#writing that out was deeply embarrassing for me bc for whatever reason writing it out is something WAY more visceral than drawing it
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The sensation of waking up next to you ❤️💙
+bonus doodle:
…and they mimir’d happily ever after the end. ❤️
(ID under cut!)
Miles is roused from sleep by sunlight shining on his face. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light, until finally, his scope of awareness broadens to a body he had been sleeping on.
Page 2
Miles looks up to the figure that holds him, and upon seeing, his eyes widen in recognition.
Miles looks up to the figure that holds him, and upon seeing, his eyes widen in recognition.
The bottom panel of the page shows minimal details of a window shedding light onto the bed and blankets as seen from a higher view in the room.
Page 3
On the other side of the bed, Phoenix rests, his head propped by the headboard. His hair is messy from sleep, and his expression is thoughtful. The light of the morning highlights his features.
The sun shines through the blinds of the window.
Phoenix finally notices his observer, and turns to look at him.
Page 4
Phoenix takes Miles’ hand in his, and lifts it to gently kiss the ring on Miles’ finger. They both move to share a kiss, and their hands shift to hold one another. Miles’ ring sparkles in the sunlight.
Page 5
They link their fingers as they kiss, and the morning creates a quiet atmosphere around them.
They part, but remain close, their fingers fully interlocked. Phoenix greets “Good morning,” with a tender, loving expression as he looks at Miles. Miles’ own expression is soft, unguarded, and fixed on Phoenix.
Page 6
Phoenix and Miles settle back into their shared bed; the morning sun illuminates them. They both smile softly, seeming happy and at peace. Miles rests his head under Phoenix’s neck, and his hand on Phoenix’s chest. One of Phoenix’s hands rests over Miles’ own on his chest, while his other hand holds Miles closer, revealing a matching ring of his own. Both rings shine softly in the sunlight.
Bonus image
A small simple drawing of Phoenix and Miles having fallen asleep again while holding each other as in the final page of the comic.
End ID.]
#narumitsu#wrightworth#phoenix wright#miles edgeworth#ace attorney#this is so sappy i nearly choked the entire time i was drawing it#aa#fan art#smooches#ah yes my favorite tag <3#rendevok#this is vaguely set post AA5 but i truly have no timeline in mind i just want them married#like ding DONG bitches get ur shit together aren’t u tired of pining??? it’s time to go apeshitt and furiously makeout#i’m going to start mashing them together like dolls i dont care anymore!!!#NRMTS KISS RIGHT NOW OR IM BITING BOTH OF YOU#(a win win situation for me)#anyway if you can’t tell i am deeply in love with phoenix and projecting onto miles so hard#who doesn’t love making him down horrendous for a little flavor?#image description and alt text are the same because i suck at those still#writing that out was deeply embarrassing for me bc for whatever reason writing it out is something WAY more visceral than drawing it#i wish to evaporate nobody look at me unless you want to talk about them kissiing more then my dms are open
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hey, could u perhaps write chrollo with a kurta reader? could be yandere if u feel comfortable writing that. reader could hate him bc they know or not, its up to you. they could also be affiliated with Kurapika in any way (bf, bsf, partner in taking down the PT, -close-friend) ty!
Pairing: Yandere!Chrollo x Kurta Reader
Rating: 16+, SFW (mostly).
CW: yandere!chrollo, yandere behavior, bondage, drugs, reader was drugged, implied torture, jealousy, kurapika mentions, reader is a kurta
I- Man, anon I am so sorry. This ask has sat, haunting my inbox for almost two years. I have had this piece written for about as long but never finished. I couldn't figure out how I wanted to write it, how to piece it together into something I was happy enough with. Then the hyperfixation faded and I generally forgot about it until recently. I do not know if you will see this, but if you ever come back and check, I hope you know I'm deeply sorry and I genuinely hope that the wait is worth the short fic I offer to you.
Where are you? Are you okay? Is what they’re saying true, were you really seen with HIM?
You ignored the first text, then the second text questioning if you were alive, but it is the subsequent third text that grated on your nerves. Staring at the last and perhaps most damning text, you turn your phone on silent before pocketing it. While it was comforting to know that you weren’t the only surviving member of the Kurta clan, it sometimes could be smothering with how needy Kurapika could be towards you.
But he can’t know.
He can’t ever know you’re in love with Chrollo Lucilfer, the man responsible for the death of your clan.
Just like Chrollo can never know you have survived. He must never know.
The soft stroking of fingertips along your jaw jolts you awake and you instinctively find yourself pulling at your bonds. You were surprised to find yourself in this situation, but more surprised as you cast an uncertain gaze at the man who was stretched out next to you like a lazy panther; totally at ease despite your own discomfort.
“Good morning.” His voice drips saccharine richness and you know you’re in trouble. “I don’t want to play, Chrollo.” You tug uselessly at your bonds. “Let me go.” Maybe you shouldn’t have teased him so much earlier at the restaurant, thinking back to how embarrassed he looked when you had slid your foot between his thighs. His words bring you back to the present and you blink owlishly up at the raven haired man you called your lover. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” His tone is veiled with barely concealed condescension and it makes you wince in shame as you watch Chrollo forced to play the villain. You had immediate regrets about your earlier antics when you had teased him mercilessly before and during dinner, but it was too late now. Your frame trembled with trepidation, fear sluicing through the haze of whatever drug he had fed you during your dinner date earlier.
Not that you knew you had been drugged, thinking you had had too much wine with dinner.
He slides on top of you, straddling you with ease and you grow increasingly panicked as he traces your face with surprising gentleness. There’s something incredibly off about him and you realize for once, Chrollo Lucilfer is genuinely angry.
“Not that it matters what you want,” he stated matter-of-factly when you decided not to answer and his fingers tracing the outline of your jaw before sliding an index finger across your neck; the fur on his coat sleeve tickling your skin. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you?” His lifeless silver eyes shift downward and you squirm uncomfortably. The rope with which he had bound your wrists was starting to chafe. Pushing the pain from your mind, you briefly consider the option of fighting him but quickly abandon the idea as you realize the futility of it; knowing he would catch you faster than you could ever hope to escape. Instead, you attempt to reason with him.
“What do you-”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He interrupts you and the first hint of anger seeps through his normally aloof demeanor. It felt like cold water had been dashed over your entire body and you froze. Clearly perplexed by his leading question, you rack your mind quickly and try to figure out what gave it away. It couldn’t have been your traditional kurta garb, so similar to Kurapika’s since no one aside from the two of you knew your people’s clothing by sight. It was how the two of you had found each other in the first place, a happenstance passing that turned into a macabre reunion of sorts. It was also, consequently, how you ended up interested in the Phantom Troupe’s boss. For all of Kurapika’s righteous vitriol about the Phantom Troupe, you had a difficult time believing Chrollo Lucilfer and his merry band of spiders could and had committed such atrocities.
Perhaps you would never know the depths of their malice, or the depths of their reasoning. All you knew is that Chrollo had captivated you from the start yet here you laid, being accused of fraternizing with another man when the only one on your mind was him. So, you hold your breath and say nothing, offering what you hoped was a blank stare to the only man you’ve ever had romantic feelings for.
You only prayed you were right in your assumption and that he hadn’t found the truth of your secret.
“You spend far too much time with another man when you belong to me. Do you understand, y/n? You’re mine and I don’t like when other people try and take what belongs to me.” So you were right and he didn’t know you were a Kurta, which perhaps made this situation worse. It’s on the tip of your tongue to utter the classic ‘It’s not what you think’ line, before thinking better of it. Even if it was in fact not what Chrollo thought at all, he wouldn’t believe you. You should’ve known better than to give into Kurapika’s desire to have a kinsman nearby, for him to feel like he wasn’t utterly alone in this world. Yet you couldn’t help it anymore than you could help your feelings for Chrollo, which is what had gotten you into this mess.
Still, you can’t help but sigh at the absurdity of the situation. That makes Chrollo’s eyes narrow in suspicion and annoyance, but you took a little satisfaction in the fact you made his facade crack. Your arms grow slack in their bonds and you sag in relief but you cannot stop the patronizing smile that graces your face with your next words.
“That’s my cousin and you could’ve just asked me. This,” you shook your arms for emphasis, feeling like a frantic little caterpillar underneath Chrollo. “Was entirely unnecessary.” Chrollo laughs incredulously, but his words are tinged with disbelief. “Oh, is that all he is to you? How silly of me,” he pauses here for dramatic effect, and you realize he’s not smiling at all. “Not to merely ask you if you were having an affair.” Your head tips to the side as you contemplate why his melodramatic act seemed to have rocketed up the crazy scale. This side of Chrollo was senseless, and for the first time you wonder if he’s truly acting.
Or, you thought with growing trepidation, were you finally seeing a peek behind the curtain?
“My dear,” Chrollo croons and he leans in close, too close to your face. You show Chrollo your cheek but he shucks your chin roughly and squeezes your jaw hard enough to elicit a small pained noise from you, annoyed that you would look away from him. Forcing you to look back up at him, he leans close enough for your lips to brush against one another.
“I will get the truth from you, one way or another. We have all night, you see, and where we are now no one can hear you scream.” His voice dropped an octave, sounding almost excited for what was to come. Your heart drops into your stomach like a stone and you try to fight your bonds in earnest now but it’s useless as Chrollo presses a hard kiss to your lips before releasing your smarting chin. A smile blossoms upon his lips but it’s cold, as cold as the rumored Phantom Troupe leader himself.
“Shall we begin?”
#chrollo lucilfer#chrollo x reader#chrollo#my writing#fanfiction#hxh fanfic#hunter x hunter#hunter x hunter fanfiction#chrollo x you#yandere chrollo#chrollo x y/n#sad goth husband#drabble#headcanon#chrollo with a kurta reader#chrollo hc
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OooOOOOoooOO inbox is open? lemmie just slide on innnn. (Love your writing!)
Solomon + Chickens
yes it is!!!! C:< and thank you!!!!!
this prompt was honestly so random and psychology was stuck in my head fir some reason (maybe bc hes manipulative??? HELP??? /hj) so i ended up pulling some sneaky "conditioning solomon to cook better with kisses" LMAO
SOLOMON + CHICKENS (1k event details)
~~~~~
Solomon has the nerve to look embarrassed as you gawk at the state of the kitchen. Somehow, he managed to sling chicken up on the ceiling, the bone impaling whatever material it was made of. You don’t know the velocity the chicken bone had to have to achieve something like that, and you don’t think you want to.
“I swear I can explain.” he blushes, “I was trying to make dinner for everyone when I decided to add a bit of a personal touch—you know, as a thank you—and then the pot…exploded.”
Only he could pull that off.
You breathe deeply, rubbing your temples to avoid the oncoming headache.
“Sol, I love you, but what?!” you scold, wincing as you step over the pot on the floor that’s split it in half.
“Ah ha ha...sorry.” he laughs, reaching out to you.
You dodge, sticking your tongue out at him, You aren’t actually mad, as much as you’d like to be. Solomon could probably just fix the ceiling with magic anyway.
You take a new pot out of the cabinet, thanking Beelzebub’s star that his brothers buy multiple chickens just for him. Solomon watches you work as you go through the motions you’ve gone through a hundred times before. Preparing dinner for the brothers was never an easy feat, but you got used to it after a while.
“Now, I’m going to let you take it from here. Every time you do something right, I’ll give you a kiss.” you offer, placing the thawed out chicken in front of him, “And every time you do something unacceptable that will make the chicken inedible, I won’t.”
“We’ll do things your way this evening?” he smirks, nudging your side playfully, “I don’t mind that at all. Just be ready to give me all the kisses your body can handle.”
“We’ll see about that.” you roll your eyes, nudging him back.
#auburn's 1k event <3#obey me x reader#obey me#obey me fluff#obey me solomon#om solomon#om! solomon x reader#om solomon x reader#solomon x reader#om x reader#om! solomon
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hi!! i hope you’re having a great day!! i was curious how the obey me ! boyfies (hcs) would react if their s/o who is selectively clingy w certain people kinda back off suddenly because they just feel.. embarrassed?? like when they were a kid people reacted negatively to their clinginess and would ignore them for it. and they just feel so dumb to show emotion & showing their clinginess? and they feel like they’re being a bother and being annoying too... & suddenly just feel like closing off from the world lol? & like they can just feel really out of place and get negative thoughts that they don’t belong there, X person or a group of ppl in the convo don’t wanna talk to them etc and feel like they don’t belong in the conversation if that makes sense (i get those thoughts especially when i’m in a group i feel like i get overlooked a lot lol and i’ve never really felt included + like i can just feel so overwhelmed sometimes about the amount pf people / crowds or feeling like i’m being judged bc i’m beating myself up mentally abt my insecurities and i just end up most likely having a panic attack and just like tearing up, either crying on the spot or trying to hold it in till i get home). i’ve been feeling like this recently and i’d love to see what they’d do if that’s possible please!! thank you so much!!
I love such requests and I want to remind everyone that my blog is a very safe space where we can imagine whatever we want for our MC and be proud of it. Happy to write it!
Lucifer:
He is stunned at first. Like, things were going great and suddenly, you are backing off?...
He looks you deep in the eyes, lifting your chin up, and asks softly "Is everything okay or do you need to share something?"
Is incredibly patient while you are trying to explain what's going on in your head.
Also, will not let you go unless you share everything to him about how you feel and why.
"I love you deeply and I hope my loyalty and love will soon help you realize what a wonderful creature worth of admiration you are".
Mammon:
Okay, he'll be judging himself immediately as soon as you back off because well, he is in a constant state of low self-confidence and always feels like he is guilty for everything that happens.
"Did I do something wrong? I'll understand if yes, I ruin everything"
Oh, it has NOTHING to do with him. Huh. A relief. But another worry then - what caused you to act this way?
"WHO MADE YOU UNHAPPY? I'LL FIND 'EM!"
After you explain the reasoning behind your behavior, he slightly relaxes but is still worried.
"Can I help somehow? Like, you want some time alone or something? Just tell me,okay?"
Will hug you and whisper "I love you" in your ear till it tickles and you laugh.
Leviathan:
Oh no, what did he do? Why did you back off?
Is it because he is too much of an otaku? HE KNEW IT
It’s not him? Huh? It’s a relief, probably. Though he is still upset about your reaction because he can’t understand it and starts to worry too.
“M-m-maybe you can explain it to me? I’m sure I can understand. I’ve been living in the shadow of my brothers, I know about such things”
Ah, he sees it now.
He will smile brightly and hug you. “It’s okay to feel like this but I hope, together we can create a safe space for us both”.
Satan
Is slightly suprirsed, confused and a tiny bit offended.
Because well, everything was great and then... this thing happened. Did he do anything wrong?
Because he must know so not to repeat it in the future.
He sees you are hesitant to explain but surprisingly, Satan is really patient and will not just let it go.
“Kitten, I’ve never in my life been happier than when I am with you. It’s okay sometimes we need our space but trust me, you never bore or upset me”.
Will make you some mint tea and will bring you sugar cookies while reading a book to you.
Asmodeus
To be honest, he is slightly hurt because no one ever backed off from him before.
Will become very emotional but also determined to find out the reason behind your behavior.
“Darling, but would you please come in my arms? I’d love to calm you down”.
Will stroke your hair and give you kisses on the head until you are able to explain what happened.
Is super sensitive and supportive (which is one of his greatest strengths)
“My dear, even I feel overlooked at times... Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”
Beelzebub
He has a bit of a hard time understanding such things so he will honestly have no idea what to do at first.
Like, do you wanna be alone or do you need him? Do you wanna cry or are you angry at him?
It’s really complex for Beel and he often wishes he was better at understanding both demons and humans.
He will directly ask you and will apologize for not understanding your emotions.
While he can’t fully comprehend the concept of you being selectively clingy, he will do his best to understand it in the future.
“Just share how you feel with me, okay? Like, always”
Belphegor
He won’t show it but it hurt him when you backed off.
“Maybe you can write me a note next time you decide you don’t like me anymore?”
*yeah, sarcasm is his weapon of choice when he is confused*
Will hate himself for saying that so will be double-confused since he is akward with apologies.
“Baby, I didn’t mean to... Damn! Listen, I’m sorry, I just got a bit scared and I don’t know what’s happening. Mind explaining, please?”
*yes, he is super akward with that*
Will be surprisingly patient and caring while waiting for your explanation because a) he needs to know and b) he slightly screwed up so...
“I see. We’ll work it out so no worries again, deal?”
#obey me shall we date#obey me! shall we date?#om! shall we date#obey me headcanons#obey me hc#obey me imagines#headcanon#lucifer x reader#lucifer obey me#obeymelucifer#I LOVE MAMMON#mammon x reader#mammon headcanon#mammon x mc#obey me mammon#leviathan headcanons#leviathan x reader#levi imagine#obey me leviathan#satan x reader#obey me satan#shall we date satan#ObeymeSatan#asmodeus x reader#asmodeus obey me#asmodeus headcanons#shall we date asmodeus#asmodeus avatar of lust#asmodeusobeyme#asmodeus x mc
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20 Questions for Fic Writers
i was tagged by @longeyelashedtragedy! i had actually been seeing this go around f1blr and was hoping someone would tag me...so thank you!!!!
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
i have 96 (46 off anon, 50 on anon). of fics written in recent history, i have 48 f1 fics (35 off anon, 13 on anon) and 18 footiefics (11 off anon, 7 on anon). i have sort of a weird relationship with anoning - i generally don't mind if people know the fics are mine, but i usually don't want them on my account, generally because of quality reasons (or just a distancing). i generally anon anything that i've been away from the fandom for a couple of years, but i think this might change now that i'm like, not actively growing up in the same way. i feel like it makes sense not to want ventfic from age 14 on my account, but i don't necessarily feel the same way about well-written work from a fandom i'm no longer a part of...but then again. embarrassment factor. so who knows.
2. What's your total AO3 word count?
661,265. Most of that is from the last three years. Nearly half is from 2022 alone! I'd like to crack 700k this year, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen. I've been a bit stagnant lately, but there might be something bigger (if uninteresting to everyone but me) in the works...
3. What fandoms do you write for?
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
at the moment i basically only write footie rpf though i'm generally open to writing more f1 rpf or really whatever might take my brain by storm. i've written for lots of other fandoms but for some reason, it's basically ONLY rpf fandom that pulls me in and i actually get fully involved in, despite the fact that i love lots of fictional books and movies and things. the only other thing i could see myself writing fic for at the drop of a hat would be star wars OT/original EU. oh that's not totally true. i occasionally will write or consider rpf about various bands, mostly from the 90s 😑 but I've not written any in ages
taking some time - this was my first "big" f1 fic and i'm fully aware of why it's popular. it's fairly well written, it plays into common characterization, it's an extremely popular pairing, and it's unique enough (i hope) to still be vaguely interesting.
baby, need a ride - banger of a title, if i do say so myself (who doesn't love a bit of ke$ha). this is popular for a lot of the same reasons as the last, with the bonus of it being pwp.
[redacted] - i almost unilaterally refuse to admit i've written this fic. it got great comments from a lot of fic writers who i really admired in my early f1fandom days (and some i still do). this fic is, to me, extremely symptomatic of falling into fandom characterization without considering real-world input. it was maybe my second??? fic i wrote??? for f1. it's for a pairing i genuinely began to despise literally weeks after i wrote it. this fic is my no1 candidate for orphaning except that i don't like to orphan bc i DID write it and i do like to see what people say about it (and the comments are always lovely - i don't fault anyone for liking this fic. i'm glad to have created something that resonates deeply with many people!), even if sometimes i don't like reminding myself of who i was when i wrote it.
ill ray - this is probably the fic i'm proudest of being popular. i've definitely read fic that's been inspired by this which is a total honor. this is also the only fic in the top 5 that's not from what i consider my "early" f1 fandom era. this fic is mean and it's nasty and it's gross and it's stomach churning and it turned out better than i could have ever imagined. one of my favorite things I've written.
sheets soaking wet - early f1fandom pwp. i remember the exact weekend i wrote this lying on my futon. one of the first threesomes i wrote, i think.
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
of course!!! i love comments and i am so grateful for them and i want people to know what they mean to me! i also am generally desperate for thinking deeply about fic (and for community at all) so i always want to engage with ppl who say interesting things! sometimes im a bit slow at responding - I especially sit on long comments - but I get there in the end :)
6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I honestly have no idea. I've written multiple fics where is sort of implied all of the characters die at the end (as the sails burn down like paper, echo of the future (sort of. this one is iffy. there are spinoffs I'll never write), green gloves) so maybe one of those? i don't have a great sense of these things.
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Maybe like... Charles and the Three Curses or something. I think it's a nice getting together, figuring out your problems ending, and they'll probably end up together for a long time. Most of the endings of my fic even if they're "getting together" or sort of "traditional" happy endings, I don't consider to be happy endings bc its all about getting trapped in the evil misery cycle or something like that.
8. Do you get hate on fics?
i would think i hate on my own fics more than anyone else possibly could. that being said, although I've gotten a few backhanded compliments, no, no hate, thank goodness.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
yeah. i go through phases of writing it and then trying not to write it but i find it fairly easy to write and it can convey things i struggle with in any other kind of work yeah. in terms of what kind, i try to write stuff that has interesting emotional and political undercurrents. i like the real world in there. i like complication. basically, I use it to get at something that I'd struggle at getting at in a different fic of a similar length - it pares things down to bodies and emotion, even if there's still plenty of space for lying and misinterpretation and so on. i like to think my pwps are often about power. I've also said many times that i consider very little of the pwp I've written to actually be hot. idk....take that as you will.
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
ive never done so though im not opposed to the idea. unless my f1 star wars au counts as a crossover which i don't think it does even though technically like in sequel 10000 someone probably does meet luke skywalker or like wedge antilles crash lands in old man seb's cornfield or something...
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
don't think so, thank goodness!
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
no... I've had exactly one request ever and I turned it down. I'd probably say yes if someone I talked to regularly wanted to translate something, but I'm a bit of a control freak and it's not something I'm very comfortable with...
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
no, though again, not opposed to the idea... it could be fun! the other thing I'd like to do but im shy about would be to write a little fic in the universe of one of my friends fics but I've never done nor asked to do it so.
14. What's your all-time favorite ship?
if i have one, i don't know it. usually when im done with something, i move on and rarely return.....i think i have more consistent themes and questions that i like to read about and return to, rather than ships.
15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?
i don't really have a lot of wips.... pretty much everything i decide to write ends up finished! there's only the Big Time Travel Story (not fic) in my head that maybe I'll actually get working on pretty soon here...
16. What are your writing strengths?
Probably my greatest strength as a writer is nearly anytime I decide to write, I can just sit down and do it. I'm also a fairly quick writer. When I'm really into a fic, I can easily write 2-5k a day and sometimes more. Other than that, I guess my writing is pretty readable (not necessarily something that I always like in my own work).
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
I struggle with writing dialogue, but my biggest weakness is my unwillingness to edit. It's not that I don't care or I'm not aware of what could be better, it's just that I'm lazy and I really enjoy being done, more than I enjoy putting forth more effort into a better work (that I know won't get any better if a response if I put that much more time in, but at the same time, I wasn't much of an editer on my college papers either).
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
hmmmm... i do it sparingly. i think awareness of language is something I'd love to improve on in my work, especially writing in the pov of someone's second or third language. I've definitely read it effectively in fic (and far more effectively in like, novels or whatever. and I've seen it done very poorly in fic), but my own language skills are not terribly useful to the fic I've written and don't particularly add insight into how i might do it better. usually i just use dialogue tags to make clear what language is being spoken.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
in elementary school i submitted a story about darth Vader and princess leia to a school library contest and was rlly sad when it didn't do well :( i wrote self-insert about myself hanging out with the usmnt and uswnt circa 2011...if either of those count 😉
20. Favorite fic you've written?
I'm going to give you two, on different criteria, though the answer is probably the latter:
Charles and the Three Curses is the most FUN I've ever had writing a fic. It's a bit silly and the plot itself isn't the most unique but I loved coming up with all the details of the different characters lives and the magic they used and my little oc's and so on... I love writing fantasy fic :)
scenes from an american artist is, I think, the best fic I've ever written. in terms of writing quality, of storytelling, of prose, of structure, this is it. i had something I wanted to capture and I think i managed to do it, almost how I'd wanted to.
honorary mentions: as the sails burn down like paper, echo of the future, you whom i cannot betray. You can also check out my Tetrapod Sampler with some fics that I think are quality and representative of my own work.
you will notice these are all f1fic and there's no footiefic to speak of. I'm not going to say that I haven't written good work for footie thus far, but I will say most of it has been pwp which is never my favorite, results wise... but i promise i have something interesting and different in the works!
i have genuinely no idea who has done this... I tag...@wdcseb @gokartkid ummm and if anyone else who follows me wants to do it and tag me I'd be happy to see I have been loving reading these!!! some people think so wonderfully deeply about their work and I love to see it!
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Tw: Emily sexuality talk
Talking about instances of my own sexuality is such a fucking wild tightrope to walk. For one, lifelong bottom dysphoria and religious upbringing made me feel like any expressions of my sexuality were deeply deeply shameful, so over the last like 11 years of being on this website I've built up a persona that's wholly uninterested in sex or sexuality outside of ironic joking about it. But problem 2 is that this isn't like. Incorrect. 95+% of the time, thinking about sex creates the same physical reaction as thinking about embarrassing things I did in middle school (full-body shudder and cringe). Sex is gross and most of the time I want no part in it.
But like, with respect to problem 1, I don't have bottom dysphoria anymore. I got that shit cut off and I have a body I'm comfortable in. And this comes with a confusing change wherein getting off is emotionally value neutral instead of deeply shameful and repulsive. It's still not something I do frequently, like in the 14 months since my surgery there's been all of like, 7 times I could be bothered to do it. But considering I talk about literally everything that crosses my mind on this blog, it's weird to now have something I occasionally think about that I feel like I can't talk about.
And, as an aside, the thing about my anxiety is that it's always extremely insulated from social pressure. Like, if someone said to me 'Emily nobody will judge you for x thing, you can do it safely here', that is going to do fuck all for me because I don't worry about what other people think about me. I worry about how I present myself. I am judging myself. That has nothing to do with whether or not someone else judges me. So I'm not gonna fuckin do it, bc I don't want to.
And that's why I couldn't talk about instances of my sexuality prior to surgery. That sort of anxiety. I was personally deeply ashamed of it completely removed from how anyone else would feel about it. Talking about my scar fetish or whatever is different, bc I don't like Get Horny looking at scars, it's a very aesthetic and tactile appreciation. So there's no shame for me.
But now I have no reason to be ashamed of it anymore? Beyond social pressure that I've put on myself through my persona. Which is a weird and uncomfortable feeling for me!! I don't like it! And like it's tempting to say fuck it and just post whatever I want about my sexuality. But also, I don't wanna fuckin deal with people questioning me on my being deep into the ace spectrum. Bc like I am very often sex repulsed, but there are certain circumstances where I would happily have sex with someone, they're just rare and I don't actively seek them out bc sex isn't important to me. And I don't want people to get the idea that I'm a more sexual creature than I really am. I've gotten distracted writing this. The point is that while I'm not personally into it and wouldn't be interested in doing it myself, the petplay scene was infinitely hotter than the scissoring scene.
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hi hello i would like to know anything you feel like telling us about the jasper/ekky fic
GOD YEAH. i reread that today so i could answer this ask and honestly i could do a line-by-line director's commentary and still have stuff left over to say at the end...my main comment is that if i wrote it today, it would read completely differently (even without addressing the trades), but as it stands i think it's still one of my favorite fics i've ever written. it's so hopeful? and joyful? like it really is the better version of the bay area that exists in my head. it's developed on a very fundamental concept of: what if i read one sjhn article that activated my soft content brain and refused to do any further research on literally anything. i think the most research i did was learn the word ferroequinologist and find out who the sharks beat reporter is for the chronicle. like i really did just think "it would be funny as hell if sharks rookies took caltrain" and then wrote an entire fic about it
bonus content:
someone once asked if timo meier/kevin labanc is a thing. yes bc i am a mcspot stan. but also this was the beginning of my slow slide into timo meier/matt nieto trutherism, so that's sort of percolating in the background too. (outside of this fic, i have such a sad timo meier/matt nieto agenda man, in my head they were like queerplatonic besties who made out sometimes. this isn't related but i wanted to share 😔)
in no universe does it make sense for people attending san jose giants games to take caltrain. like you gotta take a rideshare from the diridon station to the ballpark to make it work and at that point it would probably be cheaper to just drive. i knew this and i wrote giants fans on a train anyway. i liked the idea of fans of an entirely different sport attending a minor league game instead of a playoff game being the ones to welcome jasper and william into the world
it is not possible to get an off the rack suit at suitsupply but i did not know that at the time. however jasper and william are of the build that they could just walk out of a store with a suit just fine. also loved the idea of timo being like, you look terrible, this is embarrassing, shut up and let me get you something that fits. (i did not know eklund was a nepo baby at the time, due to how i refused to do literally any research.)
many people were angry that the bolts won the scf in the fic to which i say: bro it's the sharks. you really think these chucklefucks could take on the literal tampa bay lightning and come out winners. like last year's sharks really were a revelation for me in many ways (first year as a regular cuda game attendee, slowly learning the history and lore of the sharks proper, still figuring out the sharks fandom and where i could fit in) but at the time i wrote that fic they had been in wc2 for like a week. like i could not make myself do it
despite attending cuda games regularly, i really did not have much of a concept of who was a cuda and who was a shark. i wasn't engaging much with cuda content outside of games and i think bc there was so much movement between the two teams that season due to covid, between opening night and the time i wrote that fic, i just had like. no idea who was on what team. this is why joakim blichfeld (rip) gets his moment in the sun and i straight up forgot about ryan merkley. and why i for some reason thought ozzy was??? on the team??????? kasper what?????
logan couture and erik karlsson....i'm not proud of it, but it's real. it's true. and it's our future. neither of them know they are any flavor of queer, they're just those straight guys who fall deeply in love with another man and they're just like well i guess i'm here forever now :) and retire and go enjoy swedish healthcare or whatever. like that they are bisexual does not even occur to them. but logan reads how to be an antiracist and gains one (1) iota of self-awareness
the two worst things about this fic are: 1) if you write an @ in google docs it will suggest a list of PEOPLE IN YOUR CONTACT LISTS TO TAG and the number of times i nearly tagged the worst possible people to read that fic while trying to format the fucking social media posts....horrifying, 2) thinking of a title nearly killed me and i only landed where i did bc i was planning a black history month storytime before i went on vacation and wanted to sing "this train is bound for glory" during it
stopping here now before i really end up doing a line-by-line commentary, but!!! thank you for asking!!!!! i love this fic so much, i'm always happy to talk about it. i read it every time i have a long journey on caltrain and it gives me a little sparkle emoji in my heart
#cage replies#laughingthelaughiest#like i really could go line by line through that fic. i did zero research but put more thought into its construction than almost anything#else i've ever written#thank you!!!
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QUESTION
↤ @galactia :: 👫 + our ship & i’ll give you 4 facts ↩
‘👫 (Zhong and Kaeya? ;D)’
i hate u ( affectionate ) for sending me this bc istg i TRIED to just write 4 snappy points but kaeya’s everything in response to zhongli is so juicy i kept writing whole posts on his psyche. i cut that shit & it’s still long as balls. this could have been about goddamn pancakes but i wanted to dig deeper & then it went too deep & now-
I.
kaeya goes out of his way to have possessions, tokens, or even parts of zhongli to physically entwine with him especially in his absence. the man’s generous in his affections, but the distance between them is generous too. whether it be braiding brown & gold into his own blue, voluntarily gifted- donning the fine robe zhongli had gifted him around christmas- piercing his ear a second & third time to wear cor lapis as close to inside him as is medically reasonable.
yes he eyes zhongli’s personal possessions when he’s over. yes he leaves his own most intimate ones when he leaves.
II.
although kaeya’s never bothered to learn to love anything, he’s so enamoured that he will try his best to enjoy bamboo shoot soup. it’s just... he hates bamboo.
III.
frequently breaks his brain over what to gift zhongli, & is RomanticTM enough to feel like,,, maybe to a man who sees how feral & rotten hollow he is about the concept of ‘love’... perhaps his heart is finally a fitting gift?
but then that seems stupid, so kaeya silently makes use of his inheritance & designs something achingly lovely. its weight & texture will be pleasant to the touch; the picture it makes a delight for the eyes.
kaeya’s incredibly embarrassed about the wall of but i want my heart to be the gift he wants that continually gets in the way of any of these feats. just seems a bit rude to consider that burnt out husk of a heart an appropriate return gift.
IV.
zhongli’s endless dignity is the feathery lure to kaeya’s naughty, shameless cat behaviour. he gives exactly zero fucks about the man / god’s reputation--( since he’s fully convinced he can handle whatever's thrown at him anyway )--& will proceed to drag his own through the mud by smacking the man’s ass when he’s in the middle of a conversation, climbing him like a tree as they stroll through the market, snuggling up to him like a well-fed alley cat, & generally be affectionate in all the silly physical ways better suited to privacy.
naturally, he has no intentions of actually crossing any real boundaries - just the ✨annoying✨ ones~~.
[ classified redacted essay under the cut. ]
I.
zhongli brings him a sense of belonging that outstrips the cold, horrible confidence that he’ll always be allowed back with his first ‘family’. a kindness that is fair, just, & lacks the blind willingness to sell himself cheap that diluc had had as a boy ( & possibly still has ). he brings an authority to the table that is more competent & dignified than varkas’, or all the current captains manning the ship in his wake combined. warmer than diluc by being less intense- & cold in warmth’s excess -than heat. more tempered--
hasn’t drawn a blade on him, fine, we’ll say it.
he comes with a stability that kaeya has never experienced - a sort of security that no doubt comes in part from his faux endlessness. but it’s the way he goes about being a person that grants someone in his company all these boons.
it’s a shockingly ravenous thing. hadn’t known it could be this luxurious- just being around someone. is it less shallow for being more personal? or can he not say he loves him deeply, hah.
kaeya, in comparison, is only beneficial to be around when under duress. his qualities are mainly feigned so as to be wanted around long enough to do some benefiting himself.
he tries very hard not to do that around zhongli unless he’s been too much of a bore. depression is a buzz kill.
II.
there is a special way zhongli clicks into his trauma & unlocks it, lets it flow freely 'away’. because much of kaeya’s terror toward him is direct. it’s morax he’s afraid of; one of celestia’s approved archons, one of those who fought in the war ( even if kaeya has apparently, deliciously / gratefully, misunderstood how )... all his life kaeya has been terrified because he now lives within the ‘eye of the seven’ or whatever. it could not be confronted with absent barbatos... even if kaeya after a few years deliberately went to a statue of him to see if he would, perhaps, be punished for existing some more.
but zhongli not only allowed him to face & process his terror, he... despite kaeya having definitely not earned himself any points with a gentle, self-deprecating tone - by being forgiving, by blaming himself, by making it easy for rex lapis... being charming, being nice, being manipulative-
he was allowed to hate & grieve & claw.
zhongli could have done actually anything. & continues to be able to. but does not. & not only is that true, but he makes a massive fucking point out of it.
kaeya never asked to be healed. he wanted to be dealt with, to be done with it all. if he had to fear something he had no hope at all to control- kill me or yield to me. the dragon does neither,..
fairly, kindly, honestly. wouldn’t stand for false accusations but stood for anything else-
the best man he’s ever met is a god & he’s furious about it.
or perhaps, perhaps he’s just-
perhaps this is another kind of passion. ah, yes -- all that hatred ( & boy is there hatred ) transmuted into love. recontextualised by the mind yet, stemming from the same generous part of the brain.
it is the strongest emotion kaeya can give,
& it is breathtaking to be proud to gift it to him.
my condemner, love me whole.
III.
kaeya is a little worried he’s just met a god so kind he’s... in a relationship founded on pity. but zhongli continues to be kind & open, & while it is impossible not to doubt - it is shockingly hard to have no reason to believe in something far too good to be true.
it’s just that kaeya trusts in vulnerability & cruelty,
& the balance makes some sense. he could be strung along for a greater payoff later -- but kaeya has met one other impossibly kind man. even if they no longer speak.
diluc made it possible at all for him to believe something like this, but that’s not anywhere near enough. zhongli-
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The 50/10 Method (Agent Whiskey x f!reader)
Summary: Jack makes the most of your 10 minute study break.
Word Count: 2.7k+
Rating: E (explicit) 18+ ONLY! bc this is just cringey smut lmfao
Warnings: smut (oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex (obvi use protection irl), very easily and conveniently reached orgasms (this is a fantasy i can do what i want skjfkd), dirty talk, one (1) allusion to thigh riding and one (1) instance of 💙spitting💙, fingering, positions i hope i've given enough detail so y’all can imagine what i was picturing💀), pet names (sweetheart, honey, cowboy *affectionately*, good girl, baby), there’s a sentence about reader having long-ish hair, reader and jack have a dog, swearing, reader is afab and is called things like good girl and the like, just overall trash grammar and structure 😇
Author’s Note: so this is very poorly written and extremely self-indulgent, as i myself use the 50/10 method 🙃. but i had a lot of fun with it, and i think that’s what writing is supposed to be all about! :) also i was heavily inspired to write this after reading “Take a Break” by @mellowswriting and “Study Buddy” by @pascalpanic. please go check those out because they’re absolutely fantastic!!!!! +while you’re at it, i would highly advise you to read anything on their masterlists bc they’re just 💜exquisite💜
gif by @thernandalorian
The lines of text on your computer screen are starting to blend into each other, creating a single run-on sentence that one of your previous English teachers would ridicule the author for. The sharp curves and angles that distinguish each letter from the next are becoming soft and dull, blurring into each other until your brain can only recognize it as a smeared streak of black on white.
It’s 11:00am on a Saturday, a big exam set for the upcoming Monday’s morning. You don’t feel rushed for time, or overloaded with unknown material, and the early hours of the day have been quite productive. Following a shared breakfast of homemade waffles in bed with Jack, your boyfriend, you didn’t complain when setting up your study station on the living room’s large oak table. If anything, you had been excited to begin studying early in the hopes of finishing your review by the end of the day. That way, tomorrow would be free for you and Jack to do whatever you pleased.
However, as the hours went by, your motivation was slowly but surely diminishing. The serene study atmosphere that you usually thrive in is now driving you mad. You yearn for a noise, any noise; a bird to sing a song in the tree outside your window, the smack of your dog’s loose wrinkles against each other as he attempts to shake the sleep out of him, a pencil unable to stop itself from rolling and dropping onto the floor with a tink.
You’re momentarily gifted with the crisp sound of a page turning. You flit your eyes over to gaze upon the source of your granted wish and your heart flutters in reaction to the sight: Jack’s resting on the couch, cowboy hat balanced on the back of it, deeply absorbed in the next installment of his favorite murder-mystery series. You find it curious that his desire for an adrenaline-filled challenge doesn’t stop when he comes home from mission after mission that nearly cost him his life. You’ll ask him about his insatiability one day, but for now you categorize it as fictional research for his Statesman assignments.
Your short glance quickly turns into an entranced stare. Jack looks... divine. Fetching. Luscious. As he’s lying on his back, neck propped up against the arm of the couch, his book balanced on his chest, relaxation radiates off of him in waves and utterly seduces you. You’re surprised that he hasn’t been a greater distraction to you throughout the morning. How have you managed to ignore the denim-wearin’, plaid-shirted, pornstache-sportin’ cowboy of your dreams that is only a few steps away?
Involuntarily, the thigh muscles of your crossed legs contract in an effort to bring some semblance of friction to your now weeping core. Similar to your imaginings of your dog earlier, you shake your head to force these heavy, unwanted feelings to dissipate and turn back to the work in front of you. Of course, Jack does the opposite of what you’d like him to do and takes an interest in your fidgeting. He peeks over the top of his book, “You cold, sweetheart?”
His question is reasonable: you’re purposely wearing a skirt that’s so short it rides up quite high when you sit. You don’t dare to meet his eyes and answer while pulling a textbook close and opening it up, “No, I’m okay.”
Fortunately he returns to his reading. Your attention is able to retain itself for about a paragraph, but then your mind takes a sharp detour back to those pesky, steamy desires. You mentally huff at your inability to remain concentrated on your studies and rifle through the options of what you can do to satiate yourself for the time being.
You could switch texts and force your brain to recognize the change and therefore become distracted. You could pick out some colored writing utensils and bring some fun to active reading. You could say fuck it, go straddle Jack and beg him to use you in whichever way he would like.
Jack interrupts your brainstorming, “Are you sure you don’t need a blanket or sumthin’? I can go get my jacket for ya.”
The attentiveness of your southern lover melts your heart. You turn to him, “No, really, I’m okay, thanks.”
“I wouldn’t count a bathroom break as taking away from your 50 minutes, honey, if that’s what’s makin’ you twitch.”
You had been implementing and strictly adhering to the 50/10 method all morning: study for 50 minutes, take a break for ten. Its effectiveness was never doubted, as it has proven to work for you for years. Only ten minutes into this 50 minute period, the devil of restlessness pokes at you and makes you think could time go by any slower? A hand comes up to cover the blush creeping across your cheek as you dismiss Jack’s suggestion, “No, that’s not it.”
Behind your embarrassed hand, Jack cocks an eyebrow at you. Your simple choice of words has given the Agent a hint, that there is something that’s bothering you, he just hasn’t figured it out yet and you don’t want to admit what it is for some reason. He returns to his book, however lost in thought about what your problem could be, while you task every cell in your body to pay attention to your studies.
35 minutes remain on the clock, and Jack guesses, “Did you have too much coffee?”
You can’t help but grin at his sleuthing, “No, I just had my regular.”
He conjures up another possible solution five minutes later, “Are you itchin’ to get out of the house? We haven’t left in two days.”
He’s getting warmer. Both of you know exactly why you haven’t left the house in two days: you’d been occupied with activities of the sinful variety. You can’t gauge yet whether or not he knows he’s dancing around the answer, “Baby, you’re distracting me. And nope, it’s not that.”
He smiles apologetically, “Sorry,” and uses his book as a partition, blocking your ability to procrastinate and just visually drool all over him.
Silence fills the next 20 minutes. Even though Jack is out of your sight, details from your observations exaggerate themselves in your mind to the point that they’re all encompassing, intoxicating. The way his jeans wrap around his legs ever so perfectly, the worn denim hugging those muscular thighs that he loves for you to grind yourself against when you’re feeling especially desperate (like now). How his plaid flannel slopes over the swell of his belly, stretching tight against his skin as his diaphragm contracts and deflating when he exhales. Even his large feet, strewn about lazily on the couch, his toes pointing in different directions, amuse you.
Ten minutes remain in your study session. Feeling guilty about spending the majority of the last hour envisioning the seductive intricacies of your boyfriend, you actually start to study.
“How many times do you think I can make you cum in ten minutes?”
Your eyes are ripped from your material and land on the menace lazing on the couch. He’s put his book down, one arm behind his head while the other is crooked, allowing himself to palm his cock through his pants. Jack’s wearing a shit-eating grin, bewitching your crossed legs to switch which one is on top; an excuse to apply more pressure to the yearning area between them. You fidget in the chair, shamefully trying to get the seam of your underwear to rub against you in just the right way. You shrug, “I-I’m not sure.”
He gets up and comes over to you, standing behind you and leaning forward to rest his chin on your shoulder. He murmurs in your ear, “I think we should find out during your next break.”
You turn to face him, “I think so too.”
He gives you a quick kiss, “Well, you better be a good girl and study for these last few minutes. Earn that break.” He places his large hands on either side of your head and turns it toward your materials, making you both laugh.
Somehow, you’re able to pay attention. Jack’s impending promise of ravaging you for ten minutes straight quells your jittering nerves and gives you something specific to look forward to. Before you know it, your alarm is beeping, alerting you that your break has commenced. Jack cages you by reaching forward and grabs the clock, programs it to ten minutes and keeps it in his hand. He grips the sides of your swivel chair, pulls it back from the table and spins you around to face him, the speed of the turn making your hair swoosh across your shoulders. Through mutual giggles, Jack lifts you up, winding your legs around his waist, your arms doing the same around his neck. “I want you to count for me how many times you cum.”
Breathlessly, you simply obey, “Okay.”
He practically runs to the bedroom. He sets the clock on the nightstand and turns the face towards the mattress so you don’t lose out on studying time. Tossing you onto the bed, your giggling continues as you bounce from the force. Jack hooks his fingers in your underwear and yanks them down, pulling them out from under your skirt and over your shoes. The way he wastes no time ridding you of any other garment makes blood and heat flood your center and air rush out of your lungs. He pushes your lost air back into your mouth with a kiss and then immediately retreats back to in between your legs.
He flicks the fabric of your skirt up onto your belly, letting himself have complete, unobstructed access to his early lunch. His fingers fondle your folds while his lips place sloppy kisses along the inside of your thighs. After he’s had his fill of that step, he sits back and stares at you: spread out for him, more than willing to take anything he wants to give to you. He blows out a whistle, eyeing your core, and you say, “Hey, you’re on the clock, cowboy. No time for dramatics.”
He nods, a smirk pulling at one side of his mouth, “You’re right, sweetheart.”
He spits onto your cunt, forgoing his usual gentle licks to adequately wet your pussy. A quiet fuck escapes your mouth as he plunges his tongue into you. Your fingers wind themselves in his chocolatey locks and pull, extracting an excited moan from your lover. His fingers knead the soft flesh on the backs of your thighs as he eats and when his mustache starts to tickle your clit, you’re done for. Your grip on his hair becomes vice-like and your whole body seizes up, constricted by enrapturing pleasure. You strangle out, “One.”
Jack unlatches his mouth only once he’s certain your first orgasm is complete. He stands, admires your wrecked expression, takes his cock out, spits into his hand and pumps his dick a few times. Hands slithering around your waist, he flips you onto your stomach and pulls your ass up, positioning you on your hands and knees. You’re a little bit dizzied by his manhandling in combination with his expert tongue, but this type of vertigo is the most enjoyable you’ve ever experienced.
When he pushes into you, it’s a bit of a stretch because he hadn’t warmed you up with his fingers. He relaxes you by leaning forward, pressing his chest against your back and peppering soft kisses to your shoulder blades. The clink of his belt comically punctuates his thrusts, but your laughs are swallowed by intoxicated groans. You don’t know, and you don’t really care to figure out, how he already has you teetering on the edge of cumming again. Heightened senses tell you that you’re close; the fabric of his shirt feels unearthly soft as it brushes against patches of exposed skin, his fingertips are delightful lead in their clamp on you, his grunts and pants angelically reverberate in your skull. And then, suddenly and all at once, “Two.”
Jack’s pride shows itself in a smirk while he flips you onto your back. He makes a show of hooking your calves over his shoulders, eliciting laughter from the both of you. Resting almost all of his weight on top of you, your knees find your chest and his hands find your hair. The intimacy of it all is almost too much; his thumbs stroke your temples, palms cradle your head, those goddamned puppy-dog eyes bore into you. You turn your head in his grasp to check your timing: five minutes left.
Jack’s tongue darts out to lick the pads of his fingers before he snakes it down in between the two of you to rub your clit. Your moans come out uncontrollably, your eyelids stutter and he eggs you on, “That’s it, sweetheart. Give me another one.”
Hearty moans are reduced to desperate gasps and you’re unable to verbally acknowledge the third orgasm that rips through you. Nonetheless, Jack can tell from the way your eyes roll into the back of your head and his name tumbles ferociously out of your mouth that you’re cumming. “’Atta girl.”
Jack takes his cock out of you and the whine that escapes your lips embarrasses you. He can’t help but laugh at your whimpering before he scoots down the bed and starts to eat you out again, framing his head with your quaking thighs. You find the strength to check the time, “Jack, there’s only a minute and a half left.”
He moans deeply into you, unaffected by your comment, and eases three fingers into your fluttering center. Like earlier, your hands fly to his hair like a magnet and find purchase so tight it makes your knuckles go pale. In a matter of seconds, circling your clit with his sopping tongue and tapping your g-spot with his deft fingers, Jack has you cumming yet again. This time you yell out the count, “Four!”
The sounds his ministrations make are lewd and exhilarating, pushing himself to his own precipice. You look down your body to find Jack’s other hand jerking his cock and his seed spilling out of him moments later. He groans into your pussy while you pet his hair, praising him for his efforts.
Simultaneously, you both remember that you’re being timed. Your eyes meet the clock at the same time: 30 seconds. Jack springs from the bed and pulls you up with him, grabbing your discarded panties. He squats and taps your ankles so you lift your legs up, sliding each leg hole over your body and pulling your underwear up underneath your skirt.
You fumble with his mussed clothes, stuffing his still-hard cock into his boxers, hiking his jeans up over his ass and zip and button them closed. You snake his belt around his waist and let his fingers do the work of buckling it before he picks you up bridal style and ushers you out of the bedroom, grabbing the clock off of the nightstand on your way out.
Unhinged cackles follow you two down the hallway as you return to the living room. He plops you down in your chair, straightens you out, gives you a kiss on the cheek and then your alarm goes off. You raise your eyebrows at him, “Jeez, you didn’t waste a second.”
He hums, then mumbles, “You get back to work now, babygirl,” and leaves you with a yearning kiss on the part of your hair.
Both of you return to your respective readings, hopelessly trying to downgrade your panting gasps to normal breaths. The absence of Jack’s warmth is already painful. But you rationalize that the indulgence of the last ten minutes is more than enough to get you through this next hour of studying, if not for longer.
Little do you know that Jack feels the same pain. His ache for your touch, sexual or not, will overtake him later and he’ll be unable to resist the temptation of coming over and distracting you again. Determined to finish your studying, you’ll propose a compromise: you can sit in his lap while he is lulled to sleep by the ambience of the afternoon rain and the enveloping comfort of you. The two of you can try to beat the record of four orgasms next semester.
💘taglist: @pascalpanic, @mellowswriting
#agent whiskey x f!reader#agent whiskey x fem!reader#agent whiskey x reader#agent whiskey smut#agent whiskey x you#agent whiskey#pedro pascal characters#pedro pascal fanfiction#kingsman: the golden circle#study smut#studying smut
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Heyooo I legit just found u bc of the bakugo series, and then I went on a spree reading your account- ugh I’m in love!!! Do you think you could tag me when part 3 comes out?
Ahhh! Thank you so much! ❤️ You guys have no idea how much a few words of encouragement means to writers 😭.
No need to tag tho because here it is!!!!! 😃
Sorry it took so long. I wanted to write it as best as I could! I don’t want disappoint anyone who’s been enjoying so far. ☺️
~~
All Bark No Bite (pt. 3)
(Final part)
Bakugo angst + ~sexual tensionnn~
Please, children avert your eyes. Things get a LITTLE inappropriate here 😳
Read part 1 and part 2
wc: 2.4k
He’s an asshole...but he’s a HOT asshole 🤤
You’d never seen his room before. It was much different than you’d imagined. You’d expected burn marks all over the walls or blown up debris of things scattered about. Maybe a bunch of mirrors so he could look at his self-confident, conceited ass all night. But actually it was kinda of nice. Pretty neat. He had some posters hung up and some books laying around. Black sheets and blankets. And it smelled oddly sweet in here, sort of pleasant believe it or not.
You’re so used to him yelling and exploding so it was weird seeing him so relaxed, in his natural habitat. Doing normal things. Like eating a snack, tapping his pencil in concentration, fidgeting with his hair. He even spun around in his rolling chair a few times mindlessly. He was acting sort of...cute? It was unnerving being attracted to him like this.
But as soon as he noticed you watching him it was all over. You were making him self conscious. He didn’t even realize he’d let his guard down like that.
“That makes absolutely no sense, dumbass.” His voice was bored and over it.
“What are you talking about!? I’ve explained it three times!” You retorted indignantly.
“Exactly. I thought you were smarter than this...” He jabbed before turning around and flipping his notebook shut.
You’d spent twenty minutes attempting to teach him what he’d missed in class earlier today but he was insufferable. Easily the worst student on the planet. Every time you explained something he’d tell you how to teach it better. Who does that!?
“Whatever moron. I didn’t come up here to try and teach your pea brain. I—“ The words were harder to say than you’d expected. Painful actually. They really didn’t want to come out. “I just wanted to say sorry for getting you—“
He whipped a pencil and it hit you directly in the forehead.
“Ouch, what the fuck?” You hissed, rubbing the sore spot. How’d he get so much damn power behind that thing?
“Don’t apologize. It’s weird.”
“What!?” You threw the pencil back but only managed to hit his shoulder.
“Anyways...” He ignored you, completely unfazed by your assault.
“You’re easily the most—“
“Anyways...” You swore if he cut you off one more time you were going to smack the shit out of him. “Aizawa thinks you’ve lost your mind.”
The unexpected information took you aback.
“He saw you try and get yourself blown up in class yesterday... No sane person is stupid enough to pull a move like you did.”
Ah yes... he meant the time you wrapped the man’s hand around your neck, tauntingly, in front of like 20 classmates and two teachers. You’d been trying to avoid asking yourself the question of why you did that. You claimed it was the best way to shut him up....but there were other ways to do that. More reasonable ones. You wouldn’t admit you’d daydreamed of doing it before and subconsciously took the opportunity. Red embarrassment flashed through your body again. God knows what they were all thinking when they witnessed that. You desperately wished people would stop reminding you.
Suddenly the need to defend yourself bubbled up. “I—I only did that because I knew you wouldn’t do anything.”
He scoffed. But didn’t deny it. “If you’re going to try something stupid. At least do it right.” He chastised.
Your body froze as he stood up and walked over, crouching down directly in front of you.
“If I wanted to choke you. I’d do it like this.”
He wrapped his hand around your neck. Demonstrating the best way to actually cut off someone’s air flow. But he did it so gently you barely even heard his explanation. You were just flashing back to last night. Instantly your entire body lit on fire. Replaying this scene in your head was strong enough. But reenacting had you completely out of sorts. Kissing him again but this time going full out. You wanted to bite him, just to hear him make that deep moan into your mouth again. Just imagining it was making you flutter. Aching to have him pressed up against you like that, relieving some of this pressure that was building up in your body. You felt yourself unraveling. About to pounce.
But he interjected with something that stunned you once again. “The way you did it would be better for...other forms of choking.”
Dear god. Surely he knew what he was doing to you. If he kept this up any longer your heart or your lungs were definitely going to give out.
But you mustered up your last two brain cells that weren’t absolutely losing their shit over him and carried on with your normal banter.
“Yea yea, I get it. You can stop now.”
He didn’t budge. His hand still snug around your throat. You obviously didn’t mind it there but it was incapacitating your brain function.
You gently pushed it away and he didn’t resist. But where he put it next was no better.
He traced the side of your cheek and along the outline of your lips. Just staring at them, eyes lost like he was thinking deeply about something. He wasn’t giving you a moment of a break. No room to breathe.
Your nerves were through the roof, your heart was beating so loud you could hear it in your ears. Desperately you tried to change the topic. “So is this your attempt at being nice? Advice on how to murder someone?” It’s amazing how your mouth just spewed shit out even though your brain was actually dead.
“Sure.” Now he was tugging at your bottom lip. Completely unbothered by you baiting him.
“Ah. A nice Bakugo? I must be having a dream. I guess now that you’ve lost to me your whole tough guy persona has been killed.”
That snapped him out of it. But now he was looking just as intensely, directly into your eyes.
“Don’t push it.”
“Or what?” Faking composure was coming so easily much to your relief.
“Do you want to find out?” He growled.
“You’re not scary.” You said rolling your eyes as hard as possible.
Something snapped in him. He couldn’t hold himself back anymore. Within a moment he had you on your back. Your body didn’t even have time to process. Even if it did, would you have stopped him? He trapped both your wrists on either side of your head and your feet under his ankles. His arms looked glorious as he held up is body weight.
“How about now?” His voice was deep and savory.
There he went. Invading your mind again. His scent. That lust-filled look in his eyes. The way he was thoroughly enjoying being on top of you. The adrenaline was coiling through your body. He had you right where he wanted you. He could do anything he wanted to you. But that “annoying little mouth of yours” wasn’t done quite yet.
“Whatever. You always do this. But you won’t actually try anything.”
“You think I wouldn’t hurt you at all? I literally want to kill you sometimes.” He had a smug little grin on his face. But his eyes couldn’t pull themselves from your lips. After experiencing them once he could barely stop thinking about them.
“You’re telling me? I fucking hate you.” You lied.
It made his smirk form into that wicked, shit-eating grin he always wore. The one that gets deep under your skin and makes you want to punch him in the throat and yank him onto you at the same time.
“Kissing someone is a weird way to tell them you hate them.” He was really cutting into you now.
You hissed. “Hey. You kissed me.”
“You kissed me back.” He raised an annoying little eyebrow.
Your brain wanted to choke him (the murder kind) but your body was screaming something completely different. The emotions swirling around in your chest was so overwhelming. Finally you burst.
You trapped one of his arms and corresponding leg and threw your weight to roll on top of him. One of your favorite moves from self-defense class that you knew would come in handy. Now you straddled him and using every ounce of your weight tried to pin his wrists down.
You expected him to fight you like the vicious little monster he is. But instead when you looked down he was just staring back at you. You were stunned at how good he looked at this angle. Did he have any bad angles?
“Finally. You made a move.” He said pretending to sound impressed. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Yea well...” You scoffed proudly. “you think you’re so fucking tough. Now looo—“
The words flew out of your mouth and you were tumbling again. This time he just grabbed your waist and tugged you with brute force. No technique needed. He easily overpowered you.
“Yea, that wasn’t going to work out. It was a cute try though, Little Bite.”
He laid directly on top of you now. Your legs spread as he rested his hips between them. His full weight pressed into you making it flutter. Your arms had somehow wrapped themselves around his neck and rested on his back.
The tension in the air made it difficult to breathe. But you were fully unconcerned with getting oxygen right now.
Nose to nose now he said “We’ll just count this as my rematch. Clearly I won.”
“You suck at flirting.”
Flirting? Where’d that come from?
“Seems like it’s working pretty good to me.”
That smug fucking face again.
“You’re such an ass.”
He bit his lip.
“Fuck...I love when you insult me like that.”
A beat passed and that was all it took. You smashed his lips onto yours. Wrapping your legs around him and squeezing. Too close wasn’t close enough.
He kissed you like he wanted you bad. Like you were his favorite meal and he was absolutely famished. It was so intense and passionate that neither of you could catch any air. Every insult, all the bickering, every jab had built up to this moment and was fueling it like gas to a forest fire.
His warmth was overtaking you. His body was so heavy, crushing you just liked you’d been daydreaming about all this time.
Your mind shut down all functions except desperately trying to use all five senses to their max capacity and commit every bit of him to memory.
He felt you pawing at the edge of his shirt and sat up. He peeled it off slowly. Letting your eyes adjust to every inch of him.
Your hands were instantly stroking every one of his muscles starting at his shoulders and trailing down his soft skin slowly...slowly to the edge of his jeans. Your index finger sat teasingly on the front button as you admired his perfectly toned body.
But before you even had time to think about what you wanted to do next he took your wrist and secured it down above your head again.
He dipped down and went straight for your neck.
Greeting it with a warm wet kiss from his tongue, his lips wrapped around your skin and sucked gently. You felt the blood pooled with pleasure rushing to the area. His other hand started exploring your body. Finally he was getting to put his hands on you the way he really wanted all along.
After you started tugging on his hair, desperately trying to avoid any scandalous hickeys he rolled you around again.
Letting you on top to straddle his hips. Giving you only a little bit of freedom though, as he locked one arm around your waist and the other started caressing your thighs slowly working his way north.
After squeezing your ass until his heart was content he clamped down both hands on your hips. You couldn’t bare it anymore. Your hips started gently grinding against him and you bit down on his neck all at once. You felt the angle of his pelvis rubbing into you creating little rumbles of pleasure.
“Fuck y/n..” he muttered under his breath.
You both were getting more and more bothered and aroused. His hands never stopped grabbing and tugging at you. His moans growing more fervent as he whispered into your ear.
He was just toying with the idea of peeling off your shirt when...
“THIS IS THE POLICE! COME OUT!”
Your soul practically rose out of your body as a loud bang almost broke the door down. Bakugo’s hand slapped over your mouth. You’d screamed without realizing it.
Kaminari’s laugh sounded through the door. “Oh my god Bakugo! You scream like a girl!”
Mina shrieked. “No, stupid! Y/n are you in there!?”
Your life was ending.
“Get the fuck out of here before I come out there and break your skulls!” Bakugo barked at them.
They didn’t say anything but you heard their quick footsteps as they ran down the hall still shrieking like banshees.
“Oh god..” you groaned as you tried to roll away from him, using his bare chest to push off.
But he wouldn’t let you go. “Where are you going?”
“Aren’t you going to go hunt them down and threaten them or something.” Typical Bakugo behavior.
“No, I’m busy.”
You had to stop your mouth from falling open.
“They’re probably going to tell everyone.” You prodded. Expecting his temper any second now. Like he was a bomb about to go off. You pulled away again in preparation, sitting fully upright now.
“I’ll deal with them tomorrow. I’m dealing with you tonight. Now get back over here before I get mad.”
You shrieked as he muscled you back into his arms. He bent you back around him as snugly as he could. Moving your chin to the side, he kissed your neck, sweeter this time. Instinctively your hands ran through his hair. Fuck the rest of them. You could get lost in this hot head all night. And you were as he started gently sucking on your soft spots again.
But he pulled away abruptly. Like he’d just realized something. “How are you gonna become a pro hero if a moron like Denki can scare you like that?”
You smacked the back of your idiot’s head lightly. “Don’t fucking ruin it.” You groaned.
“Fine.” He grinned as he went in for the kiss that started the rest your next piping hot and sticky couple of hours together.
~💥💥
TADAAA! What did you guys think?? What was your favorite part overall?
I’d love hearing your thoughts and opinions 😃 makes me a better writer
Also special shout-out to @jennammaee ! Pt. 2 of this series has been my most successful post yet, so thanks for encouraging me to write it!!
Tags: @sweetsailor000 @yumxmii @fullsundear @frosted-flakes @marloalmore @aprilbouz01 @deneuves @softestparker @davidbowiehotashell-blog @mocha-focha @piii-chan @v0dkadaddy @xxjosiexx
#bnha bakugo katsuki#katsuki bakugo x y/n#katsuki bakugo angst#bakugo angst#mha bakugou#bakugou katsuki#katsuki bakugou#bakugo#bnha bakugou#bakudeku#bakusquad#bakugo smut#katsuki bakugo imagine#bakugo imagine#bakugo katsuki scenarios#bakugo scenarios#bakugo fanfic#bakugo mha#mha angst#mha#mha smut#mha imagines#mha fanfiction
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Your writing is amazing! Always look forward to reading what you post. I have a request for the demon brothers, if that’s alright with you. Where the boys are on a date with you but gets jealous as other demons try hitting on you. How would they take it?
The Demon Brothers: Reaction to other demons hitting on you on a date
I love this ask so much !! I love writing jealousy hehe >:)
Lucifer
• He’s shocked
• You’re clearly on a date with him, he thought
• The other demon is your friend from one of your classes, and an angry rage ignites inside Lucifer when you’re happy to see your friend
• He isn’t about to appear jealous though, he’s Lucifer, after all, so he sits back and crosses his legs, watching the two of you converse
• You realize after a few sentences that he’s hitting on you, and you glance to Lucifer
• You can read him like a book, a skill you’d acquired after months of dating and communicating regularly with him (bc we stan communication)
• You’re secretly happy to see how secretly jealous he is
• “So, is this your boss or something?” your friend asks, eyeing up Lucifer
• “He’s my boyfriend~” you reply, laughing confidently as you reach your hand across the table to lace your fingers with his
• “Really? He isn’t who I imagined your type to be” he said, shooting another look at Lucifer, and your hands intertwined
• “He’s exactly my type, actually” you say, unable to hold back a smile as you decide to gush about your love, “He’s strong, caring, and would do anything for me. There’s so much more to him under the surface...I fall more in love with him every day”
• Luci could have married you right there, hearing someone talk to highly of him, especially the most important someone to him, sent a blush across his face
• He smirked at your friend, tightening his fingers around yours
• “Oh...Well I hope you two have a nice date then” your friend, smiling disappointedly at you before walking away
• You turned towards Lucifer as if everything was normal, which to you it was
• “MC...I love you” he stated confidently, pressing a warm kiss to your palm
• You saw in his eyes that he was incredibly touched by your words, and you got a little embarrassed at how much you rambled about him
• “I love you too, Lucifer” you answer him, looking deeply into his eyes
Mammon
• You had just sat down, he was ordering your food at the counter when he looked over and saw another demon talking to you
• This normally wouldn’t bother him too much, but there was something about the way the unknown demon was standing so close to you, hand resting on the table as he leaned slightly over you that set him off
• He quickly walked over to you, putting himself between you and the demon
• “Who are you? Talking to mah human?”
• “Mammon~” you whisper, grabbing his hand lightly to signal to him that you wanted him to stay where he was
• The demon took a step back, clearly a bit intimidated by Mammon’s confidence
• "I uh..I thought I recognized them, my bad”
• “MC...do you recognize this demon?”
• You shake your head, “I’ve never seen them before in my life”
• “Then why don’t you leave mah human alone, eh?”
• His arm doesn’t leave your shoulders (waist, hand, etc) for the rest of the day
Leviathan
• He isn’t surprised, someone as breathtaking as you with someone like him?
• You cut off the unwelcome demon’s advances, “I appreciate the flattery, but I’ve already found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with” you say, gesturing to Levi, “And I have no intention of leaving him”
• He blushes so hard, and you giggle at his cuteness
• “Whatever, your loss” the rando says before turning away
• "I still don’t know what’s so great about me, I’m just a stupid otaku” he sulks
• You drag his ass back to your dorm and present the 152 slide powerpoint you’d been working on with all the reasons you love him (there are more, but you didn’t know you’d be showing him then)
• He uh, may or may not cry in response to this, and he gives you so many thank you kisses your heart feels like it could explode
Satan
• He isn’t the avatar of wrath for nothing
• You’re reading in the library together, sitting next to each other on a couch
• The demon approaches you and Satan, and squats down next to where you’re seated. You don’t notice at first, and jump when you hear a mysterious voice in your ear
• “Hey baby~ You look awfully good sitting there like that~, why don’t you leave this loser and come with me, we can have some real fun~” he almost commands, voice low and dark
• It’s hard to find the words for how McFreaking Enraged he is
• He stands, taking one stride to stand in front of the stranger, and picks him up by the shirt, slamming him against the wall
• Heat is radiating off him, and he has to fight off turning into demon form
• “🅲🅰🆁🅴 🆃🅾 🆁🅴🅿🅴🅰🆃 🆃🅷🅰🆃, 🆈🅾🆄 🆂🅲🆄🅼, 🅾🆁 🅷🅰🆅🅴 🆈🅾🆄 🆁🅴🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃 🅷🅸🆃🆃🅸🅽🅶 🅾🅽 🅼🆈 🆆🅸🅵🅴”
• You’re thankful Satan was as protective as he was, and you watched with pride as he scared the actual shit out of the demon
• He shook his head in fear, to which Satan replied, “🆃🅷🅰🆃'🆂 🆆🅷🅰🆃 🅸 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃”, and threw the demon off the shelf (the demon ran away and didn’t come within a yard of the library for the rest of his life)
• Satan returned to the couch as if nothing happened, and wrapped his arm around your shoulders protectively
• You snuggled into him and kissed his cheek, “Are we going to talk about the wife thing orrrrr” you tease
• “It’ll happen one day, and I just got so fired up I wanted him to know he had absolutely no shot of taking you away from me”
• You turn his head to face yours and kiss his lips, “I love you” you whisper
Asmodeus
• “Oh? And who are you?” he mocks, wrapping a hand quite low around your waist and pressing your bodies together at the side, “A friend of my loves?”
• The demon blushes, clearly embarrassed, “Oh, I uh, I know them from class”
• “And what class Is that? MC, is this one of your friends?” he asks, putting on the charm to the max
• “No, actually Asmodeus,” you say, stressing the name so the demon knew he was dealing with one of the strongest demons in the Devildom, “I’ve never seen this demon before in my life”
• “Oh, my bad, Sir Asmodeus, I mean, my bad, I’ll go” they stammer, quickly racing off as Asmo turns your body fully against his
• “Asmo! That was evil” you laugh, kissing him lightly on the lips
• “I have to protect my sweet love! I thought I stayed pretty under control, myself” he joked
• “Mmmhm, very. Didn’t scare him at all” you return the joke
• He kisses you, “Now let’s go my dear, we have our spa night tonight and we are not about to get a late start”
Beelzebub
• He knows you would never leave him, so he watches to see how it plays out
• You let the demon deliver his flirty pickup line, giving him your attention since you could tell he was nervous
• “I really appreciate that, but I’m already taken” you inform him, glancing over to Beel
• The demon is visibly disappointed and nods before walking away
• “Hey Beel” you say, walking back over to him, trying to gauge his mood
• “Hi my love” he says, opening his arms for you to sit in his lap, “I know you’re mine, I trust you” he says, confirming what you already knew
• You kiss his cheek, “I love you, Beel. So much”
Belphegor
• Didn’t think he was the jealous type, especially considering his general feeling towards humans, but boy was he wrong about that
• His eyes filled with a deep rage as he heard the demon you appeared to recognize hit on you, and when you didn’t immediately cut him off Belphie saw red
• You could sense he was about to explode, so you grab his hand and intertwine your fingers together
• “Sorry, I’m already with him” you explain, “And that isn’t going to change any time soon”
• It’s like you poured a bucket of water over him
• Hearing your words filled him with satisfaction, and as soon as you’ve shooed the other demon away Belphie has his arms around you
• “Not changing anytime soon, huh?”
• You kiss his cheek, both of you blushing
• “Not on my watch it isn’t” you tease
#obey me#obey me shall we date#obey me headcannon#obey me headcannons#obey me insert#obey me reader insert#obey me lucifer#obey me mammon#obey me leviathan#obey me satan#obey me asmodeus#obey me beelzebub#obey me belphegor
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Enemies-to-lovers!Changbin
request: Hiiiii I read you bangchan enemies to lovers au and I swear if I could like a post more than once I'd like that one a MILLION TIMES I'm wondering if maybe you could write an enemies to lovers au for changbin pretty please? 🥺🥰
genre: enemies-to-lovers!au (again, not Super extreme, low-key clash bc they’re both stubborn), film club president!Changbin, childhood penpal!au (fluff, very mild angst, they bicker a lot, kind of cheesy bc changbin’s a sap and we know that)
pairing/s: Changbin / Reader (ft some skz members)
word count: 17k+
tw: mild coarse language (they say shit a lot LOL)
a/n: THE ANON WHO REQUESTED THIS...IM PRETTY SURE you waited months for this so thank you for being so so so patient!! I decided to try something a little different from my usual style but idk if it’s That Obvious, but its more structure wise I guess, but nonetheless, I'll be getting a little busier soon so I’m not sure If I'll be able to put out Full one shots for the next few months but I'll try my best w those little shorter ones maybe! (I'll have to see how Tired I am) also p.s I love this gif thank u to whoever made it but changbin is blonde in this fic bc of Personal Reasons
To: my penpal Y/N
How are you?
I had a good day today. Sorry if the paper is crunchy I am writing this on my bed because my mom thinks I am already asleep. Today I went out with my mom and we went to the park and ate some sandwiches at the park. We had a picnic but with no juice because my sister finished everything. And then we went to the toy shop after lunch. I saw a keychain of a camera and bought it for you because you like acting and cameras can take a video of you acting.
This is a picture of me next to the wishing well at the park, you cannot see it but i’m making a peace sign. I threw a coin in the well and made a wish that your audition will be good. I know you will do very well because you practiced a lot for it. That’s all. I’m a bit tired now. Goodnight, or good morning if you are reading this in the morning. Or afternoon.
I hope i’ll be hearing from you soon,
Binnie.
“So, do you wanna keep them? If not I can chuck them together with the rest of your old things,” your mom began, already reaching over to take the letter from you.
Your eyes widened just as quickly, shaking your head quickly as you gripped the envelope and its contents behind your back away from her reach.
“No, no. Don’t throw them away,” you said sternly, softening your gaze when you noticed the way her eyebrows had raised in amusement, embarrassment washing over your features.
“I’ll keep them. Gimme the box.”
Your mom set the beaten looking converse shoebox down onto the table, shaking her head at you as a small chuckle escaped her. Mental note to transfer the letters to a smaller (and more durable) box.
“Alright, alright,” she waved her hands at you in dismissal, “hurry up or you’ll be late for school.”
She shut the door behind her with a light thud, leaving you to stare at the grainy polaroid your childhood penpal had sent you when you both were only eight and still exchanging letters every week.
Inhaling deeply, you shoved the polaroid picture back into the envelope, slipping it into the box of envelopes before getting up. You figured that was a box you wouldn’t have the time to delve into when you were already keeping Jisung waiting.
Driving as fast as you could (or as fast as you dared to) within the speed limit, you’d reached your campus soon enough. It wasn’t that long of a drive and it would be even shorter (walking distance to be specific), when you move into your apartment nearer to campus in a few days. But that didn’t change the fact that you were running late now, spotting Jisung standing by the fountain with a sour look on his face that had only deepened once he’d spotted you.
Before an utterance of apology could leave you, Jisung had pursed his lips, stretching out his hand that held your cup of drink, a small hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“I’m starting to wonder which one of us has worse time management,” he sighed deeply, shaking his head with feigned disappointment as he glanced at his nonexistent watch on his wrist.
Jisung was one to talk, for sure. His crumpled looking shirt over baggy cargo pants and a hat to cover his head of messy hair told you his journey to school wasn’t exactly ‘leisurely’ either.
You rolled your eyes, taking a sip of your drink and sighing at the taste, “it’s definitely you. I was only late today ‘cause my mom was showing me my old stuff she found in the storeroom.”
Jisung waved you off, “fine, whatever,” he fished his phone out of his pocket as you started walking towards the auditorium for a class you were both dreading.
“Oh, shit, Hyunjin says the professor’s already in class, we should hurry up.”
Quickening your pace, you were glad to have reached before your professor had started, Jisung directing you towards where Hyunjin was seated at the side of the auditorium, giving him a small nod as you sat down.
Not that Hyunjin noticed anyway, the said boy busy with messaging someone on his phone with a frown on his face.
“What are you doing?”
Jisung peered over Hyunjin’s shoulder, frankly not wanting to focus on the lesson as the professor played a video on boring business things he figured he could just ask you for later.
Hyunjin sighed, setting his phone down onto the table and pushing his laptop open further, going to his email with quick clicks on his trackpad, “gotta send the scene for the auditions later to Changbin.”
“Oh, for that film thing?” Jisung asked, earning a nod from Hyunjin, whose eyebrows furrowed as they remembered your presence.
“Y/N should audition,” Hyunjin nodded his head towards you, his mention of your name distracting you momentarily, but you’d brushed it off quickly as you tried to take down whatever your professor was rambling on about.
At your lack of response, Jisung nudged your shoulder with more force, “hey, did you hear what Hyunjin said?”
You tore your gaze reluctantly from your professor as your fingers finished typing whatever you had left in your memory, the confused look on your face prompting Hyunjin to take over.
“We’re having auditions later for the movie the film club’s gonna be making,” he started, nodding slowly as his eyebrows raised, “I was saying you should join, you’d be good for the role.”
You narrowed your eyes at Hyunjin, “what’s it about?”
Jisung huffed, “some cheesy penpal shit, the last I heard.”
Your quirked an eyebrow at that, Hyunjin rolling his eyes.
“Something like that, but it’s not super romantic. They’re childhood penpals who meet again in the future but they don’t end up together, I don’t know how to explain it to you as well as Changbin can, but will you come anyway?”
You scrunch your nose as you consider his offer.
Was there anything you needed to prepare? You didn’t even know exactly what you were signing up for. Or much less anyone in the film club. Well, other than Hyunjin, of course.
“Is there any script I'm supposed to prepare with?” you asked, making Hyunjin’s eyebrows raise, his lips parting in realisation.
“I’m pretty sure it depends on what role you want…” he trailed off, making you scoff.
Not being able to help the laugh from escaping you, you narrowed your eyes at him, “you sound like you’re not even in the club.”
Hyunjin flashed you a sweet smile, “you know what? I’ll just send you what I sent Changbin. You can just prepare with that! Penny’s role!”
Jisung snorted, his hand coming up in a poor attempt to stifle his giggles.
“Penny? Is it because...she’s a pen pal?”
You pressed your lips into a firm line, finding it awfully amusing as well.
Hyunjin frowned, scrunching his nose up in distaste, “we couldn’t think of anything better, okay?”
You huffed, lower lip jutting out in a small pensive pout. You didn’t have much going on in terms of school productions as of now, anyway, you guessed there would be no harm in showing some support for Hyunjin.
“What time are the auditions?”
“They start from lunchtime until like five,” Hyunjin tried his best to recall, looking at you with his best pleading gaze.
Sighing again, you nodded, “this is my only class for today.”
Hyunjin was practically beaming now.
“Perfect.”
===
“I don’t like it.”
Hyunjin sputtered over his sip of coffee, an incredulous expression on his face, attracting looks from the other film club members in the dance studio. Excusing himself, he’d made his way outside, oblivious to the squeals and stares the girls waiting to audition were directing towards him, settling himself in the middle of the field outside the dance studio.
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t like it’?” he asked you again, his eyebrows furrowed as curiosity took over him.
You sighed, rolling your shoulders back as you nodded at one of your teachers you were walking past, your grip relaxing on your phone as your arm had started to get tired.
“I mean, I read through the script, and something about Penny’s character just doesn’t sit right with me,” you told him, “it just… doesn’t make sense for her to come to that conclusion when she’d been having a perfectly good time with the guy before that, you know?”
Pausing, you’d waited for him to respond, his silence prompting you to continue with your elaboration.
“Okay, I’ll put it this way,” you started, adjusting your grip on your laptop in your arm, “If I were a reader, or like, a viewer in this case, I would wanna be able to pick up on these small moments or signs that Penny is actually thinking about her relationship, do you know what I mean? Because now the way it looks is that she’s just a plot device meant to hurt him, and that there’s no exploration of the development of their relationship at all.”
Hyunjin let out a deep sigh, “Okay, I know, I know, but the thing is… this was Changbin’s idea, and I don’t know if you’ve heard—I mean, you probably have, but… nobody really questions him.”
You hummed, following Hyunjin into the school building and tugging your coat tighter around yourself, the cold air in the building shocking you as you entered.
“Yeah, I get that, but you’re forgetting that I don’t have the same relationship with this Changbin guy that you guys do. I don’t mind telling him that I have a problem with it. I don’t wanna be acting out some two-dimensional love interest character if I can help it.”
Hyunjin grimaced, not seeming to be too keen on your insistence, “I really think it might be a little late for him to change the script.”
“It’s never too late.”
“Well to Changbin it could be!” Hyunjin insisted, making you roll your eyes, a small chuckle leaving you.
You huffed, “I still think the audience deserves a better film with better crafted characters.”
Hyunjin let out a sound in between a sigh and a groan, “Okay fine, you just have to make sure you get the role, and then you’re free to argue with Changbin all you want. Deal?”
“Deal,” You turned the corner and spotted Hyunjin standing in the middle of the field, already making his way back to the dance studio.
“Okay,” he spoke before you could end the call, “I gotta go, see you later.”
You didn’t expect there to be so many people at the auditions, mostly girls and just a handful of guys. Though you seemed to piece the uneven ratio together when you saw the not-so-furtive stares the girls would cast in Hyunjin’s direction whenever he’d peek his head out from the crack in the door to call the next person in.
You recognized one of the guys who’d come in later than you, one of Jisung’s upperclassmen friends whose name was Minho.
“Didn’t think i’d see you here,” he gave you a small smile as he took a seat next to you.
Shrugging in response, you let out an awkward huff of laughter, not used to talking to him about anything other than his cats and Jisung’s whereabouts.
“Yeah… well, Hyunjin asked me to come, so I figured I might as well,” you fiddled with the slip of paper with the scene printed on it, “not like I had anything better to do, anyway.”
Minho nodded slowly, leaning closer to you and dropping his voice to a murmur, “I’ve never seen any of these girls before.”
You huffed, “I’m pretty sure most of them are here for Hyunjin.”
“Oh yeah, makes sense,” Minho hummed, a small lilt of amusement to his tone, “where is he, anyway? He told me he would be here—”
Minho’s question was answered when the girls beside the both of you had erupted into harsh whispers and murmurs, tapping each other excitedly as Hyunjin could be seen through the window panel in the door, looking on seriously as one of the girls inside the room was auditioning.
You huffed, gesturing to the window.
“Found him.”
Inside the room, Changbin was distracted.
He knew he had a certain image in his head about what he wanted ‘Penny’ to be. But whatever the girls that had auditioned so far had been showing, that dramatic ‘i never loved you!’ emotion, that wasn’t exactly it. And it didn’t help either that they struggled letting go of the dramatics when Chan would prompt them to try a different angle.
Hyunjin cast a (mildly concerned) look at Changbin, trying to gauge his expression, figuring the pointed look Changbin had sent his way was enough to say he didn’t think this girl would be shortlisted.
“Who’s next?” Chan leaned over in his seat to peek at the clipboard of names of signups, Changbin leaning back in his seat and pushing the clipboard towards him, not finding it in him to be able to be more hopeful about the next person.
“Oh, Y/N,” Chan hummed, nodding with an impressed expression on his face, the name catching Changbin’s attention, “that’s cool, didn’t think they’d audition.”
“Y/N?” Changbin echoed, something about the name awfully familiar to him, yet not being able to make the connection in his memories yet.
So for now, he’d simply gestured to Hyunjin to signal that he could send the next girl in, Chan sweetly thanking the girl that had just auditioned as she left the room.
Making your way into the room, you scanned the ‘panel’ of judges.
You recognized Chan, the said pale-faced boy looking even more tired when he’d yawned as you made your way to the centre of the room. He came to your school productions often since he and Felix were friends, and Felix was always involved in some way or another. The other boy, though, you didn’t think you’d seen before.
The two of them seemed to exude completely different auras, with Chan smiling warmly at you and gesturing for you to come closer while the other boy sat with his arms folded across his chest, frowning at you as though you were a code to decipher.
“Hey, didn’t expect to see you here,” Chan broke the silence first, giggling.
You shook your head, “honestly didn’t think i’d sign-up either.”
You pressed your lips together in a tight-lipped smile, rocking back on your heels as you glanced at the boy next to him again, “I actually only heard about it from Hyunjin this morning,” you admitted, Hyunjin flashing Chan a grin from behind you as if to say ‘you’re welcome’.
Changbin cleared his throat, making Chan perk up.
“Right, sorry. So, we’ve obviously met but this is our club’s president Changbin,” he gestured to the boy sitting next to him.
Changbin nodded curtly, bringing his hand up to run it through his bleached hair and shoving his cap back on his head with habitual movements.
Now you were starting to understand why Hyunjin was so intimidated by Changbin, always having heard stories about him but only now being able to put a face to the name.
Nodding slowly, you gave him a smile, “nice to meet you, I’m Y/N.”
Changbin had to stop himself from faltering, his breath hitching when he realised why your name was so familiar.
After all, it had been the first candidate before they’d decided to go with ‘penny’. He wondered how cruel fate was to have brought you, someone with the same name as the person he’d practically based this story on, to be auditioning for the very role.
You tried not to be offended by the way Changbin had simply nodded at you, straightening up in his seat, “and you’ll be auditioning for the role of…?”
Would it hurt him to smile?
You inhaled deeply, trying to hide your amusement as you answered him, “Penny.”
Changbin nodded, Chan humming as he looked up from his copy of the script to give you another reassuring smile.
“Alright, whenever you’re ready. I’ll be taking the lines of the male lead,” Chan told you.
You understood that the scene was some sort of scene where the two romantic leads have some sort of confrontation, and you did your best to get into what you imagined Penny would be feeling, Chan reading the line asking if ‘penny’ had even loved him at all. Dramatic was the word to describe it, really.
You softened your gaze, unintentionally letting it rest on Changbin but deciding to let it stay there, executing your lines all the while trying to ignore the way Changbin’s stare was unnerving you, making you want to prove to him that you were a good actor even though he hadn’t questioned your acting skills.
Hyunjin had been watching the exchange closely, Changbin’s grip on his pencil loosening as he’d let the pencil fall softly against the table.
Changbin wondered if it was some sort of coincidence, because whatever ‘it’ was that he’d been looking for in Penny’s character, you’d managed to convey almost perfectly.
And it was clear that Chan had felt the same way as well, since once your audition was over, the smile on Chan’s face was nothing but beaming.
Once you’d left the room, Hyunjin telling you that they would contact you by the next morning, Chan had turned to Changbin, the same stupid smile on his face.
“That was great!” he nudged Changbin, the younger boy still recovering from the shock of the coincidence of it all, managing to muster a small huff in response.
“Yeah,” Changbin reached over to grab his water bottle, prolonging his silence as he took a long sip, “I don’t think we’d even need to see the rest.”
Chris scrunched his nose up, grinning, “but you know we still will, of course. Just in case.”
Changbin sighed, glancing at the clock, agreeing with Chan even though he knew he’d already had his mind made up.
“Yeah, just in case,” Changbin mumbled, looking out the window and seeing you talk to Minho, tearing his gaze away and rolling his shoulders back.
“Okay, send the next one in.”
===
To: Binnie
How are you?
I’m okay. I like the picture you sent me of you using your scooter. My mom says you look nice. I think so too.
Today I went to the museum and I ate an ice cream for lunch. I don’t have a picture of it but it was a Strawberry ice cream.
I just finished reading your letter. Sorry to say it using a bad word, but i think what your sister did was stupid. I think you should still tell her to ask for permission to use your scooter. But if she still does not listen, maybe you should tell her again. Because my mom always tells me that if I want something, I have to ask for it. So you should do that. Maybe she does not know you don’t like it when she plays with your scooter. Or, you could buy a new scooter. Here is some money so you can buy a scooter. I drew you $50 because that is a lot of money. I hope you have a good day when you read this.
Till next time,
Your penpal Y/N.
You weren’t the world’s kindest human alive, you had your petty moments. I mean, there were so many songs and literature and movies that highlighted that idea that no human was perfect, right? But you tried your best, surely.
So, you’d gladly complied when Hyunjin asked you to grab extra cups of coffee for Chan and Changbin (as reluctant as you were. You were strapped for cash as it was).
You figured that was the least you could do before the trouble you were about to cause the both of them. But hopefully, if office etiquette was anything to go by, the simple gesture would show that you were kind, and someone who appreciated the offer given to you, as much as you hated the superficiality of your character.
However, when you showed up at the room, you were reminded that Changbin wasn’t just anyone. And while Chan made his appreciation known, Changbin… was the same as ever. Intimidating, and very hard to read. The sight of it almost made you want to take back his coffee.
He wasn’t wearing a hat today. Instead, he’d let his blonde hair (which looked darker since the last time you saw him, or maybe it was just his dyed-black undercut) fall messily over his forehead in a slight side part.
His black shirt did nothing to hide his physique, every movement of his coming across as a subtle flex, making you have to remind yourself time and time again that you weren’t exactly here to fawn over him.
He would lean back in his seat, scrolling through whatever he was looking at in his phone with one hand, his other hand draped over his stomach and propped underneath his elbow to support it. The way he would look made it seem as if he was almost oblivious to the world around him, only paying attention to what was on his phone until he would laugh at something Chan said, Chan being the only person you’ve seen that managed to elicit seemingly uncharacteristic giggles from him.
Though it wasn’t as if you were given much time to get used to it. The moment Chan had murmured something in his ear, his expression had switched back to ‘strictly business’.
Chan straightened up, looking around the room with his eyebrows slightly raised in question, one hand adjusting the braided leather bracelet around his wrist
“So, shall we get started then?” Chan asked, gesturing to Changbin before typing away at his laptop.
Changbin took his cue, getting up from his seat and making his way around the table to the front of the room, pulling the overhanging screen up to reveal the whiteboard.
“So, first of all, we’ve finalised the actors playing the characters,” he gestured towards you and Minho, “Minho as Soobin and Y/N as Penny. So, we can start shooting about next week. I would say we’re working with a pretty loose deadline because we don’t have to submit it until a few months from now.”
Changbin rolled his shoulders back, his body language seeming fairly relaxed although his expression remained serious nonetheless, “but that doesn’t mean we should slack, obviously.”
His statement elicited a small groan from Hyunjin, who muttered a ‘figures’ under his breath, making you stifle your giggles for Changbin’s sake.
“But we will start with maybe going over the script once through, go over the technical stuff after we get any issues with the flow out of the way.”
He looked as though he were going through a mental list of things to cover, his gaze flickering momentarily to Hyunjin, as if his face would give him answers to the invisible question in his head.
“The people in charge of the props, have you started preparing the letters?” Chan stepped in, earning a shake of the head from the two girls sitting next to Hyunjin, making Changbin wave a hand dismissively in their direction.
“They could start on that after we confirm the script,” Changbin leaned over the table to grab his cup of coffee, proceeding to take a long sip from it.
“Alright, let’s start then.”
Changbin took the empty seat he was standing next to, pulling his laptop closer to him to pull up the script.
Throughout the reading, you tried to keep your comments to yourself, you really did. It just fascinated you how fearful the team was of Changbin (well, aside from Chan), the way everyone seemed to bite their tongues or withhold their comments caused a permanent frown to be etched on your face.
It didn’t make it any better that Minho seemed to have no problems with the script, not even when you’d occasionally leant over to whisper to him and ask if he found that part a little weird or a little abrupt. But you held your tongue for now, (and also because of the side glance Hyunjin would cast your way whenever you would let out a small sigh), you wanted to give Changbin the benefit of the doubt, figuring maybe if he read through his script again he’d realise how one-sided it was.
But thankfully, when you were reading out the lines where the two main characters had ended their date, and on a particularly high note for that matter, it seemed the opportunity to voice your concerns about the script was presented to you when Changbin had spoken up.
“Okay, since the next scene onwards will be where their relationship breaks down, any questions so far?” He asked, though his tone didn’t sound like he was really asking for feedback. But, hey, an opportunity as an opportunity, wasn’t it?
You cleared your throat a little too harshly, raising up your hand as you leaned against the table to be seen better, “uh, actually, me? I mean, I have some feedback actually.”
Changbin looked at you curiously, his gaze landing on you with slight surprise, as if he hadn’t expected it to be you of all people. There was a slight hesitancy evident in the way he paused before giving you a short nod, prompting you to go ahead.
You smiled, ignoring the way Hyunjin had sighed deeply a few seats away from you, dreading the chaos that could have come with people like you and Changbin bumping heads.
“Well, it’s not really specific to this scene. It’s kind of about the whole flow of the plot in general…” you fiddled with the corner of the page you were on, “but I was thinking it would be better to show more of Penny’s point of view? You know, because when I was reading it it just felt a little… weird for them to suddenly break up if everything seemed to be going fine.”
Changbin narrowed his eyes at you, looking back down at his computer with a simple dismissive shake of the head, “That’s not necessary, they’re going to break up anyway.”
The room had fallen silent, everybody seeming to have taken that as a ‘end of the conversation’ kind of line, already beginning to bring their attention to the next scene.
You frowned, unable to control your expression as you made your dismay obvious, casting a desperate look to Hyunjin who honestly looked as though he would pay you not to pursue this.
“But that’s not the point,” you spoke, getting Chan’s attention as he looked at you, silently urging you to continue, “you wanted to show their relationship, right? So, shouldn’t you show… both their parts in the relationship? Since it’s not like this is told in Soobin’s point of view.”
Changbin pursed his lips, “the point is,” he brought his cup of coffee to his lips, taking a small sip before continuing, “their relationship was superficial so it doesn’t matter.”
You mirrored his expression. The way it sounded was that he was just trying to convince himself that it didn’t matter.
Your frown deepened, quick to respond to him.
“That’s the thing, if you’re so insistent on them breaking up, why don’t you just make their relationship lead up to that? The way they’re interacting up to this scene makes viewers think they’re just going to end up together,” you tried to reason, hoping Changbin would understand where you were coming from.
Minho took that opportunity to excuse himself to the bathroom, and as you gave the rest of the film club members a once-over, you hated the way they were all looking at you as if you were cussing Changbin out instead of just giving him constructive feedback, or just voicing your thoughts for that matter.
“Well, not everyone gets a happy ending, I guess.”
He was practically avoiding your message at this point, making you grow more frustrated.
“Okay, look, what’s your intention behind making this film?” you asked, watching carefully as Changbin huffed, looking fairly amused at your insistence, which only served to irk you more.
“Simple,” he shrugged, “to show people like you that not everything that seems so perfect ends up perfect in the end.”
Your lips parted, scoffing, resisting the urge to get up from your seat as you heard Minho re-enter the room.
“People like me?” you echoed spitefully, “okay, fine, whatever. But as you said, if that’s the point of your discourse, shouldn’t your message be to tell people that they can work through things like this instead of just giving up and leaving like Penny did?”
Changbin was annoyed now. To him, you seemed too idealistic to understand his reasoning behind the story. He wondered why it had to be you that was telling him this, you were the only one that was trying to find problems with his story, that he’d based on his own life for that matter.
“Well what if she did, huh? What if Penny did just up and leave with no warning?”
You rolled your eyes, hearing Chan struggle to stifle his laugh, your exchange with Changbin being just about the most excitement he had in the whole school year.
You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, “which is why I'm saying that your job as a storyteller is to shed some light on the reason behind that. Then your story wouldn’t be about showing how things don’t turn out the way they seem, it would just be telling you, but not showing you. You could just ask literally anybody to hurt Minho—”
“Soobin,” you heard Minho correct from beside you, making you huff, scrunching your eyes shut tightly before opening them harshly.
“—Yes, Soobin’s character, and it would be the same? The story wouldn’t show me anything other than the fact that it was Soobin’s fault he ended up that way. He didn’t question anything that happened, he just let it happen to him,” you sighed again, clenching your jaw, “Penny isn’t anything other than some 2-dimensional plot device designed as an excuse for Soobin to sulk about how cruel love is.”
Changbin scrunched his nose up, his brows knitting in annoyance as he stared at you, a silence falling again in the room. Changbin was about to interject when Chan had decided that would be a good time to step in.
“C’mon guys, let’s… calm down a little. We’re talking about penpals here, not the king’s lover betraying him.”
You cast Chan a questioning look at his example, making him shrug, continuing, “we’re running a little overtime anyway, we can just continue discussing this another time.”
Just like that, the rest of the film club members seemed eager to leave, either rushing for their next class or just not wanting to be in the same environment as an irritable Changbin.
Chan directed his gaze towards you as you were getting up from your seat, slinging your bag over your shoulder.
“I’m sure Changbin will keep your points in mind, don’t worry,” he reassured you just as Changbin chimed in with a ‘no, I won’t’ behind him, leaving the room promptly afterwards, leaving you free to let out the frustrated groan you had been withholding.
“Thanks, Chan. Sorry I kind of made you guys overrun your time,” you sighed, watching Hyunjin making his way to you with wide eyes.
Chan shook his head, holding his laptop securely in one arm as he let out a burst of giggles.
“No, don’t apologize! I should be thanking you, I didn’t think about your point until you mentioned it just now,” he murmured, “but again, sorry about Changbin. He’s just a little… protective of his work.”
Hyunjin let out a low whistle from next to you, “Extremely.”
You nodded, shrugging, “It’s alright, I get it.”
Chan flashed you a smile, his hand reaching out to give your shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “Thanks, again. See you around.”
Leaving the room with Hyunjin, you ignored the way he’d begun to chuckle to himself, “honestly, in this whole time i’ve been in the film club, i’ve never seen Changbin actually… argue with someone.”
You rolled your eyes, kicking at the stray pebble “well if he continues like this, you’re gonna be seeing a lot more of it.”
“You sure seemed like you were having fun, though, weren’t you?” Hyunjin was being sarcastic, knowing he was just doing this to dissuade you, his tone eliciting a scoff from you.
You shook your head.
“You know for a fact I wasn’t. But it wouldn’t sit right with me if I just kept my mouth shut like you and the rest of your film club goons,” you shot him a pointed glare.
Hyunjin pressed his lips into a firm line, holding his hands up beside his head in surrender, prompting you to continue.
“If I want something done, I’m gonna ask for it. It’s as simple as that.”
===
To: my penpal Y/N
How are you?
Was your audition good? Thank you for the money. But $50 is a lot of money so I don’t think I should spend everything, my mom says I need to save money. Thank you for telling me what I should do, but in the end I didn’t buy another scooter. I did this because we were learning about needs vs wants in school and I think the scooter is a want. My teacher says this means I don’t really need it. But needs are things like colour pencils and pens and paper so I can write letters to send you. Maybe your mom tells you you cannot buy so many stickers because the stickers are a want and not a need.
Anyway, I think I can just let my sister take my scooter. Maybe I will just get another scooter for myself when I am older and I have more money.
I hope I will be hearing from you soon,
Binnie.
As you said before, you weren’t perfect, but you surely did your best. But days like this you wondered if people like Changbin even tried.
After your interaction with said stubborn being during your meeting with the film club had put you in a bad mood, you were currently seated with Jisung in a booth at a popular burger outlet outside school, thankfully having managed to get a place in the midst of the anxious afternoon crowd. And even more thankful that you could eat your lunch in peace where you were very much away from Changbin.
“What did you say to him, again?” Jisung hadn’t bothered trying to hold in his laughter as he was almost shouting over the noise of the crowd, making you huff as you bit into your burger.
“I said it’s funny that he was talking so much shit about the main couple when he’s dedicating his entire movie to them,” you drawled, your annoyance returning as you recounted the spat you had with him during the small meeting you had with the film club just before lunch.
Jisung’s shoulders shook as he laughed, fumbling with his drink as his eyes shut tightly, giggles leaving him and seeming as though they would never end, “and that’s what you said word for word?”
You nodded, reaching over to press the lid of Jisung’s drink down firmer before he could spill it all over himself.
“I know you’re friends with him but I really don’t know how you work with this guy, he’s as stubborn as stubborn goes,” you huffed, taking another bite into your burger as Jisung’s laughter had died down, though his smile had only lingered.
“You’re worse,” he snickered, earning a glare from you.
Jisung remained unaffected, “Look, he’s honestly fine once you get to know him,” he tried to reason, sounding as though he were trying to convince a child to make friends, “I mean, we’re all still kind of wary around him when he’s in a mood but honestly, if not for the way you guys met, I’m pretty sure you two would get along well. He seems like he’s your type.”
Your eyes widened, scandalised at Jisung’s implication.
“The only thing he has in common with my exes is being annoying, okay?” you rushed to push away the curiosity of what Changbin would be like as a boyfriend. Curse Jisung and his stupid implication.
“And plus,” you continued, hearing the doorbell chime for what sounded like the thousandth time to signal yet another entry into the diner that was now overflowing with people asking for take-out, “it’s not like he’s been very nice to me since I got involved with his stupid short film.”
Jisung sighed, his gaze momentarily distracted by something behind you, making you wave your hand in front of his face to keep his attention. He’d glanced back at you, an almost dazed look in his eyes before he’d given you a small smile, taking a bite out of his burger and not waiting to finish chewing before he answered you.
“I honestly think that he just needs a little more persuasion. Like, take this for example, something similar happened with him and Chan when they were composing something in the past, and trust me, if you don’t give up now, i’m pretty sure he’d agree to come to a compromise or something,” he gave you a shrug, his gaze returning to whatever was behind you (probably someone cute, you figured). You couldn’t say you blamed him; almost all your conversations revolved around you and Changbin’s squabbles these days.
You pursed your lips, narrowing your eyes at him, “you really think he’d be willing to rewrite his script?”
Your tone was skeptical, already imagining how Changbin would simply tell you to keep dreaming if you’d brought up the proposal to him.
At Jisung’s lack of response, you’d frowned slightly, seeing him turn back to you calmly as his smile widened, giving you yet another shrug.
“Maybe you can ask him yourself.”
If there was any feeling one would get just before something bad was about to happen, that was definitely what you were feeling now.
You didn’t dare to tear your gaze away from Jisung as you watched him turn his body, his hand coming up in a wave that had only turned into a hi-five, his behaviour only adequately described as boisterous as he welcomed the people you were hoping you wouldn’t have to see for another week until the next film club meeting.
Well, Chan was fine, you were simply referring to Changbin.
“Oh, hey, Y/N! Didn’t know you and Jisung were friends,” Chan gave you a sweet smile, gesturing between you and Jisung as he spoke.
Jisung chimed in with a nonchalant “Best friends, actually,” which had only made you shoot him a glare.
“Might have to re-evaluate that,” you muttered, turning back to Chan and Changbin to give them as warm a smile as you could muster.
“Are you guys eating here too?” you asked.
You were oblivious to the way Changbin’s gaze flickered from your face to the food in your hand, and then back to Jisung, looking perfectly unaffected as he joked with Jisung about something you didn’t quite catch.
“Well, we wanted to, but, you know, with the crowd and all we probably won’t be able to get a seat,” Chan’s gaze was pitiful, to say the least, making Jisung raise his eyebrows, and that sinking feeling within you had only intensified as his next sentence left his lips.
Jisung had barely glanced at you as he held onto Changbin’s hand.
“Well, our booth’s actually meant to seat four people, so you guys could squeeze in if you want,” he offered.
Changbin quirked his eyebrow, skepticism written all over his features, though mostly directed towards you, “you guys really won’t mind?”
You glared at your burger, scrunching your nose up as you avoided Changbin’s pointed gaze.
Jisung scoffed, giving Changbin a loud smack on the arm, “of course we won’t, right Y/N?”
He turned to you, giving you a smile you could only describe to be devious (and fairly amused).
“Yeah,” your voice took a pitch higher unintentionally, “go ahead,” you murmured, scooting into the booth to make space for them.
You took another bite from your burger, watching out of the corner of your eye as Changbin took a seat next to Jisung, Chan excusing himself to retrieve both their orders.
“Funny that you showed up, actually. Y/N and I were just talking about your short film,” Jisung spoke, earning a pointed glare for you, as if daring him to continue (and you should’ve known that wasn’t going to faze him at all).
“Oh, were you?” Changbin drawled, his eyebrows raised and a slight smile playing at his lips, “I’m sure Y/N had a lot to say about that.”
As you were about to speak, Jisung had interjected with a little giggle, “she did.”
Changbin didn’t seem to take Jisung’s comment as an answer, simply keeping his gaze fixed on you, prompting you to produce an answer of your own. You ignored the knowing look Jisung gave you.
You sighed, “maybe I wouldn’t, if someone just took my suggestions.”
Changbin had let out a small huff at that, leaning back in his seat with his arms folded over his chest as Chan returned to the table with his and Changbin’s food, casting curious glances between the three of you seated at the table.
“Hope you guys didn’t fight while I was gone,” he joked, making you sigh, and you missed the pointed look he cast Changbin’s way when the boy had scoffed, “what were you guys talking about before I came?”
You shrugged.
“We were talking about the short film,” you told him, “kind of.”
Chan had perked up at that, turning to you as he handed Changbin his food, “oh yeah, I wanted to ask if you had more feedback about the scenes.”
You nodded, “I do, actually.”
Changbin’s gaze lifted from his burger to look at you as he sighed, “what is it now?”
You huffed, “It’s not that bad. I was just wondering if the content of the letters were gonna be read out during the scene? ‘Cause if it is, then maybe we could kind of make it a little more relevant to their personalities or something.”
“Will that be hard? What do kids even talk about in their letters?” Jisung laughed.
Changbin’s lips parted slightly before pressing them into a firm line.
“Well, they’ll be like 9 when they’re exchanging letters, I suppose, so I guess they’d at least know how to have a conversation… ” He sounded almost hesitant, making you wonder why he made talking about childhood penpals seem like such a complex thing.
You thought about your own penpal, Binnie. You were about that age when you were exchanging letters with him too, figuring you could give some insight on that until Jisung had intercepted.
“At that age all I did was talk about hot wheels, to be honest. Much less talk to girls,” he snorted, making you scoff, using your shoe to nudge his leg under the table.
Chan, who had been silently thinking, had straightened up abruptly.
“Wait,” Chan’s eyebrows lowered, frowning slightly as his lower lip jut out in a slight pout. He directed his attention to Changbin, pointing his index finger towards him, “didn’t you used to have a penpal?”
You had to stop yourself from making your shock too obvious, your eyes widening as your gaze became nothing but accusatory. How badly did his penpal experience go for him to be so cynical about it now?
Whatever it was, the newfound information made you curious as to exactly how much of the story he’d changed, more importantly, how much he’d retained.
“You?” you couldn’t help yourself from blurting, though Changbin remained unamused.
“Yeah, I did,” he bypassed your incredulous stare, answering Chan simply.
Jisung hummed, bringing one hand up to fiddle with his ear piercing, not having expected Changbin’s response.
“Oh, well, what was it like, then?”
Changbin shrugged, resting one of his forearms on the table to support himself, his other hand reaching down to pick up a fry, “was nice. We would exchange letters every week. Talked about a lot of things, sent each other pictures, you know, all that stuff.”
“Do you still keep in contact with them?” Chan asked, genuine curiosity in his voice, not having heard much from Changbin about this penpal in the entire duration of their friendship.
Changbin shook his head, “nope,” he popped the p, picking up his cup to swirl it around noisily, the ice rumbling as it got tossed around in the paper cup, proceeding to take a sip from it as the rest of you looked on curiously at him.
“Well, why not?” you dared to ask, a million different possible reasons running through your mind.
Maybe they did something to piss Changbin off, or maybe they got into a big fight (which also made you wonder how heated fights could get over snail mail), or maybe one of their parents disapproved of the other. The possibilities were endless as you anticipated just why 8 year old Changbin would’ve cut ties with his penpal. And maybe, you were enjoying the dramatic aspect of it a little more than you should’ve been.
But something about the way he replied felt restrained. Maybe you were reading into it too much, but he almost sounded evasive. But, of course, you chose to ignore (suppress) it for now, watching intently as Changbin had once again shrugged, an air of nonchalance to his gestures as he met your gaze.
“Just… grew out of it, I guess.”
You huffed, memories of your own penpal making his response sting.
You don’t think you ever ‘grew out’ of talking to binnie. You remembered how frustrated you were when you’d stopped hearing from him after he moved, and every letter you’d sent to his new address had only been returned back to you. Maybe he grew out of it, but you wouldn’t have left it like that if you had a choice.
You rolled your eyes at his response, something in your response seeming to have irked Changbin.
“What?” he snapped, making you hesitate just the slightest bit, deciding to bite your tongue and shake your head.
“Nothing.”
Chan let out a huff of laughter through his nose next to you, shaking his head at you goodnaturedly.
“Forgive us, you always seem like you have something more to say,” Chan spoke, apparent ‘damage control’ for Changbin’s abrasiveness.
“Wait, so, you’re really not gonna have a happy ending?” Jisung frowned.
“Well, Changbin and I were talking about it after the meeting that day, we figured since we have time we could afford to change the script a little,” he hummed, turning to you, “you know, since it could be a chance to kind of send a more hopeful message like you were talking about.”
Your eyes widened, your hand almost reaching out to touch Chan’s arm but realising you were still holding your burger, “really? You’re open to changing it?”
Changbin’s gaze flickered momentarily to you, observing your posture, noticing how open and comfortable you seemed with Chan, the sight alone enough to make him scoff. Call him a cynic, but he couldn’t tell if this was you acting or not just to get your way.
“There could be another meeting for you to discuss and work on the script together, but yeah, we’re alright with changing it.”
You turned to Changbin, a hint of distrust in your stare, making him huff again, putting down his drink on the table with a little too much force.
“He said it, not me,” he told you, pressing his lips firmly into a tight line, “you wanna change my script so badly? Fine. But your ideas better be worth changing it for.”
Jisung scrunched up his nose as you turned back to Chan, not wishing to look at Changbin’s face any longer, leaning over to whisper to Changbin, “you two don’t like each other very much, do you?”
If he was caught off guard by Jisung’s statement, he didn’t show it.
Changbin shrugged, picking his drink back up, “they started it.”
At the sound of his accusation, your eyes narrowed, turning to glare at Changbin, thankful for Jisung nudging you under the table before you could retaliate with a comment of your own. Chan simply casting you an amused look, his eyebrows raised in a silent question of what you were about to do.
You shook your head.
Whatever, you pushed your annoyance away in your head, as long as Chan was there during the rewrite meeting, you’d hopefully still be able to maintain your sanity.
Or at least, that was the hope that you were holding on to until that night when you’d gotten a text from Chan.
Chan
11:17pm - hey, i gave changbin your number if you don't mind... you know, since you guys have to discuss to rewrite the script and all -
You’d almost sat up from your bed in shock, frowning against the harsh light coming from your phone and the contents of the text, the latter obviously making you more disgruntled.
11:17pm - won’t you be discussing with us?? Why not just make a group chat??? -
Your heart was pumping with anxiousness as you awaited his reply, something about the sound of the clock ticking putting you in an even more anxious state, your heart almost sinking as texts from him and Changbin had come in at the same time.
You looked at Chan’s first.
Chan
11:18pm - oh i didn’t tell you? All script writing is done by Changbin. I’m just in charge of the other elements like props and directing and whatnot -
You shut your eyes, suddenly wishing you could travel back a few seconds back in time and not have checked your phone when Chan had texted you. Bringing your fingers across your screen reluctantly as you typed a reply to him.
11:18pm - ohhh hahaha right i forgot, thanks chan -
Now for the bigger menace at hand. You swiped over to Changbin’s message, your finger lingering on his chat as you decided to stop being petty and just open it.
seo changbin
11:18pm - just so you know, i’m doing this only because Chan asked me to. we can go over the changes at my house. is saturday okay with you? -
You pulled your notifications bar down. Tomorrow was Friday, and from what you knew you were pretty much free on Saturday. Fortunately or unfortunately for you.
You took another deep breath as you typed out your reply to him. For your own sanity, you tried to ignore the way he felt the need to clarify that he wasn’t doing it for your sake.
11:18pm - saturday’s fine. What time?-
Resisting the urge to go offline when you saw him come online, you felt as though you were in some sort of staring contest through your phone as you watched him type, his message coming in quickly.
seo changbin
11:18pm -1? We could order in and discuss -
You sighed, it wasn’t enough that he had to take away one peaceful lunch from you today, but yet another one on Saturday.
11:19pm -okay text me your address-
Another sigh left you when you read that the address he’d sent you was just a few blocks away from your apartment. Maybe he lived alone too; most of the apartments here were occupied by college students looking for affordable rent and shorter travel time.
seo changbin
11:19pm - don't be late -
You scoffed, shoving your phone back onto your bedside table as you slumped back against your pillow, burying your head into your pillow and kicking at your blanket that covered your feet uncomfortably.
Fine, if he wanted to be that way, that was fine by you. You would just do this for the sake of the short film. Yeah. That’s all it would be.
===
“Let’s make this quick and painless for the both of us,” you blurted the moment Changbin had opened his door to let you in, glad to see he was donning an outfit similar to yours (sweatpants and a t-shirt), your previous worries of being underdressed dissipating instantly.
He let out a sigh, his hand coming up to run it through his hair, his hair messy and sticking up at one place awkwardly, looking as though he’d slept on that side for too long.
“Hello to you too,” he grumbled, shutting the door behind you as he gestured to the living room.
You glanced around his rather plain apartment as he led you to the living room, his laptop resting on one of the cushions of the sofa, soft music verberating from the device.
“What food do you want?” he asked, earning a thoughtful frown from you as you set your things down on the floor next to the sofa, taking a seat on the other side of it.
“Fastest delivery would be if we order from that Chinese food place nearby, right?”
Changbin’s eyebrows quirked up in intrigue, “I was thinking of that place too,” he handed you his phone, letting you order what you wanted before handing it back to him.
It was otherwise silent between the both of you as you waited for the food to arrive, neither of you quite knowing how to break the silence. The tension slowly made you grow increasingly fidgety as time passed.
Changbin had sat down on the floor next to the coffee table, resting one hand on his soft rug as he pushed a stack of papers towards you, drawing your attention away from your soft copy of the script on your phone as you realised it was a hard copy of the script.
“Just use this, i’ve got a copy on my laptop,” he mumbled, making you nod, accepting it from him as you flipped to where you left off.
Changbin glanced at the clock, in disbelief that only 10 minutes had passed and yet he found himself feeling jittery at your silence. Turning his gaze towards you, he let out a small sigh.
He had expected you to say something by now, or let out some snarky comment about something he wrote. Your silence was unnerving him, it was almost as if he wanted you to say something, especially with the way you were scribbling notes beside the pages with a mechanical pencil he didn’t even recall seeing you take out.
“Which scene are you at?” he blurted, his anxiousness getting the better of him, making your head shoot up abruptly, surprised at his sudden outburst.
“Uh,” you glanced back down at the page, “I’m at the part where they find out they used to be penpals,” you told him.
“Okay,” Changbin murmured, thinking about where to go from there, momentarily distracted when he’d heard the doorbell ring. Pausing, he’d stepped out momentarily to retrieve your food, the rustling of bags getting louder as he neared the table.
Setting the food down on the table, surprising you when he’d pushed the food towards you, your surprise hadn’t gone unnoticed by Changbin.
“What?” he scoffed.
You shrugged, “nothing, just didn’t know you were capable of doing nice things,” you told him, a sarcastic lilt to your tone.
Changbin inhaled deeply, shooting you a patronizing smile as he broke his chopsticks, “anyway, I think we could start from there, since that’s kind of the turning point of their relationship.”
You nodded, pulling your food towards you as you began to eat.
“I was thinking,” you spoke, pausing to chew on your food, “this part has a lot of unanswered questions, like… I wouldn’t just let it go so easily if I found out someone was my penpal that I grew apart from. I felt like they should’ve had a bit more of a confrontation there.”
Changbin hummed, shocking you when he’d leant closer to you to look at the script, making you push it towards him, a small huff leaving him at your action.
“What questions do you think Penny would ask, then?” he asked you.
“I don’t know, maybe why they stopped talking in the first place?” there was a hint of sarcasm in your tone, making Changbin look at you over his mouthful of noodles.
“I told you already, Soobin grew out of it—”
You grimaced at his answer, your chopsticks halting before your mouth momentarily before you shovelled your noodles in with annoyance, “I don’t believe that.”
“I used to have a penpal, and I can guarantee you, the reason why we stopped talking wasn’t because we ‘grew out of it’,” you told him pointedly, having to stop yourself from growing too riled up about it, Changbin tensing up at your revelation.
Bringing his glass of water to his lips, he let his gaze wander around everything but you as he thought, curious as to what your penpal experience was like. Finally meeting your gaze, he almost sputtered over his water with how much he wasn’t paying attention to his actions, the only thing on his mind being to get his words out.
“You did?” It was pathetic, really, that that was all he’d come up with after such a long pause.
You nodded.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter, the story isn’t based on my penpal, it’s based on yours,” you attempted to draw the attention away from you, unsettling feelings of sourness building within you at the thought of how you left things.
“So, think. What would you be curious about?” you prompted him, seeing him purse his lips, a certain dazed look tinting his gaze.
Swallowing his mouthful of food, he looked at you as he thought. He would want to know if they were still passionate about acting, he would want to know how their family was doing, he would want to know if their personality had changed, if they were still the assertive ‘go after what you want’ character that had encouraged him so much. Or maybe, just how they are.
Changbin’s lips parted, shaking his head slowly, “... so many things,” he murmured.
An unexpected tension fell between the both of you, Changbin’s eyes meeting yours with a sort of unspeakable thoughtfulness, as if he was still thinking about your question.
You broke eye contact first, “write that, then. Who knows? Maybe they’re both as curious as the other.”
“You’re one of those glass half full people, aren’t you?” he huffed, making you click your tongue in annoyance.
“And what? You have no glass at all?” you retorted.
“Would you still be… curious too? Even If it didn’t end well?” he asked suddenly, a stupid question, Changbin thought, but still something he felt compelled to ask in the moment, as if he wanted the confirmation that you, someone with a penpal experience as well had shared the same sentiments as him.
You nodded, “of course I’d be. I could hate you and still be curious about you,” you shrugged.
“Me?” Changbin asked, making your eyes widen, the tension dissipating slightly as you shook your head vigorously, your hands coming up to wave at him dismissively.
“No no, not you. I meant-” you stopped yourself, glaring at him, “I just meant it as an example.”
And for what you were sure was the first time, Changbin had laughed, beginning to feel a bit more comfortable around you, his eyes forming narrow slits and the apples of his cheeks rounding slightly as he grinned, soft breathy giggles leaving him.
“Alright, I get it. It’s not a secret that you don’t like me.”
You huffed, not being able to help but feel the need to reassure him, “you’re not… that bad I guess. Jisung talks you up all the time.” you said, unsure why you felt the need to reassure him that you didn’t have a burning hatred for him, “you’re just stubborn as hell.”
He scoffed, “I could say the same about you.”
You quirked an eyebrow at him, reaching over to flip the page, “glad to know we’re on the same page, then.”
“Now that you said it,” Changbin began, moving on quickly from your bickering as he shoved his empty food packaging aside, “I do think Soobin would be curious about the things they talked about in their letters.”
You perked up at that, eyebrows raising, “That reminded me, I actually still have some of the letters from my penpal when we were younger, if you want I can loan them to you for some inspiration or something.”
Changbin nodded, flipping over to another page before pausing to type something on his computer, “yeah, actually that would be useful.”
You continued to look at the script for what had become hours, the both of you deciding it would be easier if you each assumed one of the character’s voices, speaking on behalf of the characters as you discussed. Coming up with a ‘what would soobin/penny do?’ process.
All the while during this discussion, Changbin had been scribbling down in his beaten up journal, the sides of the spine of the book peeling off when he’d set it down on the table, making you grimace.
“Do you think Pe—”
“Why don’t you just get a new journal? This one’s making such a mess,” you blurted out, frowning at the way the little brittle pieces of God knows what material covered his notebook had fallen onto the coffee table, making him tear his gaze away from what he was writing, looking at the mess on the coffee table you were gesturing at and letting out an amused huff.
“Oh, didn’t notice,” he smiled, “but that won’t be necessary, this journal’s been serving me fine.”
“It’s literally falling apart,” you pointed out.
“And you’re literally exaggerating.”
You scoffed.
“I mean, look at it, it’s such a hassle to use, since you have to keep cleaning up whenever you do so much as touch it,” you reasoned, seeing him shake his head.
“I don’t need a new journal, I’m perfectly fine using this one,” he told you, making you scrunch your nose up in distaste, Changbin looking at you with amusement heavily laden in his smile.
It seemed that there was something about the hours of bouncing off ideas and bickering that warmed the both of you up more, not feeling as wound up or hostile towards each other as you did a few hours ago, bonding over a shared want for the short film to be good.
“What?” he asked, leaning back against the sofa and resting his arm on one of the cushions, his other hand grasping his fingers as he awaited your response.
“You sound exactly like my mom,” you had a sour look on your face, continuing, “I bet you’re one of those needs versus wants people.” You huffed in amusement, shifting in your seat as you flipped through the scene you were about to discuss.
Changbin’s lips parted in shock, a breathy huff leaving him, “and what’s that supposed to mean?”
You shrugged, “You know, those people that decide on buying things through the concept of needing it or not.”
Changbin rolled his eyes, “yeah, like any other normal person.”
“It’s so boring! Ever heard of the concept of treating yourself?” you huffed, gesturing wildly. You were clearly very passionate about this.
Changbin shook his head, the smile lingering on his face, “I’m starting to understand why you’re Jisung’s friend. Sure, a treat once in a while is understandable, but i’d rather not waste my money on things I could do without.”
You huffed, a deep sigh leaving you, recalling a conversation you had with Binnie about his scooter.
“What’s up with boys and this need versus want thing? My penpal said the same thing even though he was only eight,” you mumbled, a small breath of laughter leaving your lips, leaving Changbin frowning at your statement.
Maybe other kids just talked about the same things he did with Y/N? He brushed the thought aside.
“He did?”
Changbin’s voice came out more hoarse than he’d intended, the intent in his stare making you falter momentarily, forgetting what you were doing just for a second.
Thankfully, you’d snapped out of whatever trance you were in, shaking your head dismissively, “nothing, it doesn’t matter.”
Changbin tilted his head at you, narrowing his eyes as he contemplated whether to pursue it or not, watching closely as you busied yourself with flipping pages just to look busy, even though the inside of your mind was spinning with an indescribable feeling that came with convincing yourself that the drift between you and your penpal was merely circumstantial.
You chewed on your lip, hating the way it felt as though your stomach was churning as you remembered the disappointment you felt when your letters had stopped getting sent through.
You were young, surely you shouldn’t blame yourself, you believed that. Your finger fiddled with the corner of the page, staring at Soobin’s dialogue.
‘Did our conversations even mean anything to you?’ the dialogue read, and you inhaled deeply as your head lifted to look at Changbin, your abrupt movement almost making him flinch in surprise.
“Why did you really stop talking to your penpal?” you sighed, curiosity getting the better of you. Though at this point you weren’t sure if it was curiosity or simply reassurance. Maybe even closure. All of which you needed to satisfy.
Changbin knew you weren’t going to accept his ‘grew out of it’ statement for an answer, deciding to be honest with you, you know, for the sake of the short film.
“I just… stopped hearing from them,” he began, heaving a sigh of his own as he shifted in his seat, picking at the imaginary dust on his sweatpants, “guess they had nothing to say.”
You couldn’t lie about it, you felt relieved. A part of you began to understand why he’d painted Penny’s character out to be like that, or furthermore why Soobin had seemed so affected by the revelation.
“Nothing to say…” you echoed, as if trying to wrap your head around his reasoning as well.
A small huff of amusement left him, though there was a hint of bitterness in his smile.
“I wouldn’t have minded, you know.”
He took his lower lip between his teeth, letting it go and you watched as the blood rushed back into his lips, looking redder than before.
Your eyebrows knit into a frown, “Wouldn’t have minded what?”
Changbin met your gaze, giving you a resigned shrug, “hearing it,” he continued, “nothing, everything.”
You could almost feel your heartbeat slowing down, the tense silence returning in the room and making you feel like you couldn’t breathe. Now that was some dialogue.
“Oh,” you broke the silence, your blank expression reading pure shock, your reaction catching Changbin off guard, “write that down, that’s such a Soobin thing to say.”
Changbin couldn’t do anything but laugh, shaking his head at you, “how opportunistic of you,” he teased, though he wrote it down nonetheless.
Maybe you being here was good, Changbin thought, it reminded him not to take himself too seriously sometimes.
===
To: Binnie
How are you?
I hope you are not still sad about your friends. I would tell you not to listen to them but i know that’s difficult sometimes because you can hear everything they say. But they were being very mean so they are not nice people. I don’t agree with what they said, because i think you are very nice and you have a nice smile. I don’t think you are scary. Sometimes my mom tells me i should smile more so people think i’m happy but I think you should just smile if you are happy. If you are sad then you can be sad. It is not a bad thing. I’m your friend because you’re nice to me and I like talking to you. If they’re going to be mean to you then they’re not your friends. If they do that to you again you can tell me their address and I will go and tell them myself!
Till next time,
Your penpal Y/N
You’d shown up on the filming set on the first day absolutely buzzing from head to toe and ready to go (though, when you told Jisung about how you felt he’d insisted it was because of the lack of substantial sleep and the cans of energy drink you’d both drank the night before while he was helping you prepare your lines), but it seemed that everyone on the set was more tense than ever.
You found Hyunjin huddled with a few of them next to the sound cart, deciding to approach them to ask where Changbin was, having bought a coffee for him along the way.
“Hey,” you called, Hyunjin jumping in shock as he turned, his hand over his heart as he winced at you.
“Why do you move so quietly!” he groaned, making you dismiss him with a wave.
“Did something happen? You guys look stressed,” you took a step towards them, possible reasons fluttering around in your mind but none seeming quite appropriate for the context you were in. Maybe the semester’s GPA results were out?
“Whatever, do you guys know where I can find Changbin?” The boy next to Hyunjin, a freshman by the name of Jeongin had sucked in a sharp breath at your question, making you grow even more confused.
“He’s… a little tense these days, so I’d suggest being a more careful around him,” Chan explained, earning nods of agreement from the film club members.
Your eyebrows raised, confusion showing in a slight pout on your lips. You didn’t remember him behaving out of the ordinary when you’d seen him the day before.
“Where’d he go?”
“He’s over there,” Chan pointed towards where the camera was set up and true enough, you saw Changbin seated at a bench there busying himself with his phone.
Nodding, you’d made your way over to Changbin, discomfort growing within you at the stares you were getting from the club members (some of which you didn’t even know the names of) as you made your way towards the blonde haired boy. It was a wonder why they all avoided him like the plague.
Changbin seemed to have sensed your presence, looking up from his phone and giving you a small wave as you reached the bench, sitting down next to him and holding out his cup of coffee.
Accepting it gratefully, he’d given you a nod.
“Thanks,” he glanced at your hands, “you didn’t get one for yourself?”
You let out a small burst of chuckles, “nope, figured it wasn’t the most logical thing to do since i’m already pretty alert from last night’s energy drinks.”
Changbin sucked in a sharp breath, clicking his tongue in teasing disapproval, “I figured as much, Jisung was way too hyper when I met him at the studio.”
Your expression was sheepish, “I’d say I was sorry but it was... important.”
Changbin huffed, “It’s alright, as long as you’re taking care of yourself.”
Before you could react to his statement, Changbin had acted as though he hadn’t said anything, an amused smile playing at his lips as he tore his gaze away from you, looking forward as he took a sip from his cup, “ready to film today?”
You nodded, regaining your bearings, trying not to think too much of his words.
“Pretty much, you?”
Changbin nodded, “yeah, even though we still have a little bit of the script left, I would say i’m pretty confident.”
You glanced behind Changbin, spotting Hyunjin looking at the both of you with sheer disbelief, making you roll your eyes, turning back to Changbin, angling your body on the bench so you could hug your knees to your chest, looking at him curiously.
“Are you feeling okay?”
He nodded, looking at you with confusion written in his features, clasping his hands around his coffee cup as he rested his hands on his lap, “yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Maybe it was just his resting bitch face.
“Smile,” you commanded, nodding your head when he’d looked even more confused.
You watched in amusement as Changbin had laughed, shaking his head before looking at you with an all too sarcastic smile, his hand coming up in a peace sign next to his cheek, a smile unknowingly making its way onto your face at the sight.
“Okay now, don’t smile,” you continued.
Changbin had let his smile fall, looking just the same as he did when you’d shown up, making you press your lips into a firm line, a slight knit in your brows as your eyes narrowed.
Turning his head, he straightened up.
“Cool, Minho’s here,” he said, getting up and holding a hand out to help you up.
“Thanks,” you muttered, not expecting him to turn around and give you a smile.
“Let’s go, Penny.”
It was strange to you that there was something that felt so familiar about his smile, it reminded you of something that made you feel nostalgic. You liked seeing him smile. Changbin had a nice smile.
You brushed the thought away, nodding as you took his hand, letting him help you out.
“What, so you guys don’t hate each other anymore?” Jisung groaned later on that same week when you’d told him about the exchange you had.
He lifted his head from where he lay on your bed, “God, with you guys it’s like everyday’s something different.”
You quirked an eyebrow at him in amusement, “well… that’s because it is, isn’t it?”
You spotted the box of letters from your childhood penpal hidden beneath a stack of novels you had yet to unpack, your eyes glistening with triumph as you reached into your storage closet, fishing it out with a grunt.
“Come to think of it, Changbin hasn’t said anything about you since that day you met him to rewrite the script,” he murmured thoughtfully.
Heaving a sigh as you got up from your squat, you closed your closet, “which day? We met up a few times for the script.”
Jisung perked up at that, sitting up slightly and supporting his weight with his elbows.
“You did? Why am I only finding out about this now?” he scoffed.
You rolled your eyes, walking over to your desk to set the box onto it, “I told you about it, you just forgot.”
Making your way over to the bed, you flopped down onto your belly next to Jisung, looking at him curiously as he frowned at you. His mention of Changbin had made you curious.
“He… really hasn’t said anything about me?” you dared to ask, regretting it almost immediately when Jisung had taken the opportunity to twist your words.
Jisung’s expression had changed to one that you were all too used to, how his eyes would give away that he was thinking of saying something to tease you, his lips curving into a slight smirk.
“Why? Do you want him to be talking about you?”
You wrinkled your nose, a small panicked scoff leaving you, “yeah, right. Don’t get too carried away there.”
Jisung prodded further, leaning closer to you as he drawled, “well, why not? I mean, you said it yourself, you guys are on pretty good terms now, aren’t you?”
You purse your lips. The film club had been nice enough to give you a month longer to work on the script, you and Changbin ending up getting carried away and doing the whole thing over. And of course, within that month, you interacted with Changbin in some way or another almost everyday.
It could be meetings at his or your apartment, or spontaneous phone calls when one of you thought of an idea and you’d felt inspired to discuss it (even if you were on your bed tucked into your sheets when it happened most of the time), sometimes it was even just simple texts checking up on each other and asking what the other thought about the updates.
Nonetheless, you’d grown used to Changbin’s presence, finding that after that meeting at his house, it was like it had softened the both of you up to each other, especially when you realised your perception of Changbin was all wrong and that really, he was as soft as softies go.
You gave Jisung a shrug, tugging the neckline of your shirt down, feeling as though the room had gotten hotter, “I mean, yeah, I guess. He doesn’t annoy me as much as he used to.”
Jisung let out a chuckle, the laugh bubbling out louder as he continued.
“You know if you tell me you like him now, I won’t make fun of you.”
“You’re lying.”
“So, you do like him?” His grin widened, making you sputter for a better response, figuring you’d dug your own grave with that one.
“Don’t stir shit,” you narrowed your eyes at him.
Your reaction had only tickled him even more, clutching his belly as he sighed, “I knew it. Remember? I told you he was your type!” his tone was triumphant, making you regret fuelling his suspicions.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re very happy about that,” you huffed, turning away from him and burying your face in your soft sheets, your hand coming up next to your head to smooth over the fabric.
You felt Jisung’s hand on your arm, his expression grim.
“Wait, so am I really right? You like him?”
You shrugged his hand away, though he hadn’t budged, giving up soon after.
“I mean,” you enjoyed your last moment of peace before you decided to reply to him, “he’s cute, I won’t deny that. And he’s become a lot nicer to me… he’s fun to talk to? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little attracted to him.”
Jisung snickered, “that’s cute, but gross. I can’t believe you like Changbin.”
Trust him to only get that out of whatever you’d just told him.
You turned to give him a wide-eyed look of disbelief, “oh, please, you were the one that kept fluffing him up to me!”
Jisung had simply shrugged, unfazed by your outburst, a small sound of hesitation leaving him.
“I would say I did a minimal amount of fluffing. I just called it before the both of you realised.”
You grit your teeth, “fine, enjoy your moment. But one word about it to Changbin and you’re dead. Got it?”
Jisung’s eyes widened, his hand coming up to mimic zipping up his lips.
“Got it.”
===
“Cut!”
You turned to cast a desperate look to Chan, the said boy looking apologetic as he called for a stop again. You watched as he leant down for Changbin to murmur something in his ear, Chan nodding before making his way over to you and Minho.
“We’re thinking maybe you could try that scene again but maybe with just a little more… in the moment? Maybe try not to rush through it,” Chan suggested to Minho, making the said boy groan.
“Sorry, it’s my fault. It’s just- we’ve been filming for hours, if I wasn’t so scared of Changbin I would’ve—”
“I know,” Chan reassured Minho, giving the both of you a small smile, “hopefully we can get this scene done quickly and then we’ll all be free to go, hmm?”
You nodded, letting Chan make his way back to where the monitor was as you got back into position with Minho.
Changbin watched intently as you and Minho acted out the scene again, something about the way Minho was delivering his lines seeming so unaligned with the picture Changbin had in his head. Was it the lines that weren't doing it for him? Was it because Changbin couldn’t quite tap into the emotions of the character in this scene?
He wasn’t sure what exactly it would look or sound like to be in love, but whatever ‘Soobin’ was showing, sure wasn’t what Changbin wanted it to be.
After you’d finished the scene, the film club members had waited anxiously for Changbin’s greenlight on whether they were free to go, all of them anxiously looking on as Chan went to talk to a few of them at props.
You taken the liberty of making your way over to where Changbin was, seeing him intently monitoring the scene that you’d just shot, the reason behind why he’d made you and Minho run through the same scene 15 times starting to become clear to you.
“That’s not gonna help you make it better, you know?” you spoke, shoving your hands into your pocket and scrunching your eyes shut as you braced against the cool wind that was blowing your way, the trees rustling loudly as Changbin’s head shot up, the frown remaining on his face.
“What?” Changbin figured he came off as a little too annoyed, but he stayed unwavering nonetheless, wanting to know just what you thought you knew about him.
“You know, I watched an interview once, and this actor said something that was so true,” you began, taking a seat next to him, feeling his gaze on you before you continued, your gaze falling on the image of you and Minho on the monitor, “he said that playback makes scenes seem a lot more dissatisfactory.”
Changbin’s frown deepened, “I don’t get it, just spit it out.”
You rolled your eyes, though you couldn’t help but smile, “I’m trying to give you advice here, okay? As I was saying, be in the moment. Not everything’s gonna turn out like how it is in your head.”
You inhaled deeply, a slight shiver running down your spine at how cold you felt, taking a hand out of your pocket to tap him on the arm.
“Now can you wrap it up and call it a day? The rest of them have been dying to go home but they’re too scared to tell you.”
Changbin hummed, “They are? Why?”
You nodded, seeing Changbin already making to stand up and call for the rest’s attention, with you taking the opportunity to lean over to him and mutter, “Dunno, maybe they just haven’t figured out what a softie you are yet.”
Changbin attempted to press his lips together firmly to contain his smile, though eventually giving up and letting the soft smile be shown on his face as he dismissed the club members, the rest of them already having started shifting their equipment back.
You’d decided to help them shift the equipment while Changbin talked to Chan about something, trying your best to ignore the way the weather seemed to be getting chillier as all the equipment had started feeling cold to the touch. Mental note to start wearing warmer clothes out after today.
“Thanks for convincing Changbin to free us,” Hyunjin sighed when you were coming down the stairs after locking the club room, making you huff.
“He’s not some dictator, you know. You guys could just ask him next time,” you reasoned.
Hyunjin scoffed, “I’d much rather keep my life, thank you very much.”
Rolling your eyes, you pulled out your phone as you thought whether to text Jisung if he’d wanted to meet for dinner.
“You’re so dramatic,” you told Hyunjin, “I told him and I got to keep my life.”
Hyunjin scoffed, “that’s cause he—”
He stopped himself abruptly, eyes widening for a split second before he shrugged, “that’s cause you fight with him all the time, it’s different.”
You saw a text come in.
Changbin
8:14pm - do u wanna go get dinner? I’m done talking to Chan -
“Speak of the devil,” you murmured, erasing your drafted text to Jisung and replying to Changbin to say that you would wait at the quad.
Changbin
8:14pm - i was thinking of eating some cold noodles -
You grimaced at the thought, Hyunjin pulling you out of your thoughts, “are you waiting for Changbin?”
You nodded, sensing his hesitancy to let you wait there alone, “you go ahead, I’ll be fine, he’s already on his way.”
Hyunjin frowned, turning to see Changbin from afar already making his way over, Changbin having spotted the both of you and given Hyunjin a wave.
Waving back, Hyunjin nodded, “alright, I’ll see you.”
Tugging your jacket tighter around yourself, you folded your arms, hoping Changbin would hurry up so you could finally go somewhere with heating.
Though once he’d met up with you, you were a little confused when he’d gone a completely different direction than you’d expected, leading you to a traditional restaurant that served mainly soups and broths instead.
Don’t get me wrong, you were thankful for the warmth of the restaurant, of course, but just a little confused about why he changed his mind.
You let him order for the both of you, looking curiously from where you were seated facing him, leaning back in the wooden chairs as Changbin ordered from the older lady running the shop.
“I thought you wanted to eat cold noodles?” you scanned the menu in search of the item, confusion increasing when you found nothing of the sort.
Changbin shook his head, “figured you might wanna eat something warmer,” he admitted, making your lips part in surprise.
“How’d you know?”
Changbin didn’t know how to explain that it was because he’d kept looking at you during shooting and he didn’t miss the way your hands would clench and unclench the fabric of your clothes, or how you’d fold your arms more and shake them out in between takes when you thought no one was looking.
“… just a wild guess.”
You brushed his comment aside, the both of you talking about your upcoming classes or complaining about readings that had yet to be read, the sheer boiling temperature of the stone pot making heat rush to your cheeks and spread through your body, thankful for Changbin’s wild guess.
Leaning back in your seat with your hands over your stomach, you sighed at how full you were feeling, already anticipating your food coma as you let yourself zone out staring at the label of Changbin’s bottle of soju.
“Are they really scared of me?”
You’d dragged yourself out of your daze (reluctantly), your lips pursing, “sorry, what did you say?”
Changbin averted his gaze, fiddling with his fingers under the table. Smoothing his thumb over the soft skin at his palm, his tongue poking at his canines before he looked back at you, meeting your gaze with a certain determination.
“The film club people,” he repeated, “are they really scared of me?”
You shrugged, “yeah, I guess. Like, they talked about it before… I guess it’s because you have that serious expression on a lot so they might take it the wrong way.”
Observing his expression, his lips had parted, a blank expression on his face, “I have a serious expression?”
You couldn’t help but laugh, tilting your head at him, “I think It’s just your resting face. They’re kind of wary of how they act around you during meetings, you know, which is why they had that kind of reaction when I first spoke up about the script.”
Changbin let his grip around his spoon relax, whatever rice he’d scooped into it dispersing into the soup.
“Then why aren’t you scared?”
You almost snorted with how immediate your laughter had bubbled out of you, a bout of chuckles leaving you as your shoulders shook lightly.
“Because,” you waved your spoon slightly, “there’s nothing to be scared of.”
Changbin’s blank expression had prompted you to continue.
“I have no problem with you being assertive about what you want,” you explained, “I mean, if it were my script, i’d probably be equally, if not more, assertive about how I want it. But that’s a good thing about you. You don’t just… shut up if something doesn’t sit right with you. That’s something I’ve always thought was really important.”
Call him crazy, but Changbin couldn’t adequately describe how your words had done more in spreading a giddy warmth in his chest than the food ever could.
He wasn’t always like this. If anything, he’d wanted to say that he’d pushed himself to be more assertive after countless conversations with his penpal about not being afraid to speak up for what you want.
Though he’d always been scared of whether he’d be doing a disservice to the people he worked with if he chose not to speak up, he was glad that you reminded him just why he started doing it in the first place.
Penny’s character in his head had started to look more and more like you. And he was glad.
“You wanna hear something crazy?” You blurted.
You didn’t know where you were going with this. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, really. You just knew that saying what you said to him had triggered a sense of what you could only describe as love within you. If you knew anything about it.
“What?” he asked, the smile on his face making you stop in your tracks. How could he remind you so much of someone, yet seem so much like a mature, upgraded version of them at the same time?
You couldn’t possibly tell him that you were starting to be kind of glad that you didn’t meet Binnie, because you felt like you were looking at him right now. And childhood penpal or not, you were so much more smitten with the one sitting before you.
“Nothing,” you breathed, “nothing, sorry, forget I said anything.”
Your revelation reminded you that you’d brought your old letters from Binnie for Changbin to tap on for inspiration to write the last scene, shutting your mouth and turning to fish the box out of your bag.
“I just remembered, you asked for these right?” you pushed the box towards him, seeing him pick up the box gingerly (as though it were that brittle old notebook he uses), placing it into his bag.
“I’m assuming they’re the letters from your old penpal?”
You nodded, “but don’t laugh when you read them, okay? He was really nice to me.”
Changbin huffed, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips, “yeah, yeah, no promises.”
After you were done with your dinner (Changbin paying for it as a supposed ‘thank you’ for being patient during filming), you’d prepared yourself to fight against the cold night breeze as you stepped out of the restaurant before Changbin, not having expected to feel a warm weight being draped over your shoulders.
“I don’t know why you decided to come out without a coat when you know now’s usually when the weather gets colder,” he tutted his tongue, feigning disapproval, not giving you any time to be shocked at his gesture.
He stood in front of you, tugging the coat tighter around you as he met your gaze, giving you a tired smile.
“I’ll walk you back to your apartment.”
You bit down on your lip, your racing heart and panic making the best reply you could come up with to be a mere, “didn’t peg you to be so gentlemanly.”
To which Changbin shrugged, a small smirk playing at his lips.
“I can be pretty romantic if I want.”
You were gonna get whiplash at this rate.
That same night (or day, 3am was a fine line), you’d received an email from Changbin of the last scene for the film, reading through it and having to stop in between for breaths and water breaks because you had no idea Changbin was capable of encompassing such romantic sentiments in a scene.
Looking at what he wrote, you would never have thought he was the same person that kept arguing with you about happy endings going to shit.
Changbin had written the scene in a burst of inspiration, having felt an almost uncomfortably foreign giddiness within him after returning home from your dinner, feeling even more motivated when he’d watched the film footage they’d shot earlier that day (unconsciously rewinding more than once to watch you act) deciding to just go with whatever he was feeling and write down the scene he had in mind.
And if anyone was asking, no, he totally didn’t picture you as Penny and himself as Soobin the entire time while doing so.
By the time you were done, it was almost an hour later, the aftermath of reading his scene making you pick your phone up and send him a text.
4:02am - did something happen? What’s with the lovey dovey script? Did someone finally change their mind about Penny? -
Not long after, Changbin’s reply came in, feeling thankful that he’d only decided to open your box of letters, or more accurately his letters, after he was done with the scene, something about what he found putting him in an all too thoughtful mood.
Changbin
4:04am -let’s just say... i took your advice-
===
“What do you think, Changbin?” Chan’s voice had snapped Changbin out of his daze, the latter looking at Jisung with a shrug.
“I would say you’re just short changing yourself if you didn’t talk to her. I mean, you said you liked her, right? So what are you waiting for?” Changbin sounded almost impatient, his tone eliciting a grunt from Jisung.
“Yeah, you say it like you’re not the one hiding your hopeless crush on Y/N.”
Chan’s eyes widened, not having expected Jisung to say it so blatantly.
Changbin sputtered, looking at Chan for help only to be met with giggles.
“I’m sorry, dude, it was really quite easy to tell.”
Changbin wanted the cushioned booth to swallow him whole, scrunching his eyes tightly shut in a wince.
“Whatever, that’s not the point,” he waved Jisung off dismissively, “we’re talking about your love life here.”
Jisung pursed his lips, shaking his head, “it’s not fun anymore, I wanna talk about yours.”
Changbin glared at Jisung, “i’m not having this conversation with you.”
“Good, ‘cause you should be having it with Y/N.”
Chan raised an eyebrow at the younger boy, humming in suspicion.
“Why do you sound like you know things...”
Jisung shrugged, raising his hands to give a dramatic shrug, “Do I? I guess we’ll never find out since Changbin ‘isn’t gonna have this conversation with me’.”
Chan turned to Changbin, who currently looked as though he would rather die than be here right now, “actually, what are you waiting for?”
Changbin brought a hand up to massage his fingers on his temples, a resigned sigh leaving him.
“I don’t know, I’ll probably not do anything until the showcase. I still don’t know how exactly I wanna go about it.”
Jisung snickered, “you’ll be fine, seriously.”
“Yeah, whatever, I’ll just enjoy whatever time I have left to think about it till the showcase. Now back to your issue… ”
But obviously, Changbin didn’t use his 3 days of buffer time very well.
He was lucky the atmosphere of the showcase and the unexpected crowd of people had prolonged the time until he’d be in a situation where he’d feel compelled to talk to you about it. Whatever it was.
You hadn’t noticed, obviously, the way Changbin had been keeping himself busy talking to guests and teachers that had shown up, people from the media and publications club. You were too busy being whisked away by your own friends and a already slightly tipsy Minho who thought it was a good idea to pregame drinks before the afterparty later on.
It’d only been when things started calming down and people were actually watching the film that you’d been put in a position where you had no choice other than to think about the boy seated in front of you tapping his foot incessantly on the carpeted floor of the auditorium.
Once the show was over, you’d leant forward, about to congratulate him when you’d both been whisked up by one of the teachers-in-charge, pulling you together with Minho onto the stage to answer questions from the audience.
The questions were fairly simple, most of them from the media and publications club trying to get technical details for their article, allowing you to zone out from where you stood on the stage, letting Changbin smoothly answer all the questions they could possibly throw at him. It wasn’t like Minho was in any position to answer them, tipsy and zoned out of his mind.
It was only when you’d heard him fumbling around with his words that you looked up from the spot on the wall you were staring at, turning to look at Changbin with an embarrassing amount of concern on your features.
“I’m sorry can you repeat the question?” you’d spoken into the microphone, hearing someone that sounded almost identical to Jisung asking how he got inspiration from the story.
You looked at Changbin curiously, as if silently asking if he needed you to step in, only to have him look at you with a blank expression, his mouth opening and closing as he fumbled for an answer.
“Oh, well, I’m sure I can answer this on behalf of Changbin,” you began, “we’d worked on the script together, and it was inspired by a lot of things, like our experiences with pen pals as well as movies like ‘you’ve got mail’.”
Changbin’s shoulders slumped with relief, nodding towards you as a silent thanks, the moment cut short when you were once again whisked away into different crowds to take pictures or to carpool to the afterparty.
Though you were bored 10 minutes into the party, Minho having gotten drunk before you could even get past your second drink, you’d let Changbin have his fun. You figured it was a good thing that he was being recognized for his efforts, even if he didn’t look like he was enjoying the attention very much. He needed it, you supposed, to be forced to see how much people enjoyed the work he made.
But you didn’t stay to see it too long, adjourning to the porch of whoever’s house you were in to enjoy an environment away from the loud music and too many people you didn’t know.
“Already bored?”
You’d jumped at the sound of Changbin’s voice, his footsteps loud against the wooden porch as he took a seat next to you on the swing, holding out his bottle of soda to you, “do you want some?”
You shook your head, seeing him shrug, “suit yourself, then.” He took a long sip of his soda, sighing afterwards.
A tired smile on your face, you let out a deep sigh, “didn’t expect you to find me here so quickly.”
“How could I not?” he laughed, shaking his head, “In case you didn’t notice, I was suffocating in there, figured I deserve a break.”
“Good job, though, I’d say you handled everything well…” you started, your smile growing, “... though there is one thing… I didn’t think you were the type to struggle with public speaking.”
Changbin’s lips parted in shock, scoffing, “shut up, I don’t usually.”
“Sure, you don’t,” you teased, bringing your hands to your sides to support your weight, letting your legs lift off the ground as Changbin used his feet to move the swing gently.
You leant back in your seat, enjoying the silence you were able to get out here as compared to the chaos going on within the house, noticing how tense Changbin seemed, his posture anything but relaxed as he’d let out sigh after sigh, tapping his rings against the seat of the bench absently.
“Relax,” you chuckled, “it’s already over.”
Doing the opposite of relaxing, Changbin simply stopped moving the swing, angling his body to face you more as he fished in his blazer pocket for something, pulling out an envelope from his jacket, “I have uh… something for you.”
Holding it out for you to take, your gaze fell on the colourful envelope, the little strawberry stickers you remembered using your savings to buy as you frowned at the address written on the envelope in your old messy ‘princess handwriting’.
Your gaze darted from the envelope back to him, “how did you… how do you have this?”
“I have it,” he began, letting out yet another sigh, “because you sent it to me.”
If it could, your heart would’ve stopped in that exact moment.
“Read it,” he prompted when you’d stayed silent, your hands moving urgently to open the envelope, your heart feeling warm when you pulled the paper out, already being able to see the ‘To: Binnie’ written with your favourite scented marker.
To: Binnie
How are you?
I’m fine. I am writing this very late in the night because I finished my rehearsal for my school play in the evening and I just finished taking a bath. I have to be quick or my mom is gonna scold me for not sleeping yet. I wanted to tell you that you should sign up for the competition. Which is why I have to mail this to you A.S.A.P as possible because you said the sign up closes in a few days. I think that you should just try it out, even if you don’t do well. Because then at least you can say that you gave it a try and you had fun. I saw this on a tv show, and they said if you don’t try, you will never know if it will turn out well, because you didn’t try.
So I’m telling you to try!!!!! Just try your best and have fun. I think you will do well.
Till next time,
Your penpal Y/N.
“So this is me… trying… it. Whatever it is,” he sounded out of breath, almost, and your heart had begun to pick up speed at how it seemed as though this would be the time where he would confess his feelings to you (if Soobin and Penny were any guide to go by).
You should’ve known Changbin better by now, though.
“Thank you… for helping me with the film. You know, for giving me crap about it because I know that that wasn’t really what I felt. I was just… bitter, but for some reason, you giving me shit about it kind of reminded me why I liked being friends with my penpal- or, I guess, liked being friends with you, so much in the first place.” he was looking at you more confidently now, straightening up as he continued.
“It wasn’t because you gave me fake money to buy a scooter, or anything,” he laughed, “it was more because you were someone that was friends with me for who I was? You were kind, and you were honest.”
Changbin fiddled with the envelope in his hands as you tried your best to contain your smile.
“And you were especially supportive, you know, in your own argumentative way.”
You let out a huff of breathy laughter at that, your hand coming up to touch your necklace, finding something else to fiddle with to contain your anxiousness.
“I’m glad, though, that I didn’t know you were that Y/N,” he told you, “because I already grew to like this Y/N so much, that… finding out was just… a pleasant surprise.”
For the first time since you saw the letter, you’d spoken, a breathy, “me too,” leaving you, embarrassing you to no end.
“I’m glad it was you,” you murmured, averting your gaze, not having expected Changbin to have reached out a hand towards yours, hovering just momentarily before making the decisive action of grasping it gently.
“Me too.”
“So are you gonna explain why my letters—”
“Shh,” he shut his eyes, the smile on his face making you give in almost instantly, “don’t ruin it.”
===
“I didn’t know people even still sent letters these days,” Jisung snorted, sipping on his coffee that he’d just gone downstairs to buy, “here, you have one, but there's no name.”
You frowned, picking it up and finding the handwriting of your address awfully familiar, feeling as though you’d definitely seen it scribbled on a specific brittle old notebook before.
You flopped onto your bed, opening the letter as Jisung resumed playing whatever game he was busy with on your desktop computer.
Thankful for the distraction, you’d quickly unfolded it, scrunching your nose at his choice of pen name.
To: my penpal Y/N
This letter may just be over a decade overdue, but I wanted to firstly say I’m sorry for making you wait so long. That letter about my film competition, that was the last one I received from you, and one of my favourites. I figured it out, by the way, I gave you the wrong address. Phonics was a very tricky thing for my eight year old stubborn self that refused to cross check with my mom.
I figured sending you a letter was best, you know, since you know I'm not the very best at public speaking, or just speaking in general sometimes, I doubt I'd be able to say as eloquently what I wanted to say to you in this letter.
I wanted to give you a few updates. Firstly, I met someone in my film club. Well, technically I auditioned them for my short film so there’s no one to blame for the trouble they caused other than me. I didn’t like them that much at the beginning. I thought they were just trying to impose their stupid happily ever after beliefs on me, someone who thought I was a big bad cynical bitter man that didn’t believe in love stories.
As you probably guessed, they challenged me (a lot), and waiting to see them started to feel like the days where I would wait to hear my mom tell me that a letter came in for me, even better actually. They reminded me of the qualities in myself that I was always afraid of showing, and they reminded me what was so good about being unapologetic for who I was sometimes, because they accepted all of that, (but not without giving me an shit about it first, of course).
But i’m thankful, I’m thankful because I really grew to like them a lot. I liked how I could be comfortable being myself around her, and I liked how they would support me when I needed it, but also to correct me when I need to be corrected.
They were real, and I liked that, a lot.
So, the point of this was that if they ever happen to receive this, you know, (because I totally didn’t know your current address, obviously), I hope they know that I’ve grown to like them very much, to like the personality that i’ve come to know, and that i’m very excited to grow to know (and like) even more.
I’ll be seeing you,
Binnie.
#changbin#seo changbin#seo changbin au#changbin au#changbin fluff#skz changbin#skz au#skz#stray kids scenarios#stray kids#stray kids au#stray kids fluff#enemies-to-lovers!changbin#on track#stray kids imagines#skz imagines#I love changbin
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hey, i'm feeling a bit insecure in my identity rn and i was wondering if you have any... tips, or anything like that. i'm a lesbian who feels more comfortable in a masc role, and i think i would identify as butch... but i feel like i'm too emotional. i cry SO often. my mental health has been less than stellar for the last 10 years or so lol, so that plays a part, but i'm also just a crier. things that make me cry: criticism, heated discussions, presentations, movie/game/book endings, all music with violins, some music without violins, christmas commercials, those miniature food clay charms... literally everything. and it's always in public too, which is embarrassing enough as it is. and i know that doesn't have to mean anything for my gender identity, but the whole "boys/men don't cry" thing kind of did a number on me lol. i always feel like a little girl when others watch me cry, even though i want to be the protector. sorry for rambling, but i feel like you always have good takes on butchness and stuff like that, so i was wondering if you have any tips on feeling more secure in my butch/masc side :)
ok before i say anything else, thank you, i’m honestly really flattered you think that highly of my takes lol <3 i do try my best, i’m glad i’m able to help people to whatever extent i do with my posts.
also, bit of a length warning -- i always set out with the intention of writing succinct responses to asks, but it always gets away from me, and this time "getting away from me" meant "turning into a manifesto." well, oops. c'est la butch/femme.
now to start this answer off: i definitely relate. i’m also pretty emotional. when i get stressed i get really shaky, especially in my hands, and then after that my body turns on the waterworks. i also have a fairly exuberant personality in general, and i'm very expressive with my hands & body language. the only times i’ve ever really fit the stoic archetype have been on accident, usually when i’ve felt uncomfortable in a social situation and it’s come off as strong silence. at the same time, i also don’t like when people see me cry or be emotional in general, especially in public. it makes me feel vulnerable in a way that i don’t like to give most people, and the fact that i can’t fully control when or if i do is uncomfortable. and i think disliking that feeling is totally normal, or at the very least it’s a common boundary to have. regardless of sexuality, gender, or presentation, there’s a social urge to cover up when we’re feeling our feelings, but even beyond that there is, i think, a reflexive, self-preservation level urge to cover up what can be easily damaged. so to an extent, i think it’s natural to shy away from vulnerability.
at the same time, the urge to push down one’s tears is not necessarily a HEALTHY urge, only a COMMON one, because you’re right: emotionality has no bearing on your gender or what roles you can take up. some of my best butch and masc friends are also extremely emotional people, and they’re very open about it, and in a lot of ways that openness almost feels to me more masculine or more butch, because they’re embracing their feelings, and that’s obviously a really hard thing to learn to do, so it’s powerful, admirable, and also to be honest, it’s attractive! the ability of someone to be brave enough to be vulnerable can in many situations make the people around them feel more at ease, and i think it can become a very steady, very stabilizing sort of masculinity. in other words, someone who is very comfortable in their tears is also very good and healing to be around. so i think in a lot of ways, when you learn to own your emotions rather than push them away, that can very easily augment your butchness rather than take away from it.
now obviously everyone views butch/femme differently, whether as genders/sexuality labels/dynamics/what have you, but for me no matter what at the center of these terms there is always this nexus, this core focus, of care. in the dynamic, butch/femme is about butches & femmes caring for one another in complementary ways both in- and out-side of romantic relationships. so when we talk about butchness standalone, you and many other people reach for words like “protector,” and i don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, i think protection can and often is a key role, but my point here is, where is that urge to protect coming from? it’s from love, from caring about the people you love. and i think it’s important to remember that and to frame it that way, because when you do, it becomes pretty simple: your emotionalism is more than anything a sign of that urge to care/protect/provide in you, or a driving force to those urges, however you want to frame it. far from taking away from your butchness, your emotions are at the very foundation of what it can be. i talked about this in the butch/femme server a bit, and thren @lesbiandaemon said it perfectly:
i genuinely think i (and many others!) would feel so much safety and security being w someone who allows themself to be vulnerable and earnest abt their emotions and it definitely augments butchness, from my perspective as a femme. i envy and care deeply for the butch whose emotions and vulnerability are on display, there's a strength in that imo, even if you've been made to feel self conscious and dysphoric and "less than" bc of that. i think of phrases like "the strength to remain tender", "the violence it took to be this gentle" in the lens of trauma but if that applies and you're ok w it, i think it could also apply here too [...]
whether ppl know it or not, sometimes the way one carries themselves can be projected onto others; there's already an example in how anon mentions the "big boys/men don't cry" thing, vulnerability being shut out and dismissed/disparaged isn't going to make anyone more eager/open abt their emotions. and like, going back to the butch/femme dynamic, it does feel so much more stable and steady if someone has the courage to acknowledge and let themselves feel their emotions, it's very welcoming and validating, knowing that someone can have a strong image and show their tenderness, knowing that you're safe and free from mockery/scorn to do the same when someone protective of you knows how it feels and will care for you because they feel touched to their core and have let you know in more than one way.
and i want to add an important caveat here: obviously not everyone who cares very deeply is going to be outwardly emotional or show it in the same ways. that’s true for all kinds of reasons. i think a lot of the stoicism we see in traditional depictions of butches can come from how people relate emotions to masculinity (that is to say, how people view masculinity as inherently based around a distance from one’s “softer” side), but also, honestly, i think this may also have roots in the historical coping mechanisms that a lot of butches took on in the face of a world that was unkind to them.
in stone butch blues, for example, there’s a lot of talk about this idea of “hard” versus “soft,” or “going stone,” especially when jess is first getting into the bar scene and she’s still fresh-faced to violence. and going stone in this context isn’t just about sexuality, it's also about how so many butches learned to stop letting people in even at a basic emotional level. for them, hardening up was an inevitability of circumstance, not an inherent facet of their personality or a building block of butch identity. i’m sure plenty of old-school butches would be glad to know it’s no longer inevitable or necessary for a butch to close themselves off completely in order to survive.
of course there are also plenty of butches who are just naturally reserved with their emotions, and that’s also fine -- that doesn’t mean they don’t feel things, or that they don’t care. they care -- all of us do! some of us showing it more or less than others doesn’t reflect badly on any of us, whether we’re of a more stoic or a more open variety. but some of us really can’t help showing it, and that’s okay. that’s just how the love spills out. the right person won’t see that as weakness or a crack in the fine china of your masculinity or whatever, they’ll see it as a lovely and endearing part of your whole and warming butchness. so embrace your emotions. do your best to honor the role they play in butch/femmeness. try to love your emotions, or at the very least not to be afraid of them. and remember: you are strong. your tenderness will not destroy you. in fact, it’s what built you to begin with.
#asks#anonymous#butch/femme#butch tag#butch#femme#lesbiandaemon#sorry if you were looking for a more down-to-earth sort of list of tips but i have a lot of feelings about feelings LOL#also thank you again thren for letting me quote you! having a femme's perspective in there i think really enriches this and also you just.#put it so well ik i said this yesterday but it really was beautifully put
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In the Golden Dark
a/n: Having never done any ship writing before I’m just going to jump feet first into the deep end with a little Hotchreid for you today. It’s nice. No warnings except maybe some angst because we are who we are. Probably the softest thing you will see from me so enjoy the moment. Completely unnecessary disclaimer that I would find this relationship wildly inappropriate in real life but thank god we’re out here in the lawless fiction of the internet. And you’re getting full on song lyrics bc Hotchreid is nothing if not decadent af. There’s more but I’m impatient so here’s the first bit. ~ 2.7k
what the hell am I doing here in the golden dark?
feeling like I’m someone else who looks the part
I built up barricades to block my heart
cause I don’t wanna fear you
He leaned back in his chair, reaching his arms up and clasping his hands behind his head, arching his back slightly. With his eyes closed it could be any time of day. He inhaled deeply and pretended for a moment that he was nowhere. He even gave himself a few extra seconds, indulging in the quiet that was the office at night. If only he could feel so peaceful in the right moments—before sleeping perhaps. When he opened his eyes all he could see was the reflection of his office light in the black windows. There hadn’t been daylight for hours. He’d switched off the overhead lights in favor of the small desk lamp that pooled the light only in the area of immediate relevance. Everything beyond its reach faded in and out of existence as his focus fell deeply into the forms in front of him.
He pressed his elbows back as far as they would go, pulling up slightly on the base of his skull, stretching out a day’s worth of stress, countless hours spent bent over report after report. He never could have imagined that saving people would require so much paperwork. Reducing the chaos of the lived experience, the searches and the takedowns, the intricate patterns of dozens of personalities layering choices upon one another; it turned out to be quite difficult to do. It took him hours to wrap up cases, even with everyone doing most of their own reports. Which, through no fault of their own, wasn’t always the case. He usually ended up siphoning off a fair number of those reports in addition to his own.
He didn’t mind, he needed to go over everything, needed to make sure that any possible negative feedback that came back would fall to him and he would be prepared if it did. His team were his responsibility, he would be neglecting his duties if he didn’t ensure that things were handled properly. None of them needed the headache of administrative errors. He was good with details, good with forms, good with protocol. He would happily be the filter that saved them all the trouble of little errors even if it hadn’t been part of his job.
But that didn’t change the fact that it was eleven o’clock on a Wednesday and everyone else had gone home hours ago. Only the late night janitorial staff wandered in and out occasionally, nodding at him in silent greeting as they reset the offices to give the illusion of an endlessly renewable supply of fresh starts. People that didn’t stay late never gave this transformation a second thought. They left the office with full trashcans and small debris scattered on the old carpets, only to return the next morning to find a place untouched by human presence, metal fixtures shining and glass doors free of oily fingerprints. That was just how the world worked for them, generous with new beginnings. People who lingered knew better, that effort was put into the effect. Beginnings were never easy, never flowed so inevitably as the set and rise of the sun.
Hotch had been working late for many years, long before he was even in the BAU. He had learned in law school how to brew the coffee strong enough to stay up all night if need be. How the indoor lighting changed without the support of daylight, tinting the world a thin sickly green color without the natural light to round out the fluorescence. He only got worse about it once he joined the Bureau, the stress of the job causing old habits and old secrets to float to the surface. He compensated by working the hardest, doing the most, never allowing anyone to see him need things that other people needed. He could handle this job, this was all he ever wanted after all. To save the world. Or maybe, more modestly, to save the world of a few.
Now, with Haley gone, Jack with her, somewhere well out of his disastrous reach, there was no reason at all not to fully give in. No reason not to let his insomnia at least be productive. To let the latent self destruction that fueled his actions at least have a positive impact on the people he cared about. He could do that at least.
He rubbed his face with his hands, he was getting loopy. There was no reason to be letting his mind wander so far, there were still reports he could get through. Perhaps, as unlikely as the idea felt, he could even get ahead. He looked back down at the paperwork, letting his feet settle flat on the floor. The letters swam in front of him and he sighed, rolling his pen beneath his thumb, considering. He could probably make it another hour. He could get another pot of coffee into himself. He cast about for his mug, finding it empty on the shelf behind him. He sometimes kept it there to prevent his reports from acquiring telltale dark rings. Rolling back from the desk, he hooked the handle with two fingers and headed out to the kitchenette.
Wrapped up in making plans for what he could finish tonight and what could be left for the morning he was startled to find a light still on in the bullpen. He was certain everyone had gone home long ago. They’d each passed by his office, offering him an out as they made their ways home—perhaps their exit could be the motivation he needed to break out of his office, to head towards his own home. What they didn’t realize was that home was not better for him. Work was far better, far safer, with tasks to complete, a purpose. If he was smart he would stay at work forever.
So he waved to them as they checked out, giving them small smiles that, though imperceptible to strangers, they recognized as both apologies and well-wishes. He knew they worried, that they didn’t like to see him tied to his desk late into the night. They thought it was one of his many methods for making himself suffer but he didn’t have the heart to tell them that this was him making a good decision, this was him trying his very best. In his experience, nothing good happened at home.
He thought he remembered everyone leaving, each goodbye. But every day was the same and they all bled together so he must have missed one because he cannot deny the light down below. As he walked down the stairs, confused by the discovery that he was not as alone as he had been imagining, his tired vision focused better. He could make out dark blond curls and a darker sweater hunched over the desk in the middle of the room.
“Reid?” The name came out as a croak, he hadn’t spoken in hours and probably hadn’t had any water in that time period either. He cleared his throat and said it again, louder and closer to the other man than before. Reid’s head snapped up, expression as guilty as a child caught out of bed.
“S-sorry,” he stuttered, eyes wide.
Hotch frowned, not because he was upset but because he was still a little disoriented and his muscles fell back into the most familiar actions.
“I—“ Reid ducked his head and started pushing papers together on his desk, shoving them haphazardly into a file folder. “I was just…” he trailed off, not really having intended on explaining himself. He was simply also startled and reverting to the familiar.
Reid explained compulsively, able to handle the world when parsed down to facts and numbers. He didn’t have a fact for why he had stayed so late, only a feeling and that he didn’t know how to explain. Nights had been particularly lonely recently so he had allowed himself to stay later and later, getting lost in his thoughts at his work desk. Even without people around there was a sense of occupancy, their faint impressions lingering in the air. Plus there was always Hotch up in his office. He didn’t actively think about him or what he was doing but he liked knowing the man was nearby. Hotch’s solid presence always made him feel more secure, less concerned with whatever might jump out at him from the shadows overlapping the world and his mind.
He couldn’t tell Hotch that, was far too embarrassed to admit that sometimes, even with all the lights on, it was too dark in his apartment. No matter the illumination, he couldn’t quite dispel the unease of the night when he was alone. It wasn’t always like this, sometimes he had enough brightness to spare. Recently, however, things had been hard. So much had been going on, he couldn’t quite pinpoint why but he knew he felt uneasy. Too much had changed, there was too much risk that the floor could still fall out beneath him at any moment. And it hadn’t been so long since he’d escaped the consequences of his kidnapping, his addiction, that he trusted himself to be able to manage too much more uncertainty. Backsliding was always a risk and right now the world tilted at a frightening grade. So he let himself stay late in the safety of familiarity, sometimes working but more often not, idly rereading the books he had brought in and forgotten around the office. Tonight he had actually started to doze off, which contributed to his shock upon being discovered.
Hotch continued to frown at him, watching as the thoughts raced across Spencer’s face. He noticed how deep the shadows were beneath his eyes, the way darkness pooled in the space below his cheekbones, as if they were concave impressions filled by seawater. He knew Spencer didn’t eat enough, was all too familiar with the ways too much coffee and not enough calories pinched the skin and exposed the fine lines of capillaries beneath the surface.
“Sorry,” Spencer repeated.
He looked genuinely ashamed and it made Hotch a little sad. Couldn’t Spencer see that he was just as guilty of whatever it was he thought he was doing wrong by being here? He made a conscious effort to soften his expression, to show the warmth he felt for the younger man. After having spent his entire life masking his emotions, protecting himself one of the only ways he could, it wasn’t always easy to show his affection. Especially not at this time of night, when all he could do was cling to his walls and hope to find himself still on solid ground when the sun rose. Spencer wasn’t looking at him, too caught up in his own maze.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” Hotch said, trying a different tactic. He was smart, he knew not to make it a demand or a comment on Spencer’s health. It was only an invitation, firm enough for Spencer to know he meant it, that it was not just a pleasantry or an obligation he’d rather avoid. A hand extended, an offer of easy company to pass through a little more of this unwanted time. Spencer looked up from where his fingers were worrying at the corner of the file in front of him and smiled shyly. Hotch smiled back, a real smile that scrunched up his dark shining eyes.
“Give me five minutes to close up,” he said and turned back toward his office. As he packed his briefcase, his heart felt like it had been wrapped in a soft blanket. He didn’t bother questioning it—who didn’t like finding someone to commiserate with when they’d only expected more of the lonely dark?
*
Their late night meals became a regular occurrence. Not every night but once, maybe twice a week, they found themselves the last ones in the office. They fell into a rhythm, each learning to read more from the other’s subtle cues. They almost always went to the same place, a 24-hour diner near the office with deceptively strong coffee and a seemingly endless variety of pancakes. Hotch rarely ordered food, though he encouraged Reid to get anything he wanted. He accepted bites of whatever the younger man ordered, happy enough to reciprocate the excitement over strawberry rhubarb or cinnamon blueberry pancakes.
They talked about inconsequential things, mostly Hotch listening as Reid spun out information on whatever topic was on his mind that day. Reid, for his part, made mental note of the things Hotch responded to and had opinions on. Spencer sought out more information in that vein to bring up. He loved to talk, sure, but what he loved more was to discuss. During the day there was rarely time to let his thoughts wander so freely. It was a dream to have someone there, following along and challenging him with questions, building up new conclusions.
On the nights that followed difficult days, when they were both too stubborn to order anything of substance, they drank their coffees and avoided looking at each other too directly. Those nights they were both tied up in their own thoughts, islands separated by more than just distance, but there was something undeniably pulling them together. It was probably just the natural consequence of having opposite dominant sides but they mirrored each other perfectly across the table. Once, they both happened to reach for their mugs at the same time and the backs of their hands brushed against each other. They each noticed but responded differently. Hotch repressed any reaction, pretending the quick touch of bony knuckles and cool skin hadn’t registered. Maybe it hadn’t. Reid, on the other hand, jumped as if shocked, sloshing the hot coffee into a puddle on the table. This only flustered him more and he yelped at the sting of the liquid and the sting of embarrassment. It wasn’t like they’d never touched before. But here, in this nowhere time they’d constructed, it felt different. In his mind that brief touch became nails dragging across his skin, impossible to ignore. But he pretended the mug was too hot and Hotch didn’t argue, quick to assist with napkins and sounds of agreement to accompany Spencer’s half-coherent excuses.
When their meals were done, mostly cleaned plates of syrup and crumbs stacked to one side, they hesitated before standing up. Hotch always offered to give Reid a ride home, Reid always declined, insisting he could get there himself. This led to Hotch giving him a doubtful look and insisting that it was no trouble. Reid, secretly wanting a ride the whole time, struggled to argue for his self-sufficiency a little longer before giving in. It became a silly thing, both of them knowing exactly how the argument ended but they held onto it for some reason. It was a part of their ritual now, an important piece of the night. It kept this, whatever this was, contained, strictly occasional, random even. Not something they planned for, not something they looked forward to.
Hotch waited for Spencer to get in the door of his building before driving away. He knew it wasn’t necessary, Spencer was a grown man and a trained FBI agent with a weapon. Still, it made him feel better to see him safely inside. Sometimes he thought he would feel even better if he could walk Spencer all the way to his front door. But he knew that would be asking too much. As it was, the nights when they shared this extra hour or two together, extended further by the drive home, had been giving him more than he could have imagined. He wouldn’t dare impose himself further. The brittle excuse of safety would crumble if he were to start following the other man inside. He was not ready to find out what that would mean. He smiled unconsciously as he drove to his apartment. For now, it was enough that he had found companionship on these late nights when he would otherwise be slowly, meticulously, working his way into the grave.
~Part 2~
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18 for the author ask?
were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?
oh this is a dreadful question, because mine are all deeply embarrassing.
most of what I've been writing recently has been fairly grim, on account of both Brain and tma being horror, but on the lighter side my sense of humor is like 30% the McElroys and 70% being a Literal Clone of my dad (which in itself is mostly Monty Python references, only I've never seen Monty Python 🙃)
On the darker side, I wish I had like. a respectable literary pedigree, but i high key don't. Not even in the children's horror sense. I literally was not allowed to check out Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark from the library. But my brain's always been built to want to seek out darker stuff, so all my horror influences are built on what my child self could get her hands on, ie knock off Scary Stories books I got at the thrift store for under a dollar, snopes, and wikipedia pages for murderers and urban legends. Also Nancy Drew, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and whatever my cousin would smuggle me (this is how we tricked my mom into finally letting me read Harry Potter. I did have to stop with the first book midway through and skip to the second bc I got too scared, so she wasn't wrong)
More recent and specific stuff... Honestly a lot of Hannibal- the tv show, the first two books, several of the movies. Nothing makes the part of my brain that likes crime procedurals happier than even a badly done Hannibal Lecter adaptation lol.
The grown up version of snopes and wikipedia articles, ie reading for my folklore minor (which aspires to become a master's someday). That's mostly textbooks and articles, so inaccessible in multiple ways- one of my professors wrote a book called Slenderman Is Coming: Creepypasta and Contemporary Legends on the Internet that probably encapsulates that Vibe if you really want to seek something out.
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende is a generally good book (well. i can only vouch for the first half, because for some reason that's all we were assigned and I haven't had time to finish it) but also has a handful of passages that I found very effective on a horror level as well. Not for the faint of heart, it's about the Haitian Revolution and has a lot of slavery stuff.
Getting very specific, stuff that's influenced the things I'm actually writing most recently as single works- teen jon has a lot of true crime youtube/podcast Energies in a weird six degrees of separation way. A lot of my unhealthy relationship stuff has heavy influence from people on youtube doing analysis of stuff like Twilight and Fifty Shades' bad relationships (particularly Folding Ideas' 3 part series fo Fifty Shades).
It doesn't come up a huge amount, because I don't write a lot of Stranger stuff, but when I do write tma fic with the Stranger I am aiming for the same vibe I felt watching a short horror movie called "Possibly in Michigan"- it's available on youtube, no link bc then I'd have to look it up, and just seeing clips of it in a different video kept me up all night last time crol. It contains the Worst mannequin face I've ever seen in my life.
This is a hard question, I tend to pull out Vibes and like 3 second segments more than anything so now I'm pulling a blank
#asks#ask games#also this is so long#id add fanwriters but im tired n also trying to do lists for tma fwac so... stay tuned lol#writing#mine#mine.txt
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I love you, John
summary; in the fandom we say brian’s the 5th beatle. well now he’s the 6th bc in this you’re a member of the band. basically you’re in love with john but he’s dating yoko and............. it’s all a disaster
word count; 2 966
warnings; angst at its finest. i’m sorry if u find it trashy but i tried and that’s what counts
********
There was no way you could face this feeling. It damaged your mental health to the point of insufferable anxiety.
Nobody knew about those episodes.
Was it something that you enjoyed, seeing front row how your friendship shattered to useless fragments? Did you look like you didn’t care about how he distanced himself more each time without looking back? Like nothing or no one else mattered? Of course not.
He was alien to the fact he wasn’t the only one suffering.
At least this was the reason you found that made the most sense to his coldness and passively behaviour towards everyone. Or the justification you wanted to believe, refusing to accept that reality was that he didn’t mind everything falling apart.
The tortuous thought that John wanted to see it all reduced to ashes crossed your mind every once in a while.
Paul sighed loudly when he didn’t get any answer from you after calling multiple times. He randomly pounded several piano keys at once, creating a frightening awful sound, then dragged himself to his feet and anxiously left the room.
None of that made you tore your eyes away from John, though.
He was talking to Yoko, who was sitting on the floor beside him, nodding her head as she followed with her gaze what he was pointing at in the music sheet. Occasionally she’d interrupt him to opine. When that happened he would shut up and listen.
John was very polite when asking for thoughts, always open to new ideas and constantly seeking people's opinions on his work.
Ringo’s eyes were glued on you, George noticed, and he knew the drummer was thinking the same exact thing he was. Ringo nodded in his direction and left to find something to eat: you’d been rehearsing for three hours and he hadn't had breakfast in the morning.
"We're all getting used to it"
Outwardly speaking, George's nonchalant-wannabe words had no apparent reaction in you. On the inside, they crushed your soul deeper into misery.
You hummed an ‘approving’ sound to dodge the pressure of having to form a proper sentence.
Concentration back again on tuning the knobs of the guitar, George put his aside on the floor and watched you closely. Then sighed and pressed his lips together.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?”
"The ticking"
Pokerfaced, you stopped your actions to sneak a look at him.
"What ticking?” you asked grimly.
"Yours," he replied, pointing a finger at you. “You’re about to explode”
“We have a comedian in the building, how appropriate” you proclaimed nodding your head at him mockingly.
He grinned and dropped his gaze to the floor before speaking to you again.
“Come with me,” he said, getting up, “I’m craving a smoke”
“I’ll join in a moment. I want to finish writing down a couple of things first”
"Oh yeah?" George wasn’t convinced at all.
He removed a strand of hair from his face. In vain ‘cause it returned shortly to the same place where he’d shoved it away from.
“Yes"
George stared at you, hands on the hips.
Sunk in your seat, you glanced at him too without blinking.
"I’m inspired," you added, one last attempt to make him believe you.
You could try. You could try giving that song you’d been working on a new chance.
"Okay," he nodded, lowering the guard, and kissed your forehead, "you know where to find me"
"Sure, Geo"
You smiled and rapidly shot him a big grin, thumbs held up as well, when he turned around to take a good last look at you before closing the door behind his back.
As soon as he was nowhere around, your smile was found gone.
It was only you, John and Yoko now.
//
It must have been the tenth time that, desperately, you ran your hands through your hair.
Perhaps the problem was you. And you were just exaggerating everything.
But did she have to stick her nose in something that had nothing to do with her?
You didn’t mind her discussing the songs. But never in a million years could you believe she had the ovaries to criticize them. To criticize your work. Paul’s work, George’s and Richie’s work.
Never John’s, though. It must be said to add a little more context to you losing it.
You weren't nosy, but she didn't try to be inconspicuous either.
That bitch’d been talking shit about what she referred to as ‘Ringo’s lame thing’, claiming that Octopus’s Garden was kind of embarrassing and that it didn’t deserve to be on a Beatles record. She didn’t even bother asking about the meaning behind it, the ignorant cretin.
You bit your tongue until you just couldn't anymore.
"God," you exhaled.
Yoko heard your sigh but said nothing about it, bowing her head. She wished John’d do the same, but deep down she knew he’d have something to say.
And of course, he did.
"What's up?" he asked lifting an eyebrow, eyes jumping from you to Yoko and back.
"One gets tired of listening to bullshit" you warranted in a singsong voice, not looking up from the paper and without interrupting your writing.
It took a few seconds for you to get a response.
"Nothing she said was bullshit," John defended, hinting that her opinion was as valid as anyones.
You understood his words differently.
"Rich’s mad excited about it and it’s a great song,” you hurried to argue, this time meeting his stare, “the number of hours and dedication he's putting into it is inhuman. You should know that”
A little –huge— bit of your protective side towards Ringo was showing, but you didn’t care. Octopus’s Garden was beautiful and you’d die defending so if necessary.
"I didn't mean—"
“Are you sure?” you interrupted, turning your body in his direction, leaning in before spitting the poison out, “because lately she seems to speak for you. Whatever Yoko says, there you are giving your approval”
John stood still for at least a minute, momentarily speechless.
Yoko approached him to tell him to forget it and leave before things got uglier.
When you called the conversation off after he hadn’t spoken a word, trying to handle what you just so hostilely reprimanded, you went back to your thing, conscious that you were too unstable and broken to even pick the pencil up again.
Sure you didn’t want him to know you weren’t as strong as you wanted to appear to be, but you had to close your eyes for a moment and exhale after he moved to stand next to you.
He didn’t know the power he had on you. It’d take a snap of his fingers to ruin you for eternity.
“You’ve to fix your shit and get over it,” John grunted, fed up with the constant attacks that Yoko directly and indirectly received. It all got too much to handle.
You laughed in his face.
“Fix my shit? How, John, when the shit’s in the same room?”
John paused again, shocked.
His eyes languidly turned cold and hard.
Could you maybe have gone a step too far? There was no denying. Were you regretful? Not at all. Did your heart, constricted in your breast painfully hindering your catch of air, speed up its pace at the look John was giving you, scared about what he was going to say next? Absolutely.
"What the fuck’s wrong with you? I've had enough of the continuous offences to my wife! Now this?!” he snapped, yelling.
You avoided by all means raising your voice since it’s pretty much known that doing so does not make you any more right. The tone was something you could take control over, unfortunately, it was way more difficult to hide how it trembled.
“If I started to say what I was fed up with we’d never finish the album. And we have to, right, John? The sooner the better,” you challenged in a cold-blooded boost of courage, knowing you were entering a difficult and muddy territory.
The bomb timer George talked about earlier was at its limit.
That John asked Yoko afterwards to leave you two alone was just the appetizer of what was coming.
“(Y/N), you have attitude problems. The way you treat Yoko is horrible and unfair. She just wants to help” he tried to let you know where he was coming from, going back to a more suitable tone to appeal you.
“When we ask her for help, her presence will be welcomed”
“Enough now. Enough, (Y/N)” he shook his head and glanced at you fiercely. You swallowed. "Shit, what the hell’s going on with you and your twisted mind? You’re unbearable"
“Am I unbearable?” you gasped, blood heating your face, and immediately stood up. “You’re insufferable!! Twenty-four hours together like… like… like two fucking creeps!” you screamed, quickly forgetting about the ‘not raising your voice’ thing, gesturing an awful lot to express your irritation.
His expression of disbelief morphed onto one of monumental anger.
"And don't come at me with that ‘attitude problems’ crap. I’m not the only one who wants her out” you lectured in a bitter fit of temper, voice unwillingly shaky.
“If you have a problem with Yoko being around, the door is right there” he answered, pronounced tightness clear in his words.
Your heart sank to the very bottom of the Earth’s core, and the floor beneath your feet started trembling, just like you hallucinated once after dropping acid with Paul: the whole body in an uninterrupted burning perception that you could just blow up and die.
John was unpredictable, but you never expected him to show you the way out. He flushed your feelings down the toilet just like that.
“Damn right the door’s right there. I’m getting the fuck out” you stressed, turning around to leave so he wouldn’t see the sea of tears that started to overflow down your face.
From the very beginning of your friendship, you knew you had a massive soft spot reserved for him in your heart, but as years passed you were assured you were deeply and profoundly in love with every part of him. You adored and cared about John more than you did to yourself, which sounds and is scary, but you couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was the way that it was.
At this point you didn’t even care anymore that he didn’t return the same feelings, you just wanted him in your life one way or the other. His happiness was everything that mattered to you. It’d always remain that way no matter what happened.
John rubbed his eyes and sighed loudly.
“Don’t leave,” he said hopelessly, looking defeated, arms hanging on his sides, “I don’t want you to be mad at me”
“I’M NOT MAD AT YOU, IDIOT!” you exploded, whirling around to face him. “And I hate that! I hate it!”
Tears and tears kept streaming down your face. You knew you were being embarrassingly cringey and you’d punch yourself later for that.
There was no coming back now: the timer detonated and the pieces of your broken heart were all over the place, imaginarily staining the carpet as small volcanoes attached to them kept erupting and painting all red.
An anguish heaving pain in the pit of your stomach and throat was bit by bit killing you.
Nine years. Nine years in love with this man and he didn’t have the slimmest clue about how you felt.
He was about to find out.
John was surprised to meet your bloodshot eyes and quivering lips. He panicked when he saw that tears were also coming out of your nose down to your lips.
“I hate that you could hurt me over and over and that I’d always find ways to forgive you” you cried, and you wished you had a tissue to blow out your nose in it.
John was at a loss of words.
“Because I love you” you wailed, and rolled your eyes afterwards at that because it was so inconvenient and wrong to say it out loud.
In his consciousness, a voice snapped at him to take action and comfort you, but his feet seemed to be rooted to where he was standing. You were so vulnerable and fragile, full body shaking and shoulders tight, air constantly bursting in and out of your mouth, impossible to control your sobs. All because of him.
“I don’t… I don’t…” John struggled, heartbeat racing a million miles per second.
“I know you don’t!” you sputtered, an excruciating feeling that he’d never want to be with you choking you extremely. "Up until now I thought I could live with it, but you keep bringing her here! Why do you have to bring her?” you sobbed, covering your face.
John couldn’t quite tell whether it was your statement and confession what made his heart heavier with misery or the nicotine in the amount of tobacco smoke still hovering in the room, demanding it to work harder.
By the time he felt sorrowness suffocating him, he couldn’t deny it was the first option.
“(Y/N), I’m so sorry…”
As he watched you gulp for air, he couldn’t feel more incompetent and clueless.
You compressed your lips so he wouldn’t get to hear you sobbing; turning your back at him to hide your blotchy face, you heard footsteps approaching you.
John went to put a hand on your shoulder and hold you, but you winced and complained, stepping away from him, as if the contact burned your skin.
Staring at him in the eye, you shook your head.
“Do not touch me”
“(Y/N), we have to sit down and talk this through. I cannot—“
“I don’t want to keep talking about it. I said my part and I know what’s crossing your mind. ‘Poor (Y/N), I feel so bad for her, I hope she gets over it soon’. Nine years, John”
He swallowed.
“I’m sure there’s a way—“
“There isn’t! I love you and you don’t love me! What is there to discuss?”
Glancing across at him, you could perfectly see how he cared and how frightened and terrified he was about the situation. You were one of the most important people in his life, and to think that he thought he knew you, but missed what you were genuinely feeling towards him for almost a decade… He felt horrible.
Yoko was the love of his life, but he also loved you with all his heart.
He was sorry that it wasn’t enough.
“John”
George stepped into the room and walked further in to pull you towards him. He'd been watching for just a few seconds, because as soon as he saw what was going on, he intended to leave, at the end of the day it was none of his business, but he knew you needed him and therefore took the decision to end the scene.
Rubbing your back, he whispered in your hair if you wanted to leave. You just nodded.
“Wait, George. I need to talk to her”
“You heard her. She doesn’t want to”
John got mad at him.
“All I’m asking is a few minutes. Don’t expect me to drop it when she’s like that”
Maybe by ‘that’ he meant that you looked like a train just ran you over. Casually, that’s how you felt. If not worse.
You rested your head on George’s shoulder and murmured something about needing to go now because you couldn’t be in John’s presence no more.
“(Y/N), please” you heard John beg.
George and you walked to the door and he told you to wait outside, touching your cheek with a small smile on his lips, encouraging you to take it as an opportunity to calm down.
You obliged, but heard everything they were saying anyway.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” John cursed. “Why won’t you let me speak to her? This is serious, please”
John tried to get to the door but George barred the way.
“Are you gonna tell her you love her?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
John stared at his bandmate blankly, the expression of confusion on his face speaking for itself.
“Are you gonna tell her you’re leaving Yoko to spend your life with her?” George continued, making a point that he knew John would understand.
You bit your lip at that and wept silently.
John’s eyes were slowly piling up hot tears.
“That’s what I thought” George spoke in an undertone.
After that, George left him and found you sitting on the ground in the corridor. He took a seat next to you.
Spontaneous sobs and shiverings that you couldn’t hold back happened every now and then. You were grateful that George wouldn’t address them.
“I’m pathetic”
“No you’re not”
“Yes I am” you shook your head and sniffed, feeling lamentable. “I didn’t know I’d end up confessing one day. I assumed I’d carry it to the crave”
Two staff members from the cleaning crew walked by, and you stopped talking. When they were gone, George turned to look at you.
“I believe things happen for a reason and that fate is written. You and John not being a thing may be for the best. It’s gonna be hard, but you have to move on”
“Move on…”
He nodded.
You moved to face him and stared strongly into his eyes. That was it.
“Move on” you repeated out loud as a mantra, staring off into nowhere.
George furrowed an eyebrow.
“Yes…?”
You inhaled and exhaled at the same time that you closed and opened your eyes. Moving on would be the first step to a better stage within yourself.
“I’m leaving”
Puzzlement clouded George’s features.
“Leave… where?”
“The band, Geo. I’m quitting the band”
#john lennon#john lennon x reader#paul mccartney#george harrison#ringo starr#the beatles#brian epstein#yoko ono#let it be#john lennon imagine#john lennon fanfic#john lennon fanfiction#let it be sessions#john lennon angst#tayloredstarr
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