was festively adorned with strings of misty orange lights and floating jack-o-lanterns. The shopkeeper was tossing free sweets for the taking, and while Fred was able to score some with ease due to his looming height, you had to jump just to try — even in your high heels.

Fred couldn’t help but grin as you grasped at nothing, clinging to his shoulder for balance.

“What are you reaching for, love?” He asked, gently bumping his hip into yours.

“I’m just — ” You hopped again. “Trying — to get — a bloody Sugar Quill!”

Within seconds, Fred effortlessly seized a Sugar Quill and tossed it down to you. You thanked him, beaming up at him as you ripped it open.

He proceeded to catch a few more sweets, including some Chocolate Cauldrons, Pumpkin Pasties, and enough Sugar Quills to tide you over until next Halloween. You both walked aimlessly through Hogsmeade, munching on your sweets and speculating on the whereabouts of the rest of your group. You’d both decided that you’d find them later before plopping down onto a bench to finish off the last of your goodies.

Full of sugar and glee, you almost didn’t notice that Fred’s thigh was in contact with yours — the realization knocking your breath off of its steady course.

You fiddled with a wrapper as you genuinely considered trailing your fingers across his chest and pressing your lips to his under the light of jack-o-lanterns and the smell of cinnamon. You genuinely considered sending him spiraling into oblivion, just as he’d done to you at nearly every interaction. Oh, to make him go weak in the knees for once.

“Fred — ”

Suddenly, a gaggle of first-years scrambled by as Malfoy and his minions hounded them for sweets. You both snapped your heads in their direction, perturbed by the disruption.

“What do you say we put the ‘trick’ in trick-or-treat?” Fred asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

So close.

After some deliberation of the proper way to exact justice, you and Fred decided to convince some first-years to toss a few Nosebleed Nougats into their bags of sweets. You made certain that they would not touch the Nougats themselves, but that they would instead offer them up to Malfoy when he came hunting for more.

You hurried back over to Fred, who was hiding behind a shop corner, and observed the hysterical events that transpired together. You stifled your laughter as Malfoy yanked the Nougats out of the sack and split them between himself and his mates. The first years scurried away, thankful to have evaded surrendering their sweets, as the prats chewed into their Nougats.

They tossed their wrappers onto the cobblestone and scouted the area for their next victims. They were abruptly interrupted by the blood gushing out of their noses, causing you and Fred to rush into Three Broomsticks in a fit of laughter. You peered out of the window and watched as Malfoy and his mates darted towards the castle, fists pressed against their noses.

“I can’t believe we got away with that,” you admitted breathlessly.

Fred high-fived you, hand squeezing yours, as he tried to catch his breath. He led you to an empty table near the fireplace before wandering off to obtain a couple of warm Butterbeers. You sat down and rubbed your hands together, feeling the cold slowly easing from your fingertips.

“You know what’s always bugged me,” Fred began, sliding your mug across the table and removing his hat.

“Hm?” You hummed, taking a sip.

He sat down and clutched his warm mug. “Why does it have to be trick or treat? Why not both? I mean, everyone loves a good trick, and everyone loves a good treat. I’ve never understood that!”

You laughed, wiping the foam of your drink from your mouth. “You know, Freddie, you make an awfully good point! From now on, you’ll only ever hear me say ‘trick and treat’!”

“Cheers!” He laughed, clinking his mug with yours.

The two of you chatted away in Three Broomsticks for what felt like an eternity. As time passed, folks rolled in and out of the pub, and eventually you found the rest of your party. George and Ginny, along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, joined you for some time before deciding they’d had enough festivities for one evening.

As they gathered their things and emptied their mugs, George turned to the two of you and asked, “You two coming along?”

Suddenly, Ginny grabbed George’s arm, forcefully turning him towards the door as she sang over her shoulder, “Goodnight!”

Fred chuckled, taking a swig from his drink, as you fought to suppress the cursed blush that continuously resurfaced on your burning cheeks.

Time continued ticking away as the two of you resumed conversation. It felt natural to sit with Fred, tossing back Butterbeers, bringing each other to tears from laughter, and poking and prodding at the recesses of your minds; Madam Rosmerta was less fond of it, however.

“I’m sure it’s well past your bedtime, lovebirds — out,” she declared.

The two of you gathered your belongings and giggled as you wandered back out into the streets. You caught a glimpse of the time and exclaimed, “Blimey, it’s eleven o’clock! We’ll have to sneak back into the castle at this point!”

“I know a way back,” Fred said with a smirk.

He led you by the hand to a secret passageway tucked in an alley where he assured you it was a safe escape to Hogwarts. You had your doubts about the secrecy of this tunnel, feeling uneasy at the thought of Filch ensnaring you after-hours; but Fred insisted. And if it meant prolonging your evening with Fred, then you had no choice but to follow.

As you crept down the tunnel towards Hogwarts by the guiding light of Fred’s wand, you gently bumped into his side, conspicuously brushing your hand against his. You normally wouldn’t feel so bold, but after the sheer volume of Butterbeer that you’d consumed, you felt particularly daring at the moment.

Fred grinned down at you and gently bumped you back. You stumbled a bit in a fit of giggles that Fred echoed as he snagged your hand in his.

“Easy there, Y/L/N, don’t want you tumbling down the tunnel!”

You took advantage of the opportunity to boldly intertwine your fingers with his. You rested your head on his arm and mumbled, “I’m tired, Freddie...”

“We’re almost there,” he said, fighting a grin and squeezing your hand.

The two of you continued walking for quite some time like this. The remainder of the walk was mostly silent — not because neither of you had anything to say, but mostly because you each had so much to say and ruminated on exactly how to say those things.

Your thoughts raced through your addled brain a million miles a minute, and as you approached the Hogwarts corridor, you cursed yourself for not saying something sooner.

“You fall asleep over there?” Fred chuckled, nudging your head softly with his arm.

You peered up at him lovingly before straightening up to face him. With your fingers still tightly wound around his, you whispered, “Freddie...”

“Y/N,” he playfully whispered back.

You giggled.

“That was a good trick we played earlier, don’t you think?” You asked, taking a step closer.

“One of my finest yet,” he replied, struggling to form full sentences given your proximity.

“And you know what they say...” You said.

“What do they say, Y/N?” He teased, using his free hand to tuck a loose strand of your hair behind your ear.

“Trick and treat... so how’s about a treat?”

Suddenly, you closed the space between the two of you and locked your lips with his. Your lips moved slowly together, almost in shock that this was actually happening. He released your hand in order to use both of his to hold the back of your head, and you stood on your tiptoes to deepen the kiss as you wrapped your hands around his neck.

When your lips parted, you almost whined at the separation.

“That was the best treat yet,” he said with a wink, running his hands down your waist and giving you a squeeze.

You bit your lip and led him down a quiet hallway. “I know I’m supposed to say something like, ‘There’s no place like home,’ but honestly...” you trailed off, stopping in front of a vacant classroom. “I’d much rather be in here.”

Fred’s eyes widened with hunger as you backed him into the classroom, kicking the door shut behind you.

Fred lifted you onto a nearby desk and sighed, “I love Halloween.”

#fred weasley x reader #fred weasley #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley imagine #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #fred weasley x you

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choiwrites · 4 years

Text

pjm | high school sweethearts (m.)

Words: 18.4k Genres: high school!au, f2l, never been kissed!au, a lil bit of 2000's movie angst :) Warnings: defloration, fingering, dry humping, a smidge of dirty talk, oral (f&m), teenagers being hormonal what else would this be :( Rating: 18+ Playlist: ♡

Summary: You are not one to believe in high school romance nor any kind of romance at all. Your world is turned upside down when you had to write about falling in love in high school. Having no experience, good thing your best pal Jimin came to the rescue. He's about to show you what falling in love is like through his broken perspective after his girlfriend just broke up with him.

The school cafeteria stretches before you. Chattering getting louder every second as more students join in the next table, your eyes peered at Yoongi, the President of the School Publication, who had just told you the feature's deadline. You were killing him inside your mind, butchering his insides, God you just want him to get kicked out of the school.

Exams are in a week and you did little to no effort in prepping for it, it was driving you nuts. But the cafeteria's coleslaw drove you even madder, its stupid taste lingered in your mouth even after you just took another chug of your second box of milk. You made a note to yourself to never get coleslaw ever again, no matter how convincing Jungkook's smiles were, though there's no denying that the lunch lady's son has somehow crept into your heart.

"Candid!" Jimin appears behind you, his camera flashing your eyes when he takes a candid shot of your face. You slap him on the shoulder before he could sit down beside you. "Do you have a crush on Yoongi?" His eyes scan the unfinished coleslaw on your table, his smile turning into pure disgust.

"What? No! He's just ruining my week," you reply after releasing a huff.

You tear your gaze away from Yoongi before his laughing figure would notice. Jimin giggles at the picture he had just taken. If Jimin didn't have a hundred pictures of your unreserved face, maybe you would have cared. Still, your eyes burned at the sight of your face in his camera.

"What made you sit with me today?" you ask, your eyes not traveling to his face but rather focused on everywhere else except for him and Yoongi.

His breathing was a little ragged, but enough to make your ears notice. He was breathing through his mouth, you could tell. You were that observant of Jimin. Your hand picks up the tiny box of milk, taking another sip from it while you wait for Jimin's answer. He was busy on his camera, then you heard a sniff.

"Seulgi broke up with me," he sniffs again, then he laughs in a croaky way. His voice was usually high, like an optimistic kind. Hearing Jimin's voice always sent you a jolt of happiness, hearing his voice crack made your knees wobble.

You were positive they'll get back together again like the other high school couples, it's their routine that you've gotten used to. It would only take a week before you see them smooching in the locker room again, or maybe eating each other's face in front of you. You wait for an explanation before you could ask, giving him silence so he could proceed with his sentiment.

"She was tired of me. She couldn't see a future with me," he began and forced a small snicker, one you could immediately tell was fake. "I was going to follow her to college. Good thing, I haven't."

You admit, your heart recedes at his tone. Though you've never received such words yourself, being told you're tiring would sure tear anyone's heart apart. And wanting a future with someone with no reciprocation sounded mean. You couldn't search for the right words on how hurt he looked beneath those eyes, you weren't one to have experience in any of the pain he's going through.

You place a hand on his back, a shaky motion vibrated against your palm. You could feel how hard he was trying to suppress all the tears inside him, he was afraid you would laugh. You pat him softly on his cotton jacket, scared to make the situation worse by saying the wrong thing. He took your silence as comfort, needing no words from you to make him feel better. He sniffs again.

"What was she tired of?" Jimin knew that asking you wouldn't bring actual answers, he needed those from Seulgi. But it was you beside him, not Seulgi, so he confides. "It can't be my dick," he laughs, which you returned.

"How sure are you?" Your forehead wrinkled as your brows knot together, a grin forming on your lips.

"A hundred percent, solid. It's probably my snoring, isn't it?" His stare leaves the camera, which had shut down moments ago, taking the courage to look at you who never looked more concern through the small smile you were showing.

"I've never heard you snore, but yeah. I guess so. I don't really follow the relationship you both have."

"Had," he corrects, and then released a nasal huff.

Through his burning face, he was still perfect in every way. His hair lays flat on top of his head, parted in the middle. His bottom lip bitten. His nose scrunches trying to sniff, then he brings the back of his hand to cover the lower part of his face. Your lips curved when he laughed at himself.

"Can we go? I just... I feel like she's on the way here and I don't really want to see her laugh with her friends," he said, nose blocking him from speaking properly.

Seulgi stands by the entrance, searching the cafeteria and when she spots Jimin, she pulls her friend to the counter. This didn't go unnoticed by Jimin, he pulls you harshly out of panic. You've never seen him so frustrated, it was funny.

"Dude, Jimin, what the fuck?" Your bag was open and as he tried to pull you away, your notes dropped on the floor, revealing all your drafts for the feature.

Jimin squats on the floor, examining your written works. The panic passes onto you, his face turned into a frown.

What could he have read?

"Jesus christ y/n, who broke your heart? These are so pessimistic," his hand ravishes on the crumpled paper, reading essays of a hundred words. You somehow regret not throwing those in the trash the moment you finished them.

"Can I just-" He stops your hand from reaching the papers, stretching his other hand away from you.

"This is not what 'falling in love in high school' is like! You're not following the topic given!" he yells, but a glint of happiness spreads across his face. He finds some sort of amusement from your reaction.

"You don't get it, Jimin. You only have to take pictures of couples, I have to write about them! It's not as easy as you think!"

Jimin was also a part of the school publication. He was mostly praised for his average photos, you've told him many times how they're not at all impressive. But he was a popular and good-looking student, everything he does will be adored by many. As opposed to you, who have only written one successful work throughout four years of being in the same page with him. High school will always be that way.

"Whatever. Your works won't make it to the paper if you keep them this way," he says with a stronger voice, a restrain on his throat from earlier brushing away.

"Can you just give them to me?" You reach for his other hand, but his hand on your shoulder kept you away from him. His strong scent burns your nose, but you didn't care even if you felt how hot his skin was. You only pushed yourself further, desperate to get the drafts.

"No, no," he clicks his tongue, "gotta tell me who's this ex of yours first." He waved his eyebrows and your shoulders slumped.

"I don't have an ex-boyfriend. There, you happy?" you declare under a small tone.

He inches his face to yours, and you pulled away when you felt him breathe against your lips. "No shit, y/n. Why the pessimism then?" He was trying to get a rise out of you and you are almost giving in. He reads them again but this time you give up, you couldn't stand his perfume any longer.

"I hate highschool couples. They act like everything is about relationships, even going to college together. Ew." You raise a brow, cocking your head towards him as you cross your arms on your chest.

"Fuck off. You just don't get it." He folds the torn pieces of paper, placing them in his pockets.

"Hey, give that to me!" You try to reach again, but he got a hold of your hand and you soften.

"They suck. I don't want Yoongi to read them, he'll probably judge the shit out of you."

"Why do you care? I take criticism."

"Yeah, and you're gonna get it from me," he says without a lot of consideration. So much of smiling caused his face to lose its puffiness, eyes losing a little bit of their shine.

"I don't need a photographer judging my work. Give them back!"

"Shush." He waves his index finger in front of your face.

You slap his hand away, thinning your lips and giving in to whatever Jimin was trying to do. "What are you gonna do with them?"

"I'll change them," he tilts his head before grabbing you to exit the cafeteria, the hallway rolls before the both of your feet and Jimin only puts his arm around you, "because that's what good friends do."

"For your entertainment, fine. Change it however you'd like, hell you can even put Seulgi's name as the title, I don't care. My idea of high school romance will remain the same!"

"I love Seulgi, alright? It's true, I felt it. Just because we are young doesn't mean our emotions are invalid."

"That's not my point, Jimin. All I'm trying to say is there's not a single record of relationships making it out of high school. It ends in high school and that's it."

His grip on your shoulder loosens and he turns to face you, your eyes remained on the walk ahead. Again, the smell of his perfume irritates your nose, you breathe shortly to avoid it.

"My parents met in highschool, you know that," he argues.

"But their relationship didn't start in highschool, you also know that."

He releases a breath of defeat, but he continued with his debate. "Regardless, high school romance is real. You've never had a crush before?"

"I've had crushes, Jimin. But they're crushes, nothing ever led to 'love'," your tone curved by the end of your sentence, hating the word.

Jimin was aware of your crushing habit, and he knew about each of them. Jungkook from the cafeteria, Seokjin who used to be a senior in the school, and Mr. Kim Namjoon of Biology class. He never missed a single one, but there's one you've never admitted to Jimin. Which was your tiny feelings for him. But you find no use of telling him since it only lasted a month, then he became this jackass friend of yours and you never wished for it change. He has been an amazing friend and everything was platonic between the both of you, he was the only boy you could look in the eyes without feeling insecure.

"Infatuation is the start of everything, dumbass."

"I don't want any of it," you reply and Jimin takes a hold of your arm when you tried to enter your class.

"Wait, I have a proposal." Your hand holds a strap of your bag, slouching in front of him. You turn to him again, brows rising to let him continue.

He takes a few moments before talking again, his adam's apple bobbed slowly as he takes the courage. Your eyes narrowed at his figure, trying to analyze his thoughts faster than he could. Jimin can get unpredictable sometimes, a kind you can't read. It's unfair he could read you like a book, a book he knows all too well.

"What if I make you fall in love?"

Your eyes widen, pulling away from him harshly, just enough to make him feel your rejection to his proposal. He can't be serious, and he can't be this horrible to use you as a rebound for Seulgi.

You as a pawn? No way!

You're not letting Jimin make your last year of high school dramatic with Seulgi's friends judging you by the hallway when you walk past them with Jimin's hand in your back pocket. No, that's not gonna happen.

"Are you insane? What's wro-"

"No, not with me. I phrased it wrong. I meant what if I make you feel like falling in love. You can't just keep denying emotions all through out highschool."

You weren't denying anything. You have a belief, a belief that no relationship in highschool ever lasts.

"Why do you want to prove me wrong so bad? Can't you just let me be?" your tone loomed over him. Anger took over your voice when you didn't mean it, so you looked at him in a stern way to let him know you weren't mad, just confused.

"I want you to know that I am in love with Seulgi. And your opinion is wrong, people fall in love during highschool."

"Jimin, I get it! You're in love with Seulgi, I don't care. Blah blah blah, love is relevant for you. Now get over it."

Both of you were standing before the door to Biology class, it looked stupid. Your classmates are starting to look at you funny, gossiping before entering the room behind you. You take your attention away from it and focused on Jimin's argument and hand which was still wrapped around your arm, he doesn't seem to notice how sweaty his palms are.

"No, you obviously don't get it. You're taking my emotion as a joke."

Why was he getting so worked up with my statement?

"Fine," you surrender. "What is falling in love like?"

Mr. Kim — or Mr. Joonie as you like to call him, appears behind Jimin, his height hovering over your friend. He nods at you and says "You have five minutes" before entering the almost rowdy class. You catch your favorite musky smell when he made his way behind you.

"I'll come by" was Jimin's last response before he vanished from the empty hallway, your mind not comprehending his reply.

Come by what? Where?

Whatever it was, you tried to pushed it to the back of your mind and failed. Biology was interesting, Mr. Joonie was wearing your favorite black and blue striped tie paired with his thin white long sleeves shirt. He discussed further about DNA base pairs which you fell behind on when your brain decides to bring back Jimin's last words.

You tried to bring your ears on Mr. Joonie's lesson, but your mind could only pull away. Screw Jimin for ruining this class for you, distraction was the last thing you needed this month and here comes your infatuated friend to fuck everything up. But it wasn't his idea that made you think, it's your reaction to his idea that caught your attention. You were too defensive earlier, but you guessed it's the right thing to do. However, you can only overthink.

Jimin's proposal was garbage, in what way would it possibly help you?

Falling in love? That's overrated, your mind is set for your one and only goal and that is graduating from this hellhole of hormonal teenagers seeking for love.

Jeez, you sounded like an old lady, but you know it's the truth. Falling in love leads to nothing but a disaster and worst case scenario: baby, which is not part of the high school bucket list you've made for your graduating year. Thanks to your hormones, they weren't as wild as the other teens.

Biology was quicker than you expected. Well, you spent the whole time looking out the window and wondering what the fuck Jimin meant. Lucky for you, Mr. Joonie never paid attention to you to even notice you weren't paying attention to him.

When you finished your Spanish class — your last period, you never caught Jimin in the hallway. Which you wouldn't have expected from what he had said, but you were only left disappointed. You guessed he went after Seulgi to give her the talk. You head home quickly, preparing to study the whole night. You cringe at the idea, already missing the feeling of the living room's sofa while binge-watching 80's sci-fi movies.

He probably forgot already, you tell yourself while flipping through the dull pages of your notebook. A tinge of small dismay tugs at your stomach, you shouldn't have expected too much from a friend like him. You left the thought as you push the first paragraph of your reviewer into your mind, it was ineffective. You only longed for something else, maybe it was food.

You leave your cold room, tiptoeing towards the kitchen downstairs. Your tummy jumps when you saw the cookie jar full. A neon green sticky note beside it reads "clean the house. - mom <3"

You roll your eyes, ignoring the note and opening the glass of sweets. The doorbell rings before your fingers could make contact with the cookies, annoyance builds inside you.

I swear, if this isn't the dress I ordered online. Your pj's drag along the floor as you reach for the door, and a sweaty Jimin stands in front of you. You close your eyes out of embarrassment, regretting that you didn't check the peephole first. You stand in your loose black shirt that barely hangs on your left shoulder, revealing the strap of your bra.

"Wow, you look awful," Jimin narrows his eyes, meticulously scanning your appearance. Your bra strap was only a part of your horrible get up.

"What the hell are you doing here?" you assert, pulling the sleeve of your shirt to cover your exposed skin.

"I said I'd come by remember?" Oh, that's what he meant. "Sorry, I took long. Taehyung called for a meeting for the Curious Minds Club."

Of course, the Curious Minds Club, possibly the worst name for a science club. Jimin loved that name so much, he would always mention it in its entirety. It was his and Taehyung's idea, which you opposed when he asked for your opinion. He reasoned that you never cared about science anyway so you had no right to oppose him, which was stupid 'cause he asked for an opinion in the first place.

"You know what, it's a good thing you and Taehyung are graduating this year so juniors could rename that stupid club."

He walks past you and throws his bag on the floor before laying on the couch, not needing an invitation from you. "Why do you always have to hate my ideas? Just agree for once, Curious Minds is a legendary name."

You shut the door, heading back to the kitchen and finally getting your hands on the cookies. You moan in satisfaction, its taste exploding on your tongue. Jimin spins his head to you.

"Did your Mom make those?"

You nod, bringing the whole jar to him.You let the couch eat you, completely forgetting the reviewer waiting for you in your room. Jimin takes a bite and you absorbed his reaction, similar to yours.

"What are you gonna tell me?" you start.

Jimin's face lit up. "Right, almost forgot about that."

You sat a foot away from him, keeping distance from his nauseating perfume. Your legs cross in front of you, Jimin's arm spreads on top of the sofa right above you.

"So, you've never been in a relationship, right?" Not this again.

You nod, taking another soft cookie.

"I read your drafts during English class, and I gotta say y/n," you stare at him in anticipation, "you suck."

"You're gonna come over to my house, eat my Mom's cookies, and then roast me?! Fuck you, Jimin."

He laughs. "I'm kidding. You filled that paper with passion of hatred towards highschool couples, I started hating them as well," he explains.

"You're one of those couples, dummy. I actually took inspiration from you and Seulgi."

"I thought you don't follow our relationship?" he asks, his head cocking to your direction.

"I heard enough from you throughout the course of six months. Seulgi this, Seulgi that. Seulgi's being complicated, Seulgi's so cute when she burps. Seulgi's being too friendly with Taeyong, oh nevermind, Seulgi just said she loves me," you imitate his irritating ranting from the past, which you wish you would never receive anymore. Expecting an exasperated expression, you were surprised to see Jimin smiling at you.

"I thought you weren't listening all those times."

"Sadly, I was and I shouldn't have."

"The Taeyong part is still true, though," he extends the cookie he was holding forward, trying to pinpoint, "I saw them before dismissal."

"Look at you, all sad and sentimental. Cute li'l Jimin stalking his ex-girlfriend. Awe, how tragic," you vexed, pouting at the obviously annoyed boy.

"I wasn't stalking. I just saw them."

"Poor guy getting his heart broken in the hallway, poor Chimchim. How is he gonna move on now?"

"Quit it," sneered Jimin, indulging on his cookie.

He was still affected, it happened only a few hours ago, he won't be moving on too quickly. Seulgi's laugh is still fresh in his memory, and he could hear it vividly. He could still feel his stomach drop when he thinks of her. His world crumbling into pieces, like the cookie at the bottom of the jar, whenever he's reminded of how her eyes disappear when she smiles much like his — eyes forming intro wrinkly crescents. You felt as if you went below the belt when he became quiet, an uncomfortable silence sitting in the gap between the both of you.

"Back to my proposal," he breaks, "it would really change your writing."

You face pulled together in a center. "How can you say so, Mr. Photographer?"

He inches closer, but his smell was weaker, it was bearable. "Just like what the late Benjamin Franklin had said, 'either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.'"

Your lungs deflate, narrowed eyes processing him. "And what does that have to do with my writing? I wrote something worth reading," you proudly announce.

"No, you're writing your own opinion on a feature. When I read it, I felt like going nowhere. I didn't feel like going back to high school. I felt like I'm in the same place, there's nothing that opened in me," he explains, his words tightening your own throat. "The topic is falling in love in high school, but all I ever felt was hatred."

He pulled a chord in you. He was actually right. Your body falls on the couch, groaning out of frustration.

"What you wrote isn't worth reading, but-" he slouches on the couch and faces you, "you can do something worth writing."

Your cheek sinks on the couch, glaring at Jimin who never looked more passionate about helping you. Break ups do things to people, really.

"And what's that exactly?"

"I know you've never fallen in love in high school, so I'm gonna let you experience what people in love do."

"That doesn't sound like a good idea. I don't want to get messy with Seulgi." The cold leather against your cheeks didn't stop them to burn.

"No, y/n, we're not gonna date. Just trust me on this one, okay?" he convinces and you give in, finding no sense in arguing about a stupid subject

"Just don't do anything weird. I don't really get the gist of your plan."

"What are things that couples do?"

"Aside from making out and having sex at a party? I don't know," you say, his face not impressed.

"I really hate you right now. That's not what we do-"

"Did," you correct, a smile forming on your lips. His frown only worsens from the continuous mocking that you were doing. "Go on, what else did you do?"

His eyes rolled. "Dates. Have you ever been on dates?"

Of course, you have. Family dates count as real dates. That coffee date you had with Sana last Thursday counts, right?

And so, without further arguments within you, you decided to turn down Jimin's dumb idea. Who is he to make fun of you for not going to dates often? You were about to tell him that he's not an inch entitled to show you what a date feels like.

Unreasonably anxious, you tug your skirt down as a small swirl of wind hits on your thin skin. Jimin waves from the bench, standing up to analyze what you wore. You weren't supposed to feel your stomach fall when you finally came to face him, but you did. A tiny voice doubted your outfit choice, and a tiny voice told you how good he looked. Satisfaction fills your wandering mind, you were scared you'd come overdressed with your white puff sleeves.

There was a short amount of silence that gave you enough time to admire him. His Canon camera hangs around his neck, it was the first thing you noticed. He stands there in his skin-tight black pair of ripped jeans, and topped with a thick mustard hoodie. His cute yellow sneakers popped out from the gray cemented ground. Your nose tickled when his scent enters.

"Sorry" was all you could say.

He grins gently, eyes disappearing. "You're about thirty minutes late."

If you didn't spend minutes arguing with yourself about what to wear, you would've arrived sooner. But here you are, still regretting the choice you made. His bright fashion didn't complement your pale vintage look, not that it mattered to him, but you grew conscious.

"Where are you taking me?" you strengthen your voice, trying to seem more confident than you really are.

He tucks both of his hands inside his pockets. "Just pretend I'm either Jungkook or Mr. Kim, whoever you wanna go on a date with."

Imagining Jungkook with a sheepish bunny-like smile, your heart starts to melt and it was vivid in your cheeks.

"See, you're already flustering."

"No, I'm not. Get on with your plan." It was obvious but you chose to deny it, Jimin should be the last person on earth to see you flustered. "Where are you taking me?"

"There's a photography exhibit down the street I'd like to take you in. Wanna eat first?"

His eyes can't help but wander around your body, and you'd be blind to not notice what he was doing.

"Is there something wrong with I'm wearing?" The loud children playing by park almost made your voice inaudible.

"Nope, it's amazing. You look beautiful, y/n," his pitch ascends, tweaking your ears.

You diminish your mind from his compliment, it's all an act. You know he's only doing this to make you feel something which what everything is about. You look away from him, distracting yourself with the pigeons nearby, hoping it would stop your blood from rushing to your face. Jimin takes your hand, intertwining it with his soft palm. Your body hitches and he only held on tighter.

"I know a cafe."

You didn't give him an answer to decide, but he was already pulling you towards a corner. It would've been an unbearable silence if you weren't in public. You hoped he would not notice how your skin has gone damp, tensed by the moment his warm soft fingers made contact with yours. Excitement awakens within you, an unfamiliar emotion.

The moment you saw him sitting on the bench waiting for you, it already felt like a poem waiting to be written. You could already write a hundred words just describing how he looked today. It isn't love, it's just attraction.

He opens the entrance to a cafe — you were too distracted to read the name. You lose contact with his hand as he sits by the counter and so did you. A middle-aged woman with a forced grin awaits on the other side of the counter.

"I'd have a chocolate milkshake," you tell Jimin, shyness was completely obvious in your voice.

"Just one chocolate milkshake," Jimin tells the waiter, his gaze focused on you.

Jenna — written on her name tag — gives a forced lift to her cheeks, proceeding to the kitchen behind. You were in the midst of asking him why he only ordered for himself, but you jumped when you hear his camera click, a flash directed towards your way.

"Ugh, what's wrong with you?"

"To make it last longer," Jimin mumbles, you ignore.

You shouldn't have agreed to this. You shouldn't have rejected Sana's offer to review at the library. You shouldn't have let Jimin take control of the day. Because ever since the moment you arrived in your carefully picked clothes, your mind never acted straight. Never in your five years of high school have you ever felt so embarrassed and timid.

Why isn't he talking? Did I look stupid in the last photo? How many chapters could I have reviewed by now if I stayed home?

Jenna slams the glass of chocolate shake on the counter. You and Jimin didn't bother to react, too busy thinking of what exactly is this tension between the both of you. Jimin takes two straws, slowly inserting them on the mushy drink. He leans forward on his elbow rested against the cold edge of the table, facing sidewards to look at you better. You looked cute when you're ignoring his gaze, and for a second, he forgot the hole in his heart. It only felt stronger the moment you side-eyed him.

"What?" you mutter, unaware of your effect on him.

After a small sip, his eyes widened when he gulped. "It's good, c'mon, try it."

His bottom lip glistens, you weren't even sure why you caught that detail on his face. With a scrutinizing look from him, the moment didn't grow comfortable for you. The longer you stayed with him, the harder it is you try to stop your stomach from doing unnecessary turns.

You sigh. This is not gonna get better if you keep acting like a shy high school girl — well, you are a shy high school girl, but that's never the case with Jimin. He was your friend, a very close friend. With a lump swallowed in your throat, you approached the elephant in the room.

"Jimin," you breathe. "This is weird. I don't even kno-"

"I'll stop you there. You're having butterflies in your stomach, aren't you?" He licks his lip, excited to hear your answer.

"No. No, I'm not having butterflies in my stomach." You raise your chin.

He snickers. "You're supposed to feel it, not deny it. You're such an amateur. Your writing's not gonna get better if you keep being subjective. You feel flustered like the other girls in high school on a date, accept it."

He's making sense and you hate it. But at least it has been addressed. He knows what you're feeling and you don't have to keep it a secret. Defeated, you sigh. You regained your composure which you might have lost by the moment he smiled at you at the bench.

"You take Seulgi here often?" Your lips trembled in the slightest way before taking a sip from your straw.

Jimin chokes on his own breath. "What? You're asking about my ex on our date?"

An intense heat builds upon you, beading of sweat forms on your nape. Our date, two words that repeated like a broken vinyl in your head. Maybe it was being numb for years that everything right now starts to feel like everything. It's not the same emotions you feel when you wrote those drafts, it's something else you can't put your tongue on.

You purse your lips, swallowing the cold drink. "What do we even talk about?" you giggle out.

He didn't take any second to think, Jimin already had something in mind. His hand touches the glass of the drink, finger rubbing the small drips of water on its sides. There isn't something that he's doing that you weren't noticing. You're quite aware that he was just as observant as you by the way he hasn't taken his eyes off you since you sat down.

"Why do you write?" He lifts the glass off the table, bringing it close to him and taking a sip while he waits for your answer.

Well, it's a simple reason. It's all you know, it's all you ever do. Your second grade teacher was quite an amazing narrator. You remember closing your eyes to her melodic voice as she describes the dragon's tower: red bricks stand over a thousand pieces, to the sky it went and in the cloud it hid, scared to be found by a knight who wanted nothing but to save it. It was a remnant of your almost forgotten childhood, since then you only wanted to seek more of those words. A flaming desire sparked in you, that is to write a picture.

"You ever had that feeling like flying when you read something? It's so vibrant and you could almost feel it take you places." You bit your lip, eyes closing to pull your words together. "I want people to feel what I feel, what I see, what I know. To get them to react the way I want them to, but learn something I never knew I wrote." You open your eyes to see him deeply absorbed in your explanation. "You probably don't even get it," you sigh.

"No, I totally get it. I understand." He places the drink back to its wet ring-like mark on the table. "That's exactly how I feel about photography. I want people to see the way I view things, my focal point in life. With photography, I can get them to look at things in a specific perspective."

You were unconscious of the smooth smile that grew on your lips. All this time, you thought you knew Jimin well, but this only opened a door to him. For five years, you've always been ignorant of what others do and what others feel. It felt like a waste of years, the only thing you learned about in high school was Sana's love for body sprays and now, Jimin's reason for photography.

Your throat goes dry, not having anything to say. Though you had a lot in mind, how his eyes shined bright when he enthusiastically praised what he loves. Regret screams inside you, how could I let five years pass by so quickly. There was so much to learn and so much to write, it's a disappointment you've only written for essays and Min Yoongi.

You scoot towards the drink, trying to catch the straw with your lips while your eyes are darted on Jimin. Slurping impulsively, you caught Jimin's face turn into a shock.

"Don't finish our drink!" He dives in with you, sipping much more intensely than you.

You slid off to laugh, a small amount of chocolate drapes on your bottom lip but you were fast enough to catch it with your finger. You catch the straw again, trying to compete with Jimin. The proximity between you was the last thing in your mind, you only cared about getting more milkshake than Jimin who seem to fall behind your level.

You slam your fist on the table after finishing the drink and Jimin leans away to laugh, already accepting his lost. "I win!" you cheer, holding the biggest smile.

Jimin cocks his head, stretching out his hand for a handshake. With a graceful pump, he exhales a tired huff from laughing too hard. "I guess that's one thing you're good at," his lips curved, forming a soft wrinkle on his right cheek. "Sucking."

You snort. "You're also good at finishing early." Earning a chuckle from him, your brow raised.

"How would you know? You never tried me."

You inhale silently, not wanting him to be aware of your reaction. What a stupid comeback. He stands from his seat, pulling his black leather wallet from his back pocket.

"Let's split it," you tell him immediately, hand already reaching for your purse.

"Hey, no. This one's on me. I invited you remember?" He was already placing a bill on the table which Jenna quickly approached, leaving a tip for her that made her smile a little different than earlier.

Your skin turns moist as the both of you walk out the cafe, heat raking against your skin. He returns his hand in yours, so casually it felt so real. He's got a hold of your fingers and he does it so well, it didn't feel foreign, like your hand has somehow molded in there and made its home.

You follow his direction, not bothering to speak since you were afraid your words would only fail you. Silence doesn't seem to bother Jimin as much as it bothers you, he only focused on his way to the exhibit and how your hand felt wrapped in his. Not being able to endure it any longer, you dared to speak.

"I'll pay you back, I promise."

His head didn't turn, and his mouth didn't open. Instead, his thumb rubs over yours. It was a movement so subtle, yet electricity bursts under your skin. You drift your focus on your footsteps, refusing to step on a crack making your phase noticeable to Jimin. You fall a little behind from him, but the game you're playing with your feet felt so serious at the moment. Jimin eyes you, then to your feet, figuring out what the hell you were trying to do. Thinning the space between his brows, he pulls you close with a tight grip on your hand.

"We're here," strictly he says.

A narrow door towers in front of you, and Jimin pulls you inside. Like a normal exhibit, walls were white, exaggerating the black and white photos hanging around them. Strangers inside could easily be counted, scattered around every corner of the room.

"They're all by Ash Park, a film photographer," he states, leading you to the left side to showcase the first picture.

In a golden frame, a pale girl bends to play ball with children much shorter than her in an alleyway. Jimin finds interest in your face, clearing his throat to begin his explanation. You ignore the description pasted on the wall beside it, letting Jimin do the work.

"That's in Cuba. That girl there is an actress, not so popular though. She and Ash are very close friends, if not more than that."

Your brows quirked up, lips pouting with the information given. "Bet your ass they are."

He breathes a laugh before walking to the next frame, and you follow.

"Did you go here already?" you asked, arms crossed against your chest and eyes pinned on the picture.

The same girl sits at the end of the bed, winking at the camera. Her hands politely placed on her thighs with legs crossed. Even in a colorless picture, her personality can be vibrantly seen. She was simply beautiful in her lacy dress.

You turn to Jimin who was staring right at you, his head quickly turning to the photo.

"I've been here with Taehyung," he answers. "About the picture, it's the same girl obviously. I think it's exquisitely symmetrical. Just amazing how aesthetic she looked sitting so proper on the bed. She's like the center of everything in that hotel room, I think that's what Ash is on about."

"I love your depiction, it's making me fall in love," you thin your lips, "with the picture, of course."

Jimin huffs. "Just the picture? Look at her, she's beautiful. He's clearly in love with her. I could hear her laugh from this picture, it's making me fall in love with her too."

"What's her name?"

"Jinri."

You've always thought that words are the only thing that can move a person, but Jinri's smile shines through the printed material. In an unexplainable way, you could feel the chemistry built within the photographer and the model, it is way beyond words. Again, Jimin explains another picture and always find yourself so absorbed within his way of interpretation. And aside from that, whenever your eyes look upon him, he already had his on you.

It goes on for a while, then you found your favorite piece. Jinri reading a book while her body rests on the glass of a store's window. Surrounded by a busy street, it seemed scripted. Nonetheless, it was still beautiful.

"This is my favorite," Jimin says.

"No way, I was just debating about that." Your eyes wandered around the picture, trying to pick up more details.

Jimin grins in astonishment. "It reminds me of a specific picture I took back in eighth grade. Do you remember the book fair?"

"Are you kidding? That's where we met."

"Yeah. That's the day I first brought my camera to school. I was playing around with the lens, trying out different stuff, and then I accidentally took a picture of this girl reading a book. And when I looked at it, the camera focused on her and the rest of the crowd was a blur."

"Do I know her?"

Jimin gulps. "No, probably not. From what I heard, she transferred schools the same year. It's my favorite though, I even printed it out."

"Really? Let me se-"

"It's in my Science notebook. I'll show you some other time."

The rest of the day continued, Jimin asking if you wanted to eat again which you wasted no second to say yes to. You eventually found out about Jimin's hatred towards ketchup. And when you got home, unopened books greeted you from your desk. However, regret didn't knock on your door that night, you were only left smiling while highlighting half of the pages.

But you weren't supposed to be thinking of Jimin like that, knowing the fact that you were supposed to imagine Jungkook during that date. It was bothersome that Jungkook never even crossed your mind today.

Sana's menacing eyes scanned you from head to toe, not believing the lie you had just told her. Your words completely stopping her from reviewing the Lush soap in her hand. Placing the glittery soap back to its container, she minimizes the gap between your bodies.

"I know damn well when you're lying, y/n. You did not review with Park Jimin." Your chest heaved at the mention of his name and you hope Sana didn't notice.

But of course, she's much like you. Quite the observant type, that's why she's your best friend. Years of observing and chattering about high school drama in the cafeteria would be useless if she didn't notice that small body language.

Lately, you keep finding yourself in situations you regret going to. Again, you were supposed to be diving deeper into your calculus reviewer, which you failed to finish last night, but to make up for rejecting Sana's offer to review at the library a day ago, you let her drag you to the mall. You wish you can just gauge your eyes out to make it impossible for Sana to read them.

She releases a breath, the mint chocolate ice cream she had from earlier traveling to your nose. "Please tell me you used a condom."

You slap her shoulder, eyes widening while she solemnly awaits your response. "What's wrong with you? That's the last thing on my list." Immediately regretting your last sentence, you shut your eyes tightly. "I mean it's not on my list." Fuck.

"You're risking failing the exams for a date, that's very unlikely of you."

Not wanting to look at her much longer, you drew your eyes to the bath bombs placed on the wooden table, hands skimming through their rough texture.

"We did not date. We had to do our assignments for the school pub," you clarify, emphasizing every word clearly.

Sana's body remains to face you, ignoring her favorite shimmery body products lying on the shelf beside her. "Last time I heard that was on Fifteen and Pregnant. Was it missionary? Come on, tell me the details."

"Holy shit, quit it! I didn't have sex with Jimin!" You heard every head turning to face you, looks of disgust thrown towards your way.

"Oh, really?" A deep voice sneaks behind you, making you place the lavender bath bomb back to its place. Taehyung blinks like a dumbfounded child, contrasting his deep voice from earlier. His height towers over you and Sana who was just as confused as you are.

"Excuse me? Is it normal for nerds to be such a creep all the time?" You felt Sana nod from beside you with her arms crossed on her chest.

"What? I'm not a nerd. You're a nerd," he points to Sana, "you too."

"Why are you here anyway? This is Lush not Gamestop."

His nose crinkled. "Just a quick FYI, there's a difference between geeks and nerds. And I am not any of those." Placing a hand in the middle of his chest, he looks you deeper.

You smirk, turning to Sana. "Nerd."

"Are you buying lotion for your boyfriend? Is that why you're here?" Sana curves a corner of her lips, proud of what she had said.

"No, I'm here to buy wax for your Mom. You got any suggestions?" retaliated Taehyung, cocking a head towards Sana. "I happen to pass by and I heard you talking about fucking Jimin. I was intrigued."

"Ew, no. She was joking," you reply, rolling your eyes to Sana.

"Oh, I know. He wouldn't be talking with Seulgi if you guys did... you know?" He raises a brow, and you furrowed yours, trying to pretend that you don't understand.

The mention of Seulgi's name struck a chord in you. You knew it was physically impossible for your blood to boil, but it's the right way to describe it. Guessing it's only the hatred for Sana and Taehyung teasing you about Jimin, somehow deep inside you were envious of Seulgi. It was probably the reason Jimin was hard to be seen today, and you're not denying that you did expect him to come talk with you.

"He was?" you ask with a tiny voice, unaware that you just said it.

"I saw them during lunchtime, didn't you?" Taehyung replies sternly, having no intention to make fun of your reaction.

"Right. Yeah, I saw them," you lie quickly, biting your lip afterwards.

Sana looks at you from your side, pursing her lips and trying her best to not say the wrong thing. It was her first time to see you unreadable. Your emotions were new and something she's never encountered before throughout years of knowing you. She's only used to comforting you about a failed quiz, or a scolding from Mrs. Cruz when you can't pronounce Desafortunadamente properly. But she can guess it, jealousy and confusion isn't something new to her. However, it's still absurd to see those emotions printed on your face.

Sana ended up buying a strawberry chapstick, and Taehyung had left before you knew it. She insists to take you home for unknown reasons, it was unusual of her to do so. And you throw yourself on the bed, still with your hot sweater on, careless if you start to smell or not.

You push your head onto the soft fabric of your pillow, trying to take your mind off of your reviewer and the unresolved teenage drama, ew. Now all of your actions are revealing their consequences, your mind falling into a pit of regret. Your crush on Jimin can't come back now, not before the exam at least. You have no strength to fight all that emotions, you should only have one thing in your head and it should be Chapter 8: DNA Base Pairs.

Screaming into the pillow, your Dad comes walking to your door, knocking passively and asking if you were doing okay which you stuttered a yes to. You release an exasperated sigh when you hear him walk back downstairs, continuing his favorite ESPN show.

You would think that a long exhausting day would actually exhaust you, but for some dumb reason, you got up from your bed and sat behind your desk. With a palpitating heart, your eyes wander around the messy table, looking for some sort of entertainment.

I should sleep, like right now. It was a school night, and staying up to decide whether to watch a RomCom movie or to write stresses you more than it should. For the mean time, fuck DNA Base Pairs and calculus, life is now and you're watching 50 First Dates for the seventh time.

The light emitting from the crevice below your door and the floor dims down a few moments ago, and your Dad was no longer cheering for a Christiano Ronaldo rerun. The night has gone quicker than you thought, it was already twelve o'clock sharp, and your eyes are not weighing down at least one bit. They remain full and in awe whenever Drew Barrymore is shown on screen.

Your jump out of your skin when you heard a soft clonk from outside your window, thinking it would just be a twig falling down a tree, you ignore. But they continued for three more times, and twigs falling down during a serene quiet night would be strange. If it was windy outside, you would've heard its gush.

You pause the movie on your laptop screen, waiting for another sound. And then you heard three more knocks. Your head follows the sound. You've never felt more overly excited in your life, stomach jumping in anticipation.

Jimin smiles through the window, relieved that you haven't gone deaf. He waves, then points towards the lock on your window. You nod, hopping out of your seat to unlock it. You hear him sigh, throwing his bag inside your room.

"What are you doing here? Did you get in trouble?"

Jimin's petite body slides right in with no problem, huffing in front of you after his success. He looks to your door then back at you, sweat rolling against the frame of his face.

"You wanna wake your parents? Can you chill for a sec," he whispers, walking towards the end of your bed and dropping on the floor.

While you were busy struggling to pull down the window, Jimin drags his bag to get his camera. Before you could flop beside him, the camera flashes your face. Your lips remain thin, too lazy to react. Scratching the back of your ear, you sit beside him.

"Seriously, how'd you get here in the middle of the night?" you ask, hugging your legs while your fingers tug on the fabric of your jeans.

Jimin spreads his legs, slouching on the wood behind him. He turns the camera off before seeing the picture, his focus already on you. "I stole my brother's car."

"And for what reason?"

"I can't sleep," his head hits the hard material as he turns to see you closer and you cringed for him, "I didn't see you at school today, why's that?"

"Sana dragged me to the mall right after my Spanish class. As for lunch break, I finished my Social Studies essay in the library."

"You could have told me at least. I was waiting for you during lunch."

"No, you weren't," you say quickly, "you were with Seulgi."

Jimin's head rises from its comfort, tilting in confusion. "Why would I be with her?"

You gulp, preparing to say the next lines without jealousy interfering in them. "Taehyung told me so. I ran to him at the mall."

He laughs, making you nervous. His head falls back again, bringing his hand on his stomach. "He probably saw us in the hallway. I did talk to her."

You bit your lip, confused why you expected a different answer from him. Your emotions remain unsolved.

"She wanted to get her bracelet back. She left it in my room before we broke up, but that's about it."

Contentment calms your nerve. He leans closer, and his familiar scent once again enters your nostrils, you exhale it away. "So, I came here uh... I feel like I needed someone to talk to."

"Taehyung's a choice," you reply, closing your eyes to lessen the excitement.

"His parents are actually going through a divorce right now, I don't want to add to his problems," he lets go of a long sigh, body falling to your side.

You lean backwards to make him feel more comfortable, watching his eyes close gently. "You should be there for him," you suggest in a soft tone.

"When I saw her earlier, I didn't want to approach her. I was confused when she walked to me," he said, disregarding your reply. "I feel guilty. I feel like I shouldn't be over her so quickly, I mean... I'm not over her, it's just that I feel better than how she's doing."

You listen to the sound of his calm breathing, and his hoarse voice that tried its best to get lower than it already is.

"When I talked about following her to college, I only said it to feel like I'm doing what I should as her boyfriend. I've always felt obligated around her and that's not how it should go. I love her but it's not the kind of love where everything falls into place." Jimin groans, lifting his body off you.

He ruffles his hair, bending his legs upwards to hug them, copying your position.

"I know it sounded like I'm seeking for perfect love, I'm not. I know relationships have their struggles, but my love for her isn't strong enough to keep it going. She broke up with me, but I feel like I was just waiting for her to."

"You children are so in love with the word 'love'." You dig your chin in between your knees.

"Y/n, it's love whether it's weak or strong. It's love for what I knew love to be. But I love her in a way I couldn't do things for myself, not that she forced me to, I just felt obligated to do so."

"Then don't do it. She'll still love you back even if you don't follow her to college."

"Do I sound stupid?"

You lift your chin to look at him, his eyes already angled towards you. "Honestly? Not really. You're in the midst of things, you can laugh about it later if it's stupid, but it's how you feel and you shouldn't be ashamed of it."

"Exactly, so why are you hating on high school romance again?"

You laugh. "I might need a little more convincing from you."

Your response was what he wanted to hear. There's more comfort in your hand and he realized that the moment he have let go of it during the day at the exhibition. He wants to do this with you, more than ever.

"Do you want to get some KFC?" he asks.

"Are you kidding? It's 12AM!"

"Do stomachs close when it's midnight? Come on, I'm really craving for some zinger right now. And we'll be back before your parents even know it," he insists. "Do something adventurous for once, high school is ending and all you can tell your grandkids about it is homework."

You roll your eyes. "I really can't," smacking your lips, "say no to that."

Jimin wastes no time in pulling you towards the window, but you shake his hand off to take your dirty sweater off, revealing your sky blue smocked bodice cami top. Jimin ravels his eyes on your body, a lump forming inside his throat.

"Move," you tease, pushing him towards the window. Thank God, it was humid outside, you wouldn't have survived with just a sleeveless top.

The next thing you know, Jimin was singing at the top of his lungs to What Lovers Do and with such a falsetto voice, you sang along as well. Looking to your side was when you realized how great the city lights compliment Jimin's smile, and everything felt so fixed, you weren't worried about getting caught nor falling asleep in class tomorrow, it just felt so right and perfect.

This was something based on novels you read as a middle schooler, and you were foolish to never believe in any of it. Some quotes start to make sense, everything was a hazy dream and no words can ever define how extraordinary Jimin's eyes looked as they twinkle inside the dark vehicle.

Jimin had no other thoughts than enjoying the moment with you, in this year is where it all ends and everything starts. Graduation was nearing and the only thing making perfect sense for him was that soft beam you have while you bob your head to the beat. Bokeh was something that he only sees in pictures, but he dies right the moment you smiled at him and you were surrounded by them.

He makes a turn, almost forgetting that you were here to eat with him. As soon as the both of you arrive inside, Jimin runs to the counter to place the orders.

You sit near the entrance, chin resting on your palm while you wait for Jimin to finish. The girl in the counter seems to be around your age, and she looks at Jimin with so much happiness in your eyes. You giggle. Jimin leans on the counter, silently talking with the girl to which she keeps responding with a laugh.

Jimin sits across you, setting the food on the table. His hand immediately grabbing his zinger. You watch him take the first bite while you unwrap yours, pretending to be as hungry as he was.

"How do you do that? Flirt all over the place?" You point your sandwich towards Jimin whose cheeks are bulging.

He swallows, eyes shutting to savor the satisfaction. "Oh, I'm not flirting. She was." He turns his head to the girl with a wide smile, then to you. "How do you do that? Hate on something you've never felt nor experienced?"

"Hm," resting your arms on the table, "I don't actually hate it anymore. This thing that we're doing, teaching me what people in love do, it's kinda fascinating."

His gaze alternates to you and his food. "There's more to this. This is what friends do, but what Seulgi and I did was so much more than just this."

You look down, taking a bite to ignore the weird emotion forming inside you.

"I mean what couples do. I know you're pretending I'm Jungkook and that's the thing, friends are great companion but when it's the person you love, time feels faster."

"I'm not actually pretending you're Jungkook," you confess, and you felt him lose his composure but he was quick enough to take it back.

"You seem to smile at me like I'm somebody else."

"I smile at you just fine," you take a sip of the Sprite beside your tray. "Anyways, do you already have something to send Yoongi?"

He nods. "Already took my masterpiece."

You roll your eyes. "Wish I could say the same. Exams are two days from now and I just gave up reviewing."

"I could study with you, I'll come over tomorrow."

"How is that gonna help me review?"

"I'm like the best study buddy ever. Have you written anything yet?"

You huff in disbelief. "No, inspiration's not coming to me."

Jimin moves away, mouth agape. "Y/n, look at me," and you did more than you already were, "I'm all the inspiration you need. Write something about how I smell good or how my eyes look when I talk, girls love to read that shit."

"First of all, you smell like every rotten fruits combined. Second, no. That's not what feature writing is about, I'm not gonna turn it into a John Green novel."

"Turn it into an erotica, let Yoongi jack off to it before rejecting it."

You snort, cheeks turning red. "You think he jerks off to erotica?" you ask in between laughs.

"I did, Fifty Shades of Grey chapter thirty-nine." He leans back, waiting for your reaction. "It was worth a wet page."

"I do not need details. Jimin, what the fuck?"

He raises his brows, chewing on his fries. Eating has never been more attractive. He smirks. "Hurry up eating." Jimin cleans his mouth with a tissue, slamming his fist on the table to rush you.

"Jesus, you wanted me to eat," you reply with your mouth full, crumpling the wrapper to slip it inside the empty cup.

The both of you leaves the place laughing, pushing each other on the way to his car — brother's car in the dark and empty parking lot. It was just the crickets, moderate hums of cars passing by, and your laughs, play fighting with each other. Before the car splits the both of you, Jimin pulls you to remain behind the vehicle.

"What?" He holds your arm in a careful manner, calming down from his giggles.

"I've never done this before," Jimin leads you to the driver's side, opening the door to reach for the radio. Leaving the car door open, Linger by The Cranberries made its way to your ears.

You feel your neck sets afire, you swear they've turned a bright pink that roamed to your cheeks. With wide eyes, questioning Jimin's actions. "You're not turning this into a coming of age film, are you?"

His palms glide to your waist, pulling you closer to him. Thank goodness the lot was empty, but you doubted maybe the girl Jimin was flirting with earlier can somehow see your bodies ridiculously swaying. That's the least of your worries, because Jimin's hands was electricity to your exposed skin. You decide to wrap your arms around his neck, not wanting to make it any more awkward and just going with the flow.

He blinks at you. "Yes, we certainly are." He purses his lips, you can only look.

Besides your swelling heart, your lips shake trying to suppress its cavernous grin. "So, this is what corny couples do?"

Jimin exhales through his nostrils, taking your hand to extend it to the side while he hugs you closer. "No, no. This is what we do, y/n."

You couldn't comprehend what he said, disregarding it by burying your head deep into his chest, inhaling his scent like making a memory, he does the same by digging his nose into your hair. You close your eyes to concentrate on the beat of his heart, just as fast as yours and synchronized perfectly.

"I've never done this before," he repeats and he feels you nod. "Have you?"

"No," you tell his chest. "Why would you think I've done it?"

His hot breath rolls on your scalp, enjoying the smell of your papaya shampoo. It goes on for a while, steady breathing no matter how fast both of your hearts rush. Then he lets go, a part of you already missing the feeling of his chest against your cheek.

"Can I just..." Jimin breaks, ignoring your question, his hand that used to intertwine yours holds your cheek, his grasp on your waist tightening. Your eyes were still, and he watches as though they were incomparable even when they're closed.

In a sharp push from behind you, fingers extending to push you further to his groin. Your eyes flutter open as his lips connect with yours. You pull away and you catch Jimin's eyes close, slowly opening them again.

"I'm sorry." He moves away, feeling horrible for just kissing you like that. Before he enters the car, you tug his arm, framing his face with your hands to pull him again back to your lips. He rakes his fingers on your back, just a little above your ass.

Feeling shy, the movement of your lips were subtle. But Jimin just devoured them, and you followed his sloppy kiss. He exhales heavily it sounded like a grunt, smiling in between. You wrap around him again, and he lifts his fingers to your nape. Pushing you towards the car, he jerks his hip and so did you, unfamiliar heat pooling between your thighs.

You thrust against him again, he grips you waist tighter only to pull away.

"You need to stop that," he purrs, giving you one last peck.

You followed his body, but he signals you to stop. Confused, you went to the other side and processed what he was trying to do. The kiss was too good to regret, it felt like an achievement rather. And the ride back to your house was unsatisfying, you didn't want to go home, you only wanted more. But Jimin leaves the moment he takes his bag, silence wrapping every second. No words exchanged after he stopped you from kissing him again, fazing you the whole night.

You spent your day memorizing at school, just happy that the teachers gave enough free time to let their students study for the upcoming exams. Except of course for Mrs. Cruz who went about Spanish adverbs.

Tuesday was boring, well, a little. It would've been extremely boring if the kiss last night didn't happen. Aside from flipping pages in the library while Sana sits comfortably beside you, your mind wanders why the fuck - why the fuck Jimin kissed you then stopped you. You poke Sana, intending to tell her about it, it doesn't matter if she can help, but she shakes your hand away and made a hissing noise. Slouching in your seat, you pick up your notes again, rereading each sentences.

Once. Twice. Thrice. Trying to get the definition of protein inside your head, but you're far from getting there when footsteps behind you felt closer. Please don't be him. But of course, destiny seems to love the idea of you being miserable.

"We need to talk," Jimin says right when you stand to face him, holding a brown teddy bear in his hand.

"No, dingus. She's with me," Sana protests, putting down her trig notebook.

"Actually, we need to really talk. Like really need to really talk, you know?" you reply, leaving your seat while Sana frowns.

Sana was only two steps away, yet Jimin continued with his statement.

"About the kiss," he begins. "I'm really sorry, I didn't know what I was doing. I shouldn't have done it."

"Right," you lie. "I also didn't know what I was doing. I was just thinking of Jungkook and I dived right in, I'm such an idiot. It was like one in the morning, I was hallucinating." You fake a giggle and Jimin furrows his brows.

"You were thinking of Jungkook?" he mutters, almost inaudibly. "I mean, right. Yeah, you're thinking of Jungkook, I should know ha ha."

"Let's just forget about it. It's dumb." You nod your head, and he bites his lip trying to ignore your gaze. "Is that for Seulgi?" Pointing towards the medium stuff toy, and he lifts it while scratching his nape.

"Nope, this is actually for you," he extends the toy forward and you uncertainly accept. "Are we still on tonight? You know? About the studying thing?"

You grit your teeth, pushing your thumbs roughly on the bear's stomach. "Of course, why wouldn't we be? Let's just forget about that thing last night, uhm... See you at five?"

Jimin finds you unbelievable, he couldn't even get over about the kiss ever since this morning but here you were, someone who's never been kissed before being so casual.

"Five it is." His lids drop, ignoring the prickly feeling as he walks away.

You release a huff, staring at the bear while Sana watches you with her mouth wide open.

"Wow, you're actually dating him."

You turn over to see her face, rolling your eyes. "Last thing on my list, okay?"

She shrugs.

It wasn't long 'till the sun sets, you were already in your pj's and this time, you wore a tight shirt to prevent Jimin from seeing your boring bra straps. You weren't even preparing the study materials, you were just sitting on the couch, tensed and dense, with ears waiting for the doorbell to finally ring.

Bracing yourself, you stare at the bear placed on the other side of the couch and it looks as though it's speaking right back at you. The doorbell rings, and you run to the door as fast as you could but you stopped before opening it, arguing with yourself whether to smile or not, pretending like you don't care that he's here.

"Hey," he clears his throat, "are you ready?"

"For what?"

He grins at your stupid question. "To study? What else are we gonna do?"

You shake your head, throwing your thoughts in a bin as you move away from the door, leaving him to close it. The heat beneath your thighs from your seat earlier comforts you, you're home and there's nothing to be nervous about — except you're home alone with Jimin and you have every reason to be nervous.

"What do study buddies do? I'm not really a fan of company," you confess as if he doesn't know yet.

"I don't know. I've never done it either." He laughs. "Let's just ask each other questions."

You nod, watching him sit a foot apart from you, positioning his black bag next to the couch.

"Oh," he expressed, looking at his gift that lies comfortably next to him. "Hello."

You place your thick Biology book on top of your lap, searching for questions you could ask him. "You ready?"

"When you are." He waits, rubbing his knee.

Fuck, there really was this stupid tension that won't go away even if you try. You breathe unsteadily, hoping your voice won't crack.

"What's a codon?"

He clicks his tongue. "It's a sequence of three nucleotides that corresponds to an amino acid. A full set of codons is called a genetic code." His voice was suave, completely unaware of your thoughts.

"Great, that's great. That's more than what a blank would need. Next question."

He nods.

"What's a DNA made up of?"

"Phosphate, 5-carbon sugar, and nitrogenous bases."

"Yes. Are you sure you need to review?"

"Yeah, it's just two questions I got right."

"Fine. What kind of bonds hold together the nucleotides within one one strand?"

"Special covalent bonds called phosphodiester bonds. Is that correct?"

"Yeah. This is unfair, you're in a science club."

"It's not just a science club. It's the Curious Minds Club."

You groan. "I was trying to forget that stupid name."

"Say what, Ms. Secretary of Mr. Darcy Fan Club."

"That's not the name of our club! It's Diverse Readers Literary Group."

"Oh, I forgot. You know why I forgot? It's boring."

"Dee-Ar-El-Gee. Sounds more professional than Curious Minds, it's like you're hosting a Disney show."

"DRLG? Sounds like a social worker group."

"Whatever. Your tiny brain won't understand."

He steals the book from your lap, flipping to a page you've never seen before. "What kind of bonds hold together the nucleotides within one strand?"

"Shit. Hydrogen bonds?"

"See? You got this. How many bonds do the nirogenous bases form?"

"A and T form 2... uh... hydrogen bonds while C and G form 3."

"You're just as qualified for the Curious Minds Club."

"Oh, no."

He laughs, dismissing your thoughts away. You find yourself breathing properly around him, forgetting the taste of his lips.

"Next question," he snaps his fingers, "how well do I kiss?"

You look at him for the first time in a while, his legs on the couch before you could even scold him for it. He has his arms on top of the couch, right above you. "Seriously?" was all you could say.

"Quick survey." You weren't kidding but it sounded like he was, though he anticipates your answer.

"It was great," you whisper, remembering it all again. How you thrusted onto him, tasting his sweet lips from the remnants of sprite, and how his smell didn't bother you a single bit.

"Just great?"

He shifts closer, and you turn your direction in front. "What do you expect me to say?"

"Did you really think of Jungkook?" You heard the tussle in his tone.

"Mhm," you recline. "Didn't you think about Seulgi?"

He laughs through his nostrils, the air gushing to your cheek. "Why would I think of her? I was kissing you. God, how oblivious can you get?"

"Well, maybe because you stopped me? You realized I'm not her so you stopped me."

It took a moment before he responded. "I didn't want you to stop. I just can't take you there."

"Take me where? Look, it's okay if you were thinking of Seulg-"

"My God, y/n. I was trying to control myself!"

"From what?"

"From fucking you," he half-yells.

There it was again, the fire building in you. Why did he have to bring this up again? You were close to forgetting everything - err, at least some of it.

"Y/n, I'm sorry if you felt like I was rejecting you. I can never do that." He scoots again. "Say something."

You had no clue what words you were trying to search for, all you wanted was to feel his lips on yours again. What do they taste like without the sweet drink lingering? How would it feel to kiss him in private? To kiss him in a comfortable place, somewhere no one can interfere?

There's only one way to find out.

"Then prove it."

He thinks for a moment before attaching his lips onto yours once again. It was like a taste you've been craving, and having his lips on yours again felt ecstatic. Without the drink, his lips tasted just the same, sweet and satisfying. He skims a hand to your thigh, while the other holds your nape. God bless the teenage hormones!

He pulls away, breathing raggedly. "On top of me." He taps your thigh and you oblige, sitting on his lap and returning your lips to his.

The kiss was running out, you want more. You want to feel more than just a kiss, it was insatiable. His sweatpants did no justice in hiding his hardening cock, softly poking on your entrance. But he kept his hands on your waist, trying his best not to grab your ass. You grunt, finally rolling your hips to feel that friction you've been needing.

He fails at controlling himself after hearing the noise you made, thrusting upwards to get the satisfaction he needed. His hand stops before the curved of your breast, needing an affirmation from you. For the mean time, he was entertaining himself by playing with your tongue. You earn a groan from him when you rub your pussy against the outline of his cock, he pulls away again to stare at his crotch, biting his lip.

"Did I do anything wrong?" you ask with so much worry.

"No, I just... I won't be able to stop if you keep doing that."

"Jimin, please," you beg, trailing his hands to your waiting breasts, moaning while you continuously rub yourself on him.

He watches you get yourself off with hooded eyes, his mouth open as he releases quiet moans himself. "You're doing so well, y/n, fuck." He pulls you again, biting your lower lip as he inserts one of his hand in your shirt, lifting your bra to pinch a nipple.

You were nearing your climax, and Jimin just kept watching without intention to take his clothes off. Slowing down, Jimin lifts your shirt right above your breasts, licking a nipple while he gropes the other.

You release a high-pitched whine, encouraging Jimin to twitch his dick. "Woah, you could do that?"

He giggles slightly, giving you a peck on the lips. "You're so adorable."

He thrusts again, pushing you further to your orgasm. Struggling to face him, he lowers your chin with his thumb, murmuring words you couldn't decipher at the moment, but they sounded comforting and sexy. With one last hump, muffling a loud moan in Jimin's shoulder, you find it hard to look in his eyes again. You could feel yourself throb in wetness, too ashamed to get off of Jimin only to find a wet spot on his gray sweatpants.

"It's okay, baby," he whispers as you pull away, resting back on your seat.

"Are you... Did you?" you stutter, currently having a hard time finding the right question to ask him.

He didn't. You saw the tip of his cock — it looks so good — bulging through the fabric, dry and desperate for attention.

"Hey, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Nothing was fine for you, everything was embarrassing. You shouldn't have done that, you shouldn't have let your hormones get the best of you. You couldn't look him in the eyes, needing time to process your orgasm and what the hell you just did.

"I think you need to leave," you sternly command, "I need to-"

"I get it. Sorry." You regret telling him to leave because after his apology, he grabbed his things and actually left, giving you more the reason to regret everything.

The room was quiet, but you can still hear your reckless moans, wishing that the neighbors didn't hear any of it or else you're dead meat once your parents get home. You glance at the teddy bear, immediately grabbing the soft toy to hug it.

"Why didn't you stop me?"

The proctor was Mrs. Cruz, the first to ruin your day. She walks a lot around the classroom for someone who's having back problems. From time to time, she'd have a sit behind the desk, typing slowly on her laptop keyboard. She would also readjust her thinly-framed glasses, tuck her dry dark hair behind her ear.

That's enough description of Mrs. Cruz, you're absolutely lost for words when it came to the unexpected essay. Who puts an essay in a Maths exam? Apparently, it's Mr. Uley. You've left a couple of blanks, and some were lacking solution. Mr. Uley also came up with the worst idea for an exam: right minus wrong.

Rolling the edge of the paper to find relief, you signaled to Sana who sits beside you, luckily. Leaning to the side, you slump your foot down ever so slightly so that Mrs. Cruz wouldn't notice. Sana looks at you, then to Mrs. Cruz who was busy finding a letter in her keyboard.

You mouthed, "Number six."

Sana furrows her brow, flipping through her pages to see her answer. She smiles, and you sigh inside your head, she has an answer.

"I didn't answer it," she whispers back, catching the crooked teacher's attention. Sana plays it cool, pretending to think while she rolls her pen in her fingertips.

Your world drops again, shit. You're most likely going to fail Trigonometry, and that means watching motivational videos on Youtube about blaming the education system and how it fails the students completely for being incompetent when you really just didn't study.

That was only the first exam, there were more to come. You have already lost your motivation, but you were confident to take Biology. You have all the reasons to be.

Jimin appears at the cafeteria from time to time, but you would ignore it. He was aware of how uncomfortable it have gotten between the both of you and he wasn't planning to make any move. Good thing Sana has stepped out of her diet and finally started to join you for lunch again. But it's not that much fun with Sana, because for every bite of your sandwich, she had to talk about how unhealthy it was and that you should change your diet too. But it's her or no one.

Well, Jungkook was one person to talk to other than Sana. Short talks with him aren't so bad, he was just too shy. You can't expect much from a tenth grade boy, but you've made a close friend in him.

Two days of examination felt longer than it should, and time for studying felt shorter before exams. The only thing you're having trouble with was coming up with a story. You missed Jimin and his scent, and you knew things would be better if your problem with him would just go away, but you can't bring yourself to talk to him and arrange things between your relationship. He wasn't doing any effort either to come talk with you.

Maybe it really is over. Maybe you really ruined everything. You can't blame it on your hormones itself, you wanted to cum on Jimin's lap, it was all on you. It was your choice, and you've come to the conclusion that you might have actually fallen for the school publication photographer. Shit, you tell yourself.

You shut your laptop, frustrated for not finishing yet again another draft. You decided to fill your stomach instead of forcing out a drabble, it always ends well when you're munching on something sweet. When you reached downstairs, your Dad was cheering for Christiano Ronaldo again. ESPN must've ran out of ideas and just kept showing reruns of the same game, still your dad was entertained by them even after long hours of working.

He glances at you while you open the fridge, unbothered to ask you how was school. When the door rings, you dropped the box of leftover donuts. You were a little hopeful of who it could be.

Seeing your dad remain in the same position of the couch, you proceeded to the doorstep with a glazed donut in your hand. It's not him, but it sure was a surprise to have Sana visit you during this ungodly hour for a school night. She's got her hair straightened and fixed, wearing a white skin-tight dress that stops on her mid-thighs. She looked glamoured up.

"The hell are you doing here?" you asked the blondie while the donut melts in your mouth. Your Dad turns for a second, but he goes back to watching.

"I'm picking you up, dummy. Daniel is hosting a party, you should definitely come."

"What? No, I'm busy."

"You're not busy. Exams are over so let's have a celebration. Your boyfriend's gonna be there."

"He's not my boyfriend! I couldn't care less if Jimin will be there, can you let me be?" Yes, you actually cared that Jimin will be there. You just can't get the idea of him having fun while you are left here confused and still thinking about last time.

Of course he was over it. You were just another girl he had on his dick. You thought you would've memorized Jimin's tactics by now, but you're still as naive as he knows you would be. Your lids lightened against your eyes, a tingly feeling creeping inside you but not in a good way. You could float and fall at the same time.

"Let's go to this stupid fucking party." You swore your dad's head turned, but that's the least of your worries.

You rush to your room, picking up whatever you find sexy, and immediately throwing it on. You wanted to be unexpected and spontaneous, everything Jimin thought you wouldn't be. When you wind up to the party, his mouth is gonna drop on the floor while you grind on some jock's crotch. Maybe you'll regret it in the morning, but you've already done enough of regrettable stupid things in a span of a week. What's one more stupid mistake?

Things don't always go as planned, that's why you're sitting next to Hoseok, a senior like yourself from another school, you can't remember. But the discussion was great while Sana plays Truth or Dare with the band geeks. He was in the middle of talking about his hiking with his very wealthy family, and you were in the middle of falling asleep hoping he won't notice your lids dozing off.

You've never caught a sight of Jimin in the party, and you've already come to the conclusion that Sana just said that to make you come. You hate the fact that she was successful in her attempt.

Irritation brushed your nerves, keeping you awake as you stare deeper into Hoseok's beautiful smile. You wanted to make your plan come true whether Jimin was here or not — which in this case, not.

Whoever was in charge of music, you were thankful. It was probably an indie party song, somewhere around Grouplove's genre. Now you were throwing your hands around Hoseok, his smile disappearing and turning into a smirk. You felt dirty, what has high school become?

It wasn't that one glass of tequila that made you sway in front of Hoseok, you just wanted to take your mind off of Jimin. You hiss at the thought of him, placing a soft kiss on Hoseok's neck. He pulls you close, but it didn't feel like how Jimin pulled you that night in the lot. It felt cold, Hoseok's hand wasn't homely. His scent was probably Old Spice, you used to love that scent, you could smell it from Jungkook back then.

This wasn't working. For the first time in your high school years, you've failed yourself to accomplish something — aside from your Trig exam. Hoseok wasn't grinding himself and you appreciate the chivalry. He was just sorta enjoying your sloppy tongue against his neck, and he loved the way you were cutely dancing in front of him.

It wasn't long 'till his hand trails down to your ass though, and he was gripping it tightly. Before you could react, he was moving away. And when you looked at him, he was staring behind you. A familiar hand traces your waist, and a sweet fragrance travels your nose.

"I didn't expect you to be here," Jimin speaks from behind before you turn to face him. Hoseok was gone and you didn't bother.

"Get your hand off me, Jimin." He doesn't let go, only gripping the curve of your waist tighter. He was holding a sippy cup in his other hand, moving to your front to get a better view of you.

"What did I do wrong?" In all your honestly, nothing. You pushed him away and he did well, but you just wished he could read your mind during that time like he always does.

"How was exams for you?" You drop the topic, trying not to think of your embarrassing "cumming undone" moment. He sips in the most attractive way. You remain your arms crossed.

"I think I did horrible. I'm pretty sure you did well, baby," he slurs, obviously drunk.

When his breath reached your nostrils, you can't deny the way you throbbed for his lips to just latch onto your neck.

"Don't baby me," you irked, earning a chocolate laugh from him.

"Why not?"

"Because you're drunk."

"What made you think I'm drunk? I'm very much sober." He grips you tighter, and you didn't insist, only attaching your hips to his groin. "I'm just lazy talking." He bites his lip, watching how your hips teased the front of his fly.

"Why did you leave?" you asked.

"I didn't want to, y/n. I just know you felt uncomfortable and I don't want to push you further."

There was silence before you could process his answer, nothing proper came up as he molds his hand to your ass. He was confident when he's drunk. Unlike Hoseok, it felt right.

So much caressing happened, heavy petting. And Jimin being the suspect, you can't help yourself. You just somehow found yourself tangled with him on the way upstairs looking for a room to do things seventh grade you despised. Fuck relationships and young love, right? But if Jimin could make your hormones rage like a sexually-deprived normal teenager, why not try?

Whoever Daniel was, he's one hell of a rich guy. Losing your virginity in a luxurious palace looking room sounds better than losing it in the backseat of a car after prom night. Good thing Jimin had good control of his dick, or else you would have been pumped in his brother's car at a parking lot in front of a KFC.

You pushed your thoughts away as Jimin had his fingers at the hem of your underwear, tugging it down slowly. The air fills the gap, for the first time in your life, your pussy ached out of lust. Being the patient man, he looks you in the eye for a second, waiting for a word.

"Do you really want this?" he asks, his index already forming circles around your inner thigh. "I'm so fucking hard for you right now. If you're not sure, tell me before I shove my dick right in your pussy."

You were never a fan of porn, not even a single bit. You would never waste time on horrible actors, but Jimin's words were straight out of a porn script. Yet they didn't draw you back, instead you squirmed under his fingertips.

"Please, Jimin."

He buries himself in your slit, latching his tongue against your clit.

"Oh," you exclaimed. It felt like that evening you were on Jimin's lap, except more intense and raw. There's nothing more that you want than for him to do it again.

"You like that?" he asked, but you ignored. His tongue was gentle, placing kitten licks on your sensitive bud, having you arched your back like a professional gymnast. Both his hands traveled to your breasts, groping them amidst the fabric. You place your hands on top of his, it felt romantic to hold them for reasons you can't explain. He leaves one of your breasts, feeling him near his finger in your entrance.

Your eyes widened, jumping at the sensation of something entering you. He affirms you by tightening his hold on your hands. Again, massaging your clit with his plump luscious lips.

"Baby," he whispers to your pussy, as if making a bond with it. Enjoying the curving of a single digit in your hole, he slowly eased in another one. "Are you taking it well?"

"Yes, yes. God, yes." You grope his hair, pushing him to your clit and you feel him smirk.

He adds another once you got comfortable, the sting passing away after a few more pumps. When he feels you nearing again, he pulls away. He winks as he removes his pants, kicking it down until his member sprung out.

You have seen a dick, of course. Well, if anatomy illustrations count. It looked scary, but it was Jimin. Thick and veiny is the proper way to describe it, he was right. Seulgi would never break up with him because of his dick, it wouldn't even make the list of why she had broken up with him. You stared at it for a while longer while Jimin prepares himself by putting on a show.

He positions himself in between your thighs, rubbing the head of his cock in your cunt. He kisses you, muffling your moans as he eases inside, in a very gentle way as if you were a butterfly that landed on the tip of his finger. Though it was tearing you apart, Jimin finds a away to make you comfortable by rolling his tongue against your jaw. It helped only a little, and when he moved smoothly, you whimper which he takes notice of.

"Jimin, wait," with such an embarrassed tone, but he comforted you by staring into your eyes, stopping himself no matter how hard it was. "I'm sorry. I just need—"

"No worries, I'm okay. Do you want to stop or not?"

"No, just wait."

He nods, the air he emits heating your face. He stares at your teary eyes, falling more than ever. He's never seen anything so precious, if only he could take a picture of such moment, but there are things that the camera can't see, much like words can't express.

You wrap your arms around him, signaling him to continue. He doesn't disappoint, he pushed again deep inside you, releasing a shaky groan to your ear. Every thrust felt euphoric, not a single one didn't give you pleasure. You clench around him, earning a nasally exhale from him.

"Chim-ah..." you trail, clawing at the skin of his back. His face wrinkled, and it was the sexiest thing you've seen. "Feels so good."

He sped up his pace, and just like before, you were cumming around him. But he motivates you, unbothered whether he was finished or not. He sends you to your orgasm, legs clinging tighter around him. He watches you bite your lip to suppress the loud moan, still thrusting harder to ride the high.

Then he throws himself beside you, and this time you wanted to return the favor. You get on your knees which had Jimin's eyes flutter open, yet still hiding his excitement. Once you grip his length, he bites his bottom lip, trying to remain his calm. He focuses on you, propping on his elbows to see you better.

"You don't have to do this," he comforted.

"I want to. I'm no expert so please—"

"Shh, everything you do is sexy," he whispered, placing his thumb on your cheek to give you the warmth you needed.

Here goes nothing, you tell yourself. You slide a thumb over the head of his shaft before rolling your tongue from the bottom to the top. I should've watched porn more, I'm such an amateur.

Jimin saw the doubt in your eyes, giving you a sly smile before he speaks. "It feels good."

You swaddle his balls, finally pushing your lips further down his cock, softly sucking. You can taste yourself, it felt dirty doing something like it, but when you saw Jimin's eyes pinned on you while his face crunches in pleasure, you couldn't help but be motivated. You pumped the rest of his cock, latching you tongue on every visible vein which had Jimin grunting. You hollowed your cheeks while your tongue ripples inside, tickling the edges of his cock.

"Shit, y/n. You're going fucking—" he groaned, not being able to articulate proper sentences.

Then he explodes right into your mouth without a warning except for a hand in your hair, thrusting his hips upwards which made you gag. It was salty and bitter—not really your definition of swallowable. You still gulped it down, and Jimin laughs at your reaction.

Patting the space beside him, you slump down. You've always thought sweaty tangled bodies were disgusting, but it was actually comforting and warm.

That's the first night of hearing Jimin's cute little snores.

A flash to your face wakes you up, and through heavy lids you saw Jimin in his usual black pants, topless of course. You panicked this time, not because of your sleeping face but because you were just as naked.

"Jesus, Jimin! Delete that!" you demanded, the boy only grins.

"Just for me, trust me." He sits beside you on the bed, giving you a smack on the lips.

Your breath smelled like the night before, but Jimin didn't care. Having his warm body right next to yours was different, and even though your values don't really support what you were doing around him, you still wrapped them around his waist. Jimin does the same, the sound of his breathing calmed your thoughts.

You've always wondered why couples spend a lot of time together, like don't they run out of things to say? However, the silence in the room spoke something to you. No words need to be exchanged to let each other know the thoughts of the other.

Jimin gave you a ride home (with his brother's car) at four in the morning, kissing you goodbye, leaving you smiling as you walk to your room. You want to see him again, maybe even have a breakfast with him.

Wait, what? I'm not in love with him! This is just a huge crush.

You diminish the smile, proceeding to the shower to wash away his scent. Shaking your head as you think about actually falling in love. No! You're too young for that, right? Though the hot shower didn't really help you scrub the emotions off, it did give you the time to deny.

English was dry, and so were the other classes. If only Sana came today, maybe you would learn another nutrition fact about your usual chicken sandwich. Also it's not to your surprise that Jimin joins you for lunch and gave you a chocolate box. You've known him for years and he even went as far as buying a bouquet for Seulgi as a gratitude after their sexual escapades.

"You're giving me Ferrero Rocher for fucking you last night?"

He snickers, one that could make your cheeks burn. "Can you— What's wrong with you?"

"You're acting like I'm a new person. Jimin, I'm still your best friend," you say without expecting your tone to be as high.

"Babe, just open it for me." You roll your eyes at the nickname.

You lift the lid of the heart-shaped box, a note taped in the middle of the lid surprises you. Swooning a little, not trying to show Jimin your actual reaction.

“Do me the extraordinary honor of becoming my prom date?”

"No," you sighed. "I mean, no way this is real."

Jimin's gaze falls over, that look of hurt surrounding his face. "Hey, I'm not rushing you."

"This is just stupid, no offense. You know me, Jimin. I know you more than anything. I know you still think about her," you protest, not daring to look him in the eyes and just staring at the note.

"I'm not forcing you, y/n. I'm just offe-"

You scoffed, but you kept your composure. "I'm not going. It will be a waste of time. I'm really sorry. You can just ask her instead."

"I like you, y/n. I don't even think about her when I'm with you." You grew nervous at the thickness of his voice.

"Because that's what it is. You move on easily because you're not really in love, kids like us don't know the meaning of love. Stop pretending that for every sex you've had, you're in love."

"Jimin," Seulgi appears behind him, clearing her throat.

"I'm gonna go," you tell him with a broken voice, giving a thin smile towards Seulgi. You take the box half-heartedly, chocolates can't go to waste.

That was the last time you spoke to Jimin and from time to time, he'd give a call but you never answered any of them. Things slowly went back to normal and finally, you've finished your feature before Min Yoongi spams you with e-mails. The outcome never really satisfied you, but it was better than nothing.

In my long years of high school, the word "love" had never crossed my mind. A week ago, I was assigned to write about falling in love at a young age. But the truth is, falling for someone during these early years will never happen. Love takes so much more than just a spoken word. I know, you're in love with your partner right now, but let me tell you this one thing: you're not. These butterflies, all the fluttering inside our stomachs, they're most likely just happiness and excitement. College will come, and all the emotions we feel now will be forgotten. So, what's the point in falling in infatuation? Save yourself the emotional roller coaster, love in high school is the last thing you should think of. There's so much more to love in the world, like baseball or cheerleading. It doesn't always have to be a person. The right time will arrive, and you're actually going to fall in love. But not when we're still struggling to solve for the x, or when we can't come up with an essay. Love is everywhere, but our young little hearts won't recognize that just yet. Just like what Ricky Nelson had said, "We haven't the right to decide for ourselves, dear, what's black and what's white."

"This sucks." Sana slams the paper on the lunch table, giving you a judging look. "I can't believe Yoongi allowed this to be published."

You roll your eyes, cringing at the sight of your highly-disliked feature. "I know, okay? No need to remind me."

"Well, everybody in campus hates you now for thinking that their relationship is all just a joke to you. It's not like they care about your opinion, just that they feel humiliated. You could have done better." Her expression was disappointed, aware of what you're hiding. "You know Jimin submitted your picture right? The one in the cafe sayin-"

"It's published. What can I do?" You cut her off before she could make you feel bad about Jimin, munching on your chips as you slouch on your seat.

Sana puts her hand behind your back, straightening your posture. "I know you can write better. You're just trying to run away from your inspiration."

You give her a dirty look before speaking with your mouth full. "Shut up, I'm not running from anything."

She laughs, caressing your back. "Oh, my y/n, you can't lie from me." She smiles, her perfect teeth annoying you.

"Who cares if they don't like my feature? They go ahead and write their own, I don't care."

"You're so narrow-minded. Are you sure you're not coming to prom? I can still get you a dress in case you change your mind."

Right, you almost forgot. Prom was tomorrow, and you're kind of regretting not going after finding out that Jungkook will be there to serve the food. But seeing Jungkook wouldn't be worth it if you will be seeing Jimin dance with Seulgi all night long.

"I'm not changing my mind, Sana." You stood, gathering your stuff before leaving Sana behind in the cafeteria, not wanting to talk about how excited she is for prom.

You spent the next day watching reruns on ESPN much like your father, nodding along as he complains how a professional athlete couldn't make a single goal. He was too absorbed by the sports in front of him, he couldn't notice the distress in your eyes. There's no hope from your mother either who was busy finishing her reports. You groan.

Then it's prom night, you flop down to your messy bed, staring at the untouched chocolate heart-shaped box Jimin had given you two weeks ago. You breathe deeply, pulling yourself from the bed to approach the partly golden box. When you open it again, the message was still there—it's not like it's going to disappear over time. But it felt like yesterday, the chocolate looked good as new, and even smelled as sweet as... him.

You jump through your skin when you hear your mom opens the door without giving a quick knock, making you jolt the box to the floor.

"Mom!" you yell, and she broke into a fit of laughter.

"Sorry, hun. What would you like for dinner?" she asks in her velvet voice, warming the cold night.

"I'm not really eating. You and Dad can decide." Your eyes wander around the room, throwing your ego to ask her a question. "Mom?"

She comes back to the door, leaning on the door frame with one of her hands on her waist. "Yes?"

"This will sound really stupid, but" — you exhale — "how did you know you were in love with Dad?"

She giggles, making you feel more ashamed of the question. She moves to your side, sitting beside you before she speaks. "Well, I didn't know it. I felt it. One day, I hated the sound of his snores, then I woke up next realizing I can't live without them. There's so many things I hated about your dad, but I still love what I hate about him. By the way, your dad had the worst perfume back in the day, but now I can't breathe without it."

You chuckle, suppressing the twinge of dismay filling your mind. "I feel like I made a mistake of letting this boy go."

She gasps. "Why didn't you tell me about this boy?"

"That's not really the point right now," you laugh.

"That's what kids do. You guys make mistakes and you keep making 'em. If you love him, then go for it, honey."

You choke. "You think I love him?"

"Don't you? You don't have to love a person to chase 'em, you chase 'em because you want to love them." She sighs. "You're young, you're not supposed to make the perfect decisions just yet. Don't stress about whether you love this boy or not. If it doesn't work out, you can use the lesson for the next."

"That's more than I need, Mom. Thank you."

She gives you a squeeze on your shoulder before leaving you room.

I screwed up.

You pick the box from the floor, and a picture falls out from it. It took you a while before you could analyze it. A black and white photo of a girl reading a book, very similar to the one in the museum. What caught your attention is you knew who it was, the clothes, the book, the face. It was you back in eighth grade during the book fair, you had your eyes pinned on Wuthering Heights.

With heart racing, you flip the picture to reveal the message behind it.

"To the first girl I fell in love with :)"

Your mouth was left open, frozen in place as you try to process your emotions. You're the girl Jimin was talking about, you were Jimin's eighth grade crush. He had feelings for you just like you had feelings for him back then, and it all came back when you started hanging out with him again.

You wasted no time getting into your hoodie, running downstairs which made your mom look at you in horror.

"Mom, I need the car keys. I made a mistake." Without a nod from her, you grab the car keys and ran to her forbidden Civic.

It's been long since she have let you borrow the car, but it's now or never. It seemed like the perfect timing to tell him how you actually feel, under chandeliers and surrounded by young couples dancing in love. You weren't even sure if he decided to show up to prom as well after your hurtful rejection in front of Seulgi. Or maybe he had changed his mind, choosing to take your advice and actually taking Seulgi to prom.

You brushed the negativity off, pulling in Chelsea Hotel. A parking valet stopping you from entering the hotel, but you shove him from you, quickly running towards the venue. Poor guy just trying to do his job.

You exhale, trying to catch your breath. The room glimmers, a disco ball instead of a chandelier spins on the ceiling. You roll your eyes, your school has always been a disappointment when it comes to decoration. You seek through the students, searching for the pale boy. You only found Sana who was already waving at you, eyes shinning in joy. You give her a sly smile, continuing to look for Jimin. And you found him by the photo booth, approaching him with tiny steps.

"Hi," you greeted.

He looks up from the camera and your words were already backing away, throat thinning when you meet his eyes.

"I am sorry for what I said. I was being narrow and stupid. I shouldn't have said those, you know?" You voice cracks in every word, and he goes back to his camera. "Jimin, please."

You saw him suppress a smile, but it wasn't enough. He was still fiddling with his tripod, fake fixing the stand.

"Fine!" you blurt, walking away from him.

You caught a lot of eyes staring at your outfit as you approach the stage, and you felt nauseated when you reached for the microphone. A blond girl furrows her brows at you, pointing towards her bandmates.

"What are you playing?" you confidently ask.

"Excuse you?" she returns, annoyance obvious in her tone.

"Trust me, I'll let you sing. Just tell me what song are you playing."

"Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer," she says without certainty.

"Look, I can get you in front of the page of our next publication issue. Everyone in the school will know your band, just do me one favor."

She turns to her bandmates and they all nodded. "Spit it out."

"Can you please... play the intro while I have my speech?"

"You got it."

When you said that, you didn't expect them to actually play the intro immediately. But there's no turning back, all eyes were already on you except for Jimin. Everybody gave you looks, obviously aware that you were the one that wrote that hateful feature.

You pat the mic, feedback traveling through everybody's ears. Then you sighed again, prepping yourself.

"I know I've hurt some of you because of what I wrote. I'm sorry to everyone. I was the one wrong, I shouldn't belittle these emotions because we're young. I've come to the realization that whatever we feel now will always matter even in college, even when we're old. Falling in love today doesn't make anyone less of a person, we're young and we're supposed to make mistakes. Fall in love now and fall in love again, it's how stories are made. And to that person I specifically broke, I think I like you." You breathe, picking in your nails. "So, Park Jimin, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

You bit your lip, waiting for the audience's response to your corny speech. And your back straightens when they started clapping, some even yelled "Fuck yeah!" which made you laugh in embarrassment. Your eyes couldn't find Jimin at the moment, and you gave blondie the microphone, letting her continue her performance. You have some deals to make with Yoongi for the next front page.

You walk down the stairs, trying to calm the race of your heart. A hand pulls your waist, plump luscious lips devouring yours. Sweet fragrance entering your senses, you knew who it was.

"That was the cringiest shit you've said," he comments. "I knew you would come."

You roll your eyes. "I think I owe you a meal."

Jimin puts his hand at the small of your back, directing you towards the photo booth. "No, you owe me a story."

(unedited)

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dwellordream · 3 years

Text

“The fantasy of a woman exhibiting and disciplining another woman’s body attained its most spectacular form not in the visual images but in the printed pages of England’s leading fashion magazine. In 1868, almost every fashion plate in the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine included a girl alongside two adult women, and that same year a debate raged in letters to the editor about whether parents, especially mothers, should use corporal punishment to discipline children, particularly girls past puberty. The fashion plate’s image of the quietly contained, fashionable girl who worships her female elders became a story of unruly daughters and stern mothers. The fashion image’s obsession with dressing and covering the body became the reader’s drive to expose it; the proud mien of the plate’s figures mutated into narratives of humiliation and shame.

Only one element remained constant from image to text: the world in which both rituals were staged was dominated by female actors and objects. “I put out my hands, which she fastened together with a cord by the wrists. Then making me lie down across the foot of the bed, face downwards, she very quietly and deliberately, putting her left hand around my waist, gave me a shower of smart slaps with her open right hand. . . . [R]aising the birch, I could hear it whiz in the air, and oh, how terrible it felt as it came down, and as its repeated strokes came swish, swish, swish on me!” This description of a girl being birched by a woman first appeared in an 1870 supplement to the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine that extended a debate about corporal punishment raging in the journal since 1867.

Editor Samuel Beeton justified publishing the monthly supplements, each consisting of eight large, double-columned pages of small type, by citing the overwhelming volume of letters received on a topic “which, of late years,” had “aroused . . . intense, not to say passionate interest.” Beeton priced the supplement at two shillings and made it available by post, thus guaranteeing its accessibility to middle-class readers. Like the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, a respectable family publication that advertised in the pages of Cobbin’s Illustrated Family Bible, the supplement presumed an audience of housewives who would be drawn to its advertisements for Beeton’s Book of Home Pets and The Mother’s Thorough Resource Book.

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, as its title announced, was aimed at the middle-class women whose homes defined the nation. By the 1860s, the thirty-two-page monthly cost sixpence and reached roughly 50,000 readers per issue. With two color fashion plates in each issue, a republican editor who supported women’s employment and suffrage, and articles on “The Englishwoman in London,” “Great Men and Their Mothers,” and “Can We Live on £300 a Year?” the journal combined fashion, feminism, and thrift. Fashion magazines had always had heterogeneous content—astronomer Mary Somerville first encountered algebra while reading “an illustrated Magazine of Fashion”—and the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine prided itself on being learned and political as well as practical and stylish.

The magazine had both women and men on its staff, and Isabella Beeton codirected it with her husband until her death in 1865, soon after she completed a best-selling opus on household management. The publication of correspondence revealing women’s preoccupation with corporal punishment and its overlap with pornography might surprise us today, but only because we erroneously assume that Victorians imagined women and girls to be asexual unless responding to male initiative. Victorians themselves did not set such limits on female desire, and many found the letters on corporal punishment published in the eminently respectable Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine provocative, with their use of onomatopoeia, teasing delay, first-person testimony, and punning humor, all typical of Victorian pornography.

A letter from “A Happy Mother,” published in 1869, explained that the author put cream on her children before whipping them, so that punishing them produced whipped cream: “I scream—ice cream.” Some readers denounced the correspondence as indelicate and indecent, warning that it might arouse male readers, and accusing women who flogged children of improper motives. In the 1870 supplement, a “mother” worried about how a gentlemen might respond to finding an otherwise “useful” publication marred by “immodest” descriptions of punishments by “ladies.” One letter fulminated against “people who take pleasure in giving . . . exact details of the degrading way in which they punish their children.”

A correspondent signing “A Mother Loved By Her Children” condemned “the indelicacy in which every disgusting detail is dwelt on” by a woman who described a punishment she had received from another woman. “A Lady” protested “the offence to decency and propriety in publishing vulgar details” about “the removal of clothes and ‘bare persons.’” Readers who protested the indecency of the letters recognized that reading about punishment could provoke sexual sensations in both men and women. The voluminous correspondence began as a short query in 1867: “A Young Mother would like a few hints—the result of experience—on the early education and discipline of children.” The first two published responses opposed whipping, arguing that mothers who resorted to physical punishment would lose the self-control needed to discipline children properly.

Though Beeton himself opposed corporal punishment, he published many letters in favor of it. The debate quickly became more specific: whether it was proper for adult women to punish girls, especially those past puberty, by whipping them on the “bare person.” Whether writing for or against corporal punishment, correspondents provided detailed accounts of inflicting, receiving, and witnessing ritual chastisements in which older women restrained, undressed, and whipped younger ones. Letters described mothers, aunts, teachers, and female servants forcing girls and young women to remove their drawers, tying girls to pieces of furniture, pinning back their arms, placing them in handcuffs, or requiring them to count the number of strokes administered.

…Corporal punishment is where pornography, usually considered a masculine affair, intersects with fashion magazines targeted at women. Both types of publications were mass-produced commodities that created an aura of luxury, and both depended on the relative democratization inherent in an economy organized around consumption and leisure. Pornographic publications and monthly women’s journals had similar formats: both combined short stories, poems, historical essays, serial fiction, current events, and letters to the editor; both featured detachable color prints that could be sold separately; and both released special Christmas issues. Their common interest in corporal punishment led to even more concrete links between pornography and fashion magazines.

John Camden Hotten, the publisher of many pornographic works, advertised a pseudoscientific study of Flagellation and the Flagellants in the supplement to the Englishwomen’s Domestic Magazine. Other pornographic publications actually reprinted verbatim material first published in fashion magazines. In his exhaustive bibliography of pornography, Henry Spencer Ashbee mentioned the “remarkable and lengthened correspondence” about flagellation in “domestic periodicals” alongside his discussion of flagellation in “bawdy book[s]” such as Venus School-Mistress and Boarding-School Bumbrusher; or, the Distresses of Laura. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was more available to women readers than pornography, but Victorian pornography was not the exclusively male province it is often assumed to be.

Like the fashion press, pornographic literature expanded during the middle decades of the nineteenth century; between 1834 and 1880, the Vice Society confiscated 385,000 prints and photographs, 80,000 books and pamphlets, and 28,000 sheets of obscene songs and circulars. Who wrote and read pornography remains a mystery: publishers falsified dates and places of publication; authors wrote under pseudonyms; and individuals left few public traces of their purchases and reading experiences. The scant evidence we have suggests that pornography was a predominantly but not entirely male domain.

Newspapers reported women publishing and selling obscene books and texts; one woman has been documented as the author of a French pornographic novel that circulated in England; and women of all classes frequented the Holywell Street area where obscene books and prints were sold and often visible in shop windows. After publisher and bookseller George Cannon died in 1854, his wife ran the business for ten more years; in 1830 a police officer testified that Cannon hired women who “went about to . . . boarding schools . . . for the purpose of selling” obscene books, “and if they could not sell them to the young ladies, they threw them over the garden walls, so that they might get them.”

Women did not have to purchase pornography directly to read it, however, since they might easily find any sexually explicit books that male family members brought home. Women did not need to turn to pornography to encounter sexually arousing descriptions of older women disciplining younger girls; they could read material in the pages of a ladies’ home journal that would be reprinted as pornography. The correspondence about corporal punishment blurred distinctions not only between pornography and the women’s press but between male and female readers. Some worried that the magazine had become so obscene that it needed to be hidden from both; Olivia Brook wrote in 1870 that she now put the magazine “out of reach of any casual observer, and where especially no gentlemen can read it.”

…In The Other Victorians, Steven Marcus influentially argued that all pornographic accounts of whipping, even those that represent women birching or being birched, were nothing but displaced versions of repressed fantasies about father-son sex. That interpretation assumes that erotic desire between women was irrelevant to Victorian society, and that sex between men or family members was impossible to represent directly. In fact, the only impulse Victorian pornography repressed was repression itself. Victorian pornographers represented same-sex acts of all kinds and freely indulged their obsession with incest, including sex between fathers and sons.

…Victorian pornography helps to explain how the family could simultaneously be organized around sexual difference and be a site of homoerotic desire, for in it the family is a hotbed of sex, but same-sex acts do not imply fixed sexual identities. Representations of sex between men and sex between women were never confined to specialized publications. Sex between women was regularly featured in pornographic texts and in images that depicted two or more women engaging in tribadism, oral sex, anal sex, digital penetration, mutual masturbation, and sex with dildos. Flagellation literature described women achieving orgasm from punishing girls and penetrating girls with fingers and dildos while birching them.

…The convergence of pornography and women’s magazines on the topic of flagellation points to their common origins in nineteenth-century liberal democracy, which promoted the free circulation of ideas among individuals who could demonstrate self-control and tasteful judgment. Pornography had affinities with Enlightenment and utilitarian ideals regarding the empirical investigation of nature and quests for knowledge, increased well-being, and merit-based rewards. Fashion was a feminized version of liberal democracy, for it depended on a woman’s ability to train her taste and accommodate her individual style to fluctuating group rules.

By following fashion codes, women learned to fit their bodies into a social mold; by improvising on those codes, as fashion itself demanded, women developed the kind of restricted autonomy associated with liberal subjectivity. As Mary Haweis explained in The Art of Beauty (1878), clothing was a form of individual aesthetic expression and therefore had to follow “the fundamental principle of art . . . that people may do as they like.” The liberty underlying the art of dress also upheld of liberalism’s ideal of personal freedom as a source of originality and political renewal. The correspondence columns of fashion magazines allowed women to participate in the public discourse central to liberal politics.”

- Sharon Marcus, “Dressing Up and Dressing Down The Feminine Plaything.” in Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

#between women #victorian #history #sexuality #sharon marcus

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bumblebeug · 4 years

Text

A Presentation to the Matchmaker

Hello, Happy November everyone! Let’s get cosy with some Felinette prompts!

Day One: Matchmaker

A Presentation to the Matchmaker

Alya, glancing at her phone arrived at the library, crossed through the desks and sat down opposite Felix. At her arrival Felix turned from staring out the window to his left to meet her questioning gaze.

“Alright Felix, I got your text. What was the ‘important matter’ that you wanted to discuss with me?” Alya finger-quoted.

Felix folded his hands on the tabletop in front of him. He looks ready for an interview, Alya’s lips quirked upwards at he thought.

“So.” He went quiet and drummed his knuckles on the wood briefly before speaking, “I know that you are the resident ‘match-maker’ of the classroom.”

“Well…” Alya interrupted, “If you want to get technical, Marinette is more of a match-maker than I am. She’s gotten three couples together since I’ve known her.”

“I’m really just trying to be a match-maker for her.” Alya admitted.

Felix nodded along, “Yes, I’m aware.” He cleared his throat, “I have a proposal to make, if you are interested, that is.”

Alya sat up a little straighter – Felix wanted to help Alya get Marinette and Adrien together? This could work, Alya thought. Felix was a practical, methodical type of guy – he would be able to fine-tune any plan Alya came up with. Having him on her side was basically a guaranteed success.

She leaned forward slightly, “I’m listening.”

A brief expression crossed his face (nerves? relief?) and was gone before Alya could pick out exactly what it was.

“Perfect.” Felix leaned down to his knapsack and brought out a folder, shuffling through the contents briefly, “I think that you should change targets.”

He slid a photograph to her and she picked it up. He continued, “I would like to submit myself as a candidate as a potential boyfriend for Marinette.”

Alya, surprised by his proposal, stared blankly at Felix’s headshot before looking back at him. A light blush spread across his cheeks from the eye-contact but otherwise, showed no other signs of embarrassment. He cleared his throat and continued, laying down a Venn-diagram.

“I have created this visual to further my point.” He pointed to the center, “As you can see, we share a number of similar qualities. For example: We are both near the top of our grade, we are both multi-lingual, and we both participate as models in the fashion industry – a field which gives Marinette her joie de vivre.”

He ticked off each quality on his hand. “However, I believe that my strength lies in our differences. For example: I am not a top model – which means that, unlike Adrien, I have more free time, which is more time to spend with Marinette. Another bonus that I would like to highlight is that Marinette and I are able to have coherent, easy-flowing, and often riveting, conversations.”

Felix laid another Venn-diagram down, this time depicting Marinette’s and his name. Alya’s eyebrows crept further up towards her hairline as he went on.

“While it may not look like we share many common interests other than fashion, I believe that, again, our differences could be our strength. Marinette and I share complementary traits that I believe would bring out the best in both of us.”

Felix went quiet and Alya realised that he was waiting for her to speak. She opened and closed her mouth before finally saying, “…This is very, um, wow.”

The silence between them stretched out as Alya struggled to think of more to say. What could she say? She wondered. Make a joke? Say thank you? She was at a complete loss.

“…I uh– Thank, you?” She finally got out, wanted to slap her palm over her face. What kind of response was that?

Felix gave her a tight-lipped smile, “Thank you for taking the time to hear out my proposal. I will, um, leave you with these copies and… wait for a text on your final decision.”

And with that, Felix turned and practically ran out of the library, leaving Alya before she could say anything more. She reached for her phone, the weight of it in her hand making her feel more grounded in reality, and watched him go, thinking about she had never seen him so flustered before.

It was kinda sweet, she decided as she fiddled with the corners of one of the Venn-diagrams, that he had put so much effort into trying to impress her with visual aids to explain his crush on Marinette. It was odd, but so very Felix of him.

She shuffled the pages so that his headshot was back on top and flipped it over, expecting to see his model specs written on the back. Instead, a handwritten letter greeted her. She rolled her eyes because of course he would include a personal essay. Then Alya took the time to actually read it.

Marinette,

When I first met you – you were so different than me and, because of that, you were at the top of my dislike list. Many of your actions confused and irritated me – how could you be so assertive in some situations, yet allow other ones to steam-roll you? You were always late. I cannot count how many classes you’ve interrupted by thundering into the room after the bell has rung. And the worst thing of all?

You are so nosy.

I thought this, above all else, was the worst trait you possessed. You made it a mission to know everything about what felt like every single person. I found it beyond aggravating that I was the only person who seemed to mind – and even ore aggravating that everyone seemed to like your nosiness.

Slowly though, over the course of the year, something changed. I began to pay attention. I paid attention to why were late. I paid attention to how you used the information you had on other people. Once I started noticing those things, a thousand smaller things were thrust into focus – like the warmth you give to even people you dislike or how you utilize creativity in everything you do – from problem-solving to your clothes. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.

I want to learn why your favourite movie is your favourite.

I want to discover how to make you happy.

But most of all – I want to learn what your hand feels like in mine.

Smiling, Alya shuffled the papers till the Venn-diagram of Felix and Adrien was on top and placed it on the table. Then she took out a pen and wrote in a small space at the bottom of the ‘Felix’ section: Sees Marinette as more than ‘just a friend’.

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

@felinettenovember

Hope you all enjoyed!

Part Two

#felinette #ml alya #alya cesaire #ml felix #day 1 prompt #matchmaker #felinette november #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous fanfic #fluff #felix style

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classpect-crew · 4 years

Note

Do you have any thoughts on the Prince class?

Do I have thoughts? My friend, the thoughts I have about Princes could absolutely fill the requirements of a high school English Lit essay. I could write at least four pages, MLA-style, 12-point font, Times New Roman, guaranteed. For the sake of time, energy, and the eyes of my dear followers, I’ll try not to go on at too much length, but I do have some very clear thoughts that come to mind.

Let’s start with what makes Princes so dangerous, especially in battle: they destroy both their Aspect and other entities through their Aspect. One important thing to note: this includes whatever parts of their Aspect reside in themselves. Think of Dirk, for example, as the self-described “heartless” Prince of Heart, or the eerily calm Kurloz, the Prince of Rage. This is why we say Princes and Bards “ghost” their opposite Aspect. Dirk’s mental machinations were always three steps ahead, but his love life suffered tremendously. He continuously shattered his own identity into different parts, thinking he might understand himself better, only to come face-to-face with the worst parts of himself. His emotional, self-searching tangents were presented with perfect grammar and a strange internal logic. His cool, calm demeanor was an easy mask to slip on and embody nearly full-time, to an extent that would trouble the average Mind player.

I’ve theorized before that different Classes are brought about to serve different purposes, and I believe the Prince is fated to destroy their Aspect because there’s too much present in their session. Compare this to the Knight, who is challenged by too little of their Aspect and must find ways to exploit what’s present to devastating ends. They prune and purge in order to allow new growth to enter the system, or to reduce the influence their Aspect has if it becomes too unbalanced. It’s a very important role to play, since an unrestrained Aspect can absolutely wreak havoc on a session. Think about the Alpha Kids’ session and its ever-present romantic shenanigans. Were Dirk not there to shut them down, his team would have been constantly distracted by each day’s unique flavor of melodrama.

This kind of relationship with one’s Aspect can be incredibly strained, however, because many Princes begin their journey by destroying their Aspect, rather than destroying through it, which often comes later on as their powers grow. While Maids and Sylphs come to work closely with their Aspect through maintaining and healing it, the closest Princes and Bards will ever come to working with their Aspect is when they use it to cause destruction. Otherwise, they’re posed in direct competition, and the Prince will usually win the fight. Perhaps this is part of why Princes are known for their emotional theatrics and antihero complexes. After all, how do you reconcile using the powers of an Aspect that you’ve already destroyed within your own life? How difficult must it be to meticulously carve something out of yourself, only to have it come to your beck and call like a loyal servant? (Now that I’m typing all of this, I’m realizing how familiar this experience sounds, and now I’m questioning even further if I’ve truly found my Classpect. God damn it.)

The whole journey of a Prince is a bit of a slap in the face, actually. Let’s say you’re the Prince of Mind, for argument’s sake. You grow up with an incredibly solid sense of self and a good handle on your emotional attachments. You hate “fake” people and respect those who are honest enough to bear their true selves. Thinking about the consequences of your actions doesn’t occur to you as much as staying true to yourself. If someone says something you disagree with, you’ll speak up, social niceties be damned. And then, just as you think you’ve got it all figured out, you suddenly get slapped with the title of the Prince of Mind. Your session is filled with people who would rather put on masks and pretend nothing is wrong than face reality. Everyone speaks in half-truths and seems more concerned with remaining emotionless and logical. Your job becomes clear: you’re going to bring these people into reality, kicking and screaming. As it turns out, this is something you’re very, very good at. Further along your journey, though, you start to notice yourself doing the very same things you hate: putting on masks, considering consequences, predicting the moves of others before they’ve taken a step. You’re able to accomplish great feats this way, but at what cost? You can quite literally break the minds of your enemies by overwhelming them with the consequences of every possible action, or just utterly decimate an army with literal brain power, but why? Why would your journey lead you to use the very same tactics you always hated?

It’s a very complex interplay that I still haven’t entirely gone through in my own head yet, to be honest. I think that’s the funny thing about Classpects, though: they force us to rise to different challenges, and for the Prince, that involves taking a deep look inside yourself at all the things you’ve tried to purge from your own being, and learning how to use those very same qualities in ways that can help you come to terms with them.

#classpect #classpect analysis #homestuck #prince #anonymous #wow this was actually really insightful!#Anonymous

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i3utterflyeffect · 4 years

Text

under a cut because this got VERY LONG and VERY RAMBLY

i just wanted to compare this song to tpoh (yes i know it has its own story but that’s not what we’re talking about today)

( if you need to copy-paste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80sl53M0L6s )

hear me out here because this may seem like a stretch at first but when you see it all down on paper it’ll make more sense I pROMISE--

i’m gonna try and put images in for better readability, so it isn’t just a big ol’ slab of text-- i’m also gonna be skipping lines that i don’t really feel correlate, but most of them do so like. it’s fine lol.

"Don't go across, the longer road's safer, watch as the bolt's trajectory wavers."

RGB talks a lot about detours and taking different paths to throw (presumably) Hate off his tracks, and it makes me think of that!!!!

“Learn it by heart, now the hardest part comes--”

RGB has gone through so many Heroes he’s pretty much learned the cycle by heart, and he’s almost running off a script-- Meanwhile, ‘the hardest part’ makes me think of that line from Suture when he’s breaking it to Hero that she can’t go back!

“--When staggering doubt paralyzes you,”

kind of obvious, but this part goes hand-in-hand with Hero being ‘consumed by doubt’--

“And then, you fall apart like a house of cards, might as well disregard it as a cursory mantra.”

as i said before with the ‘now the hardest part comes’ line, RGB has rehearsed this talk a bunch of times with different heroes so it’s like a ‘cursory mantra’ at this point--

“[ ... ] It's getting harder to act like I don't really care,”

do i even need to say it lol

“I'm sorry but these earnest words of yours are just too much to bear...”

I’m sure i’m not the only one who noticed this but RGB actually does look a little hurt when Hero lashes out at him? anyway he cared a lot more about her in the beginning than he let on

I’m aware of the whole Russian segment in the middle (there’s a translation in the captions as well) but the lyrics don’t really make me think of anything in particular honestly-- the MUSIC CHANGE, however, definitely makes me think of the dream segments and if i WERE to make an amv that would be where I’d put the dream segments anyway-- that’s all i have to say on that part

“[ ... ] In a desperate attempt to hold onto your battered hand,”

again, not sure i even need to say it, but

“[ ... ] ‘Strong enough to let it go,’ he says, but, darling, I don't know!”

This part makes me think of Hero’s choice to move past RGB betraying her-- but, of course, moving past it ≠ forgiving it, so she’s still mad at him (obviously)

“This isn't my first time sinking lower than the low...”

This isn’t RGB’s first time recruiting a Hero-- and he’s sunk ‘lower than the low’ a LOT, and-- as much as we all love him-- we all pretty much just agree he’s a coward, a liar, a thief, and a petty bastard. Even RGB himself agrees on these points. It also makes me think of Click’s confrontation-- since it’s pretty obvious he considers RGB stealing their lives away to be ‘sinking lower than the low’.

“How hard can it be to never let it overflow? Oh, I've gotten used to being haunted long ago.”

RGB has expressed-- though nonverbally-- that he still regrets that he let his Heroes died. And like..... ‘how hard can it be to never let it overflow’ is basically his mantra considering how much he bottles up. He’s also gotten used to generally being disliked-- if not hated-- by almost everyone in TWOMB, and also just to feeling bad about himself (someone PLEASE get this man a therapist)

“[...] Through the haze and through the maw of the grinder, I won't find her, but I'll guide you through them all.” no deep analysis on this one it just makes me think of when RGB and Hero lost each other in the marketplace lmao

“[ ... ] Now, remember, dear, you've always been too kind!”

Let’s be completely honest here, Hero’s probably the most forgiving out of all of the Heroes, aside from maybe Gladys (and also not counting Dial since we don’t actually know what his real opinion is--) Click considers her choice to save him ‘too kind’, so, well... you know what happens.

“Oh it's nothing new, the visionless leading the blind; It's easy to say, ‘why don't you leave it all behind?’”

This definitely makes me think of RGB luring people away!! No one who accepted the deal actually knew they’d be unable to return, so they were ‘blind’ to it in a sense! And as for the ‘why don’t you leave it all behind’ part, well I mean-- you have to admit, the idea of getting away from everything is reallly tempting.

“And this moral compass is forever misaligned...”

Obviously this is about Click because his moral compass is ALMOST right but at the same time completely and utterly fucked, I mean, he tried to kill a child for disagreeing on RGB’s deserved punishment--

“All I need to hear is that you'll be there, by my side-- But you can never know that...”

RGB does end up getting VERY attached to Hero and, I think the very moment he does realize that (fittingly) is when Hero says that he’s not evil or good, but neutral instead (which is sad because that implies this is the best opinion he’s gotten from someone but that’s a whole other can of worms) Obviously she can ‘never know that’ because what about his PRIDE and he SAID he WOULDN’T GET ATTACHED (...not that it helps because he’s dug his own grave already)

“‘Too strong to die,’ or was that me again?”

This line makes me think of two things-- It makes me think of Time’s comment on him ‘never fully’ being dead, and also makes me think of Negative because... you know. too strong to die.

“I know that there has to be some hope that's just out of sight...”

This part makes me think of the Nothing-- RGB almost loses hope on (at least one of) them surviving twice-- but he came up with solutions! (even though one was completely heartbreaking...)

“...I won't let myself lose it again--”

This feels like it’d be RGB referring to losing Heroes-- he would almost definitely never forgive himself for losing our Hero at this point. It also feels like sort of an internal dialogue to match him throwing Hero towards the fence.

“--And now my only hope is that one day you'll understand...”

This obviously makes me think of him explaining his reasoning behind saving the world in Ex Position-- but it also makes me think of the page just before it transitions to Greenlight? I haven’t seen anything about this, but that little flashback makes me think that Hero is either, a. thankful to RGB for saving her, or, B. frustrated he chose to sacrifice himself and leave her alone like he did.

“[ ... ] [I’ll] save what's left, though I know that, one day, this weight will come to break my back.”

This makes me think of RGB being afraid to fully connect to Hero at first, because he didn’t want to be hit as hard when she inevitably died, (or would have, if not for the mercy of Protagonist’s Luck--)

“Once again we were left in the dust,”

Hero was left on her own ‘in the dust’ after the storm receded. Not much to say there.

"Self-hating ones like us crack when we betray someone's trust.”

Short version? Please get this telly and his child some therapy. Long version? In Target Audience, he seemed like he was going to make a (feeble) attempt at explaining Click’s accusation away... until Hero speaks up.

“So if you must, shield your heart with these layers of rust--”

This makes me think of RGB-- but more evidently (especially combined with the next line), the Green Sun.

“The sun will rise-- Until then I'll be waiting for you on the other side...”

Pretty self-explanatory in the first part-- i don’t really have anything for the last part unfortunately though, especially considering we don’t know what actually is going to happen to the sun yet...

but, uh, that’s all! I just. had these thoughts. and wanted to talk about them. because i like writing essays like this.

tysm for reading all this because i absolutely infodumped here

anyway go support Ferry, they’re the artist and their music slaps

in summary:

#tpoh #the property of hate #tpoh... analysis...??? what do i even TAG this as????????#anyway. i wasn't joking when i said this song had a million connections with tpoh in my head #pitch rambles

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vecna · 4 years

Note

Oohh for the fandom meme! Dragon Age?

Send me a fandom!

Oh boy, this is going to be spicy.

It’s also very Anders-negative, so apologies up front.

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

I’m actually not sure which was the FIRST, but it’s a tie between Morrigan and Alistair. I saw fanart of them going around at the time Origins first released, and that’s what got me to try the game!

Alistair was a breath of fresh air, because at the time, I was used to warrior men in games being all Edgy and Rough, and he was the total opposite and a sweetheart.

And Morrigan was just instantly my goth wife, and had Claudia Black as a VA, so I was sold immediately.

Both still hold a special place for me!

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Loghain is the main one. He does a lot of truly reprehensible shit in the first game. But once I sat down and read the prequel novels about young Loghain, plus saw what he’s like if you recruit him, he grew on me A LOT and now he’s a top fave.

Nathaniel I expected to hate as soon as I saw his name + who his father was, but then the expansion came out and I ended up loving that dude almost immediately. I really wish he was around more after Awakening, and also really wish he’d been a romance option, especially for a Cousland haha.

Merrill is a weird one because she was totally uninteresting to me in DA:O, so when they announced her as a companion in DA2 I was like, “Ehhhh.” Then they punked me by making her adorable and sweet and now I love her.

Plus a bunch of side-characters like The Architect? I liked him a bunch in the novel + Awakening – although I found his Plan in the novel much more appealing. But as the years have gone by, I keep surprising myself at just HOW disappointed I am he’s never appeared again haha.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

There’s a few, and all of them will get me yelled at, but here we go.

First: Isabela. This one’s a bit complicated, but it really just boils down to her attitude towards how you play your character. I actively dislike characters who are super sexual – regardless of gender. But Isabela in particular bothers me because she’s constantly pushing her lewdness and sexual humor on you, and when you try to discourage it, she admonishes you with, “Well, you’re no fun.” Her whole character is just… like that for me. Super pushy, overly lewd, gets uppity when you don’t have the same ~liberated~ opinions she does, and this is all played up in the writing like she’s this Empowered Woman the player absolutely must love, especially if they’re playing a male character lol. I hate her for the same reasons a lot of people hate Liara in Mass Effect, but with the addition of pushy lewd jokey characters always rubbing me the wrong way.

Second: Iron Bull. I’ve written a lot about why he makes me more uncomfortable than any fictional character I’ve ever encountered, and I just outright hate him, he makes my skin crawl. If you want details, feel free to DM me, I don’t really want to rant about it again publicly.

Third: Anders. Again, I’ve written a lot about him before, but. I hated him in Awakening, for a lot of the same reasons I hate Isabela in DA2. But the changes they made to him in DA2 are just kinda :/. While I absolutely agree with him about Mage Rights, the level of preachiness they added to him drove me nuts, and the fact that you’re painted as a Bad Guy if you don’t like him blowing up the chantry. And from a purely OOC standpoint: He’s become a figurehead for all the aggressive Discourse people in the fandom, and if I see someone list Anders in their sidebar bio, I know pre-emptively that their blog is going to be full of 6 page long essays of meta about how everything is Problematic, and no thanks.

To a lesser extent, I’m also not fond of Zevran. But in his case, it’s not anything major like the others, I’m just tired of Bioware’s habit of making the bisexual characters overly lewd sex-focused rogues/deviants.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Loghain, lol.

But also Sebastian Vael? There’s so much about him that I find genuinely fascinating, especially regarding his backstory, and his struggles between his feelings of responsibility to his family vs his dedication to the Chantry and bettering himself. He’s such a dear character to me, and such a pivotal part of any playthrough, I’m always blown away when I remember he’s a DLC character and many people don’t have him.

HOWEVER Anders being the fandom darling means that people tend to unfairly shit on Sebastian for reacting poorly to the Chantry explosion. People also like to label him as a poster child of a White Straight Church Boy, while refusing to acknowledge he’s… not straight, and not exactly a church boy either lol.

Also Vivienne, but I think that one’s really self-explanatory. I love her, and she gives a really needed perspective on the Circle, since most of the mage companions previously were apostates. But of course, she gets written off as a Chantry apologist, and an uppity bitch, when people would def love her for the same traits if she was not black lol.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Justice. And by extension, Anders. A lot of people like to rant about how Justice ruined Anders, but I always saw it the other way around.Justice was my favorite character in Awakening. The whole concept around him, that he was a Fade spirit who took human form and was experiencing life for the first time was SO fascinating. I felt like there was so much to explore there with his character.

Buuuut then they had him merge with Anders. With the narrative being that he WAS a spirit of Justice, but the moment he connected with Anders, it corrupted his entire spirit into something he wasn’t anymore. So essentially, the character I used to love no longer exists, thanks to Anders. And it reminds me of that phrase recently, about how the destination is so terrible you can no longer enjoy the journey? I can’t even appreciate Justice in Awakening anymore, knowing what happens to him.

To a lesser extent, Corypheus. He was SO COOL and the premise of him was AMAZING when he first appeared in the DA2 DLC, but then Inquisition had to go and turn him into a weird shallow mustache twirl villain.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None? Idk I don’t really have the Smooch Fictional Character gene.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

MAEVARIS TILANI. May I one day finally have the confidence in my identity that she does, and also marry a sweet bear man who adores me.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Too many to list, really. Probably Anders.

The pairing(s) that I love:

THERE’S SO MANY. And most of them are with the PC, because I generally don’t ship NPCs together. But my top 3 are:

M!Hawke / Fenris is my ultimate OTP in the Dragon Age series, by a long-shot. Not even sure where to start on how much I love it, but two damaged guys leaning on each other to work through their respective loneliness and trauma is MY JAM. And lmao I love silver-sideburned Hawke chillin in retirement somewhere but being a supportive husband while Fenris goes off hunting the Bad Guys, it’s great.

Solas / Lavellan is a close second, with the caveat that I increasingly prefer it with a male Lavellan. Having the Inquisitor in love with Solas just changes the entire tone of the game for me, for the better, and him actually being the villain trying to end the world while in love with this normie elf is just (chef kiss). Too bad I’m burned out by how overly spammed it is.

Dorian / Inquisitor is in third, I will just always be fond of how it’s a story of the Inquisitor helping Dorian be happy with who he is, escape an abusive family, and realize that he’s allowed to be loved. Good shit good shit.

Some others:

Warden / Morrigan is probably my favorite Origins ship, and that only intensified with the way she talks about the Warden in Inquisition, esp if they’re Kieran’s other parent. What a cute goth family, regardless of the Warden’s gender, cause you can pry Bi Morrigan from my cold dead fingers.

Cassandra / Inquisitor might have a lot of Romance Cliches, but I adore it – although, similar others, I increasingly prefer it with a female Inquisitor. I actively dislike the weird no-homo rejection with her, and come on, a lady Inquisitor being her Knight In Shining Armor is just good storytelling.

Cullen / Inquisitor, for a lot of the same reasons as Cassandra. I love me a cliche romance, but I’m also fond of the narrative w/ him of someone he loves helping him heal through the lyrium withdrawals and take time to rest.

Josephine / F!Inquisitor is just adorable all around, and wholesome, and great.

Varric / Hawke COME ON HOW WAS THIS NOT AN OPTION.

On the rarepair end:

Sebastian / Hawke doesn’t seem like it would be a rarepair – you’d think everyone who loves Cullen/Inquisitor would love this one too. I do! But alas. That said, I’m also pretty aggro about this one with a male Hawke because SEBASTIAN IS CANON BI. WHY WAS HIS ROMANCE STRAIGHT.

Maric / Loghain is a rarepair I will take with me to my grave LOL. Never forget the scene where Maric thought Loghain was leaving, and bolted across the camp with almost no clothes on to beg Loghain to stay. Come on.

Nathaniel / Cousland is dear to me, and I love it so much more than Alistair / Cousland haha.

Greagoir / Wynne, I can’t believe this got validated in canon ahhhh.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

Again: THERE’S SO MANY.

Iron Bull / Dorian is my least fave by a longshot. Again, I have written about why I hate this pairing a great many times, but it’s awful and toxic and makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing anything about it ever again. Please keep poor Dorian away from that man. He deserves someone that doesn’t sexually harass him until he’s finally worn down into dubious consent (while drunk) and then outted to everyone about it.

Isabela / Fenris. Sorry, but it’s just bad writing that Fenris bails on Hawke because the physical intimacy triggered his PTSD and he needs space to process, but then will turn around and have a casual sex relationship with Isabela instead. Yikes.

Anders / Fenris. Aveline / Isabela. Alistair / Morrigan. All of the DA2 Hawke/companion rivalmances. I don’t enjoy “these two people hate and antagonize and want to kill each other… but they fuck” in any form.

Cullen / Amell. Yikes.

And basically ALL of the canon wlw pairings in this series suffer from the fact they have men writing them, and as a result they’re almost always some kind of abusive or racist, and skeeve me out. See: Celene / Briala, Leliana / Marjolaine, Branka / Hespith, etc. Please Bioware, I’m begging you to consult some actual queer women. It’s insane how badly they’re treated compared to how the canon mlm couples are written.

FINALLY, I recognize this will be the most unpopular of all, but. As much as I love M!Hawke/Fenris, I just honestly cannot stand seeing F!Hawke/Fenris. There are some pairings where I’m so attached to the m/m or f/f version, I cannot deal with the m/f version anymore, and that’s one of them. (The others are mainly non-Bioware.)

#LONG POST #REALLY LONG #SORRY #misc: text #misc: asks #misc: meme #series: dragon age #gen: bioware #utopianoverlord

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realtalk-princeton · 4 years

Note

@Sulpicia do you have any advice on how to achieve such a high gpa in the humanities, when essay grades can sometimes seem subjective and different professors have different preferences? for ex, do you recommend using office hours in a certain way?

Response from Sulpicia:

I think that one thing to keep in mind is that I’m in a humanities major where empirical exams often determine 70-80% of your grade in a class; while they’re not usually curved, the language exams I took had a pretty similar format between classes, and so with every class you’re more prepared to engage with the material in that way. I personally think the best thing you can do to do well in a humanities class is to do the work; coming into class having prepared and done the readings will mean you have things to say, which translates into a better class discussion; this then will inevitably inspire thinking about what to write about for papers, and will also give you a better idea of how your instructor responds to your thinking. I’m not pretending that I showed up to class prepared 100% of the time, but I think sometimes people take humanities classes here and don’t take them seriously and then struggle at the end because they weren’t really trying to understand things on a week-to-week level.

In terms of writing papers, I generally tried to be in contact with instructors as much as possible throughout the process. Going to office hours with an idea (or, better yet, an outline) is really helpful, since you can get feedback before you spend a ton of time writing something that is founded on a mistaken assumption (which was something I did a LOT in my thesis process) or following a line of argument that might not be as strong as you initially think/hope. I often tried to come up with paper topics early on and even when (as was inevitably the case) I didn’t write anything, I knew I a) had the green light from a professor and b) was passively thinking about the topic for a long time. I also tried to write about things that made me excited, since the best papers are the ones you actually care about.

I actually have not found that professors have hugely different expectations for writing, because at the undergraduate level, good academic writing is good academic writing. I’m not the best essay writer in the world, but here are some tips I have for essay writing that I’ve learned over the past few years:

- Structure is so important, and is something a lot of essays miss. You should have a clear thesis statement of 1-2 sentences for a term paper, and this should be clearly positioned at the end of your introduction. For a shorter paper (5-10 pages) this should be at the end of the first page or top of the second page, while for longer papers, a JP, or a thesis chapter, they can be a little bit further in. Overlong introductions are my weakness as a writer, but a good intro basically just needs to provide the context you need to set up your thesis statement. I would stay away from the “three-pronged” thesis you learned in high school, but your thesis should correspond with the structure of your paper by presenting your claims in the order you will address them.

- Structure is important in your main body too! Write an outline before you begin your essay that briefly sketches out the progression of your argument and what evidence you will use to prove each part of it. Use transition words to link together ideas, and make sure to regularly tie back all of your claims to the main idea of your paper. Don’t write anything that does not support your thesis or provide a counterargument that you can then mitigate or disprove. Always let your reader know where they are in your argument, and don’t be afraid to refer back to earlier parts of the paper.

- Every sentence should matter. When you’re presenting a piece of evidence or analysis, think about its relationship to the one previous. Is that relationship meaningful? If not, the sentence shouldn’t be there (or should be placed elsewhere in your paper). The ideal is that every piece of your paper will follow naturally from what immediately precedes it, guiding the reader on a nice walk through your argument.

- In the humanities, close engagement with primary sources is key. Yes, you need to use secondary scholarship. However, engagement with the “scholarly conversation” should be second to your unique contribution, which is your close reading of the text/images at hand. This was something I struggled with in my thesis, since I felt so pressured to read all the scholarship and lost my close focus on primary sources. The absolute first thing you should do when you write a humanities paper is sit down with the sources you’re analyzing and think about them. What questions do they raise for you? Why are they confusing or contradictory? How does this source connect what you discussed in lecture, precept, or seminar? What can one source say about another? If you can, annotate the source on a piece of paper or take notes alongside it.

From there, you’ll start to find your unique insights which will form the backbone of the paper. Then, if this is a research paper and not just a close reading, look at secondary sources. If you have your own opinions about a primary text, however naive, you’ll feel more confident looking at *the discourse*. Sometimes, this will answer questions you had about the text, and so you don’t need to do that work in your paper. Other times, it will give you more interpretive tools to understand a text (e.g. you might find that X feature of the writing is typical of a certain genre, and you can think about the implications of that on your text). Sometimes, it’ll show you that the scholarly consensus is, in your opinions, totally wrong; for example, one chapter of my thesis was inspired by the fact that I visual source I thought was straightforward and was going to use in another chapter had in fact been pretty clearly misread by scholars, so my new project became proving why my identification was correct. However, any engagement with scholarship should only work to support your argument; unless you’re doing a lit review or writing about scholarly history (in which case the scholarship is your primary source), you don’t just want to slap different people’s opinions next to each other.

- Use lots of evidence and use lots of analysis. Graders are not mind readers, even if they are familiar with the material you’re studying. Good essays will present a lot of evidence; one thing I find helpful is breaking up longer quotes into shorter sections and treating them separately. Every piece of evidence should also be given analysis about why a) it is proving whatever point you’re making in the paragraph and b) how this connects to your larger argument. Part (b) might be implicit, but many essays could be stronger by making clear, distinctive points. Obviously not every piece of evidence merits a lot of analysis, and you can feel free to draw together several quotes to make one larger point.

- Speaking of, make specific claims. This refers both to the evidence that you use and how you use it. It’s totally okay to make general statements about a work, or an author, or an artistic movement; you couldn’t write an essay without doing that. However, those broad claims need to (at least in part) be grounded in some form of evidence; this can come from a secondary source or from an illustrative quote from a primary source. Inexperienced essay writers will be too vague and general--while there are dangers in getting to hyper-specific, I think it’s important that if you make a claim in your paper, you point to the specific thing that made you think that way (this is also a good way to avoid misconceptions/bad assumptions in your argument). When you’re using evidence, you should also try to say something as specific as possible about it, rather than just continuing to string up evidence and restating your thesis. Your thesis statement is just a summary of your ideas; your reasoning should be more nuanced and complex than that one concept. The more specific you are the more original you are, which helps you make points.

- Revise, revise, revise! When I did HUM, I would write up to five drafts of each paper. As a senior, I’ve gotten a lot lazier about this, but part of the reason I could do that was because I had learned a lot from revising previous papers and knew what mistakes to avoid. I think that papers grow the most between a first draft and a second draft. My favorite way to revise (and this is what I did with my thesis, JPs, and many papers I’ve written at Princeton) is to take a draft, print it out (with professor comments, if applicable), and then go through and retype the whole thing into a blank document. Optionally you can mark it up yourself as well, which is probably for the best. I like this because it means you have to read every word of your paper and also don’t feel bound by its existing structure; you can move paragraphs or shuffle things around more easily. I also always find myself adding more things or rephrasing analysis, which improves the paper. You’ll never come up with every idea in a first draft, so it’s good to revisit the paper as much as you can.

- Ask other people to read your work. We all have bad writing habits, from overuse of certain words to repetitive syntax to skipping steps in our logic. These things are not always obvious to us, but are very obvious to other readers. If you can, ask a friend (or writing center tutor, or instructor) to read your paper and help you identify these “bad habits” so you’re more conscious of them in future drafts. They can also often help you see where you skipped a step in your structure or the logic of your argument, or where your treatment of evidence doesn’t fully make sense. This is not always an option, of course, but especially early on, having people who will frankly tell you what’s not working will be helpful to your development as a writer.

- Learn from your mistakes. Criticism, even of the kindest, gentlest, most constructive kind, is hard to hear. To be honest, I would sometimes put off writing my thesis for hours because I was so embarrassed that my advisor had seen a stupid mistake I’d made in my writing (which is entirely irrational, yes, I get it). However, it is very important not only to bask in the positive comments on your paper, but to look at any more constructive ones to see what you can do better next time. Every paper teaches you how to write the next one better. Keep old papers and use them as teaching tools; you might even find it helpful to pin a list of things you know you need to remember when writing next to your desk or on your computer desktop. Professors offer comments because they want you to do better and understand more, not because they want to tear you down (unless they’re really mean).

Anyway this was kind of long-winded, but hopefully at least a little helpful as Dean’s Date approaches (the one lesson I never learn is how to stop procrastinating). I don’t know if there’s a secret to having a good GPA. I don’t consider myself to be brilliant or industrious at all, really; I think I’ve been lucky, taken classes that suited my academic strengths, come into them prepared, and really spent time understanding what exams and papers are trying to assess and then crafting my responses accordingly.

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rwbyconversations · 5 years

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Why has Adam proved controversial after Volume 6?

Fandom is a culture that is constantly changing. It’s a culture effectively built around self-sustaining itself through fanart, music videos, fanfiction and discussion theories about the content the fandom is built around to tide them over until the next big release. Taking the RWBY fandom for example, it’s a fandom that’s really only alive for less than two fifths of the average year, from October to January when the volume itself airs. The rest of the year, RWBY’s fandom has to keep itself afloat through self-generation of ideas and the sharing of the aforementioned means of content to tide people over until October comes back around and the season starts anew. Headcanons and fan theories become commonplace and can become exponentially more popular than ever intended thanks to the gap in seasons giving it time to form and gain weight as a theory before canon can prove it wrong.

What that long period of downtime means is that you can see previously loathed characters come back from the brink and gain a lot of fandom support and approval in the turn of a season. Or alternatively, popular characters can take a swan-dive in popularity, being reduced to joke status that they never recover from. People who swore up and down that “this character is trash and I don’t care what they do with them” suddenly next hiatus are on the other side of the trenches. One season can do a lot for a character in either direction is what I’m saying.

Because that’s what’s happened the past two years to Adam Taurus.

Adam after Volume 5 was a turbulent wreck of a character. Humiliated at the end of the season and forced to run with his tail between his legs, while his character lost much of the appeal that it had garnered over the prior four volumes, making him resemble a whiny child LARPing as a doomsday villain. It was a pathetic display for his character, one so infuriating it inspired me to begin writing analysis essays after a heated Discord discussion, and that essay struck a note with many of the people who read it and agreed with the contents therein, especially in regards to how much Haven damaged Adam’s threat factor. People simply weren’t scared of him appearing like they were prior to his smack from Blake, several comments even derisively writing off Blake and Yang’s rematch against Adam in advance because “they made him job before, they’ll do it again.”

And yet interestingly, within the span of a year, the tides partially turned. With Volume 6 Adam wasn’t widely derided as a joke anymore, but in spite of that, the discussion around him was just as heated as it was last year. Adam was still the core topic of the argument but now the battle lines had been redrawn thanks to his death in the climax of Volume 6. Now it’s become commonplace for RWBY’s discussion communities to deride many of the dime-a-dozen posts about Adam and his “wasted potential” that have been arriving nearly daily like reinforcements to batten at a wall. But why? What changed in just one year that changed the entire argument around Adam? Why are his fans and critics embroiled in a new war to enter the hiatus?

That’s what I’m trying to set out and accomplish in this essay. I am going to hopefully explain the primary reasons for why Adam is a controversial character following Volume 6, in particular why his fans are dissatisfied with the way his characterization was taken over the course of the show. Keep in m ind that parts of this essay touch on Adam’s abuse so if that’s a thing you’d rather not see, avoid going further.

1) Headcanons were proven wrong

No one likes being wrong. Just look at students who get fail grades in exams, they’re usually despondent. It’s never something you lose as you grow up, in fact, Being wrong just sucks, to put it bluntly.

Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that because of the content droughts fandoms experience, headcanons and theories can grow far further than anyone intended? Adam is an example of that happening for three years.

Adam’s first appearance was in the Black Trailer, released on March 22nd, 2013. He wouldn’t make a significant appearance in the show until Heroes and Monsters, the penultimate episode to Volume 3, released on February 6th of 2016. His only significant appearances between those two dates was a cameo in the Volume 2 finale and V3C7, Beginning of the End, released on January 2nd.

Adam’s initial appearance left much of his personality vague, barring that he was Blake’s superior, a stoic swordmaster and that he was fighting to liberate the Faunus from humanity with the full intent of taking a pound of flesh from humanity for what they’d done to the Faunus- to quote From Shadows:

From Shadows, we’ll descend upon the world, take back what you stole, from shadows, we’ll reclaim our destiny, set our future free.

As such, the mental image of Adam that the fandom was given had nearly three years in real life to set in stone, that he was Blake’s former mentor who had fallen into extremism and terror attacks. Some even suspected going off Oobleck and Blake’s interactions in Volume 2 that Adam would receive a redemption from his wicked ways to show as an example of how Blake would redeem the White Fang from its own muck-filled past, or that Adam would need to die in an alternate variant of that story to show how far down the dark path he’d gone. Tauradonna was even a fairly high-profile ship in the early days of the show, being on roughly the same level as Blake/Weiss.

The headcanons were only given further room to grow thanks to adaptations of the Black trailer and early RWBY not taking the time to more properly setup Adam’s true character, in particular the Shirow Miwa adaptation. Miwa’s version of the scene, or at least the localized version, was released across two chapters in April and May of 2016, with the full book getting a physical print in the West in August 2017. Adam in the Miwa adaptation is far more talkative than his canon counterpart and even makes several dry quips throughout the fight:

When they first see the AK-130 guards (”Looks like we’re doing this the hard way” in the trailer): “Looks like all the seats are taken Blake.”

When asked who they are (Adam doesn’t have a line here): “We’re thieves.”

Upon seeing the Spider Droid for the first time: “Tch! He’s one serious baggage clerk.”

Adam’s dialogue is also softened from his original dialogue to boot:

“Buy me some time!” “But-” “Do it!” instead now is “Blake, buy me some time.“ “But that’s-” “I just need a second.” Blake also gets to make a quip that “You know... You’re fairly high-maintenance.”

When Blake’s barrage ends, she says “I did all I could,” and Adam thanks her with “It was more than enough, get back.” All Adam says in the animated version of the scene is “Move!”

The manga makes a significant addition to the aftermath of the battle, where Blake chides Adam for the ambush being sloppy. Adam initially just smiles as “that’s what you’re here for,” before Blake quickly rebukes him, cutting the train car as she says that the White Fang “not lower itself to bloodshed.” The last we see of Adam in the manga is him standing on the train carriage, pondering to himself “You think this is wrong Blake?”

A similar change is And “Perfect. Move up to the next car, I’ll set the charges,” is now “There’s at least 5,000 cases. All right, let’s kill the engine.” “What about the crew?” Adam is silent and when Blake presses him for information, the Spider Droid attacks

Prior to the train attack there is a scene added by the Manga where Blake says that the Dust will be redistributed to Faunus in need. She asks Adam to confirm this and he looks back over his shoulder, lips parsed, and says “Of course.” However the next page has a black box of him saying “Don’t overthink it Blake.”

The point of this extended summary of the Black Trailer in Miwa’s adaptation is to show that even in adaptations of the trailer, RWBY didn’t do much to dissuade people from forming the headcanon that Adam was simply a fallen revolutionary. In fact the manga smooths out Adam’s rougher edges, making his dialogue less harsh and more sarcastic. Remember as well that these were initially released soon after Volume 3 wrapped and before the commentary confirmation of abuse, meaning that these gave Adam fans one last bit of material to bolster their ideas of what Adam was.

Obviously, all of these ideas and theories went out the window with Volume 3 Chapter 11 and the subsequent reveal by Miles and Kerry in Volume 3′s commentary track that Adam was in fact an abuser. A lot of his fans didn’t take to this reveal well, which I’ll return to in a future section of this essay, since in part it shot down all of their theories about Adam and made him an irredeemable monster. Adam’s potential redemption was destroyed the moment he slapped Blake.

It is telling that most of Adam’s more passionate fans are from the early generations of the RWBY fandom who were around since the early trailers, since there’s a sharp divide between those fans and the more common Adam fan reaction of “I like him in spite of the abuse or explicitly only work with AU stories where he isn’t as bad.” Again, no one really likes being wrong, especially when it means accepting you were wrong for nearly three years.

2) The abuser twist

Something that I’ve never liked about Adam’s turn as an abuser was how looking back at Volumes 1 and 2 for evidence of the twist in advance, it’s difficult to find anything concrete. I had this discussion on a server lately where looking at all of Volumes 1 and 2 along with 3′s first half, there was really only one agreed upon sign of abuse prior to V3 in Volume 2- Blake’s flinch when Yang goes to hug her in Burning the Candle. But the problem with that is that even this can be taken into a different context, as one of my friends pointed out. As she reminded the chat, Yang had already shoved Blake several times by that point in the conversation and Blake may have flinched instinctively when she saw Yang’s arms raise again.

Of course given the context of Adam’s abuse, Blake flinching may in fact have been foreshadowing, or it may have just been her instinctively preparing for another shove. We just don’t know, and that vagueness around Blake’s past and the abuse twist is partly why a lot of fans argue that the abuse twist was never planned in the early stages of the show and was an idea introduced during production. This is not a concept new to RWBY- Monty came up with the Maidens one day while working on Volume 3 after all- but it does mean that for sudden character turns like Adam’s abuse, the question will be raised of “was this always planned or was it just something you added as the story flowed along?”

Much of the cited evidence that Adam was planned to be an abuser from the early show is in a similarly murky place. Blake speaks of Adam in Volume 2 as a mentor (”I had a partner... more of a mentor actually”), Monty himself called Blake the “apprentice” in an interview after the Black trailer, and much of her subdued behavior compared to her more affectionate self seen in Volumes 5 and 6 can be simply explained as Blake keeping a low profile to avoid Faunus discrimination and the attention of the White Fang.

Even in Volume 3 Chapter 7- Adam’s last scene before Chapter 11 and the confirmation of his abuse- things are kept vague. Adam even sharply rebukes his Lieutenant when he offers to hunt Blake down following the Black Trailer, saying “Forget it.” Adam’s plan is to go to Mistral without a care for Blake, which goes against his obsessive behavior seen later in this very season.

Much of the evidence given for Adam’s abuse- him gaslighting Blake in the Adam short, Blake talking about him in Volumes 5 and 6 to Sun and Yang, his dialogue during the Volume 6 battle- is all retroactive evidence, which does not solve the initial problem of the initial seasons poorly setting up Adam’s turn. Much of the evidence for and against the twist is shady at best, and reaching at worst due to how vague the wording is around Adam. Blake only ever speaks of him as a partner or mentor, never belying a romantic connection outside of the volume 2 premiere with the drawing of him in her notebook. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight some may find evidence in Volumes 1 through 3, primarily that Blake is simply an unreliable narrator, but I still feel like the lack of clean foreshadowing to such a large part of Adam’s character it weakens the twist, and some of Adam’s fans remain bitter that his character underwent a drastic 180 out of relatively nowhere.

3) Simple preference

Being blunt, a lot of Adam’s fans just prefer the Adam shown in the early seasons to the one the show closed out on. This idea is often mocked by some that his fans just wanted to see a Vergil knockoff, but for some of Adam’s fans it just came down to wanting to see cool fights. After all, RWBY was built on the initial idea of well-designed characters having well-choreographed fights. The show advertised itself initially as “From the maker of Dead Fantasy and Haloid,” which to surmise, weren’t shows that lured people in for their narrative quality. Monty’s loyalist fans who followed from his freelance work and from Red Vs Blue followed for cool fights, and Adam’s fighting style and design made him an instant fan favorite. It has only been from Volume 3 onwards that the show has advertised itself more as a drama than an animation showcase, and as such some of Adam’s fans don’t care less for his character turn other than that it makes him whiny and edgy and they’d like to see him swing his sword a bit more.

While the idea of preferring Adam as a revolutionary over his Yandere self seen from V3 is also a mocked concept as it tends to be used by people less well-versed in expressing critique of Adam’s character and makes for a popular strawman tactic, a morally gray villain may have worked well for RWBY. Especially as Adam and Cinder both show in different ways that the series should stay away from villains with no redeeming qualities.

Though I suppose at least unlike Cinder, Adam actually has a backstory, so I should count my blessings.

To surmise, for some of Adam’s fans it was a purely physical love affair

4) Adam’s death and its connection to Bumblebee

Blake and Yang’s final confrontation with Adam in Volume 6 marks a significant step in their relationship, which means if you like Bumblebee then the emotional climax of the volume hits home for you. If you shipped literally anything else then at least the choreography was good, but if you didn’t ship Bumblebee and never liked the Adam abuser turn... hoo boy.

Being blunt, a fair few Bumblebee shippers don’t mind the abuser twist since in the long run, it helped their ship and gave Blake and Yang plenty of angst to work through both alone and as a pair. I’ve said before that Blake’s recovery arc made for some good content in Volumes 4 and 5 barring the Sun slaps, and Yang’s PTSD arc, while bare-bones in Volume 4, was some of the more consistently good material that year when shown. And as such, Adam being made a one-note psycho who wanted to kill Blake suited them well, as it gave a clear villain for Blake and Yang to overcome while developing past their respective traumas. The problem of course being, Adam’s fans not appreciating this turn and definitely not appreciating the names they were called when they expressed this dissatisfaction.

This led to a litany of hot takes- “Adam’s fans only cared for the show and the character as an outlet for a male power fantasy,” “Adam’s fans were entirely made of sexists who just hated women,” “Adam stans are abuse apologists.” (Like 40% of the Adam fans I know are actual abuse victims so fuck yourself on the front of trying to use their trauma as a low blow) And to be fair, Adam’s fans responded with their own disappointing share of bad takes involving the dreaded words “wasted potential,” alongside murder and nerfing, but I go over those later.

(also you know genuine homophobics but trying to avoid braindead reasoning here for my own sake)

Getting back on topic, I quite obviously detest this lumping in of all criticisms. For one it means that simply shipping something that isn’t Bumblebee and disliking the fight can get one labelled with accusations of homophobia. A disgusting tactic on its own, to say nothing of how some people use it just to deflect criticism. Liked Adam? Then you’re an abuse apologist now. It’s interesting to compare the response to Adam last year and this year, where suddenly the fandom went from dismissing Adam after Haven to suddenly being very insistent that his death was well done and that only bigots opposed it; a naturally insulting statement to any members of the LGBT community or racial minorities who took umbrage with the handling of the Faunus.

And speaking of, my largest gripe with Adam’s turn personally is how it overshadows his previous commitment to the Faunus. Even though Adam’s short shows him fighting for the Faunus, to the point where Lionized and From Shadows are both expressly about how the Faunus are subject to inhumane treatments, it all gets tossed aside for the sake of Adam’s obsession with Blake and I’ve always found the almost-retcon of “Adam only truly cared for his own equality” a bit.. hard to get a read on? Since the original reason for his fall was because of his rabid devotion to his cause/getting vengeance on humans. Adam in-setting had been prepped as a Malcolm X style analogue before most of these traits were pushed over to Sienna. I feel like there is a lot that could be said about how RWBY handles its racism narrative, especially when it pertains to Adam given his own placement in the narrative, but that such a thinkpiece would likely be hit with accusations of homophobia or abuse apologism likely curtails that idea in anyone’s head. Some voices in the fandom have even come forward and expressed their dissatisfaction at how the arc depicting racism got curtailed for a romance. Adam rather sadly could have been part of a cornerstone on a narrative about the natural consequences of violent extremism, but instead the writers went with a far shallower option in my opinion.

Also being blunt the whole “Adam was just a secondary character for Blake and Yang’s arcs” feels a bit like revisionism of weak writing.

5) Damaged goods

Adam lost a lot of fans thanks to Volume 5. You can argue about this all you want but the facts don’t change that the volume was overall one that shot his character in the leg. Alongside having him go completely bananas out of nowhere with the “THE BELLADONNA NAME HAS BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF” scene, Adam’s humiliating head smack from Blake that knocked him out for an entire episode and his Naruto run escape from the Battle. Put bluntly, people didn’t give a shit, especially after CRWBY’s own attitude was to mock Adam, further undermining any threat factor Adam was meant to have.

It’s quite obvious in hindsight that Adam’s short was made quickly, and was almost certainly damage control made to counter the backlash from the Battle of Haven episodes. Sienna’s inclusion has eve been admitted by Miles on RWBY Rewind to be done as pure fanservice for the fans who wanted more from her design, and it shows with how Sienna dominates the back half of the short. But the short’s nature as damage control, while ultimately well received, still marked it as a fix job for Haven. Even last year fans wondered what was the point of trying to hype Adam back up as a threatening villain given he would almost certainly lose any future battles he fought in.

Ultimately, a lot of people just didn’t care about Adam. The damage had been done by Haven, and even a lot of his own fans wrote off him being allowed to be even half as competent as his Volume 3 self again. With even his own fans having written off his chances of being a fearsome combatant again and the crew openly reviling Adam, not to mention his own voice actor despising him, a mood of “why should we care if the crew don’t?” began to settle in for Adam’s fans. Some even looked forward to his death since it would mean at least in death, Adam was free of being written as a psycho Yandere. For some of Adam’s fans, his writing had been so schizophrenic that death seemed like the only way forward instead of dragging it out.

6) “Wasted potential”

This is a point I don’t entirely agree with myself, but as this is an essay about why Adam has been controversial after Volume 6 I only feel it fair to include it, even if solely for the purposes of rebuttal. Wasted potential has become a set of dirty words to portions of the fandom thanks to the many, many, many arguments about Adam post-season.

A rather large complaint is that Adam “jobbed” for Blake and Yang, despite neither of them really having gained much experience onscreen since Beacon. I disagree with this notion since it does take some details out of consideration for this angle- B&Y were both tired from earlier fighting in the day, Blake was shocked to see Adam out of nowhere and that’s why he overwhelmed her, Adam still actually defeats Blake at Argus and it largely comes down to Yang to win the fight, and V5 had actually set up her changing her fighting style to better combat Adam’s own style.

One idea of potential for Adam that I will admit to liking is the idea of Adam as an ideological villain to Blake. Adam and Blake could have both represented the differing sides of the Faunus debate and how to achieve results, perhaps even going for a scenario where neither side was truly correct or wrong. Such a plot would have even had the benefit of tying the Faunus narrative into the wider stakes of the show while also humanizing it on a base level through their struggle. But at this point, this is becoming me wishing the show was something else. I’m sure a great fanfic could bloom from this idea in the future and I hope I get to see it one day.

There’s also the entire idea that Blake and Yang “murdered” (it was self-defense) Adam since apparently this is a big deal. I dunno fam, you just ignoring all those White Fang goons RWBY killed in V2 by leaving them in the tunnels? The ones they smacked around during V3? All those people Yang probably killed in the Yellow trailer? Now seems like a bit of an odd time to draw a line in the sand about the RWBY girls killing someone.

7) Conclusion

To conclude, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding Adam, and a lot that will surround his character for years. I feel like arguments around him will still be going by the end of the hiatus, if not for years to come. Adam has attracted a fandom from varying walks of life, but one thing I’ve noticed with some regularity is how many of of them themselves have histories with abuse. What unites a lot of them in their reasons for liking the character is the tragedy of how Adam is a person who has been persecuted then gained the power to bite back, but in his blind rage winds up lashing out at someone he is supposed to love. With permission, they let me share their accounts so I could put them here:

Be it purely visual/choreography appreciation, falling for fan theories and headcanons, his allusions to the Beast, the mystery of his mask and later branding, his potential as an ideological rival for Blake or for personal reasons, Adam gained a fan following from all walks of life over the past six years, who may not have learned everything they wanted to about him but who wanted to learn more regardless. Even if they only liked him just to watch him fight, Adam has a small if passionate fanbase, and I hope I’ve explained some of their grievances with the show as a whole now, particularly following Volume 6. Adam might have been a scumbag, but ironically his fandom has actually been quite pleasant to talk to, so I hope I’ve presented their more accurate or personal issues in a fair light.

Thank you for reading. Please consider sharing the post around if you enjoyed it or think someone you know would.

#rwby #adam taurus #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #rwde #Sienna Khan #fandom #rwby analysis #fandom analysis #rwby critical #shirow miwa #rwby shirow miwa manga #from shadows #lionized

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zaraquinn · 5 years

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stranger things: the breakfast club

by zara quinn 💐

wattpad link

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chapter two: this is what happens

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All of the six kids finally made their way into the seats of the library desk, Billy being the last one to take a seat behind Nancy and Johnathan. Ophelia took a seat in the very back, behind Steve and Julia. They all looked at their principle, Mr. Murray Bauman as he held a stack of papers and addressed the kids with such annoyance that Ophelia wondered how he even got the job. "Well look what we got here! I would congratulate all of you for being on time but I think a congratulation would be a little too nice—" Mr. Bauman had spat to the teens, he was going to continue as Nancy raised her hand, cutting him off. "Yes, Wheeler?" Mr. Bauman said annoyingly, rolling his eyes at the girl. "Excuse me, Mr. Bauman? I think there has been a terrible mistake, but, I don't think I belong here... in detention—" But Mr. Bauman doesn't care her about her excuses, as he continues to talk. "It's now 7:06 and you have exactly eight hours of detention to think about why you're in here. To think about the errors of your ways..." The teens already feel themselves tune out his voice, as Billy took out a piece of gum from his jacket and chewed it loudly, Nancy looking back in disgust and Johnathan looking annoyed; rolling his eyes. "And, you may not talk, move from your seats..." Bauman yelled back at the silent kids, stomping towards a careless Billy playing with his silver ring around his finger, pulling a chair out from underneath his resting feet. Bauman looked behind him, already finding Steve falling asleep with his head down. "You will not sleep or take thirty-minute naps." Bauman walked over to Steve, smacking him at the back of the head to walk him up. His head made a loud thud as Julia had giggled from her place in her seat. "Alright kids, we're gonna try something a little different today. I want each and every one of you to write an essay describing to me who you think you are. No less than three pages and a thousand words." All of the teens look at each other in disbelief, all having the same thought going through their minds. "Is this suppose to be a test?" Johnathan asks softly, getting completely ignored by Mr. Bauman, as he hands out several pieces of paper and pencils. "And I mean essay. Not the same word a thousand times and not skipping lines alright? You're all seniors. You're big boys and girls who know what essays are so you do it yourself alright?" Bauman yelled over the kids for the last time; suddenly pointing at Billy with his pointer finger and pinkie finger. "Are we clear Hargrove?" Billy had lifted his head from his chair, giving no words but thumbs up and returning his head back on the chair and chewing his gum. "Well good, because maybe, just maybe, you'll learn a little something about your time spent here. Like whether or not you would like to, return." Mr. Bauman said, stretching out the last word as he shoots daggers towards a carefree Billy once more. "I wouldn't want to return here." Muttered Ophelia, catching the principle's attention once more. "Shut up Thompson." He quickly shot back, earning all the glances towards her—Ophelia quickly sinking into her chair. "My office is across the hall. Any monkey business is ill-advised. Any questions?" His thick finger points towards each teen like a laser beam ready to hit its target. All the teens look at Mr. Bauman with empty stares, although Billy smirked from his seat behind the table and raised his hand way up high. "Yeah, I got a question." Bauman looks at Billy suspiciously, getting ready to try not to strangle the kid. "Do you know how receding your hairline is?" Billy pushed Mr. Bauman's buttons even further, not caring for the end result of his little roast.

The teens can already feel Mr. Bauman fume with anger from wherever they sat as he shot daggers towards the smirking Billy. "I'll give you the answer to that, Mr. Hargrove, next Saturday in detention." Everyone looked at Billy with a disapproving look, questioning why he would cost himself another Saturday to waste his time. "Don't mess with the bull young man, you'll get the horns." Bauman finally said, making weird hand gestures as he made his way to the library doors. "That man, is a brownie hound." Billy said out loud yo no one in particular. The rest of the teens stayed silent, ignoring Billy's obscure thoughts that had escaped his pretty lips. Nancy made herself comfortable as she removed her jacket and laid it on her chair, and Steve kicking his bag down underneath his seat. Johnathan picked up his pencil and started to write down the title of his essay, following the rules like he was told to from Bauman. He glanced at Nancy with a smile, and she returned with one. Steve had already put his head down on the desk, ready for bed once again as Julia started to fold the paper she received into a paper balloon. Billy had propped his feet onto his desk and Ophelia started to loudly bite her nails in boredom. The whole room could hear her go at it on her nails as every single pair of eyes on her were once again, at her direction. "If you keep eating like that you won't have space for lunch." Billy made his stupid comments as Ophelia finished biting her nail and three Billy the middle finger—he then proceeded to return it back with a wink towards the girl. "Don't worry sweetheart. I've seen you around the school before you know." It seemed like he turned his charm on as Ophelia's annoyed face relaxed more as she looked at Billy and his stupidly handsome face—but quickly faced the other way and ignored his growing smirk. "Who I think I am?" Johnathan muttered to himself, jittering with his pencil in hand; slipping it between his fingers he thought about the essay. "I am... the Eggman. I am the Walrus." He smiled as he hummed the obscure Beatles song to himself. Steve lifted his head in boredom once more, looking around the room he resided in. He saw Julia folding away at the paper and Nancy looking off into space, and Johnathan beside her writing some words on his paper. "You're seriously going to do the essay Byers?" He asked, completely annoyed by the fact he was listening to the principle's stupid rules. "I mean what else would we be doing?" Johnathan genuinely asked. Man if he wasn't so sweet and soft. "Oh shit! What happens if we have to take a piss?" Billy shouted, effectively waking everybody up from their distractions.

"What?" Nancy muttered, looking back at the delinquent. "Well, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do." Was all Billy said when he the many sounds of shuffling resulted in him undoing his zipper and belt on his pants. "Dude!" Nancy yelled, covering her eyes and facing forward as everybody else had drawn attention to Billy. "Oh my God." Julia followed Nancy's actions, same with Ophelia at the back. "Jesus Christ—seriously dude?" Steve yelled back, looking at Billy with an annoyed expression on his face. "What?" Everybody expecting him to at least feel ashamed; but of course, the total opposite for Billy. "You whip it out and you're dead before the first drop hits the floor!" Steve pulled out his chair, ready to stand up and fight Billy at any given moment. But like always Billy sarcastically follows up with a joke and a comment, toasting Steve as he zips his pants back up. "You're talking seriously got it crawling back up again dick." Steve rolled his eyes at Billy's unwanted comment. He really didn't need this right now. Billy can already feel the boredom seep through his veins and out his skin as his brain screamed for him to get some energy before he feels like he's going to turn into some lazy blob. He hated that feeling. "Hey homeboy," a pencil was thrown in the air by Billy, hitting Johnathan at the back of the head, causing him to turn to the obnoxious boy. "What?" "Why don't you close that door huh? Let's see if we can score little miss prissy here and the performing basket case behind us? Why don't we throw in Harrington's muse in the mix huh?" Billy chewed his gum with a smirk, as he pointed at Ophelia behind them and Julia, as well as Nancy. Johnathan just looked at Billy with disgust.

"Hey, asshole! Just because you don't want to be here, doesn't mean you get everybody's time here a living hell!" Steve spat back, already feeling his anger rise to the top of the surface. "Steve, he's just saying this to get under your skin, just ignore him." Julia said, lightly laying her hand on Steve's arm to reassure him. She kept a good grip, however, just in case he really does launch himself at Billy after all. "Oh, I see. You and she are fucking?" Billy proposed. "Friends with benefits? In... love?" Billy got up from his seat and sat on the table, pressing the two teens further. "Shut up!" "Enough!" Both of them yelled, causing the room's eyes towards them. Mr. Bauman's voice echoed across the room; as he yelled for them to shut up from his office.

"You know, we can't have any party going on with that door open. We should close it." Billy said, walking over to Johnathan's side of the desk, slapping him at the back of the chair. "It's supposed to be open, I don't think we're supposed to—" "Do I look like I give a shit? So what?" He quickly cut of Johnathan, prompting him to shut up as he continued loudly and proudly chewed his gum. "Look, Hargrove, why don't you just shut up? There are five people here that don't need you being an asshole for eight hours!" Steve yelled back. "Steve, just ignore him." Julia proposed. "Oh wow, the King of Hawkins High can count! I thought you weren't supposed to have brains if you're popular..." Billy shouted particularly to nobody, and Ophelia following the joke with a short chuckle. "See? She gets it." Billy pointed at her direction, causing Ophelia to smile back. She might be the one that always stars as the main roles in their school plays, but she does have a sense of humour. Billy returned with a wink her way, already causing Ophelia with a case of pink cheeks. "Steve..." Julia quickly held his arm down as she felt him start to pull his chair back. "Who the hell are you to judge anyway?" Julia yelled back, already feeling the amount of frustration from Steve equally present itself onto her.

"Really..." Nancy followed, rolling her eyes. "You know Hargrove, you could disappear in this school and no one would bat an eyelash; not one difference. You may as well not even exist in this school." Steve spat back, feeling his temper reach its limit. "Then I'll just join the basketball team! Wrestling team! Even the prep club!" He leaned over to Nancy, annoying her further. "They would never take you." "How about the art club? The theatre kid where all the drama kids make themselves known?" He pressed on further, wanting to push everybody's buttons. "Well, actually—" Ophelia thought about it but was quickly interrupted by Nancy's words. "You know why guys like you knock everything?" Fully turning in her seat, anger-filled in her words. "Nancy, don't." Johnathan put a calming hand on her shoulder, and Nancy ignoring it all. "Hey pretty face, this should be interesting." Billy nudged Ophelia's shoulder as he sat on the desk, sarcastically and jokingly paying attention to Nancy. "It's because you're afraid. You're a coward that doesn't belong anywhere and you know it. That's why you shit all over it and think you're too cool for it." Nancy crossed her arms, knowing full well she took a jab at Billy. "Oh, princess. You rich people really know everybody, do you? You know, don't you think it's also because all your popular kids are just prestigious assholes?" He smiled. Nancy furrowed her eyebrows in anger. "You know what," Nancy finished, turning around and ignoring Billy once more, hearing a laugh from Billy to signify he won. "Look, I have to meet a bunch of friends today and I'm going to get this detention extended on the count of you bonehead alright!" Steve yelled. "Oh, how social popularity is so important these days. The two keep bickering with Julia and Nancy's add ons, and Johnathan watching the door nervously, just waiting for the moment Bauman comes in and busts all of them.

Time passes and soon enough, the library returns to its silent nature—and everyone relied on up from the argument between Steve and Billy. Suddenly, Billy smirks to himself, bolting from his chair and jumping over the large desk and over to the library door. He reaches to the top, removing a screw and shoving it in his pocket. The door then proceeded to slam shut as Billy ran back to his seat behind the desk with a shit-eating grin. All the teens' face has panic written all over it. "Okay asshole, you can stop joking around and fix it!" Nancy yelled. "Yeah man, just put it back the way it was!" Johnathan joined in, facing Billy with worry. "Aren't I a genius?" Billy smiled to himself. "No asshole, you're not! You're an idiot that's what!" Julia yelled back. Steve and Nancy constantly yelled at Billy to put the door back the way it was, and Billy yelling for them to shut up.

"Why is this door closed?" The door was busted open by Mr. Bauman; yelling at the kids as they all sat in internal panic.

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tagged: @karinavictoria11 @amarachoren @youtubehelpsmesurvive @slither-in-a-half @vampirecrash @bookmovietvworm @yllwtaxi @what-ever-babe @ashadowoftheforest @yoheyyosup

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jaeminhours · 6 years

Text

Loved You First

SUMMARY | You were never supposed to fall in love with your best friend, Lee Jeno, but sometimes things don’t go according to plan.

PAIRING | Lee Jeno x Reader

CATEGORY | Friends To Lovers highschool!au, fluff/light angst

WORD COUNT | 3.4k

WARNINGS | none

SONG REC | I Like You - Day6

You would have never described your relationship with Lee Jeno as complicated. You were best friends, and you would’ve thought nothing in the world could ever change that. You were inseparable. You had all the same friends, the same interests, similar grades, and similar aspirations. Neither of you had any interest in dating and most importantly, neither of you had ever developed feelings for the other. You were best friends, and that was it, that was the whole story. At least, that’s what you had thought, until your senior year in high school.

You remembered the day you met Jeno very clearly, and it was a day you would often look back to in the future. You were eleven years old and about to go into your first year of middle school in just a little over a month. The feeling you had that summer could only be described as a feeling of dread, but also of excitement. On this particular summer day, you had been staring out the window of your room on the second story of your house, gazing at the slowly setting sun and watching your brand new neighbors move in across the street.

That was when you saw him.

While the adults were finishing moving their many boxes into their new home, a boy was riding his bike down the street. Before he could pass by, a woman, who you presumed was his mother, smacked him on the back of the head and scolded him for not helping. He had laughed, throwing his head back before unbuckling his helmet and pulling it off of his head, combing his fingers through his mussed up hair.

That was when he saw you.

You were embarrassed to be caught watching him, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. He didn’t look away either. Instead, he smiled at you, with that same smile where his eyes crinkled into bright half-moons and captivated you beyond your own belief. He waved, and you hesitantly raised your hand to wave back, but then his mother grabbed his arm and pulled him away. You didn’t see him in the next few weeks, not until the last week of August, and the last week of your summer vacation. That second day you met him on the pavement in front of his house, where he was playing basketball, and demanded that he be your new friend. “Neither of us will have any friends, so we need to stick together,” you had argued. He had agreed, and that had been the beginning of your friendship.

It hadn’t ended up being just you and Jeno, though. Later that year you both became close friends with three other boys in your grade: Lee Donghyuck, Na Jaemin, and Huang Renjun. In the later years, your group would expand to include two boys in the grade below you, Zhong Chenle and Park Jisung. Separately, you also became good friends with a girl in your grade called Irene. For the most part, however, you were closest with Donghyuck, Jaemin, and Renjun, and they would end up being yours and Jeno’s closest friends in the years to come.

The trouble all began in your senior year, a time of both apprehension and impatience. It was in the first few weeks of September, and your history teacher had already assigned a full length, five-page minimum essay on the history of art. You were sitting in the school library at one of the desks by the large windows at the ungodly hour of 7:15 AM, occasionally glancing outside to watch the falling leaves, a swirling hue of golds, oranges, and browns flowing past your tired eyes.

“Are you already working on that essay? God, y/n, that was only assigned, like, two days ago.”

Jeno sat down across from you, flashing you a playful smile.

“I’d rather get most of it done before our other teachers begin to get the same idea,” you said. Jeno leaned forward, and began talking animatedly about another project he had in art. However, as he talked, you couldn’t help but get lost in his eyes. Jeno’s eyes weren’t the same color as the golden browns outside. They didn’t have the same feeling as fall, your favorite season. Instead, they were as dark and deep as the coffee your dad drank in the morning, his dark eyelashes framing them and making you feel as if you could fall in and drown in them, if you only took one wrong step. Looking back, you would think that maybe you had fallen into them at that moment, that it was already too late for you, and you just couldn’t tell yet.

“y/n?” Jeno was staring at you expectantly. “Are you listening to me?”

You shook yourself out of it, mentally slapping yourself and focusing your attention on the present once again. “Hm? Yeah, of course I’m listening.”

Jeno smirked. You were a terrible liar, and he knew it. “Ah come on, I know you better than that! What’s got you so distracted that you can’t listen to me complain about school?”

“You.”

Jeno stopped smiling, startled. “What?” he said, chuckling awkwardly.

“Nothing, I’m kidding,” you said, laughing it off. “I’m sorry, keep talking and I’ll really listen this time, I swear.”

And so Jeno continued, moving on from complaining about just his art project to complaining about his partner, Dahyun. And although you swore you’d focus and tried your hardest to concentrate on his words, you couldn’t seem to help yourself from falling into his eyes.

Since it was in the middle of September, it was also that time of year where the football team, along with a general sense of school spirit and harmony, was in its prime. Banners painted in your school’s colors were taped to halls of your school, urging your peers to “Cram the stands!”, and “show your school spirit!”. You didn’t have much of an interest in football, but you couldn’t deny that your school’s football games were incredible fun when spent with your friends. Each year, you, Jeno, Donghyuck, Jaemin, and all the others would cram into two separate cars and drive to the football games, wrapped in your warmest hoodies and wool hats, and watching your breath escape into the cold autumn air with each exhale. This year was no different. This year, you drove with Donghyuck and Renjun to the game, while Jeno drove with Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung, since they had all gone to the arcade earlier, with Irene opting to go with a different group of friends and leaving you with the boys.

Once you arrived at the school and made your way down to the bleachers, you met up with the rest of your group. Upon seeing you, Jeno ran up to you and engulfed you in a tight hug. He was warm, and smelled like peppermint.

“What are you doing, you big dork?” you mumbled into his sweatshirt, perplexed.

“I missed you,” he murmured.

“Oh, shut up! You saw me a few hours ago, don’t go all sappy!”

“Oh, so I can’t miss my best friend? What’s wrong with you? Why are you like that?”

Amidst your argument, Donghyuck slung his arm over your shoulder. “Should we go and grab seats or are you two going to keep bickering like an old married couple?”

“Shut up!”

You all quickly found an empty spot in the bleachers, settling down and wrapping your thick blankets around your shivering shoulders. You sat between Jaemin and Jeno, with Chenle and Jisung in front of you, Chenle resting his body against your knees and shins. The game was an enthusiastic event, but even though you were having fun, you couldn’t help the shivers wracking your body every few seconds or the clattering of your teeth as you froze in the frigid air. Jeno noticed, moving forward and offering to share both his blanket and his body heat. You accepted and moved closer, but as you did, you heard Jeno’s breath hitch.

“Are you okay?” you whispered, concerned that you might be taking away his only source of warmth and making him too cold.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered, avoiding your eyes. “Sorry, it’s just cold, maybe I’m coming down with something. Or maybe it was the hot dogs. We still haven’t figured out what this school uses to make those,” he joked, flashing you a small smile.

“Gross. Don’t remind me.”

You were suddenly hyper aware of the feeling of his thigh resting against yours, of his hand resting on your knee, and of your sides pressed together. Your heart started racing, an uncomfortable feeling settling in your stomach.

“I think I have whatever you have, too,” you said. “I think maybe we should stay away from those hot dogs for the rest of the night.”

But you weren’t stupid, and you weren’t delusional. You knew what that feeling was, and even if you didn’t want it, it was there, and you couldn’t deny it.

Not my friend. Not my best friend. Please, not Jeno, anyone but Jeno.

But your heart wouldn’t listen to you, it never did and never would.

After the game, Jeno grabbed your arm and pulled you into the shadows under the bleachers.

“What are you doing?!” you exclaimed.

Jeno’s expression was concerned. “Seriously, are you okay? You’ve been really out of it lately.”

You sighed. “Yeah I’m fine. It’s just, you know, the essay. It’s just so long, and on such a… boring topic,” you said playfully.

Jeno frowned. “An essay wouldn’t get you like this, not even this one. Seriously, you can tell me what’s wrong, y/n. I’m your best friend.” He was closer now, speaking softly as he inched closer to you.

“I’m fine,” you whispered softly. You moved forward slightly too, the smallest movement that brought you just inches from Jeno’s face.

“I care about you, you know.”

“I know.”

He was so close that you could feel his breath on your face.

Was he going to kiss you?

Apparently not, because at the last moment before your lips met he pulled away, turning from you and running his fingers through his hair. “Uh, sorry. We should catch up to the others. They’ll be waiting for us.”

“Jeno.”

Your heart was racing, your cheeks flushed and fingers numb from the cold.

“What?”

“I-I think I like you. As more than a friend, I mean.”

There was silence. Jeno didn’t turn around.

“I’m sorry… I just don’t know.”

Your heart dropped.

Oh.

The walk back up the car was silent and filled with tension. Renjun, Donghyuck, Chenle, and Jisung had already left, tired of waiting for you for even an extra five minutes. As a result, you were stuck in the passenger seat next to Donghyuck, with Jeno in the backseat. You could feel his eyes on you for the whole drive, and as you got out and met his eyes as you walked to your door, you realized it was the first time you couldn’t tell what your best friend was thinking.

The following weeks slowly mended your friendship with Jeno, and as the autumn brown atmosphere outside transformed into a wintery white, you finally recognized that familiar warmth inside your friend’s dark brown eyes. One thing had not returned to normal, however. Your feelings for Jeno had become even stronger, and were undeniable. You liked your best friend. You liked him in a way you shouldn’t, in a way that you promised yourself you wouldn’t. Every moment you spent with him, knowing that he didn’t feel the same way about you, was torture. But you endured it, because he was your best friend.

It wasn’t until one day in early December, when you were sitting with Jeno at one of the desks in the library during your lunch period, working tirelessly on your calculus homework, that Jeno broke your heart for the first time.

“Jeno, are you coming over again after school?” Jeno coming to your place after school was a common tradition. You would work on homework together, and then spend the rest of the night watching movie and playing video games.

Jeno didn’t meet your eyes. “Not tonight, sorry. I’m kinda… busy?”

“Busy?”

“I’m hanging out with Dahyun… we’re going to that new cafe downtown.”

What? Why was he hanging out with Dahyun? You had thought that he really hated her.

“Dahyun?” you questioned. “I thought that you said she was annoying?”

Jeno shifted in his seat, still not meeting your eyes. “Yeah. I guess I was wrong. She’s pretty, and cute, and funny. I figured I should give her a chance.”

You hesitated, and now it was you that couldn’t meet his eyes. “I… I just thought that we were going to check out that cafe together?”

Jeno looked guilty. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“That’s alright. Have fun.”

“Yeah. I will.”

You couldn’t tell if Jeno and Dahyun were dating, but it felt as if your best friend had been stolen from you. Jeno had been avoiding you, instead opting to spend most of his free time with Dahyun and the other boys when you weren’t around. It seemed like just as things had returned to normal with you and Jeno, you’d been ripped apart once again. Every time he chose to sit with Dahyun instead of you and the others, you felt an odd pang in the pit of your stomach. Today was no different. You were half-heartedly picking at your lunch with a fork when Jaemin nudged your arm.

“Hey, are you okay?” he said, his eyes boring into your own.

“Of course. Why do you ask?” you said, shrugging him off.

“You know, Jeno likes you too.”

You spluttered, unable to form a coherent reply. “What?!”

“You guys are so dumb. He told me what happened at the football game.”

You snorted. “Okay, so? He rejected me, he doesn’t like me back.”

“He’s just had a hard time figuring it out,” Jaemin explained. “He feels like he shouldn’t like you, because you’ve been best friends for your entire life. He’s stupid and confused, and you guys need to talk to each other. The party Friday night, you should come. It’s by the beach, there’s going to be a bonfire. Very romantic.”

“Shut up,” you said, slapping his arm. “Even if I did go, what about him and Dahyun? Aren’t they a thing? He likes her now, doesn’t he?”

Jaemin scoffed. “Oh, come on. You can’t seriously believe that he likes her, right? Dahyun’s not bad, I’ll admit, but to Jeno… she couldn’t ever really replace you. Please, I’m tired of seeing my friends like this. Just talk to him.”

“Fine,” You admitted defeat, promising Jaemin that you would attend the party and mend your relationship with Jeno.

That night you saw Jeno through the window of your bedroom. His curtains were open and his light was on. He was in his pajamas and rubbing his wet hair with a towel when he saw you watching him. He froze, then offered a small smile. You returned it, then pulled your curtains closed and tried to push images of your best friend’s smile from your mind.

The evening sky the night of the party was clear, with hardly a cloud in sight. As you parked your car and approached the site of the party and the smell of smoke abused your senses, you began to feel more and more nervous about what could happen at this party. Jeno was confusing you. He’d been giving you mixed signals for months, and you didn’t know if you could trust what Jaemin had told you about Jeno’s feelings towards you.

But you had to try, didn’t you? You had to know.

“Hey! Y/n! Wait up!” You turned to see Jaemin chasing after you, a hand raised in the air in an attempt to capture your attention. After catching up with you, he slung an arm over your shoulders, a bright smile adorning his joyful face. "I'm glad you decided to come tonight. Jeno's been sulking all week . "

"Well that's his own fault, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but still," he said, flashing you another cheeky smile.

You both approached the bonfire, Jaemin's arm still hanging heavily around your shoulders. Jaemin's presence had managed to lighten your mood a little bit, but a feeling of dread and apprehension still sat in the pit of your stomach, a feeling of nausea crawling up your throat. On the other side of the bonfire, you caught sight of tend, standing idly next to Dahyun as she chatted with a couple of your classmates. As you watched the firelight dance over his profile, he turned, catching your eyes, his gaze freezing at the sight of Jaemin's arm around you.

"Are you okay?" he murmured, his mouth brushing against your ear. Jeno's expression hardened, and then he began walking around the fire, towards you and Jaemin.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just-" You stammered, throwing Jaemin's arm off of you and turning to face Jeno as he approached. He grabbed your wrist, eyes boring into your own.

"Can we talk?"

You gulped. “Yeah, of course, Jeno.”

He turned, pulling on your wrist and leading you to the lot where everyone had parked. You threw an apologetic look over your shoulder at Jaemin, but all you were met with was one of Jaemin’s signature shit-eating grins. He waved you off, mouthing good luck to you as Jeno tugged on your wrist once more.

Upon reaching the parking lot, he stopped, pivoting on the loose gravel to face you.

“Are you and Jaemin, like, a thing now?” he said, his mouth set in a straight line and his brow furrowed.

You returned his frown. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?” you said, crossing your arms and staring back at him. You tried to make out what he was thinking, but without the light from the bonfire shadows shrouded his face, making his expression almost indecipherable. “Anyways, you’re one to talk. What’s going on with you and Dahyun? You never did give me a clear answer as to why you’ve basically replaced me with her.”

You thought that you might’ve seen the slightest flicker of guilt flash across his face, it was too dark to tell.

Jeno took a deep breath. “About that… I’m sorry, and I feel like I should explain why I’ve been acting sort of weird lately.”

“Damn right, asshole.”

He winced. “Don’t be like that, Y/n. You see, since you confessed that you liked me, I… I felt weird. I didn’t know how I felt really. All I knew was that I’m not supposed to have feelings for my best friend.”

You frowned. “Okay, so? Get to the point, Jeno.”

He took a step forward. “Did I ever tell you that I used to have a crush on you?”

Your breath hitched. “No,” you breathed out.

“I liked you the moment you marched up to my house and told me that we had to be friends. I liked you for years, until I realized that you would probably only ever see me as your best friend,” He took another deep breath. “And then I felt guilty. Guilty that I had these feelings about my best friend when she obviously didn’t feel the same way.”

You could hardly breathe now. “You idiot,” you whispered.

“But then, back in September, you told me that you liked me, that you liked me in the same way that I had liked you for years. And I just had to think. I know that doesn’t excuse the way I’ve been treating you the past couple months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t feel the same way anymore, but I just had to tell you that I don’t think I ever stopped liking you, and I don’t think I ever will.” With that, Jeno let out a shaky breath, avoiding your eyes.

“Jeno, you dumbass,” you said, your voice stronger. “Of course I still like you.”

You stepped forward, putting your hands on the sides of his face and bringing his lips down to meet yours in a tender kiss. You felt him smile against the kiss as he rested his hands on your waist, pulling you closer. You smiled too, and then pushed him away, giggling. You grabbed his hand, interlocking your fingers and giving it a tug.

“Let’s save that for later. Come on, I promised Jaemin I wouldn’t let him drink tonight. He has a physics test tomorrow, you know.”

Jeno laughed, and grasped your hand a little tighter. “Okay,” he whispered.

“Let’s go.”

a/n: this is my first fic on here! there’s a lot of things i can improve upon and i’d love constructive criticism! this fic definitely isn’t the best and the plot was a bit rushed but i worked hard on it so i hope people enjoy reading it.

2K notes · View notes

fluffyseapancakes · 5 years

Note

hey, fiest i want to say that i love your writing! you're probably my favourite fluff writer! if your're taking requests, i'd love to see a peter parker x reader with lee peter. somethinga long the lines of "god, you just laugh at everything don't you" and he's like "no i don't! go ahead, try to make me laugh."

Thank you so much! I apologize for the time it took me to write this, but I hope you like it! It was so cute to write.

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Everyone has a specific sense of humor. For example, Steve thought puns were absolutely hysterical while Tony opted for sarcasm and wit. Nat would smile and shake her head when you tried to speak in (terrible) Russian and whenever Clint got a little tipsy he was infamous for dirty jokes. You leaned more towards terrible puns and roasting the hell out of your friends, sometimes you played along with Clint and Tony nearly had a heart attack after he realized you weren’t entirely innocent.

Peter, however, was different.

This kid laughed at absolutely everything, even if he didn’t understand the joke or if it wasn’t meant to be funny. At school you and Ned made up a game of who can make Peter laugh the loudest during class.

“Where do otters keep their money?” Ned whispered during chemistry class, “In the riverbank.”

You silently cursed as you heard Peter’s unmistakable howl of laughter pierce through the wall from the classroom next door. That was the loudest you have heard him and you were not about to give up your last $20 to Ned.

Calculus finally approached and the teacher was refreshing the class on graphing derivatives for the upcoming exam. He drew a graph with two parallel lines and proceeded to explain how to create a derivative from the known information. You glanced over at Peter and noticed he was entirely focused on the lesson for once and was sketching out the graph that was on the board. Suddenly a joke popped into your mind.

“Parallel lines have so much in common,” you sighed quietly, “too bad they’ll never meet.”

He immediately froze and fell silent, you started to worry that your attempt at humor was a fail. Before you could make another joke, Peter erupted into laughter so loud you nearly fell out of your chair. He leaned his upper body on the desk and even slapped the surface of it a few times. The teacher jumped in surprise and turned around to see a hysterical Peter Parker and you victoriously grinning at winning the bet. You started to think it was a wonderful day.

Until the teacher sent you two to the principal’s office.

“What was that for?” Peter huffed, walking down the hallway to the office. You knew Tony was going to be royally pissed that his two mentees had gotten into trouble and you wondered if he could bail you out of detention.

“It was a bet,” you entered the devil’s lair when Peter opened the door and held it open for you. Such a gentleman.

“What bet?” He plopped down on one of the hard wooden chairs that was placed in front of the principal’s office door. You took the chair next to him and winced as it annoyingly creaked and threatened to collapse from underneath you.

“Who can make you laugh the loudest, since you know, you laugh at everything,” you chuckled at Peter’s somewhat offended expression.

“No I don’t! Go ahead, try to make me laugh,” he clamped his lips shut and raised his eyebrow at you challengingly.

“Not now,” you shook your head, “we can’t get into anymore trouble.”

“I’m sure Mr. Stark wouldn’t appreciate knowing his best student is a wuss,” he grinned, “or should I tell him that you’re the one who hacked into JARVIS’ system and changed his voice into a drunk Irishman?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” you narrowed your eyes at Peter, you knew if Tony ever found that out you were dead meat. Although it was funny when he asked for a security update and suddenly the booming voice of a drunkard with a thick Irish accent filled the entire tower. He nearly screamed in surprise and immediately ran off to check the system and reverse your damage. You only told Peter about this feat and it was still an unsolved legend among the Avengers, which now has finally diffused as a ridiculous glitch.

“Then make me laugh, I dare you,” he clamped his mouth shut again and crossed his arms cheekily. You threw a glare at him and searched your head for ideas on how to break your friend. At this point a dumb joke or pun might just get a muffled chuckle out of him.

“How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?” You asked. Peter raised his eyebrow with interest.

“Ten-tickles.”He scoffed and smiled at you mockingly, you could practically hear him taunting you. You moped in the chair for a few seconds when a strange idea came to mind.

Will this even work? You glanced at your friend who pretended to yawn from boredom. A heat of pure competitiveness rose to your head and without calculating the consequences, you lunged forward and dug your fingers into Peter’s belly. He immediately responded with a loud shriek and his high-pitched carefree laughter you grew fond of poured out of his mouth. He bent over, trying to protect his upper body with his arms, but he was rather uncoordinated and you managed to worm your fingers into his sides and ribs.

“N-No!” He hoarsely screamed out as you slipped your hands into his underarms, digging into the dip. With Peter’s Spider-Man powers, he could easily throw you off but you knew he couldn’t without raising suspicion from the office staff. The lady at the front desk looked at you two disapprovingly and picked up the phone and aggressively punched in the numbers. You knew you were going to have less than a few seconds before security or the principal arrived so you quickly returned your hands to his ribs and teased the spaces in between them. Peter cackled and pathetically batted your hands away, you grinned in triumph and stopped your torture on him.

“I win,” you cheekily poked him in the side, he let out a hoarse yelp and giggled hysterically. His cheeks were flushed a deep red from the laughter and embarrassment, but a happy smile was still etched on his face.

“What is going on here?” The principal stormed over to where you and Peter were sitting with a furious glare in his eyes, “I was in a very important meeting only to hear two students creating a ruckus after they disturbed a class!”

Peter was still giggling from the tickling and the principal turned his attention on him, “Is this funny to you Mr. Parker?”

“Crap,” you whispered under your breath.

“N-no sir,” he tried to calm down his breathing, “not funny at all.”

The principal ended up giving you and Peter three weeks worth of detention and you each had to write a three paged essay on respect. You two groaned as he stepped out of his office to call May and Tony, you knew you were in huge trouble when you got back home.

“You think Mr. Stark will bail us out?” Peter whispered, you sighed and shook your head.

“No, but Steve might…after I tell him your weakness.”

You laughed as Peter started sputtering and protesting, his face pale from the mere thought of Steve Rogers having that crucial piece of information.

Maybe I’ll tell the whole Avengers too.

#peter parker #spider-man #reader x peter parker #prompt #lee peter parker #reader #reader insert #avengers tickle #ticklish!peter parker #cute #fluff

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peaches-of-1 · 5 years

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Peachtober | Day 17: Lotus

I didn’t realize this wasn’t in queue, so sorry for this being a few days late!

Hey, guys! Some of you may not know I have a side blog called @iris-idol where I do a sort of self insert kind of thing about my life as an idol. The first part is done at this point and here is a sneak peak of something I haven’t posted it yet.

September 11th, 11:59am

I was so ready for Namjoon’s birthday since he was able to come home from service to celebrate it. I sent him “Happy Birthday, oppa!” at midnight as I planned to do with all of my other members when it was their birthday. We had performed together not too long ago. He had only joined the Army last month. I remember crying so hard when him and the other members of the hyung line left together.

For now, Maknae line had formed a subunit and TXT was having a comeback soon. I was also really excited to finally have an offday just so that we could celebrate with Namjoon for a few hours. Since the show was done, the members that would become Dei5 were in the beginning stages of our trainee lives.

It wasn’t too much right now, just coming up with our concepts to make sure we have clear goals to work towards and stuff like that. Of course we had our deities to research nonstop and there was a ten page essay we had to turn in, written in Korean, to make sure we were making good strides towards understanding what persona we were going to put forward.

For me, that was Iris, goddess of the rainbow and fellow messenger alongside Hermes. A lot of my clothing would be rainbow themed, but also my color was pink. That meant I kept going towards super cute and unicorn imagery. I wanted to do something really aegyo and kawaii but also mix it with hard rock. My Trinket aka symbol was a rainbow rose so there were a lot of duality aspects I could do.

We were going to be a rock-rap group from what BigHit officials told us. I was excited to learn hardcore about rock culture because I had lived it mostly during middle school and high school. It was obvious why I was chosen for the show if they were going for a rock inspired group since I took a lot of vocal inspiration from Adam Lambert and Evanescence.

Alice would be Lyssa, goddess of madness, and her color was black. She had a secondary aka accent color which was silver. She was half Korean and half Aussie, so her blonde hair and blue eyes were completely natural much to people’s surprise. She had been super shocked to be chosen for this group since the final vote was up to the Korean people. Alice was queer. She didn’t put a label on her sexuality and rarely ever specified what she meant other than saying love is love and she wasn’t going to let society get in the way of her heart. Her trinket was a black lace blindfold.

Jun aka Lan Caihe was like our big brother/sister so far. We were pretty sure he was going to be the leader because both Jun and her deity were genderfluid. Jun went by any and all pronouns and liked to dress more closely to a femine aesthetic. Back home, she did drag and made a lot of friends that way. He was the oldest...I think. Anyways, Lan Caihe’s color was green and her symbol was a bamboo flute.

Oppa was Hyojoon, a cutie that was shorter than me and his deity was Igong Hallakgungi and we mostly just called him Halla. By “we” I meant most of the non-Koreans who were on the show because long words are hard. His color was blue. His was the deity of life and death since his deity watched over said garden. Meaning his trinket was also a watering can. Since the show was over, he no longer had to stand out so much. He let his white hair fade and his roots were coming in.

Our youngest was Tristan. He went by Tristan and liked that better than his birth name, so I didn’t think about his actual name. He was a sweet guy and adored me so much. I adored him right back. I called him my little brother, and I meant it. The way he called me Noona was different from how he called Jun or Alice. Like I was his actual big sister. Although we both had other siblings, we treated each other like we had wished our siblings treated us. Basically, I babied him quite a bit. He enjoyed that because he was the oldest of three sisters.

He was kind of like my soul mate. My best friend. My brother.

He then asked me how my training had been and I told it was good. I have honestly just gotten back about a week or so ago. I spent the last month hanging out back home and collecting the rest of my things that I wanted to bring to Korea since I’d be living here from now on.

There was a knock on my door, probably my manager coming to take my phone and tell us lights out. We weren’t allowed to have our phones until after we debuted and after we made a certain amount of revenue.

September 12, 9:21pm

Namjoon oppa had wanted a casual costume party, but I was not a casual person. So I took a shower before showing up to the boys’ dorm in a starry dress. We had planned to make him the center of our galaxy for the night meaning everyone was wearing something with stars or planets or moons on them. Although the trainees from Deify weren’t very close to a lot of the other members of BigHit Entertainment, we had been invited.

Jimin was already redfaced and giggly when I arrived. I bowed and spoke politely to Yoongi who had been a judge on the show as well as everyone else. I wasn’t allowed to drink because we would have meetings and such all day tomorrow. It was mostly just eating and watching videos on the TV.

“It’s nice to see you again, Farai.” Namjoon said my birth name. “You look well.”

“Thank you. You look great too, all healthy. How has your training been, or are you done with that now?”

He handed me a slice of cake, “It’s done with, but I have big news to share with everyone. I guess you can find out first.”

“How come I get to know first?” I asked.

Namjoon shrugged, “You’re good at keeping secrets, and I trust you. Also, you might be able to give me some advice.”

“What do you mean by advice?”

“I’m going to be sent to America for most of my service. They said somewhere in the South, and since you’re from that area, I was hoping you could give me some tips about how to act.” He said, leaning on the counter by the fridge.

“Ah,” I replied. “I see, well. I think you will do a good job because one things I was going to tell you is to be respectful and to call people older than you either ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’. However, you already do that. Hmm,”

I took a moment to think and noticed he was nervously playing with the hem of his new jacket gifted to him by Jungkook.

“Oh, I think this will be a good tip. Two things are really a big deal when it comes to business and older American people. One is eye contact. It shows that you are listening to them and paying attention. Second is a firm handshake. I do not know how you will be treated there, but do your best not to be shy.” I giggled. “Strong but silent is good, though.”

I went on and tried to show him what a firm handshake would be like, his hand lingering in mine as I did my best to explain in English and choppy Korean.

“Iris!” Taehyung turned the corner into the kitchen. “I’m so glad you’re here. I want to show you something.”

So he motioned me over and Namjoon let me join the younger member. Tae had wanted to show me some music and lyrics he wrote for me and was really hoping I could consider adding it to my album. I was taken by surprise. What was I supposed to say?

“Ah, I um. I will try. I will talk to the music producers and see if they will consider it. We are not working on music at this moment, but it sounds really nice. You have grown so much as an artist, Taehyung.” I smiled at him wearing a star spangled beret.

Then we went back to the party for a bit. Trainees couldn’t stay for too long because the grind was just beginning and we were learning Korean. I felt so out of place but also star struck because there were so many idols there. Namjoon was the only one in orangey clothing, so he was easy to find in the crowd.

One of his non idol friends was hitting on me. I was being nice, doing the whole Southern Hospitality thing, but I was not interested in the slightest. He spoke to me in broken English and did his best to hold a conversation with me, so I hung around. Until..

“Will you twerk for me?” He asked.

I bit the inside of my lip and tilted my head, “Um, what?”

“Twerk, you know...with your booty. Like girls in video.” He replied.

“Hahahaha~” Namjoon said, slapping his friend on the back. “Don’t be stupid, Han-hyung. That is really rude.”

The man blinked, “Is it? Really? Is that not just what black girls do?”

“Hahahahahaha~~no. No it’s not. I am so sorry, Farai.”

“I am going to play with Yeontan.” I replied and left them to that.

Tristan hugged me, “Noona~ You look sad.”

“It’s nothing. Just an idiot.” I responded.

“I love you, Noona. You are amazing and strong. Whatever happened, you just add it to reasons why you have to change Korea’s ideas of what someone like you does.” He said, rubbing my back.

“Thanks, my lovely deongsaeng”

Yoongi also wanted to talk to me about my future and songwriting and stuff. He had been a judge on the show, so things were still kind of tense between us. Yoongi had been nice, but I didn’t feel right calling him Oppa just yet. He reminded me that I was going to make the biggest splash as a BigHit artist but also to just focus on being a trainee for now. I would have all my life to deal with the stress of being a foreigner, of being plus size, of having my natural hair, of being dark skinned in Korea. For now, I just had to show that I was an idol first and foremost.

“I promise I will not let you or BigHit down.” I said.

He smiled, “Good.”

Jungkook’s voice called my name next and he said that he wanted me to help with his gift for Namjoon. Right now, it was hard to say no to anyone older than me, especially someone I looked up to. Still, if it made me too uncomfortable, I would have to reject his offer.

“I want to give him birthday kisses. It’s become a tradition now, and I know you have to go soon. I was thinking that we could each kiss one of his cheeks, if that’s ok with you.” The BTS maknae spoke to me in English since he was fluent in it and I was not that fluent in Korean just yet.

“Wouldn’t that be too easy to turn into a scandal of some sort?” I asked.

He waved away my concern, “Don’t worry about what the fans will do. You already have had several dating scandals. Anyways, this is for fun, and I know Namjoon will like it. Don’t you want to see him all blushy and shy?”

I bit my lip and put on a playfully stubborn face, “Maybe…”

Jungkook smiled and we went over to to behind where the birthday boy was sitting. The star eyed maknae counted to three and then both of us leaned down to place a small peck on either of his cheeks.

“Happy birthday, hyung!” Jungkook said.

Namjoon hid his face in his hands, but I could tell he was smiling. Then he looked up at me.

“Et tu, Farai?”

I pointed to his own member, “It was Kookie’s idea.” and giggled, only the color of my skin hiding how I was blushing too.

Alice traced her fingers through mine, “Come on lovebird, we have to go. Work starts early tomorrow.”

I nodded and we told everyone goodnight and farewell.

October 21, 10:33am

I was so ready for Halloween. It was fun trying to come up with ideas of what to do and of course it got turned into a sort of mini promo. When it came down to it, we were basically going to disappear for two years while we trained for Dei5 and wanted to make one final noise before we poofed.

So, we released a short Halloween song and were going to be doing busking in order to promote it. It was a remixed version of “Spooky Scary Skeletons” and all twelve of us who had been on the show were learning a dance for it. We had been working on it for two weeks now, just the dance part. The song was done in about a week. Halloween was in 10 days! Ah, I was living for this.

I knew that what we were doing was simply the tip of the k-pop idol iceberg, but I was just so happy to be busy and doing what I loved. It was frustrating at times since this was all short notice, but I liked it. Today, we worked on gathering costumes for our busking performances. We tried to choose stuff from the same show or franchise, but Imani now understood my distaste towards morph suits. So superheroes were out of the question.

Then we got the idea while playing video games with Sooja and Matthew just a few days ago. Mario characters. Everyone said I had to be Princess Peach, but I wanted to be Peachette. So that’s how we all evolved into all the “-ette” versions of the characters we had chosen. Well, most of us.

I was Peachette, Tristan was Bullet Billette, Alice was Bowsette, Hyojoon was just a regular Boo, and Jun was Yoshette. James was Piranha Plantette, Sooja was Boosette, Matthew had decided to go for Walette while Dongmin decided to be Wariette. Nawoo would be Toad, Gina went for Daisy, and Imani was Rosalina.

We were mostly looking for skirts and dresses. For Dongmin and I who were the two bigger members of the group, literally, we did some online shopping from our phones while everyone else did their things. I was able to get a really long blonde wig to fit my head from a place that Jun told me her drag queen friends always went to.

Jun said he would help me style it to fit Peachette’s hair. I was so thankful for him because I’d be struggling without her.

As my little group of Alice, James, and Nawoo went to the party section to see if the fabric pens were there, my eye caught the cutest arrangement of Halloween gift bags. I looked back at my manager and gave Kyung the best puppy dog eyes I could manage aven pouting a bit. I had talked about doing a project like this before, but he said he didn’t want to spend money on it.

He rolled his eyes and grabbed three packs of 20. He then left us to grab some of the huge bags of candy. I wanted to do something for the people who would be watching us perform. And for Halloween, that’d be candy. The only rule was that I had to make the bags myself. Yeah, that was extra work for myself, but I would always do it for Halloween and Valentine’s Day. The only reason I wouldn’t do it for Christmas is because that was festival season, the most stressful and busy time of the year. I didn’t want to get in the way.

October 31, 3:03am

I had finally finished all of the bags and tied them up. It went faster because of Tristan and Alice helping me, but still. They had extra practice to do to help their dancing skills. Alice was a fantastic dancer, but she didn’t have a great sense of rhythm. I put the last dozen in a wagon that Hyojoon oppa had let me borrow for this since it looked haunted.

Now, I had to go to bed for about seven hours before having to wake up and get ready so that we could be shoved off to perform in Hongdae and Itaewon. They were closer to our dorms than Busan and Ilsan and Daegu.

October 31, 12:30pm

Dei5 had a short meeting where we found out that our official logo would be a lotus, a symbol of rebirth and renewal. It would have five petals for each of us. We would go for a regular sort of symbol, smooth and simple, the lines were not too thick or too thin. It gave us the chance to alter it and remodel it for each comeback. Honestly, it would just be five gold petal outlines with a white center.

It was all that we could talk about with our other members.

I was getting a call from Taehyung during a quick lunch break before we continued dancing. We were at some traditional Korean place and eating bimibap, kimbap, and cold noodles.

“Hello?” I said after swallowing.

“You can’t call her. She can’t know about this.” It sounded like Jimin’s voice in the background.

Taehyung responded, “It’s not like we have many options.”

“If she was invited, you’ll see her there. Do you want to get in trouble with the Mentors?” Jungkook asked, worry and fear in his voice along with concern.

“No, Noona would get mad.” the current middle child said.

“So put down the phone.” Jimin said.

And the line went dead. I stared at my phone confused. What was that all about? Gina asked what the phone call was about and who it was from. I told her it was from Tae but it must have been a butt dial. Whatever, I had noodles to slurp up.

October 31, 7:22pm

Now in full costume, I was ready to dance with the others. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since since Namjon went back to serve. He had a lot of American fans, so he was seen through fan cams. Same went for Hobi, Jin, and Yoongi who mostly did office work. Well, Jin was part of Army Band and Hobi was in another performance Army thing.

“Hey, is it just me, or are there less people out on Halloween than during the day?” Imani asked.

I admitted, “I’ve noticed that too.”

“Do you guys not know?” Sooja asked, extremely puzzled. “Ah, I guess since you’re not usually in Korea during this time of year, and you haven’t been out much because of training, but um. There is a yearly masquerade party that idols go to. Some normies or trainees get invited too, but that is the only way you can go. By invite.”

Tristan added, “Yeah. I honestly thought we would have gotten invited, but I guess they want to train us first.”

Then they went into talking about what kind of rumors surrounded it. How people could go missing if they talked about it or how the person they talked to would disappear. It was very hush hush, like the bedazzled elephant in the room. Everyone who was anyone knew about it and got invited, but no one could really talk about it. Overall, it was a masquerade ball. Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to one of those!

There had been a livestream earlier when we were performing, made people who watched guess who each idol was. It was like a very intense but also fun fandom test. How well did you really know what your faves looked like?

We finally got into Itaewon for the third time today and there were people waiting for us. Like it had been happening all day, but it was still strange to see so many people who wanted to see us. Kyung had surprised me by setting up a total of 200 other goodie bags for fans who came out to watch. Him and the others were dressed in capes.

Our last stop was at N Seoul Tower. My skirt was actually shorter than the original dress just because I didn’t want to have to carry it around and lift it up as I danced. It was a pink lolita dress and Sooja actually had the Toadette/Bowsette crown. She helped make more for all of us.

We would do a Six song set and finish with our Halloween song. I was in three of them with the other members who would make up Dei5. Alice and I did our “No” by CLC cover and we did our easier group choreo afterwards.

Then it was time for “Spooky Scary Skeletons”. The twelve of us got into formation.

“Mortals, Deities, and everything in between~” I spoke.

Matthew added, “We only have one thing to say.”

“Happy Halloween!”

We had cut up the lyrics and such to the famed Halloween song and added two different rap sections for it to help showcase the rappers. I was having such a good time when the first dance break came in and we marched in sync and then posed. It was mostly dance heavy, so it was mostly just remembering what order to do them in. Muscle memory was my best friend in this case.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw the cape wearing staff handing out my little baggies. They were filled with chocolate, non chocolate, and a few trinkets like Vampire Teeth and the like. Also, 100 of the ones that I did not make had special codes in them to get a preorder when our CDs came out. They would have to use them wisely and try not to lose them.

Everyone was given glowsticks too, so we lit up the area more than the tower behind us. Then we all went to the front.

“Boo!”

Stay still for 10 second and then we all held hands and bowed, “Thank you! Happy Halloween! Thank you for all of your support!” and then it was done.

October 31, 10:00pm

I couldn’t help but fall asleep the moment I got home. Yes, it was bad to sleep in makeup and yes I would probably get in trouble for it when I woke up tomorrow because trainees had certain things to follow and wiping off our makeup and doing skincare was one of them. So I’d pay for it later. Right now, it was time to sleep.

I couldn’t help but dream about what it would be like if Namjoon and I danced together at the masquerade ball. The theme would be fire and ice, no jewel tones, no, space. Definitely space and so I could wear a more dramatic version of the outfit I wore to his birthday. However, I would need to be more careful. I was a girl. I was a foreigner and Gods Dammit, I will be an idol.

#BTS #Bangtan #Character: Iris #Iris-idol #@iris-idol #Idol!AU #bwam #ambw #slow burn #extra chapter #Peachtober #Day 17

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islareeveswriting · 5 years

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INSTAS

Hard work always pays off.

At least that was what Molly was telling herself as she packed her bag to head back to uni, after pulling what was pretty much the third all-nighter in a row. Really she didn’t have enough work to justify the graft she was putting in, but she’d make more work, find something to do to fill the hours when she couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to sit in the house, or let herself think about anything other than all the things she was telling herself she had to do. It was a good excuse when any one of her housemates asked where she was off to again. They couldn’t argue with uni work. She’d had nearly a week away from university after Clive had died, and it was deadline season, it made sense she had a lot to do and a lot to catch up on before the end of the year.

All Molly was doing was avoiding the things that were going around her head that she couldn’t help but pay some mind to when there was nothing else to think about. Over and over, she went over and over all the things she should have seen coming, all the little sign posts she’d walked straight past ignorantly, and all the things she still wanted to say. The only way she’d found it possible to keep away from it was to keep busy on anything else, and so she was on her third draft of a four thousand word essay that normally would have taken her not much more than a day to get down and perhaps another couple of hours to proof read, and she was taking her time over Clive’s eulogy, re-reading it every time, at least twice, before carrying on, and the garments she had left to make were being hand stitched for the most part. Anything to make everything take a little more time, so she could spend just a little longer distracted from her head.

It wasn’t wholly working. The thoughts were so all consuming that they somehow always managed to worm their way to the forefront, often without Molly even realising they were doing so. She’d just be sat in the library, or the cafe with Louis, or at her desk in her room, absorbed by work, and suddenly Harry’s face, or something he’d said, or the feeling of his breath on her neck would come steaming through it all and take the wind right out of her. It seemed there was no escaping him really, even if Molly was managing to convince herself she wasn’t thinking about him anymore, was happily moving on, was getting over him and how hurt she’d felt.

It didn’t help that Harry refused to stop trying to contact her. Most days she left her phone in her bag on silent, so she could easily ignore it, pretend like she didn’t know there were messages coming through, calls that she’d find once she got home and checked the phone before putting it face down on her desk to carry on with more work until she couldn’t actually keep her eyes open anymore and she’d crawl onto her bed and fall asleep to do it all again. But every day there’d be at least three messages that she’d simply mark as read without actually reading, and as many missed calls and voicemails that she’d simply clear from the list in her phone. There were far more important things Molly needed, or wanted, or told herself she needed and wanted to concentrate on than whatever Harry had to say for himself.

As far as Molly was concerned, there was still absolutely nothing he could say or do that could make anything he’d said and done better. So she’d rather not hear it.

A knock on her bedroom door called Molly up from the bag she was haphazardly packing, her laptop, it’s charger, headphones in case Louis was busy and she needed something extra to help turn her mind off, her notebook, sketchbook and the two reference books she was using. Molly didn’t say anything but the door opened to Lauren, wearing clothes that told Molly she was planning on staying indoors all day and getting on with her own essays, and the same pitiful look every one of her housemates, apart from Jimmy, had been wearing since the day she walked through the door and collapsed into Jimmy. Just one more reason to get out of the house. The pity didn’t help, it only reminded her there was something, things, that had happened, recently that made people feel sorry for her. That was one thing she could do without. She was as guilty as anyone else, sure she hadn’t lied like Harry had, or dragged her friends under the bus with her, but she never asked for the truth when she knew there were truths to be said. She let him get away with it because it was easy. And now she was paying the consequences.

“Where you going?” Lauren asked, gently pushing the door nearly shut behind her. It didn’t click into the latch, just hung shy of it, a little peep of the hallway behind it visible through the crack left open.

“Out,” Molly mumbled lifting her bag so the things fell to the bottom and she could carry it easily. She had her glasses resting on her nose, her hair tied up tight on top of her head in a neat ballerina bun. Though it was the only thing neat about her. She had a pair of tatty old jeans on that normally she only wore when she was doing messy work for projects, a jumper that was about two sizes too big and had been bought for lounging around in the evenings. It was nothing she’d normally wear out of the house, and Lauren knew that as much as Molly did. Lauren just sighed, and didn’t move from the door, telling Molly, silently, she wasn’t going anywhere until they’d had the conversation in Lauren’s head.

“You need to speak to him Mol, hear what he has to say,” Lauren urged, and Molly knew who she was talking about. There was no one else she could be talking about. Everyone, even Jimmy, had been tiptoeing around talking about Harry with her. After the initial conversation about what had happened, his name hadn’t been mentioned at all, at least not to Molly, or by Molly. She genuinely didn’t think she’d said his name since she left his flat five days previous, and that was fine by her. However, there was Lauren, openly talking about him, tearing down everything Molly had done to keep as much of Harry out as she could. It made Molly kiss her teeth, staring down into her bag, before twisting her neck to Lauren.

“Why?” Molly asked pointedly, nodding her head just once. “Why should I talk to him after he did what he did?” Molly carried on, standing straighter, turning her whole body to face Lauren as she shrugged.

“He’s so sorry Molly, he feels awful, he’s dying to make it right, just hear what he has to say,” Lauren sighed, staring back at Molly with annoying sympathetic and soft eyes, though Molly was beginning to wonder if the sympathy was even for her.

“And how am I meant to believe anything he says? How can you actually want me to even consider taking him back,” Molly chuckled sarcastically, eyes narrowing as she did so and her face creasing up as if she’d smelt something awful.

“I’m not suggesting you take him back, I’m saying you should listen to him” Lauren corrected, pouting just a touch once she’d finished.

“Well he’s obviously managed to work his charm on you,” Molly smirked. “When did you see him?” Molly asked trying to pretend the ugly feeling inside her didn’t look a little like jealousy.

“He comes here every day Molly, and you’d know that if you didn’t keep running off to wherever it is you’re going every fucking day to escape your problems.” The truth stung, and it was hard to swallow. Molly didn’t say anything, just stared back at Lauren and felt her nostrils flare a little. Lauren stared straight back, unflinching, never moving to apologise for what she’d said, that not Molly expected her too. If she could expect the slap of a reality check from anyone, it was Lauren. Really, Molly was surprised it had taken so long for Lauren to hand it to her.

“Since when were you on his side, it was only last month you were telling me to call him out for this shit, and saying I was letting him walk all over me,” Molly pointed out with a flick of her wrist, as gesticulative as ever.

“Have you considered that if you’d taken that advice you might not be here now?” Yes, Molly had considered that, time and time again. She could hear Jimmy not saying it between all the sweet, supportive things he was saying, and it played on her mind along with everything else.

“Look Loz,” Molly started, far more calmly than anything that had come before. “I have got a 4000 word essay to finish, three garments to make, and a eulogy to write, I really don’t need whatever he has to say for himself added to the list of things on my mind,” Molly explained, steadily getting overwhelmed as she spoke.

“Molly-”

“Please Lauren,” Molly cut in, aggravated. “I don’t want to talk about him, or too him, or have anything to do with him right now, I just want to get on, please,” Molly practically begged, her knees bending a little, bouncing there as her hands squeezed tightly together. “And you can tell him as much next time he knocks on the door,” Molly added, finally turning for her bag and pulling it up onto her shoulder.

“I can’t keep turning him away forever,” Lauren told Molly as she stepped closer, moving for the door.

“Don’t worry he’ll get bored eventually,” Molly shrugged, though she didn’t know where the words came from, she had absolutely nothing to base that on, and seeing as she’d already had two messages and a missed call from Harry on her phone when she put in her bag, she doubted, even if it were true, it would be happening any time soon.

“I don’t think he will.” Molly just swallowed, moving past Lauren and leaving her room. Without looking up or back to Lauren, who whoever else it was lingering in the kitchen, she slipped her trainers on and headed out of the door without a goodbye. Though only because there was a lump in her throat that she knew would make her voice crack if she were to open her mouth from how tightly she had it bitten together.

It was a miserable day. It felt poetic really. The grey clouds, thick air, and dark atmosphere matched Molly’s mood almost identically. It wasn’t cold, but it didn’t mean Molly wanted to take off the jumper that still stunk of Harry after it wormed its way into his home, pretty much the same way she had, and pretty much the same way he’d wormed his way into her life, twisting around everything, so that now everything felt like something was missing. It was the part the hurt the most. That she was missing him so much, that outwardly she could pretend she was done with him, but inside she still cared so much. Too much maybe.

It was hard for Molly to say it ended, mainly because she didn’t know what it was that had ended. What Harry and her had was great, but it didn’t have a name, they’d never labelled it anything, just ran with it, seen where it went, what it led to. Only what it had led to wasn’t exactly where Molly had thought it would. What it led to was her walking alone to a cafe, thinking of him, wanting to see him, talk to him, but knowing that wasn’t the best thing, knowing both would just leave her looking weaker than she felt. She had to wonder if it would have been easier, or harder, if things had been official. It least, she’d have supposed, she’d have known what it was she was losing. As it was, she felt like she was losing a best friend, the person she though she might have been able to see forever out with, the person she was falling for, the person who made her feel like she was capable of just about anything she set her mind on and she didn’t know which one felt worse.

Since she walked out of Harry’s flat, told him she didn’t want to see him again, not entirely sure she actually meant that then or later, she’d been going to the cafe a lot. Everyday in fact, for four days since the Monday she agreed to meet Louis there. She’d been back to lectures as well, but if she wasn’t sat in a near empty lecture hall, or seminar room, or studio, she was in the cafe, with Louis keeping him company from the empty room. It had been quiet since Louis had re-opened. Passers by popped into grab a coffee to go, occasionally people stopped to drink in, but not often enough, definitely not really enough to justify Louis opening. Molly had suggested he close until after the funeral, but Louis didn’t want to do that, and honestly Molly didn’t either. It seemed to be the only place that truly took her mind off everything inside her. At least, Molly supposed, that much hadn’t changed, even if the face behind the counter that smiled as she entered had.

Despite the grey skies, Louis had the tables set up outside, flower pots atop them as normal, chairs sat around them waiting to be used, though Molly doubted anyone would sit in them with the weather the way it was. The metal sign was blowing in the wind, and if it wasn’t for the rocks in the bottom of the flower pots, Molly was sure they’d have been on their sides thanks to the wind that was gradually picking up. Molly pushed the door of the cafe open, and before she saw Louis stood behind the counter, busying over something, she saw him sat at one of the tables, a cup of coffee in front of him, relaxed back in the chair but pulling at his lip in the nervous way he did. It felt like the cafe froze. Harry was the only customer, but he froze, fingers pinching his lip and staring over at Molly. She felt Louis turn to her too, eyes on her firmly as she took deep, but hopefully discreet breaths.

Harry’s eyes found Molly’s, and she swallowed down on nothing as the door closed by itself behind her, standing there staring back at him not entirely sure what her next move was. Anything she might have wanted to say evaporated from her mind, and she felt like she couldn’t move. She felt like she could barely even breathe, despite how obviously her chest was rising and falling.

“I’m sorry Mol, I couldn’t get him to leave,” Louis told Molly, breaking her hypnosis. Molly blinked quickly and shook her head, aiming the movement at Louis, though her eyes were still stuck on Harry, and his on her. It would have been easy to believe Molly and Harry were the only two in the cafe, until Louis raised his voice, neither seeming to notice, or at least forgetting for a moment, that he was there.

“What are you doing?” Molly asked quietly, coldly, lips barely moving as she glared at Harry. Harry sat forward in his chair. She hadn’t expected to see him, not like this, not in that place, and not so soon. Not until she felt like she could look at him and not feel far too much inside her to comprehend anything apart from remembering to keep breathing, and not crying.

“Having a coffee,” Harry told her, shrugging a little, picking up the cup of what Molly could put a very safe bet on being an americano without milk, and taking a sip. Molly’s nostrils flared. He knew what he was doing, he knew she’d be there, at some point, he knew her better than she knew herself sometimes, and this was one of those times. He knew how to keep her talking, how to keep her from simply turning around and walking away save from facing her head or his words or anything that might weaken the hard shell she wore when things were tougher than she’d like.

“Why here?” Molly asked with a little more of an edge in her voice, as Harry sat back again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the coffee cup clinking back into the saucer. It wasn’t finished with, Molly saw black liquid splash up the side of the cup as he dropped it.

“Why not?” Harry challenged, with another little shrug, corners of his mouth downturning. Air puffed out of Molly’s nose, noisily, her tongue ran along her top teeth and she glared at Harry through narrowed eyes, before chewing on the inside of her mouth, not sure what to say and trying to find something that didn’t give any of her feelings away. “Will you just talk to me please?” Harry begged then, leaning forward once more, hands clasping together purely to keep from trying to reach forward for Molly.

“I don’t want to Harry, I’ve got far too much going on to listen to your lame excuses for why you chose to do what you did,” Molly told him, stepping further into the cafe then and folding her arms across her chest. Louis was silent, stood behind the counter, listening on, watching Molly intently as she moved, Molly could feel him doing it, his eyes on her just as much as Harry’s were. She tried to ignore the feeling of Louis’ eyes gauging into the side of her head, trying to focus on Harry, trying to hold her own, walk her line, keep her head high.

“I haven’t got an excuse, but I want to explain myself, I want to talk about this” Harry told her quietly, softly, far more calm than she could even pretend to be about seeing him after five days of trying with everything to forget what he looked like, how his eyes burrowed into hers, how his hands felt around hers, and on her skin.

“There’s nothing to talk about, this isn’t about what you want, I don’t want an explanation, there’s nothing to explain, you chose to lie to me and that is what it is,” Molly told him cooly, her voice somehow calm and collected despite the shake she could feel in her hands. “I’ve got a eulogy to write,” Molly reminded Harry, nodding to Louis, letting him know she’d found the help she needed for that elsewhere and she saw it crawl over him, jaw tightening and eyes flicking for a second to Louis. “I’ve got an essay to write, and three garments to make, and you are not going to get in the way of a single one of them,” Molly told him slowly, one word at a time, keeping her voice even not daring to let it run away with her where her voice wobbled and weakened.

“Will you ever talk to me?” Harry asked quietly, a tone of fear stitched around his words. Molly sighed, and swallowed, staring at him looking up at her through heavy lidded, dampening eyes.

“I don’t know, but not yet,” Molly told him, and that was the truth. If she did, it wouldn’t be soon. It wouldn’t be until she knew what to say at least, until she could look at him and not want to cry, until she could make some sort of sense of anything in her head other than how much it hurt to look at him and know the wrong thing to do was give in to how much she wanted to take his hand and tell him it was all going to be ok. Harry nodded then, and began sliding his arms back into his coat. “Finish your coffee,” Molly sighed, heading for the counter, lowering her bag as she did so.

“It’s ok, I got what I came for,” Harry told her, getting to his feet, and rounding the table. “Thanks,” He whispered glancing to Molly and Louis, Louis nodded but Molly didn’t do anything just watched him. “I’ll see you soon,” He promised, and Molly held the breath she drew in until Harry had left the cafe and walked out of sight.

“How long was he here?” Molly asked Louis after a minute or two, still staring after Harry even though he was long gone.

“He was outside when I came to open up,” Louis told Molly quietly. “That was about half nine.” Molly nodded, knowing full well, at least two hours had passed since then. “You ok?” Louis asked, Molly sighed and turned to him.

“Yeah,” She nodded, not sure who she was trying to convince, but it certainly didn’t work on herself, and the look Louis gave her told her wasn’t as taken by it either. “I want to get this finished today, so I can start reading over it properly, getting used to it,” Molly told Louis, pulling out the notepad she’d been scrawling down Clive’s eulogy into. She planned on typing it out and printing it before Friday and she had two days until then.

“We don’t have to do this right now, if you want to sit for a minute,” Louis suggested, and the tone of voice told Molly it was more than just a kind suggestion, but more of an encouragement, more like something he felt she should do.

“No, I want to do this,” Molly told Louis, knowing if she sat for even just a minute, she’d start to think too much about how kind Harry’s voice had been, how gentle he’d been, how soft his eyes were, how tired and worn out he looked.

They sat at the same table they’d been sat at all week, the one against the wall, sitting on the bench seat together with a pot of tea between them and Molly’s notebook out on the table. Molly had filled pages with half written eulogy’s that had ended up in the bin. Now she had pages of notes, things about Clive she loved, adored, came to rely on, ways he talked to her and helped her, little jokes they’d shared, and she was trying to condense it all into something that would take her no more than five minutes to read. It was hard, condensing all that, all those things she loved about someone she loved, onto a page and a half.

It had been Wednesday she’d decided not to go the traditional route, to steer away from Clive’s early life, how he’d ended up where he was, with the cafe and the pub, and where he’d met his wife and the mother of his children. Molly didn’t know that Clive, and it was hard to connect with information that read like simple facts. Clive was far more to her than dates and times and places. The Clive she knew and loved was funny and kind and sweet and made the best cheese scones for at least a ten mile radius.

As she wrote, and talked with Louis, she realised that was the thing about Clive. He was so many things to so many people, and none of them were straight forward. He was willing and always ready to be whatever anyone needed him to be to put a smile on their face, as selfless as they came.

Even when she was trying hard not to, she came back to Harry. She’d had so many conversations with Clive about Harry, about the things he did that upset her, and the things he did that made her smile. The way he bought her beautiful flowers, but shut himself off every now and again, the way he made her smile without bounds, but he made himself a stranger, the way he made her feel like she could conquer the world if that was what she wanted, but like she couldn’t conquer him. Of course she wanted to talk about things with Harry now, where she found herself with him and the confusion of feelings she had for him. How she loved him, but didn’t like him.

When Molly sat back in the seat with a sigh and stared down at the paper, her back ached and her eyes were sore. They’d cried a little, a little from laughter, but mostly from sadness as it all came to hit home again, like it did everytime they sat down and Molly put into words what Louis’ dad had meant to her. Molly couldn’t imagine how tough Louis was finding it, but it put her problems into perspective and it made things feel far easier to deal with. If Louis could deal with losing his father, Molly could deal with losing him too, and whatever it was Harry was to her.

“I think that’s it,” Molly announced breathing deeply. She wasn’t really sure how long they’d been sat there, but outside was getting dark. The sun hadn’t made an appearance all day, the sky just a darker shade of grey than it had been when Molly had arrived hours previous. She glanced over the two pages of lined paper in front of her. It wasn’t the eulogy she’d expected to write when Louis had asked her, but she was happy with it, and it was far better than anything else she’d started with before. “Are you sure you’re happy with it?” Molly asked Louis again though, wincing a little, waiting for what she thought was the truth, that it wasn’t what he wanted, not what his mum would want, and surely not what Clive had, had in mind when he’d asked for Molly to do it.

“I love it, Dad would love it, it’s great,” Louis smiled honestly, blue eyes glittering back at her. “Thank you for doing this,” Louis told her, suddenly, out of nowhere, reaching for one of her hands that was resting over one of the papers, wrapping his fingers around hers and squeezing tightly. It made Molly feel strange, but she just smiled and squeezed back, friendly.

“That’s ok,” Molly smiled, turning to look at Louis again. He was already staring back at her, eyes narrowing for a second, and dropping down her face, lifting slowly back to her eyes as he rolled his lips together. Molly might have seen it coming if it wasn’t so far from anything she expected to happen, but before she had time to compute, Louis was leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers. Molly froze for a few moments, completely, her eyes were pinned open as Louis’ lips rested against hers, shock working its way through her. Molly pulled back pinching her lips together and ripping her hand from Louis’. “What the fuck?” She asked, and maybe it was harsh, but she felt sick to her stomach, her chest was heaving and her hands were shaking. Louis watched her slide along the bench away from him, her face screwed up in confusion. All Molly could think about was Harry. All she could feel, after the shock started to subside, was guilt. But why she didn’t know.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I just…” Louis trailed off as Molly got to her feet grabbing her bag.

“No you shouldn’t have,” Molly confirmed. She was going back through the day, through the past few days, trying to figure out if there was anything she’d done or said that would have given Louis the impression anything like that was on the table. But she couldn't’ find a single thing that suggested it would be ok for him to try and kiss her.

“I’m so sorry, I’m, my head, I’m all over the place, I don’t know why I did that, I guess, I dunno, just you told Harry to leave earlier, and the heat of the moment, I thought…” Louis trailed off again, and Molly shook her head she shoved things back into her bag.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, I don’t know what’s going on with me and Harry right now, I still have a lot of feelings for him, and I’m trying to figure it out, but I’m definitely not looking for anything with anyone else right now,” Molly clarified, and Louis nodded. “I’m gonna go,” Molly told Louis, in case that wasn’t clear from her packed bag that was back on her shoulder.

“I am really sorry Molly, I don’t want it to change things with us, I like you as a friend, that was stupid,” Louis mumbled quietly, tears in his eyes.

“It’s ok, it’s fine, I get it, tensions are a bit high, but I’m just gonna go, I think it’s best if I leave, and I’ll see you tomorrow, or Friday, or something,” Louis just nodded again, as Molly backed out of the cafe, turning for the door and keeping her head down as she walked past the window away from the cafe. Inside her chest, her heart was hammering against her ribs, she didn’t want to walk away from Louis, she wanted to be there for him, but she couldn’t sit with him after that like nothing had happened, pretending like she was thinking about anything other than Harry and how much she wanted to feel his lips, how much she missed his kiss, and how guilty she felt for having anyone else’s lips on her mouth.

She reached for her phone, shoved into the pocket of her bag and brought the screen to life. No missed calls, no messages, since she’d seen Harry, but she unlocked it to the three she hadn’t read before leaving the house. Her thumb hovered over the call button. She’d never wanted to hear his voice so much. Never wanted to hear what he had to say so badly. Never wanted to run to him so quickly.

But she didn’t. Just locked her phone again, shoved it into her pocket, and walked quickly, thigh burningly quick, towards home. Or more accurately, the house she called home.

The house was empty when she got in, deadly silent and all the lights off. Molly quickly turned the hallway light on and shuffled through to her room. All she wanted to do was lie in the silence of the place and try not to think.

It didn’t work. She laid on her back, stared at her ceiling, and her mind went wild. It started spinning over things that she hadn’t even contemplated before, working into black holes that she hadn’t noticed until then. All she wanted was for it to be as quiet inside her as it was on the outside. All she wanted was five minutes of peace. But it just wouldn’t come. Her eyes were getting heavy though, and she let them drop, supposing if she couldn’t get any quiet whilst she was awake, she may as well get some of the sleep her body was so obviously craving. Before sleep could even raise it’s head though, the doorbell sounded loud and echoing around the flat.

There wasn’t any sound of movement in the flat, Molly knew she had to get up and answer the door. Whoever was there knew she was in, her bedroom light was on, her room faced the road, they could see it through the window. Nothing in her wanted to get up and answer the door, Molly was quite happy to carry on lying on her back, legs dangling from her bed, staring at her ceiling, tears in her eyes and overthinking her thoughts. Instead, she sighed, and got up, dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to soak up the uncried tears, and headed out to the front door, leaving her bedroom door open, not expecting to be long, expecting it was one of her house mates having forgot their key, or the postman unable to deliver something next door.

Whatever, Molly was expecting, it certainly wasn’t Niall, and she felt her face fall in confusion as she opened the door to him, clad in jeans and hoodie, dirty blonde hair windswept across his head, but eyes shining as always.

“Niall,” Molly almost gasped. “Sorry, hi, erm Nat’s not here,” Molly told him, looking back over her shoulder to the empty, quiet flat. All her housemates had gone off to lectures, seminars, to the library to study. Even Lauren, who Molly had thought would be settled in at her desk for the day based on her appearance that morning.

“I came to see you,” Niall told her, hands finding the pockets of his jeans.

“Oh, right,” Molly frowned a little, hesitating, unsure. She liked Niall, she’d always like Niall, he was easy to like, unproblematic, easy going, relaxed. But he was Harry’s best friend, and he was on her doorstep saying he wanted to see her, and Molly was sure there was only one way it was going. Evidently Niall got there first though, watching the cogs in her mind work to the wrong conclusion.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and convince you to see or talk to Harry or anything,” Niall reassured with half a knowing smile.

“Thanks,” Molly sighed, stepping aside and letting Niall into the house, leaving the door for him to close as he kicked off his shoes. “Did you want a cuppa?” Molly asked over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen, her socked feet sliding along the laminate flooring.

“Yeah, sure, ta,” Niall answered, following Molly. He wasn’t a stranger to the flat, not really. Although he’d only visited a few times, he knew his way around, and made himself at home at the kitchen table as Molly filled the kettle to boil it. “So how’s things?” Niall asked, and Molly looked over to him, sat at their table, leaned back in her chair, and watching her drop tea bags into mugs. At first Molly just shrugged, but it was quite evident that wasn’t going to be enough, as Niall just continued to stare, waiting patiently for Molly to say something.

“They’re ok, I mean, could be worse right?” Molly smirked, but Niall just shook his head.

“I guess,” He sighed, “But you’re allowed to say you feel shit if you feel shit Mol,” Niall told her.

“Well yeah, I feel shit then,” Molly grumbled, just as the kettle clicked off. Half the reason Molly had been avoiding anyone who might want to ask her how she was, or talk to her about how she was feeling, was because she’d rather not dwell on it. She’d rather just distract herself from how down and hurt she was feeling, from how she was feeling a little lost and a lot of confused, by keeping out of the way of anyone who was likely to call her out on it. But now she had Niall sat in her kitchen, and it was evident he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

“Thought you’d say that,” Niall nodded, as Molly filled the mugs with hot water and moved for the fridge, grabbing the milk. It was silent for a few seconds as Molly literally bit her tongue, though she couldn’t really keep it back, she wanted to know. After seeing him that morning, dark circles under his eyes that reminded her of the black eyes she’d seen him wear, his hair greasy and scraped back painfully tight, into a small bun, and his skin almost grey, but at the very least it certainly wasn’t vibrant and glowy the way it tended to be.

“How’s Harry?” She asked quietly, wondering if Niall would even be able to hear as she focused her eyes on the teabags, straining them as much as she could, putting all her effort into that, and to keeping her eyes wide until they stung from needing to blink rather than needing to cry.

“Pretty shit too, actually very shit,” Niall mused, and Molly didn’t miss the way his mouth twisted a little, chewing on the inside of his mouth as she put the milk back in the fridge. “Unfortunately,” Niall started again, raising his eyes from the table to Molly who was noisily stirring the tea, “It’s hard to have sympathy for him when he’s bought it all on himself.”

“Niall,” Molly sighed. “If I’m allowed to tell you I feel shit, you’re allowed to tell me you feel sorry for your best mate, it’s fine I get it,” Molly told him, picking up the mugs. And she did get it. Deep down part of Molly felt sorry for him as well, and she was the one he’d fired at. He was broken, hurt, and though that didn’t excuse all the wrong he’d done, it was hard not to want to pick him up and make him ok again. Molly just knew she couldn’t be the one to do that, at least not yet, not when there was so much in her head that made no sense.

“Thanks,” Niall smiled, as Molly placed a mug of steaming, strong tea down in front of him. “I don’t feel sorry for him, I just wish he’d stop trying to hide all this shit, the right person isn’t going to turn him down because of it, it’s just part of who he is, what made him who he is, and there’s nothing wrong with him when he’s not lying about shit,” Niall practically growled. Molly could bet Niall had told him as much, in the same frustrated tone, but she could also bet Harry wouldn’t accept it, the same way he hadn’t when she’d told him similar things.

“I did tell him that,” Molly told Niall, wishing someone, anyone could get through to him. Though she supposed at least it wasn’t just her that couldn’t make him see how worthwhile he was. Niall nodded, before taking a mouthful of his tea. Molly followed suit, both of them in their heads for a second and letting a silence take over for just a few moments.

“How’s things going with the eulogy?” Niall asked, changing the subject. They both knew they could go round and round in circles with Harry and it wouldn’t end any other way. Molly had been doing it for hours, in her own head, and it only left her frustrated and at a loss. Though she hadn’t expected that to be the change of subject, not sure how Niall came to know about Clive’s eulogy, and clearly it read on her face, as he answered her question she hadn’t asked out loud. “Harry told me.” Molly nodded, swallowing on nothing.

“Finished it today,” Molly told him quietly. “With Clive’s son,” She added, before rolling her lips together. She swore she could still taste Louis on them, masking Harry, and it made her quickly flick them back out of her mouth. The taste of the tobacco he’d smoked was lingering on them, and the tea he’d been drinking as they wrote, and it made her feel sick. It made her wipe her fingers over her mouth harshly, trying to get rid of it.

“Harry said he saw you at the cafe,” Niall mentioned, and Molly nodded lowering her head.

“I was harsh,” She mumbled, she supposed. It had just been such a shock to see him, her heart was bitter, and she couldn’t trust her tongue to act nicely when she saw the one who had made it that way.

“I don’t think he was worried about that,” Niall told Molly. “He just wanted to see you, make sure you were ok,” Niall went on, and Molly nodded, taking a deep shaky breath. She wasn’t ok. She was holding herself together as best she could, but where it should have been getting easier, it was getting harder. Especially when Niall was telling her all Harry wanted was to make sure she was fine. He was losing sleep wondering if she was ok, and she was losing sleep trying to be ok. There was a tinge of guilt, and it only washed stronger with Niall’s words. The taste of tobacco and stale tea was on her tongue, and the nausea got more intense.

“Louis, Clive’s son,” Molly added quickly, eyes lifting to Niall. “Kissed me earlier.” It was only when she said it, holding Niall’s eyes, that she realised how much she’d needed to get it out, tell someone, what had happened.

“Oh right,” Niall almost winced, stiffening a little, or at least sitting straighter and rolling his shoulders back. Molly nodded, her mouth hanging open a little and her breathing getting shorter. It was coiling in her, guilt and almost anger and confusion, and it was all a tangled mess that made tears form in her eyes, and her breath shake, and her nostrils flare.

“Why do I feel guilty for someone else kissing me?” Molly asked quietly, not really expecting an answer and so dropping her eyes to her tea, blinking quickly to try and force the tears away, sniffing on nothing. Niall’s hand reached for hers though and took it, trapping it up and squeezing it a little, asking for her eyes without saying a word.

“You have nothing to feel guilty for,” Niall told her strongly, squeezing her hand again as she did so.

“I feel like I’ve cheated on him, I feel like I did after I kissed you, I feel so guilty,” Molly told Niall honestly. It felt so obvious. Of course she felt guilty, just because Harry had done something wrong, didn’t make her stop loving him. She felt like she’d cheated because the feelings hadn’t gone away and she supposed they might not. “I shouldn’t feel guilty after he’s done what he’s done,” Molly sighed.

“Come on Mol, you’re smart you know it’s not that straight forward,” Niall reminded her, Molly just shrugging a little. “Just because he fucked up doesn’t get rid of feelings like the ones you have for one another, but you don’t have anything to feel guilty for” Niall tried to assure her, but it didn’t eliminate the part of her that wanted to run to Harry and tell him everything, and tell him she was sorry it had happened, that she didn’t mean for it to happen, that she wished it hadn’t happened. “It’s ok to want to fix what you have with him,” Niall pointed out, hitting the nail bang on the head.

“I shouldn't want to fix this, it’s so fucked, but I do, and I’m so scared of that,” Molly admitted. It was strange to have it all come pouring out for Niall, he was the last person she expected to throw all her feelings at, just to get it out of her, just so it would all stop poisoning her mind. But she supposed it was just all too much, and she couldn’t keep it inside her any longer.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to fix something with someone you care about, of course you want him to make it right, you’re allowed to want him to make it right, it doesn’t make you a bad person, or a weak person, it makes you human, with feelings, and emotions, and you don’t need to apologise to anyone, least of all yourself, because of that,” Niall told her, and Molly found herself taking a deep breath, breathing it all in, every word Niall had to say, letting it wrap around all the negative, poisonous thoughts and feelings inside her, around everything bitter and hateful, letting it calm it, neutralise it, so it was at least easier to deal with. “Molly it’s ok,” Niall told her.

“I’m just so confused,” Molly told Niall, tears filling her eyes and quietly seeping out.

“I know,” Niall nodded. “I am not trying to convince you to see him, or talk to him, or do anything you don’t feel ready or comfortable to do, but he cares about you so much, he’s happiest when you’re happy, he feels bad when you’re hurt, and he feels broken that he’s hurt you most, I know for a fact, he would give up his whole life to help you with yours, to be in yours, just for a second,” Niall told her, and Molly knew it wasn’t over exaggerated or made up, she could see it on Niall’s face, in his eyes, and the way he held his voice, that it was nothing but honest truth.

“How do you know all this?” Molly asked quietly, her throat clogged up with emotion.

“He told me,” Niall admitted carefully, “Just before he asked me to come round her and make sure you were ok,” Niall went on, nibbling at his bottom lip and waiting for Molly to react. She didn’t really though, just let out a deep, shaky breath. “That’s all he seems to care about at the moment, that you’re ok,” Niall finished, still quietly.

“Perhaps he should have cared a bit more about that, before he lied so much,” Molly pointed, and was glad to see Niall agreed with a nod.

“Though, and it doesn’t make it ok, and it’s fucked, but he did because he cares, he thought he was protecting you,” Niall told her but Molly just huffed a sarcastic laugh and shook her head.

“What on earth from?” Molly shrugged frustrated again.

“Himself.” Molly just froze with that, nostrils flaring as she stared at Niall. She bit her back teeth together, jaw clenching tightly. It wasn’t himself though, it was just the parts of himself that he didn’t like. He didn’t want to admit he was a father, because it meant admitting he’d made bad choices, and been a bad person. He didn’t want to admit his sister had died, because it meant admitting that he felt that he’d let someone he loved down, so convinced it was his fault. He didn’t want to admit he looked for fights when he got angry, because it meant admitting he got angry enough to want to hit something, hurt something, hurt himself rather than anyone else anymore.

“This makes no sense,” Molly sighed.

“You need to talk to him,” Niall admitted at last. Molly just cocked an eyebrow sure Niall had told her he wasn’t going to convince her to talk to Harry, or go and see him. “I’m not saying anything he will tell you will make anything better, but it might make more sense once you’ve heard what he has to say, and at least then you’ll really know what you’re getting back into, or what you choose to walk away from.” Molly felt herself fall back into the chair, all the air seeping out of her. Deep down she knew Niall was right, she needed to see Harry, and she needed to hear what he had to say, because there was no way she’d ever be able to get her head around it otherwise, and it would always keep her awake, and she’d always wonder if Harry would have been able to make it right, make it ok, keep them afloat, if only she’d given him the chance.

MY HEARTTT that is all

HMU with them thoughts and feelings and as always have marvellous weekends <3

#talk to me #ask box open #want them thoughts #and feelings #and theories #also ps #you can talk to me botu anything #i dm #it doesnt have to be this #but this is good #dive #harry styles #harry styles fan fic #1dff #dark harry #harry angst

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