#i barely spent a year in 1999 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mickyschumacher · 6 months

Note

can i request something for carlos sainz x leclerc!reader on vacation?there’s such a soft spot in me for summer vacation carlos like in a beach setting or on a yacht. it can be soft or smutty it doesn’t matter i just love summery carlos. thank you!!!

𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐈 .ೃ࿐

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: while the leclercs maybe spending their summer vacation at home, you opted for a secret vacation in santorini with your secret boyfriend, carlos sainz. or in which you are secretly dating your brother's teammate.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ (minor dni), unprotected sex (if you're gonna slip, slop, slap, you must wrap your willy!), reader dob in 1999, dating in secret trope!, sainz & leclerc = google translated spanish & french ._., ig the reader has a shaved downstairs?, p in v, teasing, oral sex, lovey dovey smut?, poor humour, breastplay, fingering, cumming inside, bit of overstimulation for the reader, scandal and swift references, love confessions.

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: bf!carlos sainz x younger leclerc!fem!reader

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 4k+

𝐀/𝐍: firm agree on the summery carlos! is it really my writing if i don't get santorini involved? anyways, hope this was up to your standards! sorry for the long wait! ♡︎

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

⋆ •°. 。 .°• ⋆

Dating your brother's teammate was never on your bucket list. Hell, you tried to stay away from Formula 1. Well, as much as Leclerc could anyways.

People older than you weren't really your type. You opted for people near your age. That way there wasn't an awkward generation gap and there was no one that reminded you of your older brothers. Carlos was only five years older than you but the generational gap was most certainly there.

Men your age were... well, boys.

Men Carlos' age were men but also men.

You had seen Carlos at races before. And he was an attractive man, obviously. But that was that. You passed each other down the paddock, barely giving each other a glance. And not to mention the obvious, you were far too young for him at the time.

But then Ferrari's first car launch after signing Carlos had happened.

You had seen Carlos more in the few hours the event lasted than the past few years. You didn't know what it was. Whether you were unintentionally stalking him or vice versa. What you did know, however, he was definitely eyeing you.

By the time Charles had introduced you, Arthur, Lorenzo, and your mother, Carlos was trying to keep his interest at bay, pretending to be as family-friendly as possible.

Carlos ended up catching you as you came out of the bathroom, smoothly asking for your number. And as much as you wanted to give it to him, you weren't going to be easy. You were a Leclerc for crying out loud.

If Carlos wanted you, he would have to earn you.

And boy did he try.

You had heard from several people and the Internet that Carlos was a hardcore romantic. You never thought about it up until he started pulling out all the stops.

He was attentive as hell, remembering your favourite drinks, slipping you a new book to read as he talked to Charles, purposely linking his pinky with yours as discreetly as he could just so he could see you flush in front of him, sending you clothes for you to wear to his races to your apartment...

Carlos was menace.

But somewhere along the line, he became your menace.

You and Carlos were the epitome of the saying 'Romance is not dead if you keep it just yours'.

Keeping it secret... sure it was frustrating at times. The both of you had person after person trying to get with you because, well, you were a Leclerc and he was Carlos Sainz. Carlos had managed to draw a line by telling people he had a girlfriend but he didn't want to reveal her.

Yeah... it didn't settle well with the grid, in particular the three gossipers of the grid: Pierre, Lando, and your brother.

But after all the little bumps in the road, it was smooth sailing.

Most of the time you spent time together was alone, just the two of you. That way, there was no risk of being caught and you could revel in each other.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Nothing was easy with you and Carlos, especially given that you couldn't keep your hands off of one another. Carlos a slight more than you because you had the decency and fear of embarrassment of getting caught by anyone. Carlos, on the other hand, was as indecent as they come. Hands always looking for an excuse to touch you, eyes travelling to find you first in any room, sending dirty texts when you sat across him... like you said, he was a menace.

To make things easier for yourself, for this summer break, you and Carlos had picked trusty Santorini as a romantic getaway, taking his dog Piñon as a welcomed third wheeler. Filled with so many tourists that you and Carlos would look like any regular couple there.

"Now this is a summer break," You breathed out, walking on to the yacht you had rented out for your stay in Greece. The air was clean and crisp, the sun was already beating down on you despite it being nine in the morning, and the translucent blue waters brought you a sense of familiarity that Monaco held.

"Don't you agree, Piñon?" You cooed to the soft ball of white curled up into your arms. A small bark of agreement came from the dog, tail wagging in happiness.

Carlos chuckled behind you, putting down your bags on the deck, under the shade. His thick arms enveloped your waist, bringing you closer to him. Nestling his chin into your shoulder, he said, "That's good, hermosa (beautiful). Now try saying it in Spanish."

You made a face at his teasing tone. Pulling yourself out of his grasp, you turned towards him. "Ahora son unas vacaciones de verano. ¿No estás de acuerdo, mi querido Carlos?" You recreated the same coaxing tone you had given Piñon to your lover, pinching his cheek with the energy of an overly endearing mother. Now this is a summer break. Don't you agree, my dear Carlos?

Carlos gave you a pointed look. You were teasing him. You knew he liked when you spoke Spanish because it was cute to see you fumble over the words but it also meant a lot to him that you were trying.

You rolled your eyes at his reaction and settled Piñon on the deck after making sure it wasn't too hot for those small paws of his. You watched him trot around the yacht, carefully examining his surrounding to test his boundaries.

Satisfied that Piñon was safe, you turned back to Carlos. "Brunch?"

"Brunch..." Carlos trailed off, hand reaching out to your face. The soft pad of his thumb graze your lips, gently pulling on your bottom lip to watch it bounce back. "...or brunch?" He asked, voice heavy with a clear need.

Your body thrived with an eagerness to respond to his touch. Goosebumps were the paint to the canvas of your skin, littering each part of you even though you were impossibly warm in the sun. You really wanted brunch. But your stomach wanted brunch. Instead, you simply nodded to him, agreeing with the answer he had never said. "You're right. Food is very important."

Carlos groaned at your response. "Hermosa," He sighed out, bringing his arms around your waist to pull you close yet again. "I want you," He murmured against your skin, nose brushing against your cheek and hot breath wandering down your neck.

Carlos could feel you smile at his words. "And you have me... for two whole weeks," You reminded him, pressing a brief kiss to his cheek.

Carlos curled his lip in annoyance at your reminder while he revelled in your touch. "I could have you for four," He also reminded you.

You sighed. You hadn't seen him in three weeks because life had it's mysterious ways of making the both of you busy. You wanted nothing more than a month with Carlos. But it was far too suspicious.

You had barely convinced your mother and your brothers that you were going to Santorini for a 'self-exploration' trip. Charles had immediately offered to turn it into a family trip but you managed to settle him down by saying you would spend the last two weeks with them. Alexandra had been a sweetheart in the matter as well. She was the only one, as well as Kika and Lily, that had known about you and Carlos, claiming they sensed it from 'a mile away'.

What they truly meant was that Carlos wouldn't stop eye-fucking you from a far.

"It's okay," You mumbled woefully, patting his chest softly, "I'll be with you in spirit while you reign Madrid."

Carlos held in his eye roll at your theatrics, you had a flair for them. "I wish you would reign Madrid with me instead. I want you to meet the family, let me finally teach you golf, go to the holiday house with me, hmm?" He implored, chocolate brown flickering to search yours.

The pain behind your eyes made him feel frustrated. He knew how much you wanted to do that because you wanted the same thing with your family. "How 'bout I call Charles, hmm? I'm sure he'll understand."

The thought of Charles finding out from anyone but you made you shudder. Would he understand? What was so understandable about hiding the fact you were dating his teammate for over a year, especially over a call?

Arthur, amongst Charles and Lorenzo, would probably be the most hurt. You and him told each other everything. You guys were the closest in age, similar to how Lorenzo and Charles were. Hell, you even helped him confess and get with Carla. And he was waiting to do the same for you, with some he trusted and knew.

And Lorenzo? It was really for the best if he didn't know from Carlos. He had initially told you not to get too close to any of the drivers because he was worried for you and well, the reputation of F1 drivers and dating wasn't too great. But you were quite sure that anything you and Carlos did had crossed the line of 'too close'. '

"Carlos, mi amor, I love you, but I think the idea of brunch, not brunch, is more understanding."

━━━━━━━━━━━

After your brunch, you had spent some time reading to Carlos inside the yacht, not wanting to get into the water just after you had eaten nor wanting to go out when the sunshine was at it's peak.

It was serene.

The windows were open, letting a cool breeze come and help reduce the heat and you were both sprawled on the soft mattresses that served as sofas on the floor of the yacht. The calmness and peace you had desired amongst the chaos life and F1 brought.

You were half sure that Carlos was close to falling asleep in your lap, but not by your retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, after Carlos refused to see Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen for the sixth time this year, but by the way your combed your hand through his hair as you read. (Although you were still going to be persistent because the concept of seeing those two on screen in Santorini out of all places was a need, not a want).

"Carlos, mon beau (my handsome), you're going to fall asleep. Let's go swimming," You told him, placing your bookmark in between the pages and closing the book.

Carlos groaned, looking up at you. He held your hand close to his chest. "No, it's way too hot. Don't you see the water? It looks like lava."

You narrowed your eyes. "That precisely why we should go swimming. We can't just sit here and mope around. We're in Santorini... we need to stand up and move around."

Carlos lifted his head from your lap, sitting straight so he faced you. You let out a quick yelp when he pulled you forward, placing you onto his lap, legs straddling him. "I can think about fifty ways to stand up and move around... in fifty different positions."

You could feel your thighs involuntarily clench around him. You know he felt it to. You gasped at his words and shook your head. "You are a heathen, Carlos Sainz. A barbarian... a hooligan, a sexually-driven simpleton must I continue?"

"Well, I recall you loving this heathen, infidel, barbarian, and hooligan," Carlos shrugged, warm hands inching up the white sundress you had worn this morning. The action sent a shudder down your spine.

"Carlos," You mumbled, already falling into a state where you were losing the words to speak your thoughts as Carlos kneaded the flesh of your thighs with his rough hands.

"Yes?" Those puppy brown eyes flickered to your eyes while he brought his mouth to your thighs, opting to graze your heated skin with the teeth. "Tell me what you want, hermosa. And I'll give it to you."

You faltered at his words. His gaze was heavy with a dark blaze that sent your stomach churning. You allowed yourself to fully straddle Carlos' lap, teeth sinking into your bottom lip when you felt Carlos' clothed bulge press into your core.

Carlos struggled to prevent a strained hiss escape his gritted teeth, his grip on your thighs tightening, your flesh escaping the confines of his hands. Fuck, were your thighs so enticing to Carlos. He wanted to bite them and bruise them so even weeks later, they were covered in the reminiscents of him.

"What do you want, baby? Please tell me," Carlos begged, eyes desperately searching your own for any sign or indication of what you wanted.

You felt your core clench at the plea falling from Carlos' plump lips. You hadn't even really done anything but he was ready to serve you. Everything was foggy. You couldn't think straight. "I want... I want you, Carlos. Fuck, anything, everything... I–make love to me. Show me how much you love me."

His roaming hands came to a halt. "Mierda (shit)," Carlos cursed, bringing his tongue to swipe his bottom lip.

He could do that. He would love you so much that the entirety of Santorini would know and no one would even question your relationship with him.

Carlos brought his hands to your back, feeling the numerous strings of your dress against the pads of his fingers. One hand worked to undo the very knots he had done this morning while the other creeped up the back of your neck, pulling your head closer to his.

He brought his lips to yours, pressing them with an indescribable urgency. Your hands shot out to his chest, fisting the soft material of the polo you had chosen for him into a small bundle.

You gasped into the kiss, feeling a sudden breeze of cold air as the strings of your dress fell flat against your skin. Carlos' hands wandered down the surface of your back, coming to a stop at your waist.

The urge to get even closer to you coursed through Carlos' veins, pulling you flush against him. A moan fell from his swollen lips as you parted to fill the craving of some oxygen. Your pussy was pressed tight against his cock and your breasts were soft, pushed against his chest.

Carlos ventured to move his lips down the side of your jaw, edging towards your barren neck, aching to decorate you with aging and unique shades of purple and blue.

You let out a series of sinful whimpers upon the feeling of your skin being sucked at, feeding directly into his constrained cock. "Carlos..." You moaned out, eyes shut in pure pleasure, "They'll know. The–They'll ask q-questions."

"I know." You shivered as you feel him grin against your skin.

You watched him through your half-lidded eyes, moving up from your neck to look at you with his blistering gaze. With one simple movement, he took off his shirt, revealing his taut golden skin. Christ.

You sat still breathlessly on his lap as Carlos peeled off your dress, pulling your arms through the white material. The cool breeze trickled over your bare breasts, nipples hardening almost instantly.

Carlos let a warm hand rest over your rib, lifting you gently to remove your dress fully. He sighed, laying you down on the mattress. The tips of his fingers travelled from your neck and down the valley of your breasts, the hairs of your body standing straight at his touch.

"You know what it is a tragedy, hermosa?" Carlos queried, watching you quiver underneath him, chest heavily rising up and down.

He smiled at your asking through your eyes because the words just couldn't come out of your throat. "You will never see yourself the way I see you. Eres una sirena... obra de Dios. If He didn't put you on this Earth that would've been his biggest sin." You are a siren… God's work.

If your throat wasn't tied up before, it surely was now. You looked at him with a soft gaze, watching him come near you to press his lips on your own. You whimpered, feeling his hands travel towards your breasts, fondling your mounds with a cautious roughness that sent your stomach tingling.

You frowned at the loss of his lips but the complaint subsided upon the feel of his hot tongue swirling around your pebbled nipple. He paid attention to every flick and every crevice, keeping his deep eyes trained on you. He smiled at your hiss as he purposely grazed his teeth against your nipple.

Carlos removed his lips from your nipple, moving his head back to hover over your pussy. Still keeping his eyes on you, you watched in silence as the hot saliva fell from his lips, bubbly strings landing directly onto your glistening folds. Fucking hell.

"Eyes on me, baby," He told you, looking at your clenched eyes.

Your eyes shot open as Carlos took one long stripe of your folds, your hips bucking at the sudden sensation. Lingering a second too long on your clit, his tongue continued to work up towards your stomach and the valley of your breasts, returning his attention to your other nipple.

Your mouth fell open, feeling his fingers rub your wet folds, spreading his saliva around your pussy. While his tongue worked your nipple, he thrusted a thick finger into your walls. With your eyes rolling back, you attempted to fist the thick material of the mattress but to no avail.

"Fuckk, Carlos," You whimpered, writhing at his touch.

"Finally found your words, hmm?" Carlos teased, adding another finger into his torturous slow pace. His eyes were glued to watching your hips out of his periphery, snapping up to try and ride his fingers. As laboured breaths fell from your lips, he pushed his digits even further, aiming to reach a specific spot.

Smoothly, Carlos grabbed a nearby pillow, putting it under your lower back to bring you some comfort and a whole new level of pleasure. He stared at your face intently: your mouth had fallen wide open with a ghost whisper of his name flowing into the air, sweat glistened over your flushed face, pooling near the edges of your hair and neck, and your lips were swollen with the prettiest shade of red he had ever seen.

"Carlos," You managed to get out with your brain practically turning into jelly. "Carlos, please, I don't want to cum like this. I need your cock, please."

Carlos' cock throbbed at your pleas. "Your wish is my command, princesa."

Hearing your whines upon the loss of his fingers, Carlos took off his blue shorts faster than he had ever done in his life.

Even though you had been with Carlos sexually for a while, your cheeks still flamed when you saw his cock. Not out of embarrassment or unadulterated innocence. No. It was outright heat that was getting to you.

Every time you saw his cock, it was a violent shade of red, throbbing and aching, leaving Carlos begging to be touched by you.

You watched as Carlos leaned forward, hovering over you. It was beyond you how exactly pretty Carlos was. You hadn't realised until he started courting you. You had no idea how you were supposed to live without seeing his thicket of brown locks, his freckles that could only be depicted if you were close to him otherwise they blended with his prickly stubble, the smug smile he constantly wore to hide himself, and especially his big brown eyes that made you bend to his command.

"Carlos?" You softly called out.

Carlos' ears perked up at your gentle tone. He smiled down at you with raised brows. His hands continued to travel your body, retracing every curve and fold as he had committed to his memory. "Sí, mi hermosa?"

You ran a hand through his hair before caressing his cheek. God, he was your beautiful boy. "Je t'aime plus que tu ne peux l'imaginer." I love you more than you can imagine.

You knew he didn't speak French despite spending this many years with Charles but it often comes from you naturally when you were too caught up in your feelings.

"Je ne pense pas que ce soit le cas. You don't know how my every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. I can't breathe without you. Every race, I hope you're there waiting for me because you're pretending to wait for Charles. Hermosa, I exist for you. No one else." I don't think you do.

Your eyes widened, fresh tears lining your waterline. "You understood–you learned French?" You whispered, voice barely audible.

Carlos grinned. "I'm quite sure I said a lot of after that but yes, I did learn French for you... surprise!"

You suppressed the urge to push him off of you and gave him a long kiss. Pulling back, you laughed gently. "You're an idiot... making me cry during sex. And not even in the good way!" You feigned your complaint.

"Well, we still have tonight and thirteen more days. Today I'm just showing how much I love you," He whispered above your lips, hips lining up with yours.

You sucked in a sharp breath, feeling Carlos' cock brush past your folds. You both moaned in unison as he pushed his cock into your pussy. Your walls wrapped around his cock tightly, gripping him like a vice.

Carlos cursed several profanities under his breath, head lolling back while pleasure coursed through his body. His arms encircled your waist, pulling you up to sit on his lap. His cock ached at the high-pitched mewl that fell from your swollen lips.

His hands fell to your hips, holding you tightly, slowly shifting you up and down his length, burying his cock in you.

You closed your eyes, letting your forehead rest on Carlos'. You can feel him staring at you, taking all of you in: every hue of your flushed state, your eyelashes riddled with tears and sweat, the heavenly and sinful sounds from your lips, and your greased hair.

"You are breathtaking," Carlos whispered against you.

You smiled, opening your eyes to meet his and rolling your hips slowly in response. "You make me feel so good," You praised.

A rough moan was elicited from Carlos, throat tight and choked up from your words and actions. He could barely function seeing your bare pussy take his cock so well, let alone how the tip of his cock throbbed when he lifted you up. His own eyes were beginning to shut as he revelled in the ecstasy you brought hip.

Fuck, you were so wet. You looked down at your thighs, seeing the obscene sheen of your arousal coat spread to Carlos' thighs. You sunk your teeth into your bottom lip, hips snapping to create a rhythm.

"Carlos, I, fuck," You blabbered in complete disarray. You were beginning to seem the edges of a familiar white light.

Although Carlos appreciated the sign, he could tell by the way you were clenched so tightly around his cock, getting his cock to pulsate every few seconds, that you were going to come.

He moved his hands between your legs, watching you sink over his cock one more time before he obstructed the view by using his thumb to rub your clit in circles.

"Mierda," Carlos cussed, feeling you grip his cock even further if it was possible. "Cum for me, mi amor."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," You repeated the expletive as if it were a mantra, hips bucking as white clouded your vision. You let out a loud moan, body shaking as waves of your climax hit you one after the other.

Not a second later, Carlos was cumming too. His hips rutted against yours in almost an unrecognisable desperation, the peak of his ecstasy right within his grasp. His cock pulsed while his hips came to a falter, stuttering as ropes of his white cum spilled into you, warming your walls.

"F-Fuck," Carlos groaned, feeling your pussy clamp around him, trying to take every last drop of his cum.

You feel Carlos slump forward into you, exhausted. Gently, you lifted yourself off of his cock, wincing at your sensitivity. You fell straight onto the mattress, panting heavily.

"Shit!" You yelped as Carlos pushed some of his leaking come back into and circle your clit. You shook at the mini aftermath of your orgasm before calming back down.

"Satisfied?" You nudged Carlos playfully, knowing damn well Carlos liked to go the extra mile when it came to you.

"Very," Carlos commented, reaching his arms out to bring you closer to him.

You sighed, resting your head on his chest. The exhaustion was very quickly seeping into the both of you. Carlos' heartbeat was beginning to work as a lullaby and Carlos had found your warmth far more comforting than any mattress or duvet.

"Hermosa," He called, making you hum for you had no energy to speak. "We need to tell them."

You found yourself trying to open your eyes. When had they closed? You turned to face him, chin resting on his heated torso. You pressed a brief kiss and said, "I know. Let's tell them in a few days. So they have at least a week to yell at me."

Carlos frowned at your words. "I'll be right there with you. You know that right? I'm not letting you do this alone."

You smiled after letting out a small yawn. "I know, I know. I'm grateful. Thank you, mi amor."

Carlos returned the gesture, kissing your forehead gently. He rubbed your shoulders, feeling the dark abyss of slumber slowly call to him. "Anything for you, hermosa."

#mickyschumacher #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #formula 1 #f1 smut #carlos sainz imagine #carlos sainz smut #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz x you #carlos sainz

2K notes · View notes

crismakesstuff · 7 months

Text

new invincible oc!

cele grayson aka celestial !

(they/he/she)

Cele was an artificially grown viltrumite that was apart of a secret project to help repopulate viltrum. They were the only baby that lived through the full gestational period and didn’t die after their birth. They were born august 6th, 1999

Cele was made by taking the DNA of a woman who had died during the scourge virus and of nolan grayson. It was done without his knowledge, he never knew about these experiments as they were only known about by the highest ranking viltrumites. The whole project being personally overseen by grand regent thragg who wanted to find a way to effectively create purebloods without having to mix them with other species.

They spent their early years constantly observed and studied. Days consisted of near endless experiments and exams. They were treated more like a lab rat than an actual person with all their actions under heavy supervision, monitored by thragg who was the only viltrumite they were allowed to interact with during this time. When their powers manifested at the age of 7 training immediately began. Personally taught by General Thula, they came to see her as a pseudo mother figure during this time.

At the age of 14 they were officially made a solider and allowed to go on missions with other viltrumites. At 19 they were put in charge of a planet that had anomalies that defied physics. After a year of being left mostly to themselves the stress finally began to eat away at them and their mental health took a sharp decline. One day during a visit from the generals a gravitational anomaly opened up a miniature black hole that seemed to only pull them in at first, later devouring the entire planet with her. The generals barely escaped and witnessed the entire thing believing cele to be dead.

Instead they were spat out into the multiverse from a white hole and spent the next few years surviving on their own and trying to learn how to use their new powers. When they suddenly were spat back out into their universe, they were instead in the Milky Way galaxy instead of the Andromeda galaxy. Remembering that the other viltrumites told him that their father was on earth they headed there.

Only to find out he had just left a few weeks prior after a huge fight with his son, mark. Now they have to adjust to life on earth while they hide from the empire out of fear of being found.

Themes:

With Cele i wanted to really explore the idea of “What you were made for vs. What you want to be”. As well as the trauma that came with their upbringing and them coming to terms with the lack of self worth they tend to feel and the martyr complex he develops from this trauma too.

Another major theme is the “found family” trope. Cele from a young age has always looked for parental figures and people they can feel close too since they were little but their first pseudo parents (thragg, thula) barely treated them as a true person with autonomy. When she comes to earth and meets mark and debbie they begin to really learn what a family should be. This gives them the courage to begin making friends on earth and letting people into their lives.

Powers

Viltrumite Abilities

Superhuman Strength: Cele has strength of a well trained viltrumite of their age allowing them to perform extreme feats. (One such example was when they held up the upper half of a mountain by themselves on earth during a major disaster. Scientists calculate the mass held and then placed back was anywhere from 200-400 tones)

Superhuman Speed: Cele can move at extreme speeds both on foot and in the air. Allowing him to travel around any space with extreme ease. They can fly from the earths surface to the moon in a matter of minutes. They also are capable of traveling through space on their own.

Superhuman Stamina: Due to her smart atoms Cele’s body rarely tires and is capable of physical exertion for long periods of time without becoming fatigued.

Superhuman Durability: Cele’s tissues are extremely durable to the point of almost invulnerability. While they can be damaged by other viltrumites or beings stronger than her they can withstand damage that would vaporize and easily kill a normal human. Able to withstand falling from a planet’s atmosphere onto its surface, nuclear weaponry, the surface of stars and are now invulnerable to black holes.

Flight: like any viltrumite they can manipulate the atoms around them which allows them flight. They are able to reach light speeds when flying but only do so in space.

Superhuman Equilibrium: Cele has a very enhanced sense of balance. However this sensitive process which takes place in their ears means that like any viltrumite, they could be harmed by a specific frequency which would incapacitate them and make them unable to even fly or stand upright.

Superhuman Senses: Cele possesses acutely enhanced senses. Such as hearing, smell and sight. This can also lead to them becoming easily overstimulated, especially when they arrive on earth.

Accelerated Regeneration: her body can recover from injuries at an extreme rate. Even capable of regenerating full organs, nerves and bones. As long as their heart isn’t severely damaged they can and will heal.

Decelerated Aging: like all viltrumites they have an extremely long lifespan. While they are only currently 24, they will appear the same for many centuries. Viltrumites live for many thousands of years, their own father Nolan is over 2000 years old and appears middle aged.

Non-Viltrumite Abilities

(manifest after the black hole accident)

Pocket dimensional void (PDV): Cele can access their own pocket dimension which they refer too as the "void". It is a black oxygen-less miniature dimension that is seemingly endless, although it hasn't been measured. It is mainly used by cele as a sort of infinite storage space, any item placed in here that is not an animal of some kind will stay in the exact same state as it was when placed inside. They also use it asa place to safely decompress and calm down at times.

Dark Matter Portals: Can create portals made of dark matter. These portals can either open up to the PDV or function as traditional portals that teleport an individual from place to place. If too many are opened at once and/or kept open it can quickly tire out cele and even cause them to pass out. It's one of the things that can truly exhaust them.

Gravitational Invulnerability: They are impervious to the gravitational pull of any black hole and seemingly unaffected by them where anything else would be pulled and stretched into its singularity. It is unknown if cele can fully enter into a black hole again and what would happen

Celestial Body Connection: a new manifestation that sometimes suddenly means they feel the power of whatever celestial body they are nearest too. They have no control over this and currently it means they can become completely overwhelmed with the strength of these ancient creatures that are far more powerful and knowing that herself. Perhaps one day they could harness this power but for now it remains more of a hindrance

Singularity: the creation of a very specific type of portal that is a miniature blackhole. No other portals can be active when this is done. Extremely unstable ability thatcan leave cele seriously wounded. The singularity is a writhing, bubbling ultra-condensed amount of gravity that takes a massive amount of strength and energy to control. Only done in space as to not bring harm to any celestial bodies immediately nearby because if it was done directly on top of them it could possibly begin to immediately pull in the planet or star.

-The longer cele does this the more they lose control of it. Once their sclera turn black and their irises begin to glow it means he will be left seriously injured. Their eyes will remain in that state (except their irises will no longer glow) until they are fully healed.

Inspirations

Ellie Williams: while I will say there’s no main inspiration for cele. I do draw a lot of their personality and behavior from ellie. The struggle to survive and stay alive that that then clashes with having to try and “fit in” when arriving in Jackson is something that very much mirrors Cele’s experience with arriving on earth. And cele like ellie has very little issue about hurting/killing others if it means it helps them get to their goal. The world has made them a bit jaded and awkward but there is still much love underneath that

Rei Ayanami: I mainly pulled from the idea that rei was made to be a tool for NERV and taught to be loyal and obedient no matter what. As well as the aesthetic of the lighter hair for cele, they were made to be tool for the viltrum empire and to further its goals. So when they are pulled into the black hole into the multiverse and then spat back out and they head to earth, this all crushes their world view. They learn they aren’t some weapon or tool to be fought over but rather a person with their own agency

Gwen Stacy: I am mostly pulling from her character arc in the spiderverse films. Focusing on identity and trying to find who you are both as a hero and a person, and opening yourself up to people to let them in again.

If you made it all the way to the end thank you for reading! If you have any questions about cele please send it all to my ask box! 💜

212 notes · View notes

eagerbby · 2 years

Text

ᴄᴀɴ ᴡᴇ ᴍᴇᴇᴛ? - ᴇᴍ

pairing| Eddie Munson x female reader

synopsis| The year is 1999 and you might, quite possibly, be absolutely head over heels with a stranger you met online. Little do you know, he's not as much a stranger as you first thought.

an| part two to 'can I call you', this has become a series and I'm incredibly thankful for all that read my silly little stories.

warnings| 2k, not much to warn about

Part 1 | part 3

You sent him your number as soon as you got home from work, bounding up the stairs two at a time, locking your door and hurrying to your desktop as soon as you entered your room. Your parents aren’t home, off on some retreat that’s supposed to reinvigorate their marriage, whatever that means. Honestly you didn’t care, you’d spent the whole day watching the clock, waiting for your shift to be over so you could finally go home and talk to Eddie.

Eddie. You haven’t been able to get him off your mind since you both started talking, which was pretty shocking to you. Couldn’t quite believe how quickly your small communication turned into a full blown friendship, to an unrelenting crush. You didn’t know him, not really, weren’t even sure if he was who he said he was but it didn’t seem to matter. You liked him.

Your speakers whoosh as you log into AOL, clicking on his name and opening the chat log. Your heart is pattering against your sternum, body vibrating from nerves as you send him your number and a cute message.

PrettyiNProsed: Can’t wait to hear your voice, pretty boy.

You aren't the type to flirt with strangers over the internet and even after you became friends and your crush grew, you refrained from giving in to his attempts to flirt. It wasn’t easy, not in the slightest, not when it was so tempting to play along. You had a feeling he’d be easy to rile up, he tried to act all sauve, but he wasn’t as smooth as he pretended to be. You were sure of it and you were gonna prove it.

Your stomach drops when you realize it’s already been twenty minutes, sitting in your computer chair with your brand new phone laid in your lap, silently watching your screen. He's online, you can see that, but he hasn't said anything back and he hasn't called yet.

What if he doesn't call? Last night you had been so sure he would, he seemed excited, but now he was radio silent. Anxiety made you nauseous, picking at your cuticles and tapping your bare foot against the wooden leg of your desk. The rejection is already sour in your mouth.

You nearly fall out of your seat as the transparent pink phone in your lap comes to life.

Ring. Ring. Rin-

“Hello?” Your voice is soft, almost timid, as you listen to the slight ruffle over the line before a goofy chuckle crackles over into your ear.

“I knew you’d have a pretty voice.” He says, his own voice rich as honey, melodious, with a little huskiness that sends goosebumps rippling across your skin.

“Yours isn’t so bad either, Eddie.” It comes out a giggle, soft and airy, the smile on your face nearly painful from how wide it is. “I was worried you got cold feet.”

You can hear the sound of a lighter sparking and the way Eddie’s exhale shakes in his throat.

“You want the truth?” He asks. You roll your eyes, standing from your chair and walking over to your bed.

“No, Eddie. I want you to lie to me.” You say, flopping back on your bed as you twirl the cord around a finger. If only you could see the way Eddie’s whole body shivers at the sultry sound of your voice.

“Well if that's the case…” He trails off and you roll onto your stomach, bare feet kicking in the air.

“Eddie.” You warn with a roll of your eyes.

“Okay, okay. I, uh, I needed a couple minutes.” He says.

“A couple minutes to..” You egg him on, biting your lip at the way his little chuckle makes your body tingle.

“It’s not everyday I get to talk to a pretty girl on the phone, ya know.” He says, avoiding the question at hand. You smile into the phone, cheeks hot, a tornado of butterflies raging in your stomach.

“Are you sugaring me up, Eddie.”

“You’re already sweet as sugar, baby.”

Baby. God, you want to squeal at the word. It sounds like heaven coming from his mouth, making your heart thud hard in your chest.

“Are you gonna tell me why or not, hm?”

“You make me nervous, sweetheart.”

“Me?” You beam, brighter than the midday sun, voice muffled in the palm of your hand but Eddie hears you and laughs soft as a summers breeze.

“Yeah, you. You could have been an old man or something.” That’s the thing about the world wide web, you never truly know who you’re talking to. Lucky for you, you found Eddie.

“I thought the same about you, Eddie.” You admit, crawling off your bed with the speaker tucked against your ear and shoulder, ambling over to your dresser determined to get out of the itchy dress you wear. You pull out your night clothes and walk back to your bed, putting the phone on speaker as you start to change.

“Oh yeah? And yet you still gave me your number?” He challenges, a smile in his voice, you wonder what he’s doing as you slip out of your diner uniform.

“I had hope that you were real. Guess I was right.” You toss your dirty uniform into the hamper across the room before pulling the old band shirt on.

“Guess so. Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m changing, I had just got off work when I messaged you. I’ll die if I have to wear this uniform any longer.” After pulling some shorts on you crawl back onto your bed, Eddie’s silent for a couple seconds before he whispers right into the phone.

“What are you wearing?”

You laugh so hard you snort, laugh even harder when Eddie tries to take back what he’s said.

“I’m sorry that was weird.”

“Well, do you still wanna know?”

“If you’ll tell me.”

“Hmm, okay.” You pull at the black tattered fabric of your shirt, rubbing the fabric between your fingers. “I am wearing an old band shirt and some pink shorts.”

“Sexy.” He says and then- “What’s the band?”

“You’re gonna laugh at me.” You say, poking the teddy bear you placed in your lap.

“I promise I won’t, sweetheart.” He coos.

“It’s a Savage Garden shirt.”

He laughs so loud you have to pull the phone away from your ear.

“Eddie! You promised!” You whine, covering your face as if he could see you.

“I’m sorry, baby! I just didn’t expect that.” He’s still chuckling as he says it and despite him breaking his promise you still smile because once again he called you baby. You liked the thought of being his baby.

“You’re mean, Eddie. You wanna make fun of me? Tell me what you’re wearing, mister!”

“I’m wearing a Metallica shirt and some black jeans.” Eddie speaks with no enthusiasm and you imagine him in your head.

You picture him being tall, broad shouldered, crazy hair although you can’t picture what color or length. It’s the same with his face, in your mind his features are all a blur, like in a dream when you can see everything but their face. You spend a lot of time trying to imagine certain things about him, putting the pieces together like a puzzle. You knew his interest, knew his heart, knew his voice, the only thing left is to put a face to the man that you knew without a doubt -if given the chance- you could fall for.

“Lemme guess,”You ponder, crossing your ankles. “You also have a leather jacket, maybe a denim vest with patches are something and those jeans of yours, which I’m guessing are your favorite out of the handful that you own, have rips in them.”

Silence over the line and then his voice, soft, comes through.

“How’d you know?” He says, admiration clear in his tone.

“I know your type, Eddie.” You grin to yourself, rolling onto your side. The last of the sunset trickles through your window, casting soft orange rays across your carpet. It’ll be gone soon, replaced by a starry sky you wish you could sit under with him.

“Yeah? How so?”

“You’re a metalhead, kinda comes with the territory.”

“I guess so. Here, that just makes me a freak.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what I like about you.”

“What else do you like about me?” You ask playfully, reaching to turn your bedside lamp on as the sun fades into the horizon.

“Oh I got a list around here somewhere.” He teases.

“Oh really, gonna have to show me one day.”

“Absolutely, sweetheart. Just tell me when and where.”

When and where. That was your biggest question; where did he live? If it wasn’t too far you’d drive to meet him, buy a room at whatever hotel or motel was around. Even better if he had room for you at his place. Didn’t matter, not really, you’d drive across the country for him. He’d become your best friend in such a short time, it didn’t matter what he looked like or where he was from, you just wanted to be around him.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“Where do you live?”

He pauses for a second, scuffling making the line static, before he clears his throat and says-

“Hawkins, Indiana. What about you? I-if you wanna tell me. You don’t have to.”

Shit.

“Did you say Hawkins?” You ask, sitting up in your bed. You stand as he answers, walking over to your window to peek out at the street below. The sun has set, lilac clouds drifting across an indigo sky, the street lights on Maple just turning on.

“Yeah, it’s a smallish hick town like eighty miles outside of Indianapolis. Why?” His voice falls off, wavering with concern. Meanwhile you’ve dropped your phone, digging through the wicker chest at the end of your bed for your highschool yearbook. Once you find it you rush back over and pick up the phone, your hands shaking as you flip to the seniors, searching for his face among your peers. When you find him your heart skips a beat.

“Long dark hair, big brown eyes, you-” You giggle anxiously, running your finger over his smiling face on the page. “Eddie Munson, your name is Eddie Munson.”

Eddie’s dead silent and for a second you think he’s hung up, that is until you hear his shaky breath.

“D-Do you live in Hawkins?” He asks, sounding nervous.

“I do.”

“Holy shit.” He says, and then again. “Holy fucking shit.”

“Eddie, you okay?” You ask, sitting down in the middle of your bed, staring down at his picture like you’re speaking to his face. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”

“No, uh, no. I just… You know who I am and I still don’t know who you are.”

“Oh, you probably don’t remember me. I spent most of my time in the library or with my face buried in a book.” You lean back against your headboard. “I’m looking at your senior photo right now, you know.”

“Oh god, which year?” He asks with a scoff.

“‘97. You looked really cute.” You can feel yourself blush, unknown to you, Eddie’s face is bright red.

“Tell me your last name.” He whispers, but it’s loud, like he's holding the phone right to his mouth.

“No.”

“What? W-why?” He stammers, voice now booming through the phone.

“Are you busy right now?”

“No…”

“Wanna meet me at Forest Hills Park?” You’re already slipping your shoes on, finding your purse that you’d thrown as you entered your room earlier.

“Like, now?”

“Like, in ten minutes.”

“You’re… You’re not fucking with me right?” You can hear the uncertainty in his voice and it makes you sad. How many times had he told you about his highschool experience? You knew how badly people treated him. Mostly behind his back, but there were times you’d seen some dumb jock shove him against a locker as they walked past or how theyd scowl at him in the halls, call him and his friends names as they ate their lunch. Eddie didn’t know who you were exactly; only that you knew him. Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. That must scare the shit out of him. Like walking into battle without knowing who your enemy is.

“I’d never do that to you, Eddie. I promise.” You mean it, every word.

“How will I know if it's you?" He asks and in the background you can hear the metallic clinking of keys.

“I’ll be the girl in the Savage Garden shirt and booty shorts. Can’t miss me.” This earns you a chuckle and your heart blooms.

“Okay. I’ll see you then, sweetheart.”

“I can’t wait.”

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #stranger things x reader #stranger things smut #stranger things fan fic #eddie munson

2K notes · View notes

only-angel-28 · 8 months

Text

1999, part four - final part!

oh my gosh. final part and what a surprise, she's a long one again💀💀ive loved writing this silly little series so so much and i love all of you very very much🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽please give me requests on what to write next bc my mind is completely blank rn, all i can think of is the cold war and bolsheviks from my history revison and i dont think they would make v good fics🤡🤡

lmk what you think of this part and your fav moments, enjoy!!

warnings: tiny angst, mostly fluff, swearing

1999, part one

1999, part two

1999, part three

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

conrad’s pov

Since Y/n is unable to hold a phone herself, I'm tasked with a lot, but I didn't fully realize the worry of her family until she had me working through each task with her.

No wonder she’s overwhelmed. The number of texts from Laurel, Mom, Belly, Jere and Steven she has to sift through in a given hour would drive anyone insane.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy by sitting this close to her. The smell of her coconut soap is permanently ingrained into my memory as she sits flush against me, pointing at different texts with her uninjured hand.

I can tell her nerves grow stronger as the Uber near the hospital.

Her knees bounce up and down as she dictates message after message I need to send, confusing me more and more with every word.

The work doesn't stop there. After we check in, a nurse hands us a clipboard filled with pages of information that need to be filled out. Y/n stares at it like it might catch on fire at any moment.

"Here." I pass it to her.

Her eyes shift toward the exit. "Will you help me please? I can't write like this." Her voice drops to a barely audible whisper.

"Okay. Tell me your answers and I'll write them down."

Her throat bobs as she scans the first line. It takes her far longer than necessary to read the first question.

"Do you mind reading the questions aloud for me? I'm too stressed to concentrate right now." Her overcompensating smile irritates me.

"Are you sure? Some of the questions are probably personal."

Don't be a dick. Just do what she says.

"I don't care.”

The rigid way she sits in her chair says the complete opposite.

She seems to be one minute away from breaking down, so I concede. I sigh as I grab the pen and get started on the first question. The paperwork doesn't take us as long as I anticipated, so Y/n and I sit together in silence. She stares at the exit longingly.

The way her eyes dart around the room as she gnaws on her bottom lip makes me feel merciful enough to save her from the anxiety eating her up inside.

“If it's any consolation, I hate hospitals too."

Her head swings toward the direction of my voice.

"Yeah?"

I nod. "Haven't been to one since…"

"I know." she says as she sees my chest heaves as I remember the millions of times we’ve been here before.

I keep my eyes focused on the soundless television playing in one corner.

Her good hand clasps onto mine and gives it a squeeze. I'm grateful she understands me enough not to ask any other questions. The idea of offering another raw part of myself feels like a betrayal of the years I've spent carefully developing a certain kind of persona.

"I hate them too." Her voice cracks.

"Why?"

She stares down at her swollen hand. “My dad…” She pauses, and I give her hand a reassuring squeeze like she gave me. "Let's just say mom ended up in the ER a couple of times for being clumsy."

I take a deep breath to stave off the anger bubbling beneath the surface. "And did you have issues with being clumsy?" If she says yes, I swear to God two men will end up floating in the Chicago River tonight.

She shakes her head rather aggressively. "No. No." My rapid heart rate can be heard through my ears. "If you were, you can tell me." While I can't promise I won't do anything about it, I can promise to make him hurt. A lot. With sulfuric acid or something, those pre-med studies are starting to come in handy now.

The overwhelming sense of protectiveness hits me hard, and I don't shy away from it. There is nothing I hate more than men who use their fists against innocent women and children.

"It never got to that point. Suze made sure of it." she says with a small smile.

"How?"

"She caught onto the signs and interfered before things got bad. Used her savings from my grandpa's life insurance policy to help Mom get a divorce and start a new life." A tear slips down her face, and I can't stand the sight of it.

I brush it away with the pad of my thumb, but the damp trail still lingers. A driving force inside of me wants to erase the sad look on her face. "Did her plan also happen to include a jug of sulfuric acid?"

She forces out a laugh. "I think concrete shoes were more in style back then."

I fake shudder. "Remind me to never make mom angry again."

"Forget her, you'd have to deal with me." She holds up her injured hand like a war trophy.

"I'm absolutely terrified."

"Miss Y/n?" a nurse calls out.

Y/n doesn't move at the sound of her name.

"That's you." I place my hand on her thigh and give it a squeeze.

She sucks in a deep breath as she stares down at my hand.

Her chair nearly tumbles behind her as she bolts out of the seat, throwing her one good hand up in the air. "I'm here!"

The nurse leads us through the emergency room bay.

Individual beds line the wall, each area divided by a paper curtain.

The empty bed meant for Y/n is unacceptable. Between the person retching behind one partition and the individual on the other side hacking up their lung, I refuse to let her be seen here.

"I'd like my…my friend, to be taken care of in a private suite," I speak up. I know I sound snotty right now but honestly, I’ll be damned if I let her already horrible hospital experience get any worse.

The nurse grimaces as her gaze licks across my body. "This is a hospital. Not the Ritz. Take a seat and wait for the doctor like everyone else."

Y/n hops on the bed without any complaint, and I'm tempted to grab her and go elsewhere. The nurse doesn't seem the least bit bothered by all the noise happening around us as she checks Y/n’s vitals and asks some routine questions.

Y/n answers each one while chewing her bottom lip raw. This atmosphere couldn't put anyone at ease, least of all her.

The nurse hangs the clipboard at the foot of the bed, and I decide to try again.

"I'll pay whatever it takes to have her seen somewhere quieter. Money is no object."

The nurse only replies by shutting the paper curtain in my face.

Y/n laughs while I stare at the curtain, dumbfounded to be treated like this.

"You find this funny?"

She nods, her eyes alight for the first time all night. "Did you see her face when you said money is no object? I think if she didn't put the clipboard away, she would have slapped your face with it."

"It's not my fault she isn't accustomed to how things are done in the real world."

"Wake up baby. You're living in the real world." She waves around our room.

"It's terrifying." I say, looking away so she couldn’t see the blush that appeared on my face at the nickname.

"Come here. I'II make it better." Y/n pats the bed.

Doubtful, but I'm a glutton for giving her what she wants lately. Paper crinkles as I sit next to her. I take up most of the bed, giving her little room to get away from me. My thigh brushes against hers. She tries to scoot away, but there isn't enough space.

“Isn’t this cozy?" she quips.

I give her a small smile before she asks, “Hey! Let me see your tattoo.”

God I’d forgotten all about them. I move the collar of my shirt to show the two small ivy leaves we’d gotten. She gasps and gently touches my skin, “Oh my gosh it’s so pretty Connie.” she stares at it for a moment before I ask to see hers.

She lifts up her shirt on the side, exposing her ribcage and the two matching leaves.

“I can’t believe you agreed to get a Taylor Swift referenced tattoo with me Con.” she says as I admire the tattoo for a bit.

I smile until saying, “Hey I might be quiet and mopey but at least I have good taste in music.”

She softly smiles at me before eyeing the IV bag with horror before checking out the exit.

"What’s wrong?”

She leans closer to me and whispers, "Is now a bad time to admit I pass out whenever someone tries to stick a needle in me?"

My lips lift at the corners. I don't know why I find the idea hilarious, given her ability to watch eight consecutive hours of true crime documentaries without so much as flinching.

"You're afraid of needles?"

She sputters. "No. I'm not afraid. It just happens to be a bodily reaction I can't control."

“That's good then because the nurse needs to set you up with that IV when she comes back."

“No! Don't tell me that! I thought she was one of the good ones.”

I nod, pressing my lips together to prevent myself from laughing.

"She lied to me!" She bolts from the seat and would have tripped over her own heels if I didn't reach out and catch her.

*Careful." I place her back on the bed and decide to stand guard in case she gets any ideas to flee the scene.

Her eyes fit from me to the gap between two curtains, as if she is thinking how she can get past me.

"I'm joking.”

She scans my face for the truth before she slaps my shoulder with her good hand. "Asshole! I believed you!"

Laughter explodes out of me like a bomb, stunning her.

“Did you just laugh?”

"No."

“Yes." Someone calls out from the other side of the curtain.

“Now, do you mind shutting up? Some of us are trying to get some sleep over here after having our stomach pumped."

Fuck this place and the people in here. "We're leaving."

"Not so fast. You can't leave before I check you out." The doctor strolls in and points at the bed with his clipboard.

Y/n remains tight-lipped as the doctor checks her chart. He asks her some questions about how she got hurt, all while staring me up and down like I'm the person she was trying to injure. She is taken away for a few scans, and my breathing doesn't return to normal until the nurse brings her back.

That should be my first sign that things are getting out of hand on my end. I'm inching closer to an emotional minefield without any kind of map, only one wrong step away from exploding.

The doctor checks the scans. "It looks like you have a boxer's fracture."

Her face brightens. "That sounds badass."

I glare at her. "Calm down, Muhammad Ali. I wouldn't count today as a victory by any means."

The doctor's eyes lighten. "Next time, avoid any initial contact on the fourth and fifth knuckles."

"Please don't encourage her."

The doctor shakes his head with a laugh before giving Y/n a detailed set of instructions regarding the healing time. I'm skeptical about the whole visit and, given the setting, doubtful about the level of care. I'll be damned if Y/n sustains permanent injuries because of Dean. My chest tightens at the idea.

“Great Thanks, Doc!" She hops off the bed, but I hold my arm out, stopping her

"I’d like a second opinion." The command bursts out of me without any rhyme or reason. Deep down, I know a boxer's fracture isn't the worst thing that could have happened. But things aren't right in my head where Y/n is concerned. At least not anymore.

Both of the doctor's eyebrows arch. "For a small fracture?"

"Don't mind him. He tends to be a bit overbearing." She shoots me a look as if I'm the crazy one out of the two of us.

"Okay..." the doctor says.

Maybe I am losing it because why else would I care?

You hate it when she cries.

You wouldn't mind murdering someone who hurt her.

You took her to the hospital even though you despise them with every fibre of your being.

The signs all point to one thing: our situation is quickly crumbling, and I'm the only one to blame.

Y/n interrupts my thoughts. "I'll be sure to wear the brace for a few weeks and avoid any kind of activities that could aggravate the injury."

"Perfect. And don't forget to schedule a follow-up visit with your physician. "The doctor gives me one last look before handing Y/n the discharge paperwork. "Nice meeting you."

"Will you help me with this?" She holds out the clipboard with her left hand as the doctor leaves.

I grab it from her and fill it out.

She checks the time on her phone. "Well, at least that didn't take as long as I thought it would. I'm sure you're dying to get back home."

That's the scary thing. I didn't think about anything or anyone once during our entire time here because making sure she was taken care of was my only concern. I've spent the past seventeen years of my life thinking solely about my future, and all it took was one girl to make me completely forget about my responsibilities for a few hours.

As if that doesn't scare me enough, it only takes one glance at her makeshift brace to make my blood burn hot under my skin. I know exactly why her injury angers me more than anything else.

It's the same reason I feel the urge to push Jere away from her whenever he gets too close or the way I unexplainably need to see her whenever she is out of my sight for longer than a few hours.

You’re in love with her.

Fuck.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

y/n’s pov

We’re in an Uber on the way home, sitting in comfortable silence until Conrad breaks it.

“Why’d you get with Dean anyway?” My stomach doubles over.

Comfortable silence is so overrated.

I sigh. I’ve been dreading this question for ages now.

“I don’t know.” I answer vaguely.

Conrad gives me a puzzled look, “What do you mean you don't know? You must’ve had a reason.”

His restlessness gets me more agitated.

“I don’t know Conrad. I don’t know why I got with him, I don’t know why I was waiting on you for so long either.” I look out the window as the car stops in front of the house.

“What? What do you mean?” he says as I get out the car and speed up to the front door, taking the keys out of my pocket and refusing to carry on with this conversation anymore.

Conrad keeps yelling after me as he follows me upstairs to my room, both of us trying to ignore everyone else who joined Conrad and are trying to ask their own questions.

I slam my door shut and collapse on my bed hearing Conrad trying to calm everyone down and telling them everything that's happened until he asks them all to give me some space for now.

I cry in the silence as I hear everyone leaving from outside the door until it opens.

“Hey.”

Steven. Thank God.

“Steve…” I say sniffling.

He looks at me with a sad smile before sitting on the bed with me and taking me in his arms.

“Con told us everything,” he says after a few minutes of holding me, “did you really get a boxer's fracture?”

I laugh in tears before showing him my hand and saying, “You should see the other guy.”

Steven and I laugh together before going back to the silence as he hugs me.

“He really cares about you, you know.”

“No he doesn’t. He hates me. I yelled at him and now I’m crying here on my bed like an idiot.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Steven looks down at me.

I shake my head before saying, “He asked why I got with Dean.”

“Oh. That’s not too bad.”

“No it’s not.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“Because I’ve been waiting for Conrad for so long and I’m just sick and tired of always being there to help him get over his breakups when he’d be so much better off with me. I know I sound selfish and none of my reasons are justified but I just thought that after everything we’ve been through together, he’d maybe like me just a little bit.”

Steven hugs me again and softly says, “He does.”

After that almost everyone but Conrad came in to check up on me and make sure I was okay, making me feel even more guilty about being all emotional like this. It’s not until Susannah’s holding me and whispering sweet nothings that my eyes start to feel heavy.

I think I fell asleep after that, I don’t remember much except waking up to the sun shining its very unwelcome face in my eyes.

I step out of my room after freshening up and I’m about to make my way to the kitchen for food until I’m stopped by something in the hallway.

Or should I say someone.

“Conrad,” I bend down and stroke his hair out of his face, “Conrad wake up.” I say gently.

He stirs for a minute before sitting up and taking my hands in his.

“Have you been out here all night?” I ask.

“Yes.” he says in a raspy voice.

God that voice would make my knees give out if I wasn’t already on the floor with him.

“Why?”

“I need to talk to you.”

I sigh before he interrupts me, “Listen, I heard everything you said to Steven last night and I know I shouldn’t have and I was eavesdropping but I’m sorry it was by accident. And I know I don’t deserve any more of your time…I’ve already wasted a lot of it but just hear me out for ten minutes.”

“No.” I try to get out of his grasp.

“Stop fighting and give me ten minutes.”

“No way.”

“Nine then.”

“Five.”

“Eight and a half.”

“Six.”

“Seven.”

I pause, knowing that he won’t let me go anywhere before I hear him out.

“You don’t deserve seven seconds, let alone seven minutes of my time.”

“How about seven words then?”

I laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I am falling in love with you.”

I blink up at him. Either I am still sleeping or I must have not heard him correctly because there is no way Conrad Fisher just admitted that he is falling in love with me.

Absolutely no fucking way.

Right?

I squeeze my eyes shut as if that can erase the words from my memory.

"You're joking.

"I'm not."

"This is just another part of your game." I try to push him away, but he doesn't budge.

"It stopped being a game for me a long time ago."

"You're lying."

His brows pull together. "Ask me why I hate when people touch my bookshelf."

"Are you serious right now? What does that have to do with any of this?" I think back to his bookshelf he won’t let any of the others go near but loves to let me organise and re-organise each year.

"Because I did it for you."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I read somewhere online that organising objects like books and things is good for people with anxiety, because then they can feel in control of something and know exactly what to expect especially if things are the same as they've predicted all the time. You love reading too, so I changed it. Bought all the books you like to read so that you’d stay and read with me more often. I forced everyone else out of my room and especially away from that bookshelf. All because I wanted to help you."

Emotions clog my throat, preventing my ability to reply.

What can I possibly say that could compare to that?

Conrad doesn't give me an option as he continues. "Want to know why I kept this plant you got me?" he says pointing to the small green cactus with “Don’t be a prick” written on the pot that we could see looking into his room from the hallway.

I nod.

"Because it was the first time someone got me a present that made me laugh."

If hearts could melt into puddles, mine would be liquified right about now.

I take a deep breath.

Remember what he did.

“Con that doesn't change anything you still ignored me for a whole year. Every time I tried to call you or text you, you’d just leave me on read or decline, and now you’re telling me you love me? Who does that?"

"Someone who doesn't understand the first thing about loving someone, but is willing to try if you give me a chance."

"You want me to give you a chance after everything? Do you think I'm stupid?"

He winces, and a bit of my anger fades away at his vulnerability.

"Intelligence has nothing to do with this."

"Easy for you to say when you're not the one who feels like a fool."

"Really? Because based on your reaction today, I'm feeling pretty damn foolish for ever admitting that I'm falling in love with you." He gets up off the floor, leaving me feeling chilled to the bone.

"Con..." I reach out, but he takes a step back.

My eyes sting from his rejection. It hurts.

“I’m not asking you to love me back. I don't expect that and I'm not sure if I ever will because I'm the furthest thing for lovable. I'm selfish, and rude, and don't know the first thing about being in a proper relationship with someone. But that doesn't mean I’m not willing to try for you if you let me."

How am I supposed to be angry at him when he thinks he is unlovable?

A pain rips through my chest at the thought of him talking about himself this way.

I get up off the floor and walk straight into his chest. His arms quickly wrap themselves around my waist, holding me even tighter.

"Just because you make selfish choices doesn't mean you're a selfish person. At least not completely."

This boy had been there for Belly, Steven, me and Jere for years without any kind of payback, especially when Susannah was going through her cancer and despite feeling an immense amount of pain himself, he shoved all his emotions aside so that he could be there for us. For me. If that isn't a selfless sacrifice, I don't know what is.

"Your logic is half-baked at best."

"So is yours, seeing as you called yourself unlovable."

His body tenses. "I'm stating facts."

"I don't know what bullshit your father told you over the years, but it's not true. Your brother loves you."

"He’s obligated to."

"No one is obligated to love someone else. Blood or not."

He takes a deep breath. "You're right."

I smile up at him. "I could get used to hearing those words."

He reaches up and cups my cheek. "Give me a chance and I'll tell you them every single day."

I sigh and look away. "I don't know.”

"Tell me what's stopping you."

"You don't do relationships."

“Good thing our feelings lead us here rather than our minds, and mine are willing to try then."

I avoid his penetrating gaze. "What if my feelings are telling me to run?”

“It's cute you think you can outrun me, but I'll give you a head start just to make things interesting." he smiles down at me.

"Do you always have an answer for everything?"

"Not for the one that matters most." The way he looks at me stirs up something deep inside of me.

Longing. I want to give him a chance, regardless of the potential fallout.

You might get hurt.

I might, but I might miss out on something special because I’m too afraid of the what ifs. I'm done being that person. Even if it means getting hurt, I'd rather try and fail than never try at all.

I stand on the tips of my toes and press my lips against his.

He holds me tight against his chest, as if he is afraid of letting me go.

I pull away, only to clasp onto his chin. "This could be a disaster, but I'm willing to try."

He shuts me up by pushing his lips against mine, sealing our new deal. The way he kisses me is different than any time before. He cups my face with the palms of his hands as his lips mold against mine, teasing me until I feel dizzy. His thumb brushes across my cheek back and forth, and heat rushes down my spine straight to my belly. He makes me feel cherished. Protected.

Loved in a way that makes me never want to come back down to reality.

I could spend forever being kissed like this and still feel like it isn't enough. While Conrad might not be the best with words, his kiss says it all.

He is falling in love with me. And I’m falling in love with him. No translation necessary.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

ahh i cant believe its finished omg😔💔...

anyways, onto the next one😍🙏

again please lmk what you think of this and please give me requests on what to do next!!

#conrad fisher #conrad fisher x reader #conrad fisher x y/n #fanfic #fics #tsitp #belly conklin #jeremiah fisher #steven conklin #the summer i turned pretty #1999 #conrad x reader fluff #conrad x y/n angst #conrad x y/n fluff #conrad x reader #conrad x y/n

141 notes · View notes

prettyinpurplelights · 1 year

Note

Hi! I'd like to make a request :) could you write something about celebrating New Year or something like that? Thanks :)

MUGLER

Heyyy, thank you for my first ask hehe 🫶🏿hope you like it x (Also I attached a link to the dress in the text, it’s the second pic in the tweet, so so pretty!)

“Babe you’ve been in bathroom for over an hour, are you sewing your dress or something? It’s already past 10!” You hear your boyfriend yell from behind the door, you can practically hear his stomp him foot and his pretty lips turn up in a pout.

“I’m almost done Kyks, I promise.” You’re rummaging around your make up drawer, trying to find your favourite brown lip liner and gloss. One of these days, you’re going to organise this space for real, you probably spent more time trying to find make up than actually putting it on. You quickly do your lip combo, pull two braids out of your pony tail to frame your face and check yourself out once more in the mirror before leaving the bathroom. Grabbing your bag off the bed you shared, you make your way down the steps of the apartment, your boyfriend mumbling to himself and fiddling with his watch as he waits for you.

“Bébe, calme-toi (Baby calm down), I’m here.”

“About ti-“ He stops mid sentence, his eyes growing wide once they land on you.

“Merde,” He whispers, stepping closer to you.

You’re wearing an original from the Thierry Mugler 1999 Spring/Summer collection, a long white piece with big orange, blue and purple flowers adorning the dress. The material is light and airy, it almost feels like you were wearing nothing at all which makes it a bit tricky because you’re barely 5’6 and clearly the model back in 1999 was much taller because the dress is a little longer on you so you’d have to remember to lift it when walking or you’re very likely to end up on your ass. The Rene Caovilla gold butterfly lace up heels on your feet gave you a little bit extra height, so you reckon you should be okay. Your hair is up so all of your face visible, you know your make up looks especially great tonight too.

“You like?” You grin, your arms instinctively wrapping around his neck as he holds onto your waist.

“Mmm.” He barely replies before bringing his lips down to meet yours. The kiss is a lot fiercer than you expect it to be, Kylian’s mouth almost bruising yours. His hand travels to your ass, clutching it through the dress as he breaks the kiss to pepper them across your jaw instead. You moan a little when you feel his teeth nip at the sensitive part on your neck, his tongue reaching out to sooth it afterwards.

“Kylian, what happened to being late?” You say breathlessly as his mouth works wonders on your neck.

“If you can make us late, so can I.” He moves back up to capture your lips again and you lean into him, losing yourself in the kiss as your leg lifts off its own accord to wrap around his leg. But when you feel Kylian’s hand swipe across your ass and onto your thigh, inching upwards, you pull your yourself back from the kiss, before it travels any further. Kylian leans forward for another kiss and you place your hand on chest, to push him away.

“Ky, I didn’t look this good just for you to ruin it before anyone else has seen me?”

“I can’t help myself, you look incredible mon amour.”

He leans towards you again, his lips hovering above your ear.

“I’ll be quick.” He whispers, kissing your earlobe. He knows that’s one of your most sensitive spots that turns you to instant mush.

Sneaky bastard.

“And we’ll be late, cmon, we have two hours left of the year. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll let you start of 2023 by taking the dress off me when we get back.” You wink, already by the door. “Keep your hands to yourself at the party, Mbappe.”

“Mbappe? I must be in trouble.” He laughs, shutting the door behind him before you ride the elevator down to your town car.

——

The party is great, the atmosphere is lively and everyone looks gorgeous. Almost all of the PSG team and associates are there, and it’s been a wonderful night. You’d danced with the other WAGs while the men are at the bar, chatting and doing goodness knows what else, but now it is nearing midnight, about 30 minutes to go. Kylian searches for you in the crowd, but you’re no where to be found on the dance floor. He spots Hakimi with his wife and walks over to them, waving to them to get their attention.

“Have you seen Y/N?” He yells over the music.

“I think she went to the bathroom a few minutes ago.” Hiba replies, and he thanks them before heading in your direction. He’s about to climb the steps when he sees you at the top.

“Baby!” You shout, breaking out in a grin, excitedly running down the stairs to meet him, when it happens all too fast. The heel on your left sandal catches onto the back of the too long Mugler dress and trips you, sending you tumbling down. You land awkwardly on your ankle, hitting your head on the corner of one of the steps.

“Y/N!” The scream that leaves Kylian is horrifying as he crouches over you, face in his hands. “Shit, SHIT, Y/N, your head, you’re bleeding.”

You reach up to touch your forehead and surely enough, there’s a little bit of blood on your fingers when you bring them back down, but nothing alarming. Your head throbs a little bit and there’s a shooting pain in your ankle, but other than that, you feel relatively okay. You wince trying to stand back up, and you decide it’s better to just stay seated. Everyone is crowded around you, wondering if you’re okay.

“Ky, I’m okay.”

“Your head Y/N, I need to call an ambulance.”

“Kylian, I do not need an ambulance. Don’t be so dramatic.” But it’s too late, he’s already on the phone requesting one as soon as possible. Someone hands you a hand towel hold it to your forehead to try and stop the bleeding.

“Babe, can you stand? You know what, never mind.” Before you know it, you’re swept off your feet, Kylian lifting you from the floor, carrying you bridal style through the building.

“Oh my god, Kylian put me down! Ky this is so embarrassing I can walk!” Everyone watches on as he pushes his way through the crowd, whispering amongst themselves and gasping as you pass them.

“God, Y/N! Are you okay?? Dude what happened??” Hakimi rushes over to Kylian, worried when he sees you in his arms.

“Hakimi tell your boyfriend to put me down. I tripped and he’s acting like someone pushed me off a cliff, I’m fine!”

“She fell down the stairs, I’m taking her to the emergency room, I’ll see you guys later, happy new year.” Kylian says quickly in one breath, before rushing the both of you out of the main door into the open air.

“Kylian, you’re ridiculous, I’m fine, please put me down.”

“Y/N your head is bleeding, you hit it pretty hard. And not to mention your ankle. No, we’re going to the hospital.”

“You’re so fucking dramatic.” You roll your eyes, but you stop fighting in his arms because you realise it’s pointless, he isn’t going to put you down until the ambulance arrives so you’re finally glad when it does and he sets you down on the stretcher while a paramedic looks at you.

“The cut is pretty deep ma’am, and you may need a cast for that ankle, it’s not an immediate emergency, but we’ll drive you down to the hospital and get you fully checked out to be on the safe side. Don’t want you walking too much on that ankle, could make it worse.”

“Can I ride in with you?” Kylian asks, his hand never leaving yours. “I didn’t bring my car with me tonight.”

“Of course, Mr Mbappe.”

“No, Kylian, you can stay, enjoy the party, I’ll call my sister to pick me up later.” You feel awful for ruining the evening for him. He’d been looking forward to this all week, especially after how hard he’s been working the past month with the team to secure their lead at the top of the league table.

“And leave you alone just before the new year? Absolutely fucking not.” He steps into the back of the ambulance as the paramedic closes the door and starts to drive toward the hospital.

“I’m sorry.” You croak, your voice breaking, tears forming in your eyes, partly because of how guilty you feel and also because the adrenaline has now worn off and the throbbing in your head and shooting pain in your ankle are now in competition to see which can make you cry the most.

“For what mon amour,” His eyes are so tender and worried as they scan your face it makes you cry even more.

“Ruining your night, making you leave the party because I’m stupid and clumsy. This is isn’t how you wanted to enter the new year. In the back of an ambulance away from all the fun and your friends and-“

“With you. Y/N we could’ve ended this night drenched in horse shit in a barn and I still wouldn’t care because I’d be with you.” You hear the radio from the front of the van as the countdown into 2023 begins.

10, 9, 8,

“I don’t deserve you.” You pout, and he leans forward to kiss you lightly.

7, 6, 5,

“I don’t deserve you either. So in that way, we’re perfect for each other. And look, when you change into a hospital gown, I’ll be there to take the dress off. So technically, I still win, and get to start 2023 exactly how I wanted to.” He smiles, and you’re hurting now, but for a completely different reason. Your heart tugs, you were so in love with this man in front of you. There’s absolutely no one else in the world for you but him.

4, 3, 2,

“I love you Ky, so so much.”

The sound of fireworks going off all over the city ring out, the sky lighting up in all sort of shapes and colours as he dips down to capture your lips in a passionate kiss.

“I love you mon amour, happy new year.”

——-

Hope everyone has a great Christmas xo my present to you, a gif of this stupidly sexy man in a tux 😩

#football fanfic #mbappe fic #mbappe #kylian mbappe fluff #kylian mbappe fanfic #kylian mbappe #kylian mbappe fic #kylian mbappe x you #kylian mbappe x reader #mbappe x reader #mbappé #mbappe fanfic #footballer x reader #mbappe imagine #kylian mbappe imagine #football imagine

549 notes · View notes

deathbecomesthem · 22 days

Text

No Shelter 3 | 2.8K

+18 ONLY Minors DNI

Rockstar!Eddie Munson x AFAB!Partner!Reader

Series Setting: 1999 Los Angeles - No Upside Down AU

Chapter Summary - An escape into the woods, and some time spent with an old friend.

---

The swing is nothing special, it’s weather worn and beginning to splinter. The cushions are sun bleached from after so many mountain summers. It’s not special, not really, but it’s one of the best places you know. Especially when you sit on it with Nancy. The swing on the front porch of her cabin is just like her, sturdy and comforting. It’s peaceful and quiet.

It’s been too long since you’ve sat on Nancy’s swing. You only have yourself to blame, but you try not to. It would be so easy for Eddie to find you here, and a part of you wonders if this is why you chose this spot for your escape. You try not to consider your motivation too hard, try to not let this be a secret test of Eddie’s knowledge of you. You try not to think about what it would mean if he doesn’t even try. It’s not about him, even if it is. It’s about you. If only you knew how to cut him away and see yourself without his shadow looming. You want the sun to shine on your face, even if it’s just for a moment.

This place is one of your homes. One of the places where you can look in the mirror and not be afraid of who might be looking back. It’s just you, isn’t it? Older, but still the same skin you wore the last time you saw your reflection. There are lines where the skin used to be smooth, and so much more gray than you remember. But, oh - that’s your face. You’re thankful to be in this place, where seeing the image of yourself doesn’t seem quite so scary.

“Oolong,” her soft voice brings you out of your reverie, and you accept the tea cup with a smile. “I would have had Darjeeling if I’d known you were coming.”

“Oolong is nice enough, especially if it means I can see you.” Nancy curls up into your side like a cat, and you sit in the cool New England fall evening. The combined force of your bodies begin to rock the old swing gently. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. Too long.”

Nancy sighs and takes a long sip before she answers. You can practically hear the cogs turning in her brain. She’s being cautious, more gentle with her words than her nature normally allows.

“Yes, it’s been too long. You know you can stay here anytime. It’s not like the old days when we couldn’t scrape together enough cash to rub two coins together for fuck’s sake.” She huffs a breath through her nose, “Sorry. I just miss seeing you. I miss Eddie. What the fuck happened?”

The question hangs between you. You don’t know how to answer it, so you don’t. You drink your tea and look out at the old mountains beyond the front yard of your oldest friend’s home and think about what tomorrow might bring.

—

10 minutes before, inside Nancy’s kitchen:

The ringing phone startles Nancy. She almost drops the kettle on her foot. It’s not that she doesn’t get calls from her friends and family when she’s out in the Vermont mountains, but they are few and far between. It’s her writing place, away from the hustle and bustle of her everyday existence. She knows you thought you’d be pulling in and finding the old place empty this time of year, that you didn’t know Nancy would be on a sabbatical. A well deserved break for a full semester in her quiet home away from home. Just her and the old Olympia typewriter that speaks to her like an old friend when her fingers press down on the keys. She loves to make it chatter to her, but right now she’s more interested in the conversation you keep pushing away from. She wants to know why you’re here. Why you look the way you do - bone achingly tired. She wants to know why she’s seeing things in the tabloids about Eddie and some model that looks like she’s barely out of high school.

She grabs the avocado green plastic receiver from its cradle on the wall, peeking towards the front door. No signs of movement, you’re still sitting on the swing waiting for her.

“Hello?” As Nancy says the usual greeting, she realizes she knows exactly who the voice on the other side will belong to. She should have let it ring.

“Nance. Hey, uh, it’s Ed.” His voice is strained. She can hear the pain in it, and she wishes she could reach through the line to wrap her arms around him. Old habits die hard.

“Hey, Eddie. It’s been a long time,” Nancy peeks back around the corner and then leans her head against the wall, satisfied that you’re not going to come through the door to find her talking to your husband. The enemy. “Listen, I can’t really talk right now, can I call you back -”

Eddie doesn’t let her finish. He’s strung tight and doesn’t have the capacity for the bullshit required to pretend he’s calling for any other reason. “Put Sugar on, please. I need to talk to her.”

“Sugar? How is she? I haven’t talked to her in ages.” Nancy keeps her tone friendly, the biting undertone is something that can be chalked up to paranoia if Eddie calls it out.

“I know she’s there Nancy, there’s no where she would go. I know her.” Nancy can hear the wet quality of his voice, and she stands up straighter. She can let him break her resolve, not now. Not while you’re already in pieces and needing her protection.

“Listen Eddie. I love you, you know that, but I can’t do this right now.” Nancy can hear him gearing up for a fight, and it’s the push she needs. Over the edge she goes, ready to let him know what she really thinks, “What did you think would happen, Ed? I might be out in the boonies, but I don’t live under a rock. I’m not playing favorites here, I’m just picking up the pieces of your fucking mess.”

“Please. Please. I’m sorry,” Nancy can hear him take in a hiccuping breath, “I just need to tell her I’m sorry. I need her.”

“Yeah, Ed, you need her. What does she need?” Nancy hangs up the phone before he can say anything more, and then leaves the receiver hanging down to the ground. No more interruptions, he can fly his ass across the country if he wants, but he won’t get through with a simple dial of the phone.

—

Eddie sits on the corner of his bed. Your bed. The bed you share. Used to share. He doesn’t know. He’s in the house. Your house? His house? He loved this house. He thought you loved it too. But you left. And you won’t talk to him. The anger he felt after you abandoned him, just like everyone does, has dissipated. He doesn’t think about you being with someone else anymore, he doesn’t think that’s true. He can recognize that idea as a lie his mind told him. All he knows is that you’ve decided you don’t want him. Don’t need him.

“Yeah, Ed, you need her. What does she need?” Nancy’s words have been playing in a loop inside his mind. A nauseating wave of realization rolled over him like a tsunami when she said them, because how stupid could he be? How fucking blind?

Eddie moves through the house, looking at everything with new eyes. He looks with your eyes. He thinks about the small apartment the two of you shared in those early days. There were always flowers, he remembered. He looks in the room at the end of the hall and sees his guitars lined up in a neat row against the back wall. He closes his eyes and thinks about the way your fingers moved along the keys of the old upright piano you used to have.

When did you decide to get rid of the piano? He can’t remember. He can’t remember the last time you picked up a guitar either. Eddie is standing in the room where all of his musical memories are kept, and he wonders what happened to yours. He closes his eyes tightly again, and tries to remember the last time he heard you sing. He thinks about you and Jeff sitting together in the old apartment, you strumming the guitar and Jeff taking notes. That was the night all of you started to write Promise Me. That’s not quite right, he realizes now. You wrote it.

Eddie closes his eyes tightly. He pictures you at 20. He pictures you now. He thinks he can almost smell your shampoo if he concentrates, he can almost hear your voice. When was the last time he saw you smile? When was the last time you told him anything important? When was the last time you two had a conversation that wasn’t about him. Eddie shakes his head and opens his eyes to the empty room.

You held his feet to the fire time and time again. You held his hand through everything. He needed you, but what did you need? Shit.

—

It’s what you need. The place and the company. The sound of Nancy’s fingers dancing across the keys of her typewriter is the soundtrack to your inspiration. It’s what you’ll remember the most when you think back to the time when the story flowed the easiest to the page. A safe place to say the things you need to say. To remember. Even in the verdant green of the forest, the waves still pound at the timber of your frame. Your sense of self splinters under the continuous assault, but it’s easier to dream at Nancy’s house. Dreams are where you find the things that seem real - realer than what you see under the morning’s harsh sunlight.

It’s easier to remember the before days. Easier to remember that joyful time in the past. In that trailer bedroom with the perpetual haze of weed smoke. With your boy. It was simpler then, head full of dizzying hormones and the fire of new love - there was no time to dwell on the thoughts you had been battling for ages. The otherness. You realize now that you’re back with Nancy that you’ve avoided the mirror that is her company. It puts everything into a context you could not have expected. You find your eyes full of tears when you write about memories you once held as happy. There is a half told story hiding there. How have you missed it for so long?

It takes a solid week for you to find the words you’ve been hiding yourself from since you arrived on the cabin’s doorstep. Truly, though, you’ve been hiding from them for years. Afraid of how it makes you feel to read them. To say them. To think about them in the privacy of your own mind, even there it feels too vulnerable. Alone in your mind, they bang and clatter. They echo around until they are meaningless. It’s a week into your time with Nancy when you decide to let that shit go. You tear a piece of paper from the pad at your side and write them down. You fold it, and set it down on the desk next to Nancy’s cup of coffee. And then you walk out of the cabin and into the woods, leaving the weight of the words behind you.

—

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that paparazzi photo of Eddie and that piece of trash,” loose lips Nancy officially entered the conversation after her third glass of pinot noir. The two of you are sitting on the wooden porch swing listening to the night sounds of the surrounding woods. You know she read your note earlier, but neither of you have brought it up. An unspoken understanding lives between the two of you now, and any concerns about discomfort are gone while the weight of her head rests on your shoulder.

“That’s not very nice, Nancy. She’s just a girl that’s trying to fuck a rock star. Can’t blame her for that. She’s certainly not the first one.” You drain your glass and reach for the bottle sitting on the railing. It’s nearly empty. You’ll have to get another one in a minute, but you’re not ready to feel the move away from Nancy.

“Eddie’s an idiot.” Her words are said with finality. No room for argument, and you’re not inclined to offer one.

“Yeah. Too bad I love him so much.”

Nancy gulps back a mouthful of wine, liquid courage for the question she’s been holding onto for the better part of 12 hours. She’s been trying to find a way to ask, to broach the subject of the note you left for her.

“Ok. You love him. I love him too. Everyone loves Eddie. How could you not? But you’re - you know.” Nancy whispers the last two words, and gestures with her empty hand in a little wave.

“See, I don’t actually know, Nancy. That’s the problem. I know what I said, but it’s not quite right. I think there’s something really wrong with me. Like my skin doesn’t fit right. I look in the mirror and wonder who it is that’s looking back. I don’t know that person. I think about all the times I made love with Eddie, and it was so good. But also…” you trail off, unable to finish your thought. Unable to use words to explain the way you’ve been thinking about yourself in your own head.

“But also, you think you’re gay. Right? That’s what you said in your note. Bisexual? That’s in right now. It’s the 90s, Sugar.” Nancy heaves herself up off the swing and starts to head towards the front door, “Stay. I’m getting another bottle of wine.”

You watch her go and think about what she said. It’s a relief to have the words spoken out into the open air. They feel even lighter now. You think you may be able to bear the weight of them with Nancy sharing the load of them. She’s right, of course, but she’s also wrong. It is the 90s, and you don’t know if you’re gay. You don’t know if you're bisexual. You only know that you’re not just the wife of Eddie Munson. You think you don’t want to be a wife at all anymore. You never really did in the first place.

Nancy’s return brings you out of your reverie. It’s not until she’s sat back down on the swing next to you that you realize she doesn’t have a second bottle of wine. Instead, it’s a bottle of tequila.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Wheeler?” You ask her, helping yourself to a mouthful straight from the bottle, not waiting for an answer.

“A more serious drink to fit the more serious conversation. Question number 1, and it’s an important one so I need an honest answer,” she points her finger at you before taking the bottle back for herself. “Have you ever been with a woman? And if so, do I know her?”

You cough on the burning liquor, caught off guard by the question. “I haven’t. Unless you count all the women I’ve slept with by proxy after being married to Eddie for so long.”

“That doesn’t count, and you know it. Why should he get to have all the fun?”

“I don’t actually think he’s having fun anymore. You know what I want more than anything in the world? More than any man or any woman?” You turn to look at your friend and see her wide eyes rapt with attention.

“What do you want? Tell me, and we’ll go get it for you. Tomorrow morning, we’ll wake up and find a way.” Nancy insists, in the way that she does.

“I want to have the time and space to think and feel without having to think and feel about him. I want to think about myself.”

“That’s easy,” she tells you, handing you back the bottle of tequila, “all you need to do is take it, Sugar. It already belongs to you.”

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x afab!reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #rockstar!eddie munson #eddie munson au #eddie munson x queer!reader

33 notes · View notes

hoardlikegoldenirises · 16 days

Text

I'm posting this now because I'm impatient and also because I just got that commission done by jerribbit (go look at it and admire it 🥰) which is based off of the same thumbnail as this drawing (lol) 'cause I had one of those moments like, "wait this concept is too good for me to not also draw this picture," so even though I paid someone else to draw it, I decided to also draw it. But expanded upon.

anyway it's AU-related and I plan to actually put this in a post with some other images later but I have to like, draw the other images first...

these are both Kaine as he looks in Houston in windowverse; left in mid-october or thereabouts and right in mid-november ish. 2015. he's 26/27/28/6 years old depending on how you start counting. (lol) (he's 27 and a half)

originally, I was gonna put his costume underneath, but I ended up deciding to bare his neck, just for the like... cohesion of the image as a whole.

closeups/details under the cut:

left pic is Kaine in mid-October ish as mentioned, mid-to-late really... he ran out of medication and he's not doing so hot. some breakthrough spots as his immune system kicks back into gear.

some of those spots (the little ones) are just from picking at his skin though.

then he gets eaten by werewolves.

also shaves his head. the white pupil is a cataract he's had for a few years at this point. a combo of meds + physical trauma when he was a few years younger.

also it turns out shaving a character's face and making his cheeks rounder really shaves off the years.

he may be going through some shit and adjusting to new medications and so on and so forth but at least he's eating enough ❤️

stop chewing your lips dude. anyway i spent at least an hour on coloring his scars in the second pic lmao, i just enjoy that. Like, lighting? no. texturing? yes. it's just a bunch of overlapping marks of cain. mark of cains. handprints :) a la Spider-Man: Redemption.

opposite side obviously.

some red hairs in his scraggly little beard :p

his voice is fried, for the record. that scar is right over his voice box. it's like five years old though, so it's well-healed.

and then it gets even more fried, probably. this relatively fresh extremely gnarly scar is from getting his throat ripped out by a werewolf lol.

He died! Then he got better. Obv being eaten by werewolves is directly lifted from his Scarlet Spider solo, though not everything is identical.

i had to bullshit the way it looks also cause idk about you but it seems like asking for trouble to try and google, like, "scars from wolf mauling" or something. lmao.

in the windowverse setting, the Other heals injuries but existing scars stay put, and in this case the life-threatening injuries he sustained made new scars rather than healing away to smooth skin, on account of, hey, he got torn limb from limb by werewolves! not exactly a papercut, you know???

admire his hair. the only reason it's not one big fluff is because of his expensive hair products.

oh yeah blue pullover hoodie because that's what Ben has :)

and the charcoal gray hoodie is a $345 Derek Rose hoodie he got from Saks after Aracely decided that she liked his blue hoodie and it's hers now.

oh right as far as his age goes—

this pic is, as mentioned, how he looks in fall 2015.

he was ''born'' on 4/1/2009 (so if you must be literal he's 6 years old)

he reached 22 the day after Peter's 22nd birthday (10/31/2009) (so he's 28)

but his 22nd birthday wasn't until 4/1/2010 (so he's 27)

according to the birth certificate wally gets made for him in this au he was born on 4/1/1989 (so he's legally 26)

He usually counts from his observed 22nd birthday in 2010 so generally he would consider himself 27 at this point. as long as he can remember his fake birth year it doesn't matter if he forgets what age he's ''supposed'' to be and since he was born in 2009 technically that makes 1989 much easier to remember.

also aracely was born in 1999 in this universe so this makes her both 10 years older than and 10 years younger than him :) which was another factor in why i picked 1989

#idk if this needs a label because of his throat scars or what. like. i will add one if necessary though.#nadiart #fanadiart #came in through the window last night #kaine parker #rough art #shiny art #i shot myself in the foot with those tags it turns out

22 notes · View notes

numinousmysteries · 5 months

Text

Déjà Vu

@eightnightsofmulder

@today-in-fic

Eight Nights of Mulder Day Seven: Potatoes

[on Ao3]

December 1999

Fucking Scully gives him déjà vu. Every sensation is a new discovery, but at the same time, he is so intimately familiar with her body and her soul that it feels like coming home. The delicate fingers that once swept hair off his forehead to check for a head injury now curl around his cock and it feels different, yet the same. Picking up her small, naked body to lower down onto his bed feels similar to carrying her to safety in Antarctica, but it’s also brand new.

He saw the tattoo on her lower back in a case file and once in a decontamination shower, but now he knows how it tastes. He spent weeks hating himself whenever she flinched and tried to hide the pain from the gunshot wound in her abdomen. Now, he absolves himself by pressing a kiss to the scar every time he works his way down her body.

She is Scully and also not-Scully. She is his stubbornly brilliant partner who can shoot holes in his theories (or his shoulder) from a mile away. She is also his surprisingly mischievous lover who sneaks up on him from behind in the shower, gently kisses the middle of his back, and starts working his dick in her hands until he spins around to lift her up and fuck her right there, soap suds dripping down his chest to where their bodies meet.

She is 38 years of Hanukkah, Christmas, and birthday presents wrapped into one petite package.

It’s the first weekend in December and they’re holed up in his apartment after returning from Southern California where he shot a brain-eating fast-food employee. It’s not a normal life, but it’s theirs and he wouldn’t want it any other way. Her only rule is that they keep it strictly platonic in public, but he’s already looking forward to breaking that one.

He wakes up on Sunday morning with his arms wrapped around her listening to her snore. Yes, Dana Scully snores. That wasn’t a surprise when they started sleeping together. Years of overnight stakeouts and crosscountry flights will teach you your partner’s sleeping sounds. He’s always loved her snoring. Just like her, it’s gentle yet persistent, not a deep and guttural utterance but a soft and steady rhythm of air catching in her throat.

He closes his eyes and tries to let the sound of her breathing soothe him back to sleep, but his dick has other ideas. Lying here naked with Scully’s also-naked, velvety soft body pressed against his is just too much stimulation after too many years of drought. He traces her lips with his fingertips as he buries his face in her auburn hair.

“Mmm, Mulder,” she whispers nearly inaudibly.

“Good morning,” he says, letting his hand roam from her mouth to left breast.

He lazily circles his fingers around her nipple, just barely making contact as it hardens into a tight little nub. By the time he repeats the pattern on the right side, she’s rocking her hips back against him. The pressure of her ass grinding against his erection is a sublime form of torture.

“I need you,” he whispers in her ear, and it isn’t hyperbole. He’s known for years that he couldn’t live without her, but it’s only in the past couple of months that he’s learned how much his body simply craves hers.

“So take me,” she says firmly, turning over to face him. She tilts her chin up as if to dare him, and he can see her full lips, the milky white skin of her throat, her perfect breasts.

It’s almost enough to make him come on the spot. He accepts her challenge, rolling on top of her and pinning her wrists above her head with his hands. She lets out a gasp. That’s one new thing he’s learned: Dana Scully likes it rough.

The first time they’d made love, they’d both been so gentle, so afraid that one false move would wake them up from this impossible dream. He’d only just recovered from his impromptu brain surgery but even if he was at his full strength he wouldn’t have dared touch her with anything less than tender reverence. He knew she was tough but he needed her to feel safe with him.

By their third time, she told him, You don’t have to treat me like glass. I’m not going to break. And while he would sooner put a bullet through his own brain than hurt her in any way, he’s enjoying learning what she likes—a little nibbling on her ear lobe, a firm hand behind her head when she sucks him off, no handcuffs…yet.

He presses her wrists into the bed and kisses her hard on the mouth.

“Don’t move,” he says, taking his hands off her wrists to trace the outline of her torso.

He runs his fingers over her breasts and the narrow indentation of her waistline before firmly gripping her hips. He lowers himself until he’s facing the damp curls between her legs. He bows his head, nose first, into her pubis. He fucking loves how she smells.

She spreads her legs open around him and he uses his thumbs to part her outer lips and pauses to admire her swollen, glistening center.

“Please,” she whimpers.

“Oh, Scully,” he whispers into her clit. Then he gives her one long stroke with the flat of his tongue and she shivers around him.

He draws circles with his tongue, savoring her sharp, salty, Scully taste as she makes hot little moans. He picks up the pace and she starts bucking her hips into his face. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes her ass. She’s moaning harder now, a deep involuntary sound from the base of her throat. She tremors against him.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she begs, as if there’s anything else in the world he’d rather be doing.

He’s humming against her clit now as he licks and sucks on her. He glances up and sees her eyes are shut tight and she’s thrown her head back.

“Oh, fuck, Mulder,” she utters. “Get up here and fuck me.”

Her hips keep thrusting up against him as he presses a wet kiss to her inner thigh, then her navel, then the space between her breasts and rises to meet her. She snakes a hand in between their bodies and guides him inside her. She is so fucking hot and wet all around him. She’s already got one foot over the ledge, so he doesn’t hesitate, just drives into her. Each time the base of his cock grinds against her clit she gasps and quivers, and it doesn’t take long before she gives in to her orgasm. She’s thrashing against him and all he can do is hold on for dear life. He buries his head in between her neck and shoulder and thrusts into her wildly. His heart is hammering out of his chest and he realizes he would happily die in this moment, balls deep in Dana Scully. But he doesn’t die. He comes hard, exploding inside her as he greedily sucks at her neck. It’ll likely leave a mark and he’s glad it’s turtleneck season.

Once he’s fully emptied himself, he rolls off of her, taking one of her small hands in his and bringing it to his racing heart. They lie in silence, catching their breath.

“Why didn’t we do this years ago?” she asks

“Because I’m a goddamn idiot,” he replies, staring at the ceiling. “If I’d known it would be this good I would have bent you over my desk the day I met you.”

He feels her shake her head next to him. “Not then,” she says. “We didn’t even know each other.”

“Well, what about three years ago? If I recall, you were ready to go with Eddie VanBlundht.”

It’s been a long time since either of them has mentioned that name. He knows she’s embarrassed by nearly falling for VanBlundht’s facade.

Scully sighs and turns on her side toward him. “Only because I thought he was you.”

“Is it weird that I was a little jealous of the guy?” he asks. “For having the balls to do what I could only dream about?”

“Mulder, I did think something was off about you—or him, rather. But maybe I just wanted so badly for it to be real that I didn’t question it.”

Her words bloom in his chest. She wanted him enough that she was willing to suspend her disbelief.

“So you would have been into it…if I had made a move earlier?” He asks hopefully.

She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here now. We can make up for lost time.” It’s classic Scully. Grounded in reality.

“You don’t think I’m small potatoes?” he asks.

“Oh, Mulder,” she whispers into his neck. “I don’t think you’re small anything.”

“Thank you, Scully,” he grins and kisses the top of her head.

It took them a while to get the timing right, but now that they’ve made it, he wouldn’t change a thing.

#eightdaysofmulder #eightnightsofmulder #8dom #txf #xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #msr

37 notes · View notes

fcble · 2 months

Text

GREAT THINGS, PART I

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." — Jeremiah, 33:3.

In which Haksu becomes an idol in an unorthodox way. FEATURING: Kang Haksu, Lee Taein, Fable ensemble SETTING: November 2017 WORD COUNT: 10.3k WARNINGS / NOTES: Stalking, blackmail, extremely heavy-handed religious themes. Welcome to the piece that kicked my ass for over a year 🎉🎉. As in I started it a year ago and then wrote 9k words in the past two weeks. I have versions of this piece in three different perspectives. This is technically a rewrite of something I wrote earlier but now a few times longer 🎉🎉.

You’re going to do great things. You know this because it’s all anyone’s ever told you. You hear it from your father and your mother and your father’s father—until he dies—and your father’s mother—until she dies too—and your mother’s father and your mother’s mother.

You wonder when the great things will start. Time flips by, like the thin pages of the Bible that has resided on your bedside table since you were five. You’re a kid, a teenager, a young adult. You enter and exit middle school and high school. You begin to attend a mediocre university in Seoul, because it’s the only one in the city that accepted you. You brush that off, because you’re going to be great.

You think if you’re really, truly, going to be great, you might have to do it yourself.

The man’s name is Lee Taein. You meet him for the first time in a dream. You memorize the lines and planes of his face, because something about him is familiar. You conclude he must be rich or famous or both.

In the dream, he doesn’t tell you his name. You find it yourself, on the Internet, holding the image of his face in your head as you comb through the other dream fragments: a stage, a song, a single voice. You’ve never thought about being a singer. You wonder why.

You know how to sing. You’ve spent over a decade in choirs. You could be a singer.

That, you decide, is greater than whatever you’re doing now, which isn’t much of anything, and certainly nothing someone great would be doing.

You do your research. A lot of research. You spend your nights in bed, the darkness of your bedroom illuminated only by your laptop screen. In the mornings, you spend twice as long covering up the shadows under your eyes.

It’s a worthwhile exchange. You learn Lee Taein is forty-nine years old. Last year, he parted ways with SM Entertainment to found his own entertainment company. You dig deeper.

He married his current wife four years ago. Her name is Jung Eunyoung. She’s forty-three, and yet has risen no higher than a secretary for a minor law firm. You learn all this from her very public Instagram profile.

His biggest vice is gambling—some of it barely legal, most of it not. You find a news article from 1999 detailing an illegal gambling ring bust. His name is mentioned once.

His new company is called Zenith Entertainment. You’re briefly disappointed to see that the last time they held auditions was February.

There are partially censored Tweets and forum threads speculating the identities of the company’s trainees. You look at the grainy pictures and read the names: Jaeseop, Kiyoung, Eunsu.

You keep meticulous notes: index cards and the Notes app and a notebook you bought solely to organize your thoughts. Your grades slip. You haven’t attended class in three weeks.

You spend your days at a coffee shop across the street from Zenith Entertainment. You sit in a corner with a view of the building. You order the two cheapest items on the menu: a cookie and a small black coffee. You open your laptop and your notebook and pretend to work, covering the pages of your notebook with another sheet of paper whenever someone walks by.

Mostly, you watch.

You keep track of the people entering and exiting the building. Many of them work in the copywriting agency, based on their business casual outfits. You’ve stepped into the building once, only to be overwhelmed by the bright lights and the quiet hum of computers and the feeling of wrongness at being in a professional setting.

Taein dresses almost the same. If you didn’t know what he looked like, you’d miss him. The difference is in his stride and his posture: back straight, head forward, quick and even steps. You like him even more for that. He arrives in the late morning and leaves after the sun sets. You note the times: 9:43 AM, 10:02 AM, 9:56 AM, 7:19 PM, 7:48 PM, 8:10 PM.

You learn the intricacies of his schedule. There are days when he never arrives at all. You watch and wait as the hours tick by. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten, eleven. No Lee Taein in sight. You wonder what he does when he doesn't work.

There are times when he'll step outside in the middle of the day, the movement catching your eye. You watch him stand on the sidewalk across the street and smoke a cigarette while he speaks on the phone. Twenty minutes later, he'll head back inside.

Sometimes you watch him leave accompanied by a younger man, somewhere around your age, who walks nearly, but not quite, behind him. You assume that must be his personal assistant or secretary or something along those lines.

Some of the people who visit the building must be trainees. You identify them from their age—young—and their dress—casual—and the times they arrive—all throughout the day. Occasionally, they stop by the coffee shop first, becoming more and more familiar to you.

There’s the tall foreigner who pronounces Americano with a distinctly Western accent. He arrives early in the morning, ordering his coffee shortly after you. He crosses the street in casual clothes and leaves in the late afternoon with the copywriter crowd, having changed into a more formal suit jacket and dress pants. You miss his departure for days until you realize he’s dressed differently.

There are the two high schoolers: one in a lurid yellow school uniform and another in a more sensible navy blue one. Sometimes their friend arrives earlier than them and sits a few tables down from you. He doesn’t wear a uniform. He sits for a half hour or so with his earbuds in while his iced coffee melts in front of him, until the high schoolers arrive. They talk loudly and boisterously, as if no one is listening.

You listen. You learn their names—Eunsu, Byeonghwi, Mingeun—and their orders—cold brew with an extra shot of espresso, iced caffè mocha, iced caffè latte. You hear them complain about teachers and Taein and trainee life.

You wonder if they could be your way in.

At night, when your roommate asks where you spend all your time, you tell him you got a job. He asks where. You fidget and your palms sweat and your heartbeat quickens. You stare past him and lie.

That weekend, you travel a few kilometers farther than usual and confess your sins.

Absolved, you think you’re ready for what comes next.

You have to talk to Taein. You can’t be great if all you do is wait and watch.

You peruse your notes, all of that information collected from your research and your observations, and then you devise your plan. You ask for His guidance and affirmation every day until you receive it. It comes in the form of one of your professors agreeing to overlook the sudden string of zeros in your homework assignments and tests. You were a decent enough student until a little over a month ago. If your previous work can be so easily overworked and dismissed, then maybe it’s time for your true calling. You’ve waited for this moment your entire life.

Less than a week later, you walk into the building like you belong there, not too early, not too late. You wear a winter jacket, which you shed as soon as you step inside, over a stiffly starched collared shirt and your best Sunday pants. You step into the elevator, alone, and decide to start at the top. You press the button for the fifth floor. It refuses to light up. You press it again and again to no avail. You stand in the still elevator and try the fourth floor.

Your ascent begins. You planned it all out: it's just after nine in the morning, after all the copywriters start their work and much too early for the students to be around. You're a last-minute callback from the audition, though that was months ago. It explains why Taein won't recognize you. You spoke to someone over the phone, someone named—what was her name? You can't remember. She said you should visit, so you're here—and oh, the appointment isn't in his calendar? She must have forgotten. You'll smile winningly and apologetically and Taein will be so charmed he'll agree to take you on on the spot.

You haven’t thought farther than that.

You step out of the elevator and into a dimly lit hall. The very air seems stale. There seems to be no one else around, so you proceed slowly down the hall. The fluorescent lights cast everything in a sickly yellow shade. You’re presented with two doors. The one on the left has a small glass window. You angle yourself away from it, on the off chance that someone sees you and knows you don’t belong. The one on the right is windowless, a blank slate of dark brown wood.

You debate internally for a few moments. The longer you stay there, the longer you risk meeting someone other than Taein. You try the plain door. The knob turns easily in your hand.

“Jaeseop?” A voice asks from inside. You aren’t Jaeseop, but you’ve seen that name before.

You steel yourself, silently ask for His guidance, and turn the knob all the way.

“If you’re asking about managing the social media accounts again, the answer is no,” the voice continues. It belongs to a middle-aged man, in a plain dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a ballpoint pen in the breast pocket. He looks away from his computer screen, and you find yourself face-to-face with Lee Taein.

“You must be lost. The copywriting agency is on the first two floors,” Taein says.

“I’m supposed to be here,” you say. You bow, politely, to him, then add on, “My name is Kang Haksu. I received a call a few days ago—”

Taein cuts you off, which is maybe for the better, because now that you were about to say it, your story is paper-thin and a bit silly. “You didn’t receive anything. There were no calls. You’re no one.”

Nothing is going to plan, so you do your best to improvise. “I know you’re developing an idol group. I need to be part of it.”

Taein stares at you like he can’t believe those words came out of your mouth. You believe them. You need this. Who will you be if you don’t do this?

“This is not a charity.” His voice is bone dry. “We can’t get everything we want in life. It’s better to learn that lesson early. Tell whoever sold you your information on my business and I that I don’t take charity cases.”

“I’m not a sasaeng.” His words sting. It’s a veiled accusation, but an accusation nonetheless.

“I never said you were. People like you are a dime a dozen, thinking you can waltz into the entertainment industry with no experience and no connections and immediately become a superstar. It takes much more hard work, skill, and luck than someone like you can imagine. Try your luck somewhere else.”

His words strip you to the core. Were you too naive, thinking you’d be different? You shrink back from the ferocity of it all, cowed more than you’d like to admit. You don’t take his words to heart. You can’t go anywhere else. You’re supposed to be here, under Taein’s direction.

You don’t know how or when, but you’ll be back. You’ll find another way. You don’t have anything to say to his words, the humiliation still burning across your face, so you turn tail and flee.

You escape out into the cold, winter morning, no closer to your destiny than you were an hour ago. If anything, you’re objectively farther away. Taein knows you now, knows your name and your face and your deepest desire. You don’t let that stop you. You vow to yourself to never let him get the best of you like that again. You’ll be seeing him a lot in the future, you know, because you’ll be in his group.

By the time you enter the cafè across the street again, you’re bouncing back. You’ve always been resilient. You’re shielded, after all, by the grace of God. The cashier starts to ring up your usual black coffee and cookie order, but you wave it away and spend a little more on a latte instead. As you sip your drink and stare broodingly at the building across the street, your second plan begins to form. If it’s a sasaeng Taein wants, then it’s a sasaeng he’ll get.

On your way home, you stop at a convenience store and buy a new notebook. You sit on your dorm room bed and think about the days you spent watching the building, the days when Taein was nowhere to be found. He’s a bit of a workaholic, but clearly not enough to spend seven days a week at his workplaces. You, on the other hand, are unemployed enough to spend seven days a week looking into what he does. You copy the dates and times out of your old notebook and try to find a pattern.

He arrives late on Mondays, but you chalk that up to a normal dislike of Mondays. The rest of the weekdays are sporadic. There was a week where Taein missed three days of work in a row. You wonder if it's something else, if it's easily explainable. Maybe he caught a cold. It is winter, after all. You dismiss the thought. He's up to something. You know he is.

The day he misses the most often is Tuesday, from the few weeks you've watched him. In fact, he's never been at work on a Tuesday. You wonder why you never noticed that before.

It's Thursday, which means you have a few days to continue your research. You do a quick search for how much a private investigator costs, and are shocked by the results. It's fine. You can be a private investigator yourself. How hard can it be?

You plug Taein's name into one of those less-than-reputable websites that promise addresses and phone numbers. You're prompted to create an account and pay a small fee. You click through it all without hesitating. A few thousand won now means very little in the great, grand scheme of your idol destiny.

Multiple people with the same name as Taein pop up. You aren't worried, because your Taein is a public figure. That, and you know his age and his wife’s name.

Eventually, one of them fits the bill perfectly. You take a quick break to straighten your posture and ease the stiffness from your spine. You've been sitting here, engrossed in your new plan, for the better part of an hour.

Your best guess so far is an address in Hongje-dong. You've been lucky in your observation so far. That must mean you're on the right track. You're getting closer and closer with each passing day. Tomorrow you'll close the distance between you and your destiny.

In the morning, you wake up extra early to get to Hongje-dong before Taein leaves. You doubt he takes the subway anywhere, so you rent a bike and make your way to his address. You only lose your balance twice in your first block. It’s early enough in the morning that there’s no one around to see you.

You arrive at the address much faster than you expected. The sun is only barely beginning to creep over the horizon. Then you pause, because Taein lives in a condominium. Every house on the block looks the same. The only differences are the cars parked out front of each one and the numbers on the houses. You stick out here, a young man on a bicycle with nowhere to go. You take one last look at Taein’s home and the car outside—a white Mazda—then wheel yourself around and pedal out.

You repeat the license plate to yourself in your head until you arrive at a convenience store. It’s the only place around that’s open. You buy a bag of chips and take a seat outside, keeping an eye out for Taein. You add the plate number to your notes and try to figure out exactly what kind of car he drives. You have time to spare. You expect him to head to the Zenith Entertainment building today, and he tends to arrive around nine or ten. After you consider traffic, it shouldn’t take him more than half an hour.

You’re almost certain he drives a 2015 Mazda 3. You head back inside and buy a coffee. Then you take a few moments to think through your plan. Like if Taein drives, then where in the city does he park? Naver Map told you this convenience store was along the quickest route to Sinmunno 2-ga. What if he has a faster route?

You’re still worrying when Taein’s car speeds by, much faster than the speed limit allows. You jump up from your seat, nearly spilling your coffee. You can’t hold it and ride your bike at the same time, so you hurry to dispose of it and pack up your notes again. You pray Taein is heading to Zenith Entertainment. It’s a little early, but maybe there’s a good reason for that. You set off in the same direction as him, though he’s disappeared from sight.

You make your way to Zenith Entertainment anyway, and by chance, see a white Mazda disappearing into a parking garage down the road from the company building. It’s too far for the garage to be connected to the building, so you lock your bike across the street and wait for him to leave. You lock and unlock the bike lock three times, fiddling with the combination. You strap the helmet to your backpack and lean against the seat and pretend to look at your phone, all the while eyeing the entrance.

Taein never leaves. You look both ways, then cross the street into the depths of the garage. It’s risky, because Taein could see you and recognize you, but you can’t take the chance that he’s gone somewhere else or is doing something else. Your imagination runs wild, thinking of all the illicit activities he might participate in. There are a number of other cars in the lot. The copywriters, you assume.

Then, in a small walkway that must lead to another entrance, you see him, standing with another man. You duck behind a car, and creep closer to the two of them. Taein must be smoking, because the smell of cigarette smoke permeates your hiding spot.

“You wanted to do more than catch up,” Taein is saying when you can finally hear them.

“I didn’t.” The other man sounds amused.

“We could have met anywhere else. You insisted on this attempt at discretion.”

“It’s about your case,” the other man says. “They want to open it again.”

“I thought you took care of that, Cheolhwan.” Taein sounds guarded. “How much do they want?”

You don’t know what this is about, but you silently take your phone and start to record.

“Twice what you gave me. This is above my pay grade.”

They’re quiet after that. You peek carefully through the cars to see if they’ve left. They’re still standing there, the ember at the end of Taein’s cigarette the brightest light. You duck down again without getting a better look at Cheolhwan. You wonder if he’s a loan shark or something. Breaking off and starting a company can’t be cheap.

“Alright. The police never liked me much anyway,” Taein says suddenly. You poke your head back up to watch him drop his cigarette butt to the ground and grind it under his shoe.

Cheolhwan snorts. “I can’t imagine why. Planning on begging Jinguk again?”

“I don’t beg. Jinguk-ssi and I are proper business partners.”

That gets a laugh out of Cheolhwan, the short, rough, sound echoing around the garage.

You stop your video recording, unsure of whatever that was. You doubt it'll be of use in your quest to be an idol, but you decide to hold onto it for now. You hear footsteps begin to recede in the distance, and you wait in your hiding place until they disappear completely.

All in all, you feel vindicated. There's something suspicious going on with Taein. You're certain you can get to the bottom of it. It's something to do with money. You can find out who Cheolhwan is. Their relationship is uncertain to you. They spoke casually to each other, but there was a degree of aloofness to the entire conversation that you don't know what to make of. Whatever it is, it was more than a simple meeting between friends.

When you’re certain they’re gone, you stand up, stretching out the crick in your neck. You assume Taein will spend the rest of the day at work, and that’s not somewhere you can watch him too closely. You return to your usual haunt across the street instead and make an attempt to catch up on your forgotten coursework.

It’s a good attempt, but you lose all steam when the high school trainees arrive. You stare daggers at their backs, because they’re in the exact position you want to be in. You watch them order their drinks and slowly sip them, idling the afternoon by. You don't understand why they don't take their positions more seriously. There are so many other people—yourself included—who are dying to be where they are.

But you aren’t them, so you have to settle for envy.

Eventually, they leave, and you watch through the window as they enter the Zenith Entertainment building, still laughing and talking companionably. You aren't jealous. You could build your own close group of friends. You just haven't. But if you really wanted to, you could.

The sun begins to set, and you know you've outstayed your welcome. You haven't bought anything since your single coffee hours ago. The waitstaff give you sidelong looks every now and then, but they don't ask you to leave, so you pretend you don't see them.

You finally see Taein make his long-awaited exit a little earlier than usual. He's walking fast. This time, you’re prepared. As his Mazda 3 emerges from the parking garage, you’re right behind him on your bike. You think he should be heading home, but that's not set in stone, so you decide to follow him. Your intuition pays off when you see him turn not back to Hongje-dong, but somewhere else. At a traffic light, you pause to try and figure out where you are. You've only lived in Seoul for a year and a half, the length of your short-lived university career. The city blocks are still unfamiliar to you. The light turns green, and Taein speeds off. You rush to catch up with him.

You wonder where he could be going, driving so quickly he nearly bowls over a pedestrian. Leave it to him to be so careless. Your opinion of him is souring faster and faster.

He comes to a stop outside of a small, decrepit bar you’ve never heard of before, still driving too quickly as he pulls into the parking lot. You stop, across the street again, trying to figure out where you are. It doesn’t like the type of scene that caters to university students or tired corporate employees. Your mind goes to the worst places. It could be a front for all the worst types of activities—drugs and gambling and prostitution. You record the name in flickering neon lights anyway.

You’re about to leave and try to return during the day when you spot Taein leaving. He’s in the company of a young woman, and so you almost don’t recognize him. She’s wearing a long coat, but the front is open, giving you glimpses of an outfit that isn’t close to being warm enough for the weather. She clings to Taein’s arm like a lifeline, stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk in her heels. They look like a couple. Your stomach turns. He has a wife.

With shaking hands, you raise your phone and snap another few pictures. You don’t want to see him anymore, so you don’t bother to try and follow them. You almost regret your decision to weasel your way into his life. Instead, you get back onto your bike and head home.

Saturday arrives. You don't spend your weekends at Zenith Entertainment, because you have better things to do. Or had. This morning, you wake up early again to bike back to Taein's home. You spent some time last night wondering just how far you’ll go to reach your destiny. Between that shady conversation you overheard yesterday and the young woman he met up with, you’re almost afraid of what you’ll see him do next. Sometimes you have to do difficult things before you can do great things.

More than that you’re curious about what Taein does on the weekends. Before this, your impression of him was that of a career-driven man with few feelings or even an existence outside of his job. You don’t understand why you have to work for this man, but it isn’t your place to question it.

You cycle around the blocks a few times, and it slowly comes to light in your head.

Taein is clearly the breadwinner between him and his lawfully wedded wife, so you doubt he spends his weekends shopping or cooking or cleaning. You also doubt he’s devout. As hard as you try, you can't even begin to picture him in church. You're almost certain he doesn't have kids. If he does, it's a very closely guarded secret, because it wasn't mentioned once in anything you read about him online. You wonder if maybe he had kids with his previous wife and lost custody of them. Knowing what you know about him now, you don’t find that hard to believe.

The white Mazda 3 sits outside of his condo. A light is on inside the house. You aren’t looking forward to spending a day waiting for Taein to do something. You wonder if you should have forked over the money—your parents’ money—for a private investigator. Then it would be someone else keeping watch on Taein’s house, someone more suited for the job than one young man shivering on a bike.

You think it's weird for you to sit right outside his house, so you take to patrolling the two possible entrances to the street instead. You pedal slowly, heading up and down the street. At the moment, there's nothing you fear more than having him leave without you noticing. You pause to scrutinize the map on your phone to ensure there are no other exits or back roads or possible ways out of his home other than the main street.

Then, eventually, you see his car roll by. You rush after it. He's driving slower than normal. That's when you notice it isn't him in the driver's seat, but his wife. She's the only one in the car. It makes sense, then, that the car is following the posted speed limits. You wonder what Taein is possibly doing alone at home now.

You ride back to his house, just in time to see him step outside and lock the door behind him. You stare, shocked, and have just enough sense to hide behind the condo across the street. His wife left less than five minutes ago. Where are they going, separate and alone?

Taein heads off on foot. You wait until you see him leave. The bike is a bit cumbersome. How could you have predicted that his wife would take the car somewhere and he’d leave on foot? You walk alongside your bike and try to pretend you aren't following him. You ride halfway around the block in boredom before you have to turn around so you don't lose him. You wish he could walk faster.

You check your phone. What's within walking distance of his condominium? The convenience store you sat outside of. A station? He could get anywhere from there.

The streets are too empty for you to follow closer. If he were to turn around, he'd spot you immediately. It stresses you out. You aren't a professional. You really should have hired a private investigator.

To your dismay, he turns into the subway station. You abandon your rental bike right outside, tapping through the app to return it as you continue to follow Taein. There are a few more people here, which makes it easier for you to follow him, and easier for him to lose you.

He's waiting for Line 3 towards Ogeum, the only line that runs through this station. You check the overlapping lines on the map, standing behind him so he doesn't see you. There are too many options for possible transfers: Jongno 3-ga, Euljiro 3-ga, Chumgmuro, Yaksu, Oksu, and on and on and on. You hope he doesn't travel too far. You hope he doesn't get off somewhere and order a taxi. You fill the time by once again trying to imagine what he does for fun on the weekends. For some reason, you can't picture him doing anything. He's the type of person to spend the weekend at the office. You chart the path to Zenith Entertainment from your current location. It’s two stops on the line and then a short walk. It wouldn't surprise you if he stopped there. You don't particularly want to go to Zenith Entertainment again. You're supposed to find something about him that will leave him no choice but to accept you. The woman he met yesterday was a good start. You wonder if he's heading out to see her again.

As you're lost in your thoughts, the train arrives. You make sure you're in the same car as Taein, though it increases the chances of him noticing you. You'll have to play it off as a coincidence. You rehearse the lines in your head. You'll pretend you don't recognize him. As if you could forget what he looks like. He might not recognize you, you realize. You met him once, for a few minutes. The train picks up speed.

You pass through the first few stops with no incidents. So Taein isn’t going to work. Your interest is piqued.

You're on the train with him for almost forty-five minutes. You watch station after station pass by, the smooth tone of the recorded announcer reciting stop after stop. Taein makes no move to exit at a single one. He stares down at his phone, which lets you stare at him. He doesn't do anything interesting. All he does is scroll through his phone, tap his screen a few times, then stare. He looks like your average salaryman.

He finally gets off in Yangjae. You’re in Gangnam now. You let him leave first. When the doors are about to close, you follow after him. He isn't heading out, but through the station. You follow him to a transfer to the Shinbundang Line. You only know this because you’re spending so much time staring at the map on your phone, it’s starting to become engrained on the backs of your eyelids.

He rides the new subway line for one stop. You both exit at Gangnam Station. You follow him up back into the daylight. It's much more crowded here, locals and tourists alike.

Taein walks faster. That probably has something to do with the crowds. You hurry after him, thankful you're no longer burdened with your bike.

He heads down a series of twists and turns, alleyways and backroads forming a route Naver Map would never recommend to you. You’re glad it’s the middle of the day. You’d hate to do this at night.

In front of you, Taein heads into a storefront you wouldn’t be caught dead in. This one doesn’t have a name on top of it. You take a picture anyway, then cross-reference your location with the map. There’s still no name. You debate whether or not you should follow him in. From the outside, it’s not the type of place you belong. But Taein could be doing any matter of incriminating activities in there, and that’s what you need to see.

You let your internal debate rage for a few seconds more. Then you cross the street and push the door open.

The room is dimly lit. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and when they do, you realize a few of the patrons are looking at you. You’re the youngest person in the room. You slide up to the bar and order a drink. God knows you need it.

You take a small sip and grimace immediately. It's obvious people don't come here to drink. You cast a casual glance around the room, looking for Taein. It isn't too crowded. He should be easy to spot---and vice versa, he could easily spot you. You don't see him. Most of the patrons are more engaged with the TV screens in the corner of the room and across the top of the bar. You expect to see sports or the news or something along those lines. You look up to see horses.

It clicks in your head. Horse racing. These people are day drinking and gambling. You belong anywhere else in the world but here. And where is Taein, in this entire mess?

You flag the bartender down.

"Did you see a man come in?" you ask. "Middle-aged, around my height, with an oversized watch? His name’s Lee Taein." You do a bit of your own gambling, placing a bet on Taein being a regular here.

The bartender regards you curiously. "You’re looking for Taein-ssi?”

"He’s my boss," you say. "He told me to meet him here. I was promoted recently. He wanted to celebrate."

The words fall easily from your tongue. It's more of a lie than the truth, but it could be the truth soon enough.

"Congratulations. He invited you here and didn't tell you the password?" The bartender shakes his head. He points into an ever darker recess of the room. "Down the hall. To the left of the bathroom. 8179."

You thank him and leave your drink alone. The left of the bathroom is a door with a keypad above the handle. You type in the passcode, and the lock clicks.

Taein is on the other side of the door. Your destiny is on the other side of the door. You take a deep breath and crack the door open.

You don't know what you expected. It certainly wasn't the opposite of what you experienced upstairs. For a secret room, it's well-lit and almost cozy. There aren’t many people in the room, just a few small groups of four or five people sitting around green, square tables, playing cards. Now, you spot Taein immediately, sitting behind a decently-sized pile of poker chips, the largest pile on his table. One of the people he's playing with the young woman you saw him with last night. She seems your age, maybe a few years older or younger.

You close the door silently behind you. Your skin crawls. You want to get out of here as soon as possible.

There's another bar down here, against the back of the wall. The drinks on the tables look significantly better than they do upstairs. You think about getting another one, just to make it look like you belong here and you fit in.

No one seems to notice your entrance, too engaged in their games. Your luck holds as you slide around to take a few pictures of Taein, holding your phone just in front of you, at waist level. Your fingers shake, but blurry photos are better than no photos. No one else has their phones out, not even resting on the poker tables. It feels illegal for you to do this. In fact, everything about this feels illegal. You make sure to get Taein's full face in the images, and from multiple angles. Then you slip your phone back into your pocket.

That's when you're interrupted.

"You're new here." A hand lands on your shoulder. A few people—not Taein—look up at that, before just as quickly returning to their games. You turn slowly around to see a man twice your size, a bouncer inside the club.

"I was looking for the bathroom," you say, aiming for young, fresh-faced innocence.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Nineteen," you lie. You’re twenty-one. You hate how easily that one comes out. You could have told the truth.

"Good try," the man says, keeping his firm grip on your shoulder as he guides you back to the exit. You take a glance back at Taein. Throughout the entire ordeal, he hasn't looked up once, much too concerned with the cards in his hands. Although it doesn’t look like it, you hope he loses.

You aren't in the mood to wait in the real bar until Taein emerges, so you leave.

"Leaving already?" the bartender upstairs asks.

You ignore him. It doesn't matter. You're never coming here again.

You head home to see how blurry your pictures are. You think you might already have enough material to force him to give you a position. He's made it scarily easy for you. You didn't even need a private investigator.

You spend the rest of the week following him around anyway. You've grown used to it: the bike rental and Taein's neighborhood and Zenith Entertainment and a variety of bars and hotels across the entire city you know you’ll never step foot in again, and once, another day spent in Gangnam at a shiny skyscraper. Taein arrived at seven in the morning, earlier than he does at Zenith Entertainment, and didn't emerge until nearly eight at night. That was weird, but you had no way of getting into the building, short of breaking in. You had considered pizza delivery, kid of an employee, new employee, and a few other disguises before giving up. After the bouncer encounter, you’re staying clear of security. And that building made its security obvious, what with all the men in navy blue uniforms and earpieces, standing outside every entrance. What were the chances of Taein doing anything illegal or immoral there? Low, you figured, judging by the number of luxury cars dropping passengers off outside.

In your spare time, you try to find anything about Cheolhwan. With only a first name and a tenuous connection to Lee Taein, it’s difficult. You find two Cheolhwans in Taein’s Korea University graduation class. That was decades ago. You doubt either of those are the same man.

Regardless, you go through with your new plan. Armed with your newly obtained material, you’re ready for your second attempt. You know Taein's schedule now. That means when he arrives at Zenith Entertainment for the day, on a bright, sunny, perfect Wednesday morning, you're standing outside his office.

"You again," Taein says, calm and impassive. "This type of perseverance is seen as obsessive behavior. The answer is no again."

You haven’t even asked your question. You watch him unlock the door to his office.

"Please leave."

You stop him from closing the door with your foot. "I have something you might want to see."

"I don't think so," Taein says. He seems to be in a bad mood. He must have had a bad night last night.

"If you don't want to see it, I think your wife, Jung Eunyoung-ssi, might have an interest in it instead," you say.

That gets his attention. "I don’t see what you’re getting at. I don’t mix business with pleasure."

"Please don't play dumb, Taein-ssi," you say, adapting to each of his evasive attempts. You didn't plan this out. You remember how poorly that went last time. Taein is unpredictable to you. You don't know him nearly well enough to begin to predict any of his responses. "I know you're seeing another woman."

Taein stares at you. "I suppose you should come inside." He sounds extremely reluctant. At the same time, you know this isn't a conversation the two of you should be having in a corridor. You tamp down the sudden flare of excitement in your chest.

His office looks the same as you remember it. You take a seat in the plastic folding chair with the uneven legs.

"Are you a private investigator? A detective? You’ll find everything in order."

He’s defensive already. You’ve barely said anything. The investigator comment is a bit flattering. You like it.

“Everything except your marriage,” you note.

Taein shrugs. "Divorce is messy. I don't have time for that right now."

You think it's terrible that he divorced his first wife, and seems to be considering divorcing his second wife. You shove the thought aside and bring out your phone, placing it on the table between the two of you.

“What’s her name?” you ask. “You seem to spend a lot of time with her.”

It's definitely not the strongest statement, but your proof is what's more important. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

"Did Eunyoung hire you?" Taein asks suddenly, ignoring your comment. He's looking at you, instead of the pictures of himself.

"No," you say. "No one hired me."

The two of you look through the album together: Taein and the young woman, arm in arm over and over and over again, in bars and restaurants and hotel lobbies and out on the street in broad daylight.

Then, Taein swipes one photo too far and you’re both presented with a photo of Taein in profile, staring intently at the two playing cards he’s holding. He picks up your phone. "How did you get this?"

He isn’t denying it any longer. You figure it's hard to deny something when the hard, concrete proof is right in front of you.

"I was there," you say.

Taein thinks about it for a second, then nods. "I didn't recognize you then. You were the one Soogeun-ssi removed."

You don't like his choice of words, but you nod anyway. You didn't think he'd noticed you. You thought you were so clever, getting away with everything. You don’t have anything else to say. Your photos speak for you.

"Who paid you?" he asks again, deathly calm. This is uncharted territory. “How much more would I have to pay you?”

“No one paid me anything. I don’t want your money. All I want is to be an idol.”

He shakes his head. “There are easier ways to do that.”

“This is the way I’m doing it. This is the way I want to do it.” This is the way you have to do it.

Taein’s expression is inscrutable. You’ve played your hand. It’s up to him to respond. You wait with bated breath, until he finally says, “I’ll give you a trial period. If you can keep up with everyone else for a month, we can reconsider your position then. If you can’t, then we part ways amicably. No one, least of all Eunyoung, needs to know what you’ve done.”

“I don’t get anything,” you say.

“You get a chance,” Taein snaps. “It’s more than you deserve. Time will tell if this bet pays off.”

You don’t appreciate being compared to a game of roulette. “I might talk to Eunyoung-ssi any time in the future.”

“You might. It won’t make a difference.” He’s oddly calm. It unnerves you.

“Why not?” You have to ask.

“Cheating isn’t illegal. Nor is playing cards in a private setting. Stalking, on the other hand, is.” You can’t do great things from a jail cell, so that keeps you from continuing to argue.

Taein continues to speak. “For the time being, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to ruin my marriage. The negative press would be disastrous at this time, and divorce proceedings are lengthy. As long as you want to work for me, our fates are tied.”

That’s a sentiment you can support. You nod slowly. Something like a smile takes its place on Taein's face. “You can come by on Monday. The other trainees know it's too late for me to accept anyone new. Tell them you've been confirmed to debut.”

On your first day, you take the elevator up to the third floor. It opens to a floor much different from the fourth. The left side is the same: a door with a glass window, expanding all the way down as far as you can see. The right side leads into an open office, with cubicles arranged in small groups of fours and fives. There are even a few people sitting amongst the desks. That isn't your place, so you ignore them and push open the door to the left.

There's one person in the room, a teenage boy sitting down on the floor and stretching. He looks up at you when you enter with sharp, calculating eyes. You recognize him for your days in the cafè—Mingeun. He doesn’t seem to recognize you. He rises to his feet, moving with a grace unfit for his age, like he’s so perfectly comfortable in his body despite being in his awkward teenage years. You were nothing like him when you were his age a few years ago.

“I’m Haksu,” you say. “I’m new here.” You smile at him, something you think is befitting of an idol, but he doesn’t return it. If anything, his neutral expression grows frosty.

“Mingeun,” he says stiffly. “Taein-nim promised there wouldn’t be any more new people. Where are you from? JYP? YG?”

He sounds whiny and childish. You’re unimpressed.

“Gunsan,” you try, though you know that’s not what he means.

Mingeun scowls. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

You’re about to respond, to tell him you’re not from anywhere in the way he means, when the door flies open. You recognize both of the two new arrivals—one is the tall foreigner you’ve seen in the cafè, and the other is the young man you’ve seen following Taein—his assistant, presumably.

“Mingeun!” Taein’s assistant scolds. “Stop harassing the new guy.”

“I wasn’t harassing him,” Mingeun shoots back. “We’re going to be good friends. Right, Haksu-ssi?”

The look he gives you clearly says to play along. You don’t know if you’re going to be good friends, but you nod along anyway. Their conversation continues like you aren’t even there.

“We were just getting to what company he trained at,” Mingeun says. “Then we were going to talk about why Taein-nim thought he should join us.”

Taein’s assistant winces. “You won’t like either of those answers.”

“Another SM reject? I can handle it. I’m over it.”

Taein’s assistant ignores Mingeun and turns to you instead. He holds his hand out, Western-style, and says, “I’m Jaeseop. I’m so sorry about Mingeun. We''—he gestures to himself and the cafè foreigner—”were supposed to be the first ones to meet you. Sam—Taein-nim—held us up. Oh, and that’s Andrew.”

Your first impression of him is that he’s frazzled and all over the place. You imagine being Taein’s assistant is a difficult job. Behind him, Mingeun folds his arms, clearly upset about being excluded from the conversation.

You grasp his hand. “Haksu.”

“I know,” Jaeseop says, suddenly looking like he’d rather be anywhere but in front of you. “Taein-nim told me about you.”

You wonder how much Taein told him. You don’t think he’d tell his assistant everything. It’s supposed to be a secret between the two of you.

“How many—” You hesitate in the middle of your sentence. Of you? Of us? How long until you're one of them? “—other trainees are there?”

“Seven,” Jaeseop says. “With you, there's eight.”

“If you're expecting monthly evaluations and competing against fifty other trainees, we're past that,” Mingeun cuts in.

“We’re the debut team. We’re all that's left,” Andrew adds.

The three of them seem so in-sync with one another, like parts of a perfect, well-oiled machine. You're the loose cog, the piece of scrap metal carelessly tossed inside, with all the potential of breaking the machine into pieces. And how does Taein's assistant fit into all of this? He seems close to Andrew and Mingeun, closer than an assistant to the CEO should be.

“When will I meet everyone else?” you ask, just to change the subject.

Jaeseop, with all the mental fortitude of an overworked assistant, takes a deep breath and begins to rattle off a list of names and short descriptions and times, most of which fly right over your head. “Intak will be here around lunchtime, after his classes end. Byeonghwi and Eunsu come by after school in the mid-afternoon. Kiyoung-hyung keeps saying he'll quit his job, but he hasn't, so he won't be here until the evening.”

Andrew picks up on your obvious cluelessness, and simplifies it down to, “Intak will be here soon. He'll be extremely bad at small talk. Don't mention it to him.”

You don't know where that came from, but you nod along anyway. These are going to be your group members. You need to get along with them.

“Don't talk about League either,” Mingeun adds suddenly. You didn't realize he was still part of the conversation. “Unless you're also an SKT fan upset about their loss. He's really into that. You don't seem like a gamer.”

“I play a bit,” you say diplomatically, because you do. You were a teenage boy at one point, and there was no way for you to survive those years without playing League of Legends at least once.

“We all have sensitive topics, “ Jaeseop says as way of explanation. “Things we don't want to talk about and therefore try to avoid unless there's no other way around it. Mingeun, yours are?”

With a sigh, Mingeun dutifully says, “SM Entertainment. All you need to know is that I used to be a trainee there. And my mom. You don't need to know anything about her.”

Jaeseop keeps saying “we.” If you hadn’t seen him so many times with Taein, you’d take him for another trainee. You want to ask what his role really is, but you know you can't, because it'll betray you. It's harder than you expected to act like you know nothing about them. You'll have to be careful to not slip up.

He turns his full attention to you, and asks, “Got anything?”

This is the last thing you expected from your first day as an idol. Your first item comes quickly. “How I joined Zenith Entertainment.”

You know you'll have to tell them eventually, but for now, you want to get along with everyone. Mingeun looks like he wants to ask you anyway, consequences be damned.

Andrew dismisses him before he can speak. “Byeonghwi asked for the same.”

“He asked us not to ask him why,” Jaeseop corrects. “He got in through the audition.”

Mingeun attacks like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Why’d you do it?”

You could tell them that, you suppose, but something holds you back. You want to be certain you can achieve your destiny before you start shouting it to the world. “I don't want to discuss that either,” you say instead. It's the only way out of it you can see, so you take it.

“Can we talk, hyung?” Mingeun asks, turning to Jaeseop. “Privately?”

You know you'd be the subject of their conversation. You can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You like the attention, but in this context, it seems bad. You want to get along with Mingeun, but it's clear he has little intention of getting along with you.

“No.” Jaeseop's response is firm, and you like him a little more for that. “You can tell me in front of Haksu-ssi.”

Mingeun falls silent, clearly unwilling to say whatever he wanted to say a few minutes ago.

“Great. Anything else?”

You do have a few other ideas in mind, but you've already chosen two major ones and you're afraid to rock the boat, so you shake your head.

On the wall behind him, you notice, for the first time, a schedule created out of a bunch of individual pieces of paper taped together. You skim over it. It’s overwhelming. There are classes on three out of the seven days, scheduled back to back to back: dance lessons and vocal lessons and rap lessons and media training and a short section on how to walk and more dance lessons. It's overwhelming. You're thankful to see that Sundays are, blessedly, left empty.

Jaeseop follows your gaze. “It’s a lot to take in at first,” he says sympathetically. “You’ll get used to it.”

You will, because you have no other choice. Your options are to adjust, or to give up and forfeit your spot and your destiny. The latter isn’t even in the realm of possibility. You’ll adjust and you’ll succeed, because you have to.

Then it's noon, and Intak arrives. You remind yourself: no comments on his social skills and nothing about League of Legends. He shows up with nothing but a laptop bag slung over one shoulder and a can of Red Bull. He looks over you with a disinterested gaze, asks, “Another one?”, chugs his Red Bull, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he and Andrew disappear out of the practice room to wherever else they go.

Mingeun leaves shortly after the two of them. You know he's going to the cafè to wait for the two high schoolers, but you don't say that out loud. You watch him leave, and then you're left alone with Jaeseop, the two of you sitting on the floor.

“If I ask about how or why you became a trainee, can you give me an answer?” Jaeseop asks.

“No,” you answer, because you can't.

“Do you have any relation to the Danyoung Group?” is his next question.

“No,” you say again, unsure what a chaebol who built and now owns three-quarters of the buildings in Seoul has to do with you. “I’m from Gunsan.”

He stares at you like he doesn't believe you. You meet his gaze until he looks away.

He sighs. “I’ll take you on a tour. You haven’t seen everything yet, have you?”

The question appears much more rhetorical than literal, so you follow him out of the room.

“The floor used to be all office space,” Jaeseop says, walking backwards as if he’s a professional tour guide. “This half hasn’t been converted yet.” He gestures to the messy sprawl of cubicles. To your surprise, that’s where Andrew and Intak are, two chairs in the same cubicle, though it looks like Intak is the only one working.

Jaeseop avoids them and makes a beeline for the other side of the space. It’s emptier than you had thought at first glance. He introduces you to a middle-aged man, sitting at a desk, surrounded with a tidy assortment of trinkets and knick-knacks and framed photographs. It’s the polar opposite of Taein’s office.

“This is Sanghyun-nim,” he says. “He’s Taein-nim’s right-hand man. He does all the unpleasant tasks Taein-nim doesn’t want to do.”

That doesn’t seem conducive to your image of Taein. You’ve seen him do a few unpleasant tasks. You suppose those weren’t necessary for his job.

“The menial ones,” Sanghyun corrects. “You’re the new recruit. Kang Haksu-ssi.”

“That’s me,” you say, surprised by the way he recognizes you. You wonder how much Taein told everyone else, what kind of story he fed them. You doubt it was the truth. You hope you can trust him. If you can’t, it’s a little too late for that.

He seems like he could have an entire conversation with you, but Jaeseop whisks you away. “Hyekyung,” he says, of a young woman around your age, with a phone tucked on her shoulder, taking notes with her other hand. She waves in your general direction.

“Social media and marketing,” Jaeseop explains. “I wouldn’t get on her bad side. She’s really the one in charge of this entire area.”

He stops in his tracks and points across the room. You tiptoe to see what he’s trying to point out to you. A woman who looks like she should be a floor below them with the copywriters sits alone at a desk, a wide berth between her and anyone else.

“Gyeongwon,” Jaeseop says, voice dropped to a whisper. “She doesn’t work here, but she works with Taein-nim. I wouldn’t upset her either.”

He moves on, taking quick strides across the floor to the side opposite the elevator. “The stairwell is here. Goes from the first floor up to the rooftop.”

You think he’s going to take you up the stairs—to the rooftop, maybe—but he stops. “The fourth floor is only Taein-nim’s office for now. I assume you’ve been there. The fifth floor is empty. The elevator doesn’t go up there. If you do ever go up to the rooftop, the door is always stuck.”

You try to follow along, completely overwhelmed with the amount of new names and faces and information you’re expected to now know.

Jaeseop checks the time on his phone. “Mingeun should be back by now.”

You don't have much praise for Jaeseop's tour. This time, when you open the practice room door, Mingeun is pacing. The conversation stops abruptly as you enter. Eunsu and Byeonghwi, you remember, though you can’t remember who’s who.

Jaeseop comes to your accidental rescue. “Eunsu.” He points out the boy in the mustard-yellow uniform. “And Byeonghwi.”

Byeonghwi gives you a smile and a wave, and you’re immediately struck by how he seems genuinely happy to meet you, as if he was destined to be an idol, forever pretending and playing along with people slipping in and out of his life. Like you, you have to remind yourself. It’s a sharp contrast from the way everyone else has behaved around you. High school students are supposed to be annoying and immature, not better than you at your own fate. You try not to let it get to you.

Not long after their arrival, Intak and Andrew make their re-entrance. Andrew is in a different outfit, the type of corporate wear you’ve seen him leave in. You see your opportunity, so you take it.

“You changed,” you observe.

“Work,” he says. “I teach English at a hagwon.”

You wonder if he’s qualified to do that, and then if the parents of the students he teaches know that their teacher is focused on being an idol and not on teaching. You should have guessed. What else could he do?

You watch him leave. Almost as soon as the door shuts softly behind him, Intak pulls Intak to the side and speaks softly. You strain your ears to overhear, though you're drawn into Eunsu and Mingeun and Byeonghwi’s inane conversation.

"I can't work with him," Intak is saying.

"I know," comes Jaeseop's reply. "You have to try."

"I am trying," Intak hisses. "He's the one who doesn't want to try. He thinks he can do it all by himself. He refuses to show me anything he's working on. He’s impossible."

"I know," Jaeseop says again. He says something else, but you don’t hear it, because Byeonghwi is asking you how and why you joined the company, and you have to tell him that’s not something you’re ready to talk about yet.

You watch the sun start to set out of the windows overlooking the street. They're open, but they face the wrong way and let no air in. You want to go home. Jaeseop steps out to pick up dinner. No one makes a move to leave, so you don't either.

When the sun is fully down, you meet Kiyoung. He arrives looking a bit too much like a copywriter as well. You would have mistaken him for one, had the reception to his entrance not been perfectly warm and friendly.

You learn a few more facts in rapid-fire fashion. He's the oldest of the team. He works for an environmental non-profit organization, and is refusing to quit until he finishes his current project. Before he was a Zenith Entertainment trainee, he was a trainee at another small company that went under before he could debut. He met Jaeseop when they were both in middle school and their schools double-booked the same trip location.

You exchange a few more pleasantries, and then the mood of the room shifts more towards homework than anything else, because everyone—with the exceptions of Kiyoung and Intak—are still in school. It surprises you to learn that Jaeseop is a student.

“This is my last semester,” he explains when you ask. “I don’t go to class much anymore. I’ll graduate just fine.”

You’re beginning to feel like the odd one out, so you continue your hopeless quest to catch up on all your work. You probably aren’t going to graduate. You probably aren’t even going to finish this semester.

Andrew returns later in the night, and that, for some reason, signals the end of the day. Eunsu is pressed to the glass, announcing his imminent arrival before he even steps foot in the building. Andrew’s single action upon returning to the third floor is to pick up Byeonghwi, who seems only too enthusiastic to leave. After that, it’s a free-for-all bordering on a bloodbath. You wait, because you’re new, and it’d be rude of you to be one of the first to leave.

Then it’s you and Jaeseop and Mingeun, nearly a mirror image of the morning.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Jaeseop says to you, and then in almost the same breath, “Make sure you go home, Mingeun.”

Mingeun scowls.

You nod, though you’re almost dead on your feet. You think being a private investigator might be a little easier. You aren’t sure how, but you’ll survive it. You have to. It’s the only way you can do great things.

#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ writing. ]#╰ to be written in ink is to be immortal — [ haksu. ]#ficnetfairy #fictional idol community #idolverse #idol oc #kpop oc #fake kpop group #kpop fanfic

15 notes · View notes

dailyexo · 1 year

Text

[INTERVIEW] Baekhyun - 230223 W Korea: “Days With Baekhyun”

Returning after two years, Baekhyun used the word “comfort” often.

Baekhyun’s only wish is to sing heart-felt, timeless songs for us. Baekhyun talked about the days spent with us and the days ahead of us.

How many days has it been since you were discharged from the military?

Today is precisely the third day since I’ve been out.

You have finally gifted flower shoes to the fans. (‘Giving flower shoes’ is a Korean phrase that means returning to the significant other who had been waiting for their partner to return from military service.)

I know. Before I left for the military, I told the fans that many things could change in a year and nine months. How could I make them wait? I told them to focus on their own lives but come back if they feel like it when I return. I said, if anything, I would try to win them back again.

So, you recently did a live show to celebrate discharge. Seeing you’re still as bright and youthful, fans recalled the time you promoted your second solo mini-album, “Delight,” released three years ago.

Honestly, I was super worried. But I was relieved to see their warm reactions. I’m grateful to my parents. Haha.

You talked about your time in the army during the live show.

Most of my training campmates were born after 1999, except for a few. I was the eldest there. Everyone followed me like their older brother. I still keep in touch with the friends I met then. Recently, I got a call from one of them. He said, “I am working out at the gym right now.” He was a skinny one, and every single day at the training camp, I told him to work out.

Baekhyun, as we know, was the life of the party among the EXO and SuperM members. Your bubbly personality would have shined in the army training camp.

There was no exception. I didn’t let anyone fall behind. Whenever I saw someone wanting to give up, I said, “You can’t lose to things like this,” “If you keep giving up, this becomes your habit,” and, “Real life outside is much harder than this.” I don’t let my friends give up or fall behind. I pull them together.

I presume the past two years have been a time to realize and reassess who Byun Baek Hyun really is as a person, not just Beakhyun from EXO.

Yeah. My MBTI changed during the break from ISFP to ESTJ. I’ve been known as a homebody for a long time among my friends. But I’m actually an extrovert and a very active person. But when I look back on my childhood, I barely had time to spend at home. To the point where my mother always said, “How come I see my son only for breakfast?” I felt like I went back to my real self during the break.

Was it also a time to realize again what your fans mean to you?

Of course. I still have a long way to go to learn about the fans thoroughly. There’s something I learned this time, though. The fact that our existence to each other is a lot bigger than what we think. During the first year of my alternative military service, I looked back a lot. I watched a lot of the past concert videos. At concerts, I had a lot of fun with them. There were times when I saw my facial expression on the stage and thought I really did bust my butt to pull everything. Also, sometimes I felt really empty and felt this unfillable void. At one point, I thought, “Will they still be there?” while listening to the cheers of fans in those videos. They are like a really good teacher who would grade me and encourage me. They inspire me to do my homework. They have had me run, take lessons and become a better person. I want to do well to hear their acknowledgment. If they didn’t exist, I probably would not have tried so hard to come this far.

Your Namu-wiki page has a “Fan Love” section. As we read through the things you’ve said to the fans, we thought even a real boyfriend couldn’t say such sweet things.

Haha. Definitely my mom’s influence there. She speaks so gently. She is the sweetest person, really. And I am the youngest in the family. My family poured sweet love on me. Sometimes, fans ask me how I can speak so nicely. To be honest, I don’t know. I feel it’s nothing special, to me, a very ordinary and everyday thing.

It seems like fans could rarely feel the army break. You filmed 20 pieces of YouTube content ahead of time and released them during the break.

I know how hard it is to wait. Even when we did the EXO concert tour, we couldn’t release an album during that time. So it had been a long-standing concern about how to fill the vacancy. In particular, no one was trying to do something special to fill the vacancy during the military break. At first, I thought about making a small game instead of a video. Like the Tamagotchi game, fans can foster ‘Baekhyun’ from level 1 for 641 days while I am away. Feed him, water him. Haha.

The background in planning the pre-created YouTube Content was to give fans something to calm their longings, but also in some parts, wishing your fans would not forget you by watching these videos, right?

Yeah, that is pretty much it. Actually, I was swamped when we were filming the YouTube videos. I had a hectic schedule. It was just around when my third solo mini album Bambi came out, and on top of that, SuperM’s promotion overlapped. But after filming them, I felt so indescribably proud.

The 2021 album Bambi leaves much to be desired in some ways because it had no official activities due to your military service. Nonetheless, it recorded high sales, enough to bring the double million-seller title. It was also the album released in the year of your 30th birthday, showcasing your finest skills as a vocalist.

Bambi was created strictly with my own needs and vision. I tried everything I wanted to do without looking at anyone, and I wanted to free my mind by doing so. You are right. I put in everything I could as a vocalist. I first rearranged my vocal tone around the time of my first solo mini-album City Lights in 2019, and I wanted to see how much I had grown since then. I became very dedicated because I thought I could make a better sound than two years ago. I tried the vocal ranges that I wouldn’t have chosen in the past because I was too nervous. I purposely chose difficult music because I wanted to experience both failures and trials.

In particular, the title song "Bambi" seems to have been a regular song for the music school entrance exam that year. It’s perfect for showing off your vocal skills going back and forth freely with your falsetto, modal, and head voice.

Well, I don’t really recommend it. It’s a high-risk song, the beat and rhythm are tough. It’s a pretty challenging song to sing well.

With the release of Bambi, Baekhyun’s genre and brand have become more apparent. "Baekhyun" reminds us of groovy R&B beats from "UN Village" in the album City Lights and "Candy" in Delight.

R&B is a genre that I’ve been attached to for a long time, so I’ll continue with it. However, I also want new challenges. I want to try this and that without being too picky. I want to be an all-rounder. I’m interested in singing-rap these days.

Which musician are you paying attention to as a reference these days?

I’ve gotten closer to Colde recently. I like his singing style, and it’s fabulous that he pulls off the melody rhythmically as if he’s rapping. I’ve requested songs from Colde. I don’t know what kind of work will come out yet, but we’ll work together soon.

As a musician, there’s no more valuable experience than getting a “response” to your song. All three solo albums released so far have recorded respectable sales. Did you expect such success?

Not at all. It exceeded my expectations. This record was possible thanks to the efforts of many K-pop singers ahead of me. In particular, the sales volume of the second album was the highest in 20 years of Korean pop music history.

Delight became the first solo album to achieve the million-seller title, and you became the second artist to hold such titles for both the group and solo albums, following after Seo Tai-ji.

Yes, but it’s all thanks to the dedication of so many Korean musicians. As K-pop became more known worldwide, more people started paying attention to K-culture. The Korean artists before me had already paved the roads and I just got to piggyback on them.

I don’t feel any guilt when I listen to your music. Maybe it’s a complete anachronism, but there’s still a certain prejudice regarding idol music. Similarly, some idol music is referred to as a ‘hidden masterpiece.’ But when I listen to Baekhyun’s solo music, I feel like I’m just listening to really good music.

Thanks. I indeed paid a lot of attention to that. I chose a lot of genres that wouldn’t come from SM. SM prefers strong and intense sounds, but I wanted to focus on easy-listening music. It was partly because of my preference and strategic choice to differentiate between EXO and solo activities. Seeing that many of the tracks from my solo albums are still receiving a ot of love, I think it was a good decision.

It is common to spot excessiveness in solo albums by Idol group members. It was rather unique that Baekhyun has an easy mood, as you’ve just said.

I pushed for that. I kept thinking, ‘I’ll make more easy-listening music,’ ‘The music should not change in the middle,’ and ‘The melody should flow as expected.’ I wanted to minimize statement sounds and focus on the lyrics. There was even some feedback from the company that it fell short. But I kept pushing. My motto was to do something that sounds easy to people’s ears, like passive music, even if it may not feel ‘sophisticated or innovative’ for some.

What you just said seems connected to the question of, ‘what is good music to me as a musician?’

Probably. In a way, I’m making music that’s pleasant to listen to. But I don’t usually listen to a lot of music. My ears are so tired. Since I’m a singer, I need to know a lot of songs, but when I find one I like, I listen to it over and over. There’s something in common when I look at the songs I’m hooked on. It’s not too much, and it just has one or two significant factors.

For example?

I especially like old-fashioned pop songs. Fibo Bryson’s "Why Goodbye" is also a song that I love, for example. If you listen to it, there’s a particular section once in the bridge, once in the chorus, and once in the verse. You can listen to it comfortably, and the sound is completely filled with only vocals.

What is the vocal tone you pursue?

If I could have a voice that doesn’t go out of date, I couldn’t ask for more.

It’s also the most challenging thing.

I know. I once imagined, “Will Baekhyun’s episode of ‘Hidden Singer’ come out?” I don’t think so. Because my voice doesn’t have a distinctive feature. But it’s definitely a voice that can give you some comfort. A good tone depends on the time and taste. It’s something that keeps moving without being fixed. So I just want my voice to be peaceful and stable. I hope I can make the sound warm enough to relax your body. That’s all I want.

It’s been 11 years since your debut, and you’re still taking vocal lessons every week, right?

Yes. I have a big desire to evolve. I thought about it when EXO received a lot of attention with Growl in 2013. ‘Why are so many people going crazy? Am I really that good? I don’t think so. If the heat goes away, they will see me.’ That’s why I kept trying. I always criticize myself more than others do. It’s not a matter of high self-esteem and low self-esteem. I’m just continuing to make up for my shortcomings because I know my weaknesses better than anyone else.

To me, Baekhyun is not a person with low self-esteem but one who constantly and carefully self-censors himself.

Yes, that’s right. Maybe I am a perfectionist, and I hate it when there’s no complete ending. If I don’t think I can finish something properly, I don’t even start. I tend to get extremely disappointed with myself if I don’t do something perfectly at work.

A perfectionist who pursues easiness… It sounds hard. Haha

Haha. As a musician, I want to be an easy person who can blend in with the public. I don’t want to be a musician who is so cool that people admire and want to follow. I want to be someone people can talk to easily when they meet me on the street while listening to my song.

The only regret for Baekhyun as a solo musician is that he had little opportunity to tell autobiographical stories in music. What kind of stories do you want to tell through your music as 32-year-old Baekhyun?

I want to deliver encouraging lyrics. And deliver the message that you shouldn’t give up easily and try to face more challenges. I think the disappearance of the “Jeong” culture played a role in making people get easily tired these days. In the past, when a neighbor moved in, we used to make steamed rice cakes. If the next door neighbor cooks a lot of food, they would share it with others. But living in a disconnected world without affection, people seem to think only of themselves. I want to put a hopeful message in my song that we can all unite in harmony again.

It’s been two years since W Magazine and Baekhyun met—, since the cover of the March 2021 issue, right? Throughout today’s shoot, the staff said you were sexy. Baekhyun’s “soft sexiness” that you’ve shown in your solo career seems to be reflected in today’s shoot.

Sexy… Haha. I don’t think the sexiness that I have is the sexiness that’s full of intense emotions. It’s more like this. Sometimes you play with your friends, and you feel unexpectedly sexy. I think I have the sexiness to make people a little curious about me. Haha

Today’s shoot was with Cartier’s Tank Frances Watch and Icon Collection. These are pieces that have been called Wannabe by many artists for their timeless classic aesthetic. Regardless of timea and nationality, who is the greatest artist for Baekhyun?

Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson was the only artist who stood still on stage for a few seconds or minutes and people couldn’t stop cheering. His songs have made many people cry for a long time, giving them joy and happiness. So just seeing him standing still on the stage makes them tear up. There isn’t an artist who can beat Michael Jackson.

Still, what would be your secret weapon that you could win over Michael Jackson?

Hmm… My gentle way of talking? Haha.

EXO recently announced the news of EXO’s 11th-anniversary fan meeting. What would it look like if you were to compare EXO to family?

Children who were raised by a strict father but had an infinitely sweet mother? Maybe the stage is our dad. We work hard on stage until it feels like our bodies would break literally. But when we get off stage, we act like kids. Not one friend is rude, and everyone is so kind. When we talk to each other, there’s no difference from when we debuted 11 years ago or when we were trainees.

What are the three things Baekhyun is focusing on these days?

I’m into golf. Out on the golf field, my arms got so tanned, dark enough to leave a watch mark on my wrist. I feel very relieved when I go rounding and see the open space. The second one is the direction of the vocals. And for the third, I was going to say exercise but I’m going to change that. (Kim) Jong-kook, whom I became close with through workouts, said, “It’s time for you to focus on your back.” But hip workouts are too hard. Haha. The last one is EXO’s comeback. We will return as soon as possible with a high-quality album this year.

Photo links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

Credit: W Korea.

#EXO #EXO K #Baekhyun #230223 #exo im #exo k im #baekhyun im #magazine #magazine:w korea #p:news #t:news #fs:w korea #comeback:Fight

87 notes · View notes