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#never mind the fact that these are some of my players in a high stakes sci fi ish political drama allegory that I’m writing

raven-at-the-writing-desk · 3 months

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Yo! Good morning/evening, hope you are fine^^💝. I wanted to ask you a question but I was afraid that it may bother you or something (you know..that feeling when you are scared that you might disturb someone or being an unwelcome person) but yeah I will ask you since i was serious about your answer for some time now so I hope I'm not annoying you or something *feel free to answer only if you wish^^. You seem to know the characters pretty well, you are quite capable and great at reading and understanding them, one of the things I'm serious about is what do you think would make someone qualified enough to be with malleus? Do they have to be of the same species?certain Reputation, stature or traits?(sorry can't help it since I can't rest until I know everything about what interests me and figure it all out😅). Thanks for giving me some of your precious time I really like your blog, you're amazing💜

No worries, you’re not bothering me at all ^^ I love to talk about my hyperfixations www

Now, I know a lot of fans (particularly on the EN side) like to ship Malleus with their OC and especially with Yuu so I want to first make it clear that my response is NOT meant to invalidate those Malleus shippers. Whatever I say here is based on my own interpretation of canon lore (and let’s be real here, TWST won’t ever confirm if anyone is romantically interested in Yuu because it might not work with how some players view their own relationship with that character). In fanon, anyone can be with anyone, but in canon there are very specific in-universe rules and expectations laid out for Malleus so these are what I will be referring to.

I also want to emphasize that the final traits I discuss in this post do NOT reflect Malleus’s personal tastes or views. He has little say in what kind of an individual his spouse would be, so his own preferences are not speculated about or taken into account here. The traits I will be bringing up are based on what I believe the lore implies are the desirable traits for those marrying into the Draconia royal family.

We got it? Good 👍 Read more below the cut!!

Firstly, I’m completely disregarding the ideas of “Malleus can love whoever he wants to love”, “Malleus can scare people into accepting who he loves”, and/or “Malleus can change the law so he can marry who he loves” (a la Sultan from Aladdin or through some other Disney magic or logic). Here’s why:

In general, those solutions for “high stakes issues” are too simple, and that has never been how Twisted Wonderland tackles complicated problems. Just look at every single OB boy’s backstory. They’re so complex that they aren’t totally resolved by the end of their books; these problems persist and are long term things each of them are working on addressing. This is also true of the politics TWST introduces to us; Leona for example explains how there is social pushback and resistance to the idea of infrastructure reform because the culture of the Sunset Savanna stresses harmony with nature. This has made it difficult for them to adopt new technologies because real politicians in their world have to seriously weigh their cultural values with their health and societal progress. The only time there are really easy solutions are in events or vignettes where the emotional stakes are not super high, but who Malleus marries is, in fact, super important since this will entirely change the life of a main character and his country.

With that first bullet point in mind… No, Malleus cannot love whoever he wants to love. Certainly, he may feel affection for another but he can never truly be with them. He is royalty and the only heir to the throne of Briar Valley. It follows that he is expected to marry for political reasons/to better his nation. This is a non-negotiable obligation for him.

Rather than saying, “Malleus cannot scare people into accepting who he loves”, I think it’s more accurate to say Malleus knows he probably shouldn’t. I mean, yes, he may be upset about his S/O not being accepted by his people but I feel that is discrediting a lot of the loyalty he has for his own country. As a kid he may have thrown tantrums when he was upset and potentially harmed staff, but as a 178 year old he has a much better understanding of decorum and maintaining it in spite of his own grudges. For example, even though he personally dislikes Leona he still commands Sebek to apologize to him because, at the end of the day, this could harm Briar Valley’s relationship with the Sunset Savanna. That’s not to say that Malleus can’t be petty (he definitely is)—but implying he would be petty toward basically his entire country just because they would disapprove of the one he loves?? (We know this would likely be true because Sebek’s parents faced similar backlash when they got together.) I feel like his own sense of awareness and responsibility for his country, crown, and people would override that. As an example, Malleus states that he has never been in a car before because the senate would be against it and often kept Malleus in the castle. Someone of his power could easily ignore them and sneak out and do whatever he wanted, yet the dialogue implies Malleus didn’t. He obeyed his political advisors even when he was younger and arguably much more immature. Malleus might not like certain decisions made about his life but it sounds like he ultimately complies with them.

Continuing from the previous point, let’s say for the sake of argument that Malleus does scare everyone into line. What about his public image and the mental health of his S/O? Maybe Malleus can frighten people to not talk out of turn to his face, but he cannot control what people whisper about him behind closed doors or to treat his S/O well or like they actually like them. Not only would they be alienated (away from their own home and forced to adapt to a new one) but they’d be treated oddly by others too. What kind of reputation is that for Malleus? To be a tyrant king who throws a hissy fit anytime someone talks about his partner in a way he doesn’t approve of? With a spouse who is not at their best mentally because of the constant ostracization? (This is similar to what Leona experienced in his childhood.) I don’t think Malleus would want to subject anyone to that kind of life, especially not one he loves. And again, this attitude would be the vast majority of his people. It’s not like it can be avoided or resolved in an easy manner, especially when the people of Briar Valley have proven to be against change.

Lastly, Malleus would not change the law so he can be with whoever he wants to. To begin with, I doubt this is a unilateral position the senate would approve of. But okay, let’s accept that Malleus is royalty so his power overrides the advisors’ power. So he effectively just changed a law for a very selfish and personal reason rather than changing something to actually benefit his people. That doesn’t feel in-character for him, not when Malleus seems to understand that it is the duty of those in higher status to help those below them rather than themselves (see: Riddle’s Suitor Suit vignettes. Malleus has acted selfish before, yes (who remembers Endless Halloween Night? His Dorm Uniform vignettes? I do.)—but never at the cost of changing the status quo of his country. (Book 7 is not included here because he’s in a very distressed emotional state then; this “new law” scenario posits that Malleus is in a normal state of mind.) This is a major change—change which Briar Valley, its people, and most importantly, Malleus, are not ready for. You think there wouldn’t be social pushback against this? From a society that has become complacent with its own way of life and is still isolated from the rest of the world? That Malleus, someone who struggles greatly with accepting life changes himself, could enact such a big change so easily? (On a more technical level, you don’t just pass a law and it instantly becomes tangible or real, there is a process of approval and then implementation.)

Additionally, it’s made clear in Ghost Marriage that “[Malleus] cannot enter into an engagement lightly”, which is why Sebek goes in his place. Eliza, the Ghost Bride, is royalty (er, albeit dead) but it seems that royal status is not enough to qualify as his partner. Maybe this is because she’s dead and doesn’t have anything of value for Briar Valley (no land, no people, no political power), but it could also mean that the partner has to be given the thumbs up by other parties.

All that being said, here are some of the conditions I think would have to be met for Malleus’s future spouse:

Has to be someone of equal or at least high status. This means they also have to be a royal or at least of nobility. This appears to be true of Malleus’s dad, who is referred to as a duke.

Because of how self-contained Briar Valley is + nocturnal fae having beef with diurnal fae, I imagine his partner would have to also be a nocturnal fae. This would also solve the MASSIVE lifespan difference between fae and non-fae because at least fae would be far closer to each other even if their lifespans fluctuate but subspecies.

Someone suited to rule by his side. Being married into any royal family is no joke—it comes with the expectation that you will contribute somehow, and the partner should be fully equipped to enter the world of politics with him.

Piggybacking off the last point, I think mental fortitude is also a prerequisite. This is because being a politician (navigating the social climate both within your country and outside of it, keeping your people and colleagues happy, maintaining public approval, managing laws, dealing with potential attempts on your life, etc.) can be very stressful and can hurt those who are faint of heart or not prepared for the responsibility. Leaders have to make tough calls at the drop of a hat, and they have to be ready for it.

Has a lot to offer in terms of benefits to Briar Valley as a country. This could be in terms of resources, connections, and/or political savvy. This appears to be true of Malleus’s dad, who acted as a diplomat for Briar Valley.

Vetting and formal approval from the senate. lmao good luck with that

Has to be able and willing to have a child. They at least need an heir to the throne to succeed Malleus. (However, knowing how exclusionary and conservative as heck the senators are, I doubt they would accept anything but a biological child 💀)

Preferably someone with powerful magic or is skilled at magic already so as to lessen the chance of “tainting” the bloodline with a weak mage or a non-mage.

I believe that Briar Valley would prefer someone with old fashioned values like them, not someone pushing for massive reform. They have a culture that is resistant to change and a history of fighting for resources with outsiders, so if Malleus’s new spouse tries to introduce a bunch of technology or open its borders to other countries (even if they have good intentions), the people + the senate may oppose them. His father is implied to be open-minded, but he at least understood that such change isn’t reasonable without time and effort dedicated to the endeavor.

All that being said 💦 I think that this topic is actually less about what Malleus as an individual wants and what his country, his people, and, yes, even his asshole senators, want. This is basically an arranged marriage situation so that their country can maintain power and relevance. It’s about the collective and what Malleus must do for their perceived security and prosperity.

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jiamiuxin · 8 months

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daiya no ace anime reflection/review

**spoilers!!**

im at a point in my life where i have a lot of free time at the end of the day and i find myself filling that slot with anime.

for the past two weeks, ace of the diamond has taken up a big portion of my mind as i found myself falling in love with the team and its players.

about a month ago was when i started a roll on watching sports anime. i caught up on haikyuu, binged blue lock and ao ashi, and finally spent another good chunk of time on free!!. ace of the diamond was no new title to me, yet for some reason i kept it on the back burner. i dont know why; whether it was the art style, the then-seemingly long list of episodes, or the fact that it was baseball. maybe it was all of them. when i burned myself out trying to find another anime, i finally settled on giving DnA a chance.

today, as i have finished all 176 episodes (no OVAs yet!) i confidently say it's one of my top, if not the top, anime ive seen so far.

i noted a few things as i progressed through the series: strong points, cons, favorite characters, and a few personal thoughts.

i will start off with the cons head on. daiya's is, i guess i could say, notorious? for its "annoying, loud, benchwarmer" MC. one genuine complaint i do have is the lack of animation quality in the third season. there were many still shots with voice overs, though i felt a little more satisfied with the animation towards the end. also, to a smaller extent, the anime is not as complete as the manga.

anyway, i think the slow burn is actually a strong point, as many others point out. indeed, it is the very low lows that make the highs so high. don't get me wrong, i love a stupidly powerful MC, such as mob psycho 100 or OPM, but the realism gives DnA its charm and relatability. when others say "season 1 is bad, season 2 is good, season 3 is amazing," they are not lying.

DnA's charm not only lies in its realism, but also its character development and character interactions. brotherhood, leadership, and teamwork are all themes throughout the anime. the way the third years cared for their juniors and the way the juniors fought to elongate their seniors' summers was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and gut-punching to me, a recent college graduate. these types of moments are not uncommon in sports anime, but something about DnA's execution made it so much more..emotional? relatable? whether it was due to convenient timing or the fact that the sheer amount of episodes made me feel like they were actually my own friends, i just felt so much more compelled when watching daiya.

on the topic of my personal emotions, as i said, the themes of graduating/retiring really hit home for me. but that made daiya all the more special to me. both personal relatability and just watching everyone's hard work made it so easy to sympathize with their determination. maybe it was the countless scenes of them heaving and gasping for air; or the scenes where TJ made their frustrations so visible and vulnerable. as a watcher, i did not see myself rooting for some characters in a show; normally, i'd take a normal stance with the expectations that the "of course, the MC team will win." i saw myself rooting for my friends. in addition, knowing TJ, we can never be too sure on how seido's games will actually go. everything comes down to the realism. it's daiya's realism that made me feel their passion, made them so relatable, and made it feel like they were actually at high stakes. i truly, rarely never cry when watching an anime. besides assassination classroom, no other anime has made me so emotional. not only that, but daiya made me cry several times. the amount of immersion is insane.

to no surprise, my favorite character is miyuki. he was the know-it-all. he was essentially the rock of seido with his calls. i often found myself wondering how strong seido would be without miyuki. no disrespect to ono; as he proved, and as kataoka also believes, ono is also reliable. but miyuki was just built different bro. anyway, i appreciated his character for not only baseball iq, but his rapid maturity into the captain role, and his flexibility with his juniors. i found his personality very admirable and his logical approach to situations both relatable and reliable. other characters i particularly were fond of were chris and kuramochi. if okumura had more screen time, i could also see him climbing up my list. as someone who had no prior baseball knowledge, daiya/seido as a whole, but particularly chris and miyuki, gave me a newfound respect for and fundmental understanding of baseball.

i think one last thing i wanted to note was that i really don't read manga. but for daiya, im definitely gonna pick up the manga now. i have never done this before for an anime, even others i really liked--hxh, haikyuu, one punch man, etc. i just never felt compelled to read the story further beyond the anime. but for daiya, this is something im willing to do. i just love it that much.

if you are having second thoughts or are debating on watching DnA, def watch it if you do not mind slow burn and can take a realistic approach. on the other hand, i do not recommend if you want to see an OP MC.

i am truly a nobody, especially not a professional anime critic LMFAO but i just wanted to vent my thoughts of daiya somewhere :) these are just my personal opinions

#daiya #daiya no ace #anime #ace of the diamond #ace of diamond #sawamura eijun #miyuki kazuya #furuya satoru #anime review #takigawa chris yuu #okumura koushuu #seido #sports anime

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 1 year

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17 30 and 32! (In case it didnt go thru before oop)

As a matter of fact it did not! I thought ask-eating days were behind us, but I guess some things never change.

17. they’re crying—what did it take to make them cry?

Failure, especially if related to something she promised someone. Frustrated, angry tears at being unable or in some way powerless to help someone she cares about are a good bet.

A particular in-game incident? This one time, Ez failed some checks and got possessed by a vengeful spirit during a particularly unpleasant series of encounters towards the end of the campaign when we made Strahd Fucking Pissed. So she started attacking the already pretty run down party and, of course, she went for Ramiel first because that's peak drama, right? And of course she rolled a crit with her rapier (to add insult to grievous injury, Ez usually rolled like garbage whenever we had her with us). So Ramiel, adamantly refusing to actually fight her and being a wee bit Utena-stabbed just then, held onto her and cried on her a bit. It was great, a deadly reflection of previous fun bonding sparring sessions they’d had, thematically resonant, all of that. I love playing these games, man.

I did write her having a good post-back-from-the-dead cry here.

Another specific incident that comes to mind is something that happened while we were playing out our little epilogue in Barovia, tying up loose ends and such. In the catacombs of the big bad evil castle there’s a whole maze of crypts, a lot of which are traps, or cool items for adventurers to find, or just awful puns - or all of the above. In particular, there is one haunted by the ghost of a person with a horribly punny name obsessed with flying and making some sort of winged contraption. I believe the idea is a player character opens that specific crypt, fails a save, then gets controlled by this ghost and tries to leap into the chasm below the castle in an attempt to fly. So while clearing out the castle after its master’s defeat, we came upon this crypt, and Ramiel deliberately failed the save, used her once-per-day one-minute glowy aasimar wings ability, took the ghost on a little spin around the castle towers in the bright glorious newly-restored sunlight, finally letting them find peace. Was it her or the ghost shedding a few tears as this happened? Probably both of them. I realise this is a joke/trap, but it actually turned out really touching and genuine and post-big bad defeat cathartic.

30. how do they handle confrontation?

Oh, that’s an easy one. 100% RIGHTEOUS ANGER. Was managed down to a fuming, angry simmer during extra touchy incidents later on, but only with great effort.

32. which of your decisions led to their voice being the way it is?

Hm, we don't really do voices too much. Funny NPCs sometimes, PCs not really. We did have little hype sounds for our VTT for when your turn would pop up in combat! Hers was a snippet of some angelic choir or other overlaid with a shinkkkk of a sword being drawn. It was pretty fun to make.

Speech-wise, were Ramiel to give some sort of inspiring, rousing speech bolstered by her super high charisma score, it wouldn't be based on fancy wordplay, or refined, thought-through oratory or trained speechcraft (our artificer is into all that and also high-stakes international diplomacy, hah). It would just be clear, straightforward, no-nonsense, and absolutely agonisingly earnest. The kind of… you just want to believe it, right?

My favourite thing about the way paladins and the whole "holy knight" concept were done in 5e was that it wasn't tied to a patron deity or similar. The oaths are essentially… believe in your beliefs and stick to your convictions so hard it literally gives you supernatural powers. Probably my favourite take on paladins and the one with the most personal appeal is Pathfinder’s Virtuous Bravo (the swash! the panache!), but Oath of Devotion is absolutely up there.

After finishing the actual Curse of Strahd adventure, we moved from 5e to Ironsworn/Starforged and let me tell you, this gal is all Heart.

#ask meme #blorbos from my tabletops #oathkeeper replies to things #gonna take my horse to the old svalich road #ramiel #dnd #tabletop #curse of strahd #jeejyboard #jeej got my back always!!! thank you

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zorciarkrildrush · 10 months

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I think there's A Rule in any competitive setting - obviously not all-encompassing but frequent enough to form a bell curve - that the more Personality a competitor has, the more they invest in their persona and showmanship and being anything else but their flat value as a player in a game - the more you'll see them get dunked by their "flatter", less interesting counterparts. It's like stat point allocation, where you can be a beast with the most boring nickname and personality known to man or you can be The Dreadknight and be good with cameras but when the stakes are high and things get hard you choke. Or, of course, you can be somewhere in between, either right between or with some inclination to one direction but not too much.

A couple of years ago - before Russia became more anathema than anybody thought was possible - I used to watch Russian bare knuckle boxing videos on Youtube to pass the time during work. They very much played into the fact it wasn't as "clean" as standard boxing, two buff dudes squaring it out in a literal circle of hay, but I appreciated that the bouts were very short to prevent damage and nobody went after a fallen or wobbly opponent. Just like in regular boxing, if a KO wasn't reached points would be used to find a winner so they didn't have to keep laying into each other.

But anyway.

You had dudes of both varieties in those fights, and time and time again it felt like the more boring, single-minded, uncharismatic they were, the more fearsome they would be in a fight - the stat allocation at play. There was a young dude in the lower weight classes who called himself Anubis or something like that, comes into the arena with a stylized MASK, the crowd loves him, he's light on his feet and everything but - and this is important to my point - he gets annihilated by a much less interesting lad just called Igor. Igor doesn't do nearly as much talking, he has no special costume to come into the arena before dramatically taking it off, but his technique and stats are just unquestionably better.

And when the fight was over Anubis gets a chance to talk to the crowd, and he thanks them and his opponent for the great opportunity, how he battled sickness and fought to gain enough weight to reach. The announcer loves him, the crowd loves him, of course they also love Igor - the much less pronounced lad who doesn't talk nearly as much or as passionately - but you get my point.

And it's like that everywhere!

Right now, out of boredom, I open Twitch and I see there's a junior league match of CS:GO playing right now. The Ukranian team, very much in the lead, has a player called 'demon' and has a player called 'Nikitea'. The enemy team has 'Chaoss' and also 'Tomus'. Who do you think has, at least at a glance, better stats? Who put more thought into his public persona and who seems disinterested in it, and also happens to, at least on paper, perform better at the game?

I have more CS:GO and boxing examples (and outliers in both directions, and other fields, and so on) but you get my point.

And all this to say, I'll probably never do well in competition. If I think about how much energy I expend by overthinking and presenting myself to the world, explaining and justifying, as opposed to how much time I take to practice any god damn thing or other -

maybe, maybe the crowd will like me, at best.

#selfpost #very rambly #esports #i guess

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adorerdraco · 4 years

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It’s Only Quidditch ✧ Draco x Slytherin!Reader

Request: can i please request you and draco being in slytherin and dating for a while and you two are on the quidditch team with him so maybe you two are in a match together but you get hurt and he gets worried and has to win the game and visits you after and maybe even wrecks the person who hurt you hehe just fluff and angst

AU AROUND 6TH YEAR NO VOLDY

Warnings: angry!draco, vengeful!draco, VIOLENCE, kinda graphic details like blood and injuries, lil bit of angst

Words: 3.9K (love making these long for no reason)

A/N: ANGRY DRACO IS SO HOT IM SORRY WOW BUT I HOPE THIS IS GOOOOD PLEASE ENJOY MY MADE UP CHARACTER AND MY SUPER LONG QUIDDITCH GAME THAT CONFUSED ME AFTER A WHILE OF TRYING TO WRITE LMAO and i made gif :)

November had begun and with it came the new season of quidditch at Hogwarts along with very poor weather and over-bundling nerves. Tensions had always gotten high around this time of the year amongst the teams and all animosity between the house’s respective players was on the forefront as the competition was building. It was like clockwork every year; captain’s starting strenuous training schedules, begging Snape to help book the stadium even if it was already occupied, spying on other teams to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. Not to mention the arguments that would happen regularly in between the first couple of games when you and your teammates would be accused of cheating or using dangerous and illegal moves. Which did happen to be true most of the time.

It was safe to say that it was the most eventful time of the year, and as suffocating as it sometimes got - you looked forward to it every time the new term started. It was in quidditch that you found yourself feeling the freest in, zipping around the stadium in a flash of green with the wind blowing through your hair and crisp autumn air biting at your cheeks. But most notably, it was in quidditch that you met Draco Malfoy and had quickly evolved from teammates to friends, to him now being your boyfriend.

You made Slytherin’s team your second year as a Chaser, a shiny new broom being given to you on the first day of scheduled training when Lucius Malfoy had made a generous donation that came along with a new platinum blond seeker. With the two of you being the latest additions to the teams, your captain, Marcus Flint, had decided to leave the dirty work for the two of you to do in the downtime every one else was able to enjoy. Marcus never changed that as the years went on.

So you and Draco would be sent off to other teams’ practices nearly every other day or week, depending on how secure Flint was feeling, both of you huddling closely together for sometimes hours behind the thick wooden benches as you watched and studied tactics with conversations in between. You would joke around a lot and call him your partner in crime which he would always roll his eyes to and make a snide and playful comment about even if he secretly loved hearing it. And the two of you stayed partners in crime for a while, neither of you ever making any move towards the other besides lingering touches and longing looks, and very rarely, a shy compliment.

It wasn’t until last year when you were hiding behind the bleachers, bored out of your mind watching Ravenclaw have a flawless run through around the stadium when you were graced with the dumbest idea.

“They’re playing good today,” you drawled out, “too good that it’s boring.”

“You reckon they studied so hard and found the key to quidditch?” He snickered as he played around with a pebble on the ground with his wand.

“We should help them out,” you suggested as Draco turned to raise a puzzled eyebrow at you. “Prepare them for the unexpected, nothing too crazy.”

You took out your wand from your pocket and pointed it towards one of their Beaters that was sitting idly by on their broom, a faint “confundus” leaving your lips that caused the broom to jerk swiftly to the side and nearly topple over its rider.

“You’re a genius,” Draco laughed quietly, repositioning himself so that he was right beside you with his wand directed out into the field. He spotted one of the bludgers flying towards the same Beater and instead of colliding with the bat, he used a charm to direct it into the back of their broom and then doubled it back around to try and hit one of the passing by Chaser’s that moved at the very last minute.

You were a giggling mess, gripping tightly onto Draco’s arm as you watched everyone begin to look around wildly for the wild bludger with panicked expressions. What either of you didn’t realize in the middle of your joyed hysterics and Draco’s smugness for causing the angelic sounds, was that the bludger was flying idly still in front of the bleacher’s as his wand was still trained on it without moving it around anymore, his focus completely gone and concentrated on you.

It wasn’t until you heard someone yell out a, “Is that Malfoy and Y/L/N back there again?!” That made you get up with a sudden jolt, grabbing onto your accomplice’s hand as you ran towards the set of stairs that descended out of the stands. All you heard was distant angry insults and threats quickly fading out of ear-shot while you ran, laughing uncontrollably alongside Draco with his hand still tightly gripped in yours.

When you finally reached the entrance of the empty courtyard of the castle with flustered cheeks and wheezing chuckles, you looked down at your joined hands at the same time he did and after a few seconds of realization and lingering adrenaline, you quickly moved into each other with a yearning kiss that changed everything from that day forward.

Draco stood beside you while you sat on a bench outside the locker room, your head resting lazily on the side of his leg while his fingers carded soothingly through your hair. Marcus was pacing in front of you, using his broom as a walking and pointing stick whenever he wanted to add any calculated words to his very hostile pep-talks that left everyone feeling more irritated and stressed.

Today was the last game of the season and the most important, it was the game that ended the season with a shimmering Inter-House Quidditch Cup and it just so happened to be against Gryffindor, making the stakes much higher than they already were. The matches against Gryffindor were by far, the most dangerous as they weren't afraid to play roughly either if push came to shove. The determination to beat each other and to win was critical on both sides and the day always ended with some sort of injuries.

“I don’t care how dirty we have to play today,” Flint fumed to the team, “I don’t care how many fouls we get, as long as we win.”

“Relax, Flint,” you sighed deeply. “We have the best players on our team and we’ve been working our arses off all season, we’ll be fine.”

“Still, I want to see blood out there,” he muttered back, walking towards the entrance of the field as Madam Hooch started calling your team out to start.

You stood up with a huff, Draco frowning when he noticed how tense you looked when your eyes worriedly met his.

“All right, love?”

“I'm just nervous,” you shrug, “I don’t want to mess up.”

The silver-haired boy moved to stand in front of you, placing two strong hands on either side of your arms to stand you in place so that he would be the only thing your wandering eyes were able to focus on.

“You are the best Chaser that Slytherin has ever had, no, that Hogwarts has ever had and I know for a fact you’re going to do amazing out there,” he cups your face with care, brushing a few stray hairs out of your face as he spoke. “You’ve got this.”

He pressed an encouraging kiss onto your forehead and then your lips, smiling at you supportively before taking your hand and hurriedly walking the two of you out into the field where the match was about to start.

Almost the whole school had shown up in an overcrowded sea of red and gold for Gryffindor. There were red sparks and small fireworks of lions that were charmed to roar when the animal would open its mouth. On one end of the stands, however, was the entire student body of Slytherin that was throwing green and silver ribbons and sparklers from their wands, yelling loudly in support as if their life depended on it. Over the rails, they had thrown down a large poster of a snake that moved around sleekly over large green words that read, “SLYTHERIN FOR THE WIN.”

Rain was lightly drizzling from the grayed dense clouds above, a sharp chill in the air from an approaching winter that always seemed to give the worst weather during the last couple of games of the year. You didn’t mind it since the cold had always felt nice against your sweaty skin during the game and it served like a small revitalizing shock that gave you a surge of energy to push forward with.

Madam Hooch quickly went over the rules, set free the bludgers, and the snitch, forced the two captains, Wood and Flint, to shake hands and by the time she had counted down from three to one - brooms were soared into the sky with such speed it looked like a tornado had formed as she threw the quaffle up into the air.

A roar of cheers erupted from beside you as you got ahold of the quaffle, dashing past your House while you headed straight towards the Gryffindor’s goal post and managed to make the first shot in within the first five minutes of the game putting you at 10-0. You spotted Draco flying around above, smiling down brightly at you with triumph that only fueled your confidence as you darted forward to catch the ball again. You were, just as Draco had said, the best Chaser on the team and in all of the school. You were fast, agile, and smart when it came down to it and you were the reason why your team had easily wracked up 40 points with thirty minutes down in the match. Marcus was always trailing behind you with focus, shoving anyone who tried to get to you or pulling them back by their robes that landed Slytherin a couple of fouls throughout.

You didn’t like to play dirty, but when Katie Bell had rammed into your side either accidentally or on purpose, it knocked the quaffle out of your hands and into one of their other Chaser’s, Rowan Rees, a muscular and tall seventh-year boy that had made the team that same year. With Katie still closely trying to cut you off, you veered sharply into her with your shoulder before breaking away from her and heading towards your goal post where they were trying to shoot.

“ILLEGAL PUSHING FROM Y/L/N, FOUL AGAINST SLYTHERIN!”

You rolled your eyes at the announcer, completely ignoring the boo’s that had filled the air as you whizzed past the other houses even though it was you who got hit first. Just as Rees had raised his arm to score, you flew over him, swooping your arm underneath your broom until you felt the quaffle back in your palm and ripped it from his grasp. The match was becoming more intense by the second, Gryffindor was promptly catching up in points because of the penalties they were awarded from the illegal moves your team was making and it left you feeling more pressured that it was nearly a tie now, Flint reminded you of that every chance he zoomed past you.

Unbeknownst to you, Draco was watching you cautiously from across the field most of the game when he noticed how close everyone was trying to get to you. You didn’t see the way you were almost tugged back multiple times or were missed by inches when someone was about to push you. Or how the Beaters were deliberately directing the bludgers in your direction. You also didn’t see how irked you had made Rees with your constant scoring and with the sporadic few times you had cut him off or almost bumped into him - but your boyfriend did, and he was much more focused on your safety now than the Golden Snitch he or Potter hasn’t spotted yet. Instead of searching for it, he was purposefully maneuvering himself around in front of the other Chasers to throw them off their focal point towards you so that you would have a clearer path to fly through.

He watched as you pulled your broom upwards to try and twist away from the area but Rees had reached out and pulled at your ankle, sending you out of your seat as the quaffle fell while you tried to rebalance yourself. That was all the encouragement the blond needed when he hurtled down into the mess, kicking at the back of Rees’ broom and sending him quickly spinning on a dive before he could try and move any further.

“FOUL AGAINST REES AND MALFOY FOR KICKING AND TUGGING!”

“MALFOY!” Flint roared as he flew past, “Potter’s spotted the snitch! This isn’t your place, get out of here, NOW!”

And when he looked up, sure enough, Harry was going around desperately with an arm outstretched towards the small glint of gold that was moving too fast.

“Go, I’m fine!” You shouted out to him when you flew back up with the ball back in your arms.

It was like slow motion when he forced himself to leave your surroundings, everything around him was moving fast and intensely with everyone screaming wildly that he couldn’t think straight. In a daze, he haphazardly sped towards Harry but noticed the panicked look on the seeker’s face when he had lost sight of it again which directed his attention right back to you. You were right in front of the Gryffindor goal post, arm stretched over your head and releasing the quaffle with a harsh throw.

“Y/L/N MAKES THE GOAL, TEAMS ARE AT A TIE-”

It wasn’t until the very last minute that everyone, including you, had realized the flash of red that came hurtling into your side at full speed, Rees colliding so loudly with you that it echoed around the stadium in a powerful clang and crack.

Draco watched in horror as you were thrown off your broom, your now unconscious body falling like a rag doll with a speed that sent his stress levels into overdrive. He had never pushed down on his broom so fast, immediately abandoning his spot to bolt towards you even as Marcus was screaming at him to not go.

A few feet above the ground and before you met it, he managed to loop his arm around your waist and heave you onto the front of his broom with a slight struggle as it was now raining hard and clouding his vision. He saw Madam Pomfrey and Mcgonagall rushing into the field, hands holding tightly onto their hats as they worriedly rushed towards the area where your broom had fallen and where Draco was hovering over with you.

“TEAMS ARE TAKING A 10 MINUTE TIME OUT!”

Marcus had flown down towards him, face twisted in fury and annoyance as he approached.

“Is there a reason you’re not being a seeker, today?” He spits, “because I’ve been seeing you do everything but your job.”

“My bloody girlfriend just got knocked out!” Draco seethed at him. “I’m not going back into the game, I’m going with her to the hospital wing.”

“Like hell you are,” Flint scowled, “if you leave, you'll forfeit us the game. If you stay and let Potter catch that Snitch so it’ll be over quicker, I will personally make sure that this is your last year on the team. You’re going to win this for us.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” McGonagall called up to him, waving her arms hastily. “She needs to go to the infirmary, immediately!”

The two Slytherins were staring each other down aggressively as Draco contemplated the threat he was just given. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to throw a hex at Flint and leave with you, but he just swallowed thickly and nodded at him before descending towards the ground and letting you off carefully into the hands of Madam Pomfrey. A surge of fear ran through his body when he finally saw you clearly; a harsh red mark was making its way up to your neck, the corner of your bottom lip had split and doubled in size, there was a small scratch on your cheekbone. It made him feel queasy, but he tore his eyes away from you and hopped back onto his broom while glaring angrily at Marcus and the distant group of huddled Gryffindor’s.

He was blinded in rage when the match resumed and even more enraged when Flint had cheered loudly when the announcer granted Slytherin a penalty for the injury Rees gave you, allowing them basically to get a free score in against Gryffindor. Draco let his eyes wander around for the snitch for the first time that day and he could hear his heart thundering in his eardrums in distress as the rain continued to make his search worse. All he wanted was to get out of the game to check up on you, and then he'd come back to the stadium to throw his fists into Rees’ face with maybe a few hits in on Marcus.

Just as he was losing hope, he saw a flash of gold whiz past him with a loud buzzing that shocked him into alertness. He didn’t care that catching the snitch would win the game, or the cup, or give him all the glory, no - this was his ticket out. He dived towards it with his arm outstretched, hand thrashing around in the wind as he tried to eagerly catch it. In seconds, Harry was right beside him, bumping him with his shoulder to try and throw him off the path but Draco only pushed back harder. There was a flurry of shouting as everyone watched, the announcer was yelling into the mic about the seekers going head-to-head, bludgers were flying past him.

It was pure chaos and urgency, Draco could feel the fluttering of its wings beneath his palm and when Harry pushed into him one more time, he felt the coldness of the Snitch get trapped into his enclosed hand, the vibration of its wings sending a current of relief up his arm that spread throughout his whole body as he soared up into the sky while brandishing it to the schools’ painfully watchful eyes.

“MALFOY HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH, WINNING SLYTHERIN THIS YEAR’S INTER-HOUSE QUIDDITCH CUP!”

Draco hurriedly made his way down to the field where the rest of his house was pooling into, celebrating proudly and calling out for him to praise, but when he landed on the ground and was met with half of the Gryffindor team including Rowan Rees - all his wrath came flooding back into him.

Angelina, another Gryffindor Chaser, had nudged Rowan with her shoulder, pointing towards the Slytherin Prince that was stalking towards them.

“Malfoy,” Rees started bitterly, “sorry about the girlfriend, I was only trying to knock the quaffle out her hands.”

“After she had already thrown it?” He glowered, walking closer up to the boy that was beginning to straighten himself out and flex. “Looked a little personal seeing how she was dragging you through the dust the whole game.”

“Accidents happen, mate,” Rees shrugged, “it’s only quidditch, you won didn’t you? Maybe you should be thanking me for giving you that extra push to win the game.”

A clear line had been crossed and everyone who was listening knew it. But before Rowan could say anything to try and drag himself out of the hole he had just dug himself into, he was being tackled into the ground with Draco above him throwing punches wherever he could land them. There was loud hooting and laughing coming from the Slytherins that gathered around the fight, cheering loudly for their House superior.

Rees was thrashing around on the ground, trying frantically to throw off the extremely infuriated boy that was repeatedly pounding into his face with bloodied and bruised fists. Oliver Wood ran up to the sudden brawl, Fred and George following closely behind him as they all started trying to rip the fighting boy’s apart from each other. Oliver had gotten Draco off briefly, allowing Rees to try and get a hit in but it was dodged at the last second as the blond quickly leaped up to his feet. The fight immediately ended when a muddy shoe had collided with Rowan’s jaw and Draco stepped back satisfied with the damage he had done, roughly shrugging off the grip Oliver still had on his arm.

“It’s only quidditch, right?” He spat venomously from above the Gryffindor who was holding his now battered face in pain. “That’ll teach you from putting your hands on a woman too.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” Madam Hooch bellowed as she broke through the crowd in a frenzy. “50 points from Slytherin, go wait outside Professor Snape’s office for further punishment, go right now!”

Draco did go, and instantly, but he didn’t go down to the dungeons to hear about the lengthy detention that he knew he was going to get and the scolding for being reckless and stupid. His feet carried his sore body up the many stairs that led to the hospital wing, his pace picking up swiftly when he saw the large double doors of the infirmary ajar and he was able to hear a faint and familiar voice speaking indistinctly.

He threw open the doors, walking straight in as if he owned the place and ignored Pomfrey’s requests for him to leave as he made a beeline towards your hunched figure that was facing away from him.

“I need to see her,” he said to the nurse quickly when she stopped in front of him. “I’ll leave soon, please.”

At the sound of his voice, you hastily turned around in your spot to face him, a yelp escaping your lips for moving too quickly through your injuries. Pomfrey stepped out of the way with a sigh allowing Draco to jog over to you.

“I’m going to kill him,” he scowled when he reached you. You were wearing a sling, a deep purple and yellowed bruise quickly set itself over the side of your arm and the same cuts he saw from earlier were still scattered over your features. His fingers ghosted over your skin and he let out a deep shaky exhale of anxiousness before moving his thumb up to graze your cheek tenderly.

“What happened to you?” You asked quietly in shock when you noticed his mud-splattered clothes and tattered fists.

“Long story,” he drawled. “Don’t worry about me, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” you muttered with a slight shrug that made you whimper lightly. “Did we win?”

He nodded quietly, his eyes still scanning sadly over your face with a frown. “I swear, I’m going to kill him.”

“Only if I can help,” you sniggered faintly, trying to make light of the situation and succeeding in doing so when you saw he had cracked a small smile. With his hand still on your cheek, he bent down to press a firm kiss on the top of your hair and then warmly on the side of your mouth that wasn’t bleeding.

“I’ll just let you finish him off then,” he mulled amusingly when he pulled away.

“Finish him off?”

The doors of the hospital wing were thrown open again, a sea of red flowing inside as they carried in a pummeled Rowan with a busted lip, bloodied nose, black eye, and deeply bruised jaw. You looked briskly between Rees and Draco, both of them staring daggers at each other and it rapidly clicked in your mind why your boyfriend had looked like he just walked through a battlefield in your absence.

“Oh.”

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lochnessies · 3 years

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ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad).

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace.

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system.

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society.

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious.

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic.

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place.

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

#i finished this at 1am so sorry if i’m incoherent #mine

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magicaththedemigod · 3 years

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an extensive analysis of “the song of achilles” by madeline miller

Or: things I noticed and couldn't keep to myself.

Because I just finished reading it and have many feelings about it, I've decided to compile all of them into a very lengthy Tumblr post.

This will be broken up into three parts:

1. Foreshadowing

2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony

3. Fatal Flaws

1. Foreshadowing

Miller does such a delightful job with foreshadowing. The number of quotes I could be spitting at you right now... but I digress. The main job of foreshadowing, especially in a tragedy like "The Song of Achilles," is to set the characters up for their tragedy.

What I like most about how Miller goes about it in this book is that she doesn't attempt to pull a shocking twist out of nowhere; instead, she takes an approach which allows the reader to fully marinate in their despair.

For example, this quote:

Achilles shook his head, impatiently. "But this was a greater punishment for her. It was not fair of them." "There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles," Chiron said. "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?"

Let's take a moment and unpack some of this. For context, this is a conversation between Patroclus, Achilles, and their mentor Chiron. They're discussing the tale of Heracles, who's driven to madness and ends up killing his own wife and kids.

From reading the book, (SPOILER ALERT) you know that Achilles' own pride and honor end up forcing Patroclus to impersonate him in order to save the Greek army, and in doing so is killed by Hector. The fact that Chiron directs this question, "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?" to Achilles, who is left behind after Patroclus' death is such delightful foreshadowing that I almost threw the book across the room when I first read it.

Achilles slumps into such a depression after Patroclus dies (really, after he kills Patroclus with his own fatal flaw), that he even loses the ability to care about his fame or honor anymore. He feels the greater grief, so to speak.

Even after he dies, Patroclus is left behind, unable to rest properly because they never put his name on the tomb. In that sense, Patroclus is then the one left behind, experiencing loneliness and grief.

The book is full of little hints like this, and that's part of why it's almost torture to read as someone who knows how the Iliad goes. As I said before: the foreshadowing in this book is meant to have the reader in pain from the beginning because you know nothing is going to work out in the end.

2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony

Yes, that's right. I'm about to rip into your soul.

Probably one of the biggest parts of classical Greek myths is dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the characters don't). In plays, the ending is almost always announced before the play begins. In fact, the audience most likely already knows the story from previous tellings or just general knowledge. It makes sense that it would be one of the biggest players in "The Song of Achilles."

As usual, let's start with a quote:

His eyes opened. "Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous and happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw."

First of all: cute. Second of all: wow, so much pain.

As you know, Achilles is the opposite of happy at the end of the book (well, maybe after they die, but we'll get to that later). Though he swears it here with Patroclus, the two of them make decisions that ultimately lead to their downfall: Achilles decides to abandon the Greeks after they slighted his honor, Patroclus decides to help them even if it means risking his life, and Achilles lets him do it.

So let's talk about dramatic irony. The irony here is that you know, maybe just from this exchange alone, that Achilles isn't going to be the first happy hero. You know there is a war coming, know that Achilles and his famous heel will get himself killed. You might also know at this point that Patroclus will die first and send Achilles spiraling into grief before that happens.

It's painful, truly. Achilles spends his last days in utter agony, wanting to die but unable to kill himself, and Patroclus can only watch on as a ghost (spirit?). Even when Achilles does die and his ashes are put into their urn (seriously, how did any scholar ever think they weren't lovers?), they still have to wait to be reunited.

But there's still more. Consider these lines:

Hector's eyes are wide, but he will run no longer. He says, "Grant me this. Give my body to my family, when you have killed me." Achilles makes a sound like choking. "There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."

Sound familiar? That's right: "I will kill you and eat you raw" sounds an awful lot like "I feel like I could eat the world raw," doesn't it? Another parallel from Miller: one from a time of happiness, the other from a time of extreme grief. However painful it is, I really live for connections like that.

And I've got one more for you:

Achilles shook his head. "Never. He is brave and strong, but that is all. He would break against Hector like water on a rock. So. It is me, or no one." "You will not do it." I tried not to let it sound like begging. "No." He was quiet a moment. "But I can see it. That's the strange thing. Like in a dream. I can see myself throwing the spear, see him fall. I walk up to the body and stand over it." Dread rose in my chest. I took a breath, forced it away. "And then what?" "That's the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief." "Do you think it can be prophecy?" The questions seemed to make him self-conscious. He shook his head. "No. I think it is nothing at all. A daydream." I forced my voice to match his in lightness. "I'm sure you're right. After all, Hector hasn't done anything to you."

See where I'm going with this? I don't think I need to explain this one.

3. Fatal Flaws

That's right, one of the most essential pieces for a tragedy: hamartia. For those who might not know, hamartia is the fatal flaw that ultimately leads to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. In every single piece of classical greek writing, if the story is a tragedy, the main character will have a fatal flaw that makes it so.

Take Achilles:

I looked at the stone of his face, and despaired. “If you love me-”

“No!” His face was stiff with tension. “I cannot! If I yield, Agamemnon can dishonor me whenever he wishes. The kings will not respect me, nor the men!” He was breathless, as though he had run far. “Do you think I wish them all to die? But I cannot. I cannot! I will not let them take this from me!”

You probably already know what his fatal flaw is: pride. He needs the fame, needs the glorious memory of his deeds to live on forever, so badly that he is willing to sacrifice his life and what might’ve been a fulfilling and long life with Patroclus out of the limelight. His fatal flaw is what spurs each of his actions in the later half of the book, including the moment where he decides to leave the Greeks to their deaths for slandering him.

Even Patroclus has a fatal flaw: his love for Achilles.

That night I lay in bed beside Achilles. His face is innocent, sleep-smoothed and sweetly boyish. I love to see it. This is his truest self, earnest and guileless, full of mischief but without malice. He is lost in Agamemnon and Odysseus’ wily double meanings, their lies and games of power. They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.

Though riding into the center of the fighting, especially dressed as Achilles, will make Patroclus the prime target, he decides to do it anyway. And not out of fear for Achilles’s life; he knows how important his pride and reputation is to him, and out of desperation will do anything to keep Achilles from being devastated when it doesn’t work out for him.

(Honestly, this is the part where I start to hate Achilles for doing this to Patroclus... it’s like he doesn’t even consider Patroclus his equal and does everything without consulting him.)

Of course, Agamemnon has a fatal flaw as well. He is like the mirror image of Achilles, so proud and stubborn, righteous and arrogant. However, he is the darker image, the one that revels in taking things by force and, of course, raping women like Briseis. He serves as a poignant foil for Achilles, highlighting all the ways the traits they share can easily become corrupted. It’s part of why this novel works so well.

I hope you all enjoyed this book as much as I did. Truthfully, I did have a few problems with it, but I wanted to trying picking it apart anyway. And if you haven’t read the song of achilles... what are you doing reading these spoilers??

#why can you visibly see where i get tired #achilles #greek myth aesthetic #analysis #patroclus #song of achilles #greece #greek posts #not the language though #this is so long #effort #first time ive ever wanted to write an essay #dark academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #this took me three days #greek mythology #iliad #homer

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feralphoenix · 3 years

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SONGS OF RESISTANCE: The View Myla Grants Us Of Hallownest’s Moths

hello again hollow knight fandom, i am back with my picante takes and ready to discuss two things i love: myla hollowknight and the moth tribe! Let Us Be Sad About Them Together.

as with my previous essay i’m going to be putting this fellow up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. this time i’ll be attaching that in a reblog to avoid this post getting eaten by the dread tungle algorithms.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses colonialism and genocide both in real life and the fictional depictions in Hollow Knight, as well as racism in the zombie horror genre and in fandom.

ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay

SONGS OF RESISTANCE: THE VIEW MYLA GRANTS US OF HALLOWNEST’S MOTHS

In this house we are all love Myla.

Well, in all fairness, there are probably plenty of Hollow Knight fans who aren’t interested in her character, since which fictional characters one attaches to is always a matter of personal preference. But she’s still well-loved for a minor NPC and inspires a high level of devotion in her fans. There’s nothing that whips folks into a frenzy like a cute character you can’t do anything to help, and unlike some other characters in Hollow Knight Myla’s fate leaves no room for ambiguity. Once you pick up the Crystal Heart you’re left with only two choices: Avoid her, or kill her.

A lot of Hollow Knight’s world is designed to make you care about it so that it will hurt more when Ghost’s violent skillset proves too limited to save something or someone. The consequences of Hallownest’s founding and policies have directly or indirectly caused a great deal of damage to everything, and chief among those consequences with massive damage and a wide splash range is the Infection. Much has been said elsewhere by other people about Hollow Knight’s predominating mood being a struggle against futility, with Ghost arriving at the eleventh hour and every new tragedy designed to make the player more desperate to find something actionable, only finding out by trial and error what’s beyond your personal ability to save.

Myla, in that sense, is a typical example of that worldbuilding. She’s a particular kind of stock character in the zombie horror genre, the innocent who falls victim to the plague and cannot be saved, wrenching audience hearts and demonstrating the stakes.

But Hollow Knight plays with the trappings of zombie horror in a very unusual way, one I find thematically fascinating.

For a quick overview, the “zombie” as we know it in popular culture is an appropriation of a voudou (the Black American spiritual practice) concept that deals with the fear of slavery killing one’s spirit. (People more versed in/with roots in voudou culture can give a much more comprehensive overview than this simplistic one.)

The zombie horror genre, especially in Western media, is part of the great white fragility stock plot trifecta (the other two being alien invasions and robot uprisings). Zombie horror in particular expresses white fears that marginalized ethnic groups will rise up violently in revenge for their mistreatment and destroy white society. The fear of “that which is human, which ‘humanity’ is not” (to borrow mecha visual novel Heaven Will Be Mine’s pithy term) and the extreme levels of violence towards human-but-not bodies typical of zombie horror are often an expression of such bigotries. This is, again, a subject that’s been discussed in greater depth and with more nuance elsewhere.

But what Hollow Knight does is take the ugly metaphors and it makes them literal, makes it harder to ignore the toxic subtext of the genre. The Infection is literally a native god’s revenge on the settlers who committed genocide* against her people. How the Pale King’s colonization of the crater negatively affected the preexisting groups of bugs underpins every level of the worldbuilding, as does Hallownest’s cruelty towards its neighbors.

Hollow Knight is a game that is about the tragedy of Western imperialism. It is one of the work’s central themes. There are a lot of conversations that need to be had about the ways these themes manifest and, on a real-world level, about fandom’s predisposition to avoid the subject.

But, for now, let’s get back to Myla. If she fits such a stock zombie horror archetype, and Hollow Knight uses zombie horror tropes to underline the conversation it attempts to have about colonialism, then what has Myla got to teach us about the overall worldbuilding?

There's two topics I’d like to broach here: First we’ll get into how the circumstances of Myla’s infection fit in to the implied role of Crystal Peak in pre-Hallownest society. Then let’s take a long look at the lyrics of Myla’s song and what it implies.

MYLA, THE CRYSTALS, AND THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

If you think about it, Myla is an interesting outlier compared to the other NPCs we encounter on the verge of succumbing to the Infection. Both Bretta and Sly are unhappy: Bretta is a lonely, anxious bundle of abandonment issues yearning for someone to sweep her off her feet; Sly misses his pupils and loved ones who’ve left him in death (we never learn who Esmy is or what they were to Sly, but we sure can tell they’re not around anymore). The temptation to dream away those sadnesses seems to play a part in their vulnerability to the Infection, and also why Ghost’s interruption brings them back to reality.

Not so Myla. She appears to be blissfully unaware of her fellow miners’ fate, and most of her dialogue prior to her infection (besides the song - we’ll get to that later) is about how much fun she’s having at her job and how much she enjoys Ghost’s occasional company.

Yet she still winds up infected when Ghost’s back is turned. Why?

Not to discard the possibility that Myla’s got her own issues too, but in her case there seems to be another likely cause at hand: The crystals. If hit with the Dream Nail before infected, she mentions that she can hear them “singing” and “whispering”.

Under the The Hunter’s Hot Takes section of the Hunter’s Journal entries on various Crystal Peak enemies, we can learn more about the crystals - particularly in the entries for the Husk Miner and Crystallized Husk.

Crystal Peak’s crystals were thought of as particularly precious in Hallownest and harvested en masse for use in luxury items and the like. To do so, the mining operation was set up throughout most of the mountain, though the area around its peak still remains largely untouched. However, there’s more to the crystals than just that. Like Myla, the Hunter notes that the crystals can be heard to sing very very softly if one listens closely enough.

Perhaps of even more interest than that is this particular comment he gives us, from the Crystallized Husk journal entry: “There is some strange power hidden in the crystals that grow up there in the peaks. They gleam and glow in the darkness, a bright point of searing heat in each one.”

I don’t think it’s a particularly revolutionary idea to point out that there’s some connection between the crystals and Radiance’s power; this is something many players have intuited just based on Myla’s dialogue. But, in order to understand what Myla is demonstrating about the game’s world I think it’s important to think about what that connection is.

Speaking of which, the local Whispering Root has two important clues for us: The phrases “light refracted” and “energy contained”.

The very top of Crystal Peak is one of the only places in the crater where the moths’ architecture has escaped Hallownest destroying it, and is the only place in the entire game setting where their religious iconography remains fully intact. There are stone monuments covered in their language (which has been destroyed with the rest of their culture) and the statue of the Radiance - this is easier to see in the Wanderer’s Journal tie-in book, but the huge stone arches upon the Crown represent Radi’s halo and its rays and encircle her when viewed head-on or from a distance instead of the side view we get in the game.

The crystals grown here were used by the moths to store and cultivate Radiance’s light. It’s impossible to know what sort of architecture/infrastructure existed inside the mountain before Hallownest stole it from the moths. But between the massive scope of her statue and all the texts at the Crown, and the fact that the moths were working with their literal actual god’s freely given power here, it can be safely asserted that Crystal Peak was a holy ground to them.

Hallownest didn’t care about the mind-boggling level of spiritual significance Crystal Peak must have had to the natives, though. To the Pale King and his people, the crystals are just a natural resource to be harvested for personal profit.

This is unfortunately a conflict that still plays out in colonized countries today. If you’re American, #NoDAPL probably comes to mind; Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are filled with these sorts of horror stories too. Settler disrespect for indigenous sacred grounds is a huge problem that needs addressing. If you’re looking at the story of Crystal Peak and thinking it’s very on-the-nose... maybe it needs to be.

Anyway, Myla is nowhere near as miserable as Bretta or Sly, but she still notices that something’s up with these crystals. She hears the voice coming from inside, and she’s curious, and she tries very very hard to listen to it... so she DOES end up hearing Radiance’s voice. Radiance’s real voice, not the songs and whispers inside the crystals: The voice of a frightened, angry, grieving god who knows there’s a new vessel running around in Hallownest, and doesn’t want any part of that. A voice that’s pleading for someone, anyone to kill this dangerous creature, and save her from the threat Ghost poses.

Between how freaked out Radi is to know Ghost is poking around, the tendency we see in her boss battles for her to panic and kneejerk blast things at full volume/vibrance when she’s panicking, and the way her dream broadcast seems to be only a one-way communication line while she’s in the Black Egg... naturally this spells disaster for poor Myla.

Similar to the Moss Prophet, this small tragedy is a demonstration of the eleventh-hour state the conflict is in: The Pale King has escalated this situation so far, and Radiance is so traumatized and isolated, that bystanders who might in a kinder timeline have become Radi’s allies instead get caught up in her AOE. Myla’s definitely not as aware of the overall situation as the Moss Prophet, since she’s a Hallownest bug and not an indigenous one the way they are. But she noticed things were not as they seemed, and she was curious. Who knows what new possibilities could have opened up, if Radiance was able to truly communicate with bugs in the outside world?

Small side note before we move on, but I’ve noticed a tendency among some folks who notice the missed connections to come down extra hard on Radiance and chalk Myla’s infection/Moss Prophet’s death down to deliberate cruelty on her part. I’d like to gently push back against this.

Living in a post-colonial world we all absorb some level of prejudice from our surroundings, and it’s important to take a look at our first assumptions about people (or, in this case, fictional characters lol) to examine whether these prejudices we’ve inherited have influenced those assumptions.

So, if your first instinct is to look at this situation and say the problem is that Radiance is being too harsh and too angry where she should have stepped back and softened her emotions for others’ benefit to gently persuade them to her side... Please think about how when people of color and non-Christians express anger or hurt at our treatment, or even so much as calmly assert our boundaries, white/Christian viewers often view us as much more aggressive and threatening than we actually are. The “angry black woman” trope is a good example of this stereotype. You may want to look up the HuffPost article “Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism” and its discussion of white fragility to further understand this phenomenon.

It is absolutely essential to remember the complex power dynamics in play in Hollow Knight and that the Pale King deliberately imprisoned Radiance (who had at this point already gone through an extreme amount of trauma) in a way that would compromise her ability to communicate with others. If you can extend compassion to characters like Ghost or the Pale King and empathize with their motives/feelings when their actions cause harm, but you are not willing to do the same with Radiance... it’s important to sit down with yourself and examine why that is.

THE MEANING BEHIND MYLA’S SONG

Okay, let’s switch gears and take a look at the lyrics to the song Myla sings, since it’s got some interesting things to tell us too.

The first verse, which you can hear from Myla the first time you meet her/before you acquire Vengeful Spirit, goes:

Bury my mother, pale and slight Bury my father with his eyes shut tight Bury my sisters, two by two, And then when you’re done, let's bury me too

There’s not much particularly story-related going on here except foreshadowing that Myla may in fact wind up dying. Most of what we get here is that a) this is a song about burying the dead and b) it’s morbid as fuck.

Curious, a new player might think of the mention of burying the dead; there are a lot of corpses just lyin’ around all over the ground - something that might lead one to believe Hallownest didn’t have such a custom. Later players will discover the Resting Grounds, confirming Hallownest did bury its dead... and that the gravekeepers are all dead too.

Let’s look at the second verse, which Myla remembers and will sing after you pick up Vengeful Spirit:

Bury the knight with her broken nail, Bury the lady, lovely and pale Bury the priest in his tattered gown, Then bury the beggar with his shining crown

This right here is where it gets interesting. The first verse describes the singer’s family as dead or dying, but the people we’re burying now sure do have some parallels to Hallownest's ruling body, don’t they?

Among Hallownest’s Great Knights, three of them - Dryya, Isma, and Ze’mer - were women. They are also very dead or might as well be: Dryya was killed by Traitor Lord’s resistance, Isma is a tree spreading acid through the kingdom’s waters to cut off access to the City of Tears, and Ze’mer hung up her nail after her mantis girlfriend’s death and only lingers on as a revenant.

While there aren’t any characters who are described in-text as “priests” in Hallownest, the idea of a tattered gown might bring Lurien the Watcher to mind, or perhaps the Soul Sanctum’s magicians before they went rogue.

The lovely, pale lady in the song can only refer to the White Lady, Hallownest’s queen. And there’s only one man in the game who has a shining crown: The Pale King. The lyrics are particularly derisive towards him in a way they aren’t to any of the other figures listed, too.

So, it seems like whoever came up with this song didn’t think much of Hallownest. With that in mind it’s hard to think that it originated from any sort of faction loyal to the king.

We’re missing a line from the third verse, which Myla sings after you’ve beaten Soul Master and she’s beginning to become infected. But what we do see of it is Huge in terms of lore:

Bury my body and cover my shell, [...] What meaning in darkness? Yet here I remain I’ll wait here forever ‘til light blooms again

So. The “protagonist” of this song’s family has died, and they expect to die as well, but even unto death they're waiting for Hallownest to fall and the light to return.

The moths became Hallownest’s gravekeepers after the Pale King forcibly assimilated them. Under the Pale King’s light, the moths forgot Radiance and most of their original culture, but Seer tells us in her final monologue that a few individuals remembered just enough to pass bits and pieces down through the generations. This secret resistance among the moths was what kept Radiance alive and prevented her from being sealed away entirely.

This song Myla sings comes from that moth resistance.

Code songs amongst oppressed ethnic groups are very much a real thing, especially when groups have to communicate or signal each other within hostile parties’ hearing. Since I’m American (and had a big ol crush on Harriet Tubman as a little kid lmao!) the first thing that came to mind for me when I made this connection was the working songs escaped Black slaves used in the Underground Railroad.

These have another point in common with the moth gravedigger song Myla sings, in that they enter the general cultural consciousness through out-group people who don’t know the true context. If you ever pick up a book of American baby songs, you’ll probably find some Underground Railroad code songs in there - often because generations ago white kids heard these songs from Black slaves or servants, and went on to sing the same songs to their children with zero awareness of what the songs were really for.

So some Hallownest bug somewhere probably heard the moths’ song and liked it and sang it in a context totally divorced from its original one, and it got spread around and passed down to become one of Myla’s old favorites, with her seemingly not realizing the meaning behind the lyrics. The moths’ song of devotion to their lost god survived them as a people.

This is some VERY realistic and layered worldbuilding. There is so much to glean from just one NPC’s dialogue when put together with other clues. Of course all of it is SAD and DEPRESSING, but Hollow Knight is a tragedy with a super unsubtle point to make about the unsustainability of Western imperialism.

What happens to Myla is awful, and upsetting, and unfair. So was what happened to the moths and their sacred ground, and to Radiance too. It’s important to understand the scope of the conflict that led to all this happening, trace it to its roots, and lay it at the feet of the ones responsible for engendering all this tragedy in the first place: Hallownest and the Pale King.

*A NOTE ABOUT MY USE OF THE TERM “GENOCIDE”

This is a tangent, but since there’s some debate about whether it’s appropriate to define the Pale King’s actions towards indigenous bug nations as genocide, allow me to cite the official definition of genocide here.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention for short) defines genocide like this:

Genocide is any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, religious, or racial group, as such:

A) Killing members of the group

B) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

D) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

E) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Among the abovelisted, Hallownest is guilty of A (Deepnest and the moths), B (Deepnest physically/the moths vis a vis brainwashing), C (the mantis tribe and the hive), and E (the moths, which we know from Marmu, and possibly the mosskin also - Isma is mosskin).

Then there is cultural genocide, i.e. acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, religious, or racial group's way of life. Let’s look at the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) and how it defines cultural genocide:

A) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities

B) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources

C) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights

D) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures

E) Any form of propaganda directed against them

Hallownest is guilty of every item on this list. A: The moths, attempted with Deepnest. B: The moths, the mantises, the flukes, the mosskin; also attempted with Deepnest. C: The moths, the mantises, the flukes. D: The moths; attempted with the mantises and Deepnest. E: The mantises and Deepnest.

Any sort of discussion of the wide-reaching harm Radiance caused MUST include the context that the Infection is her response to multiple levels of genocide. Discussion that does not include this context loses nuance and simplifies the conflict and power dynamics portrayed in the game in ways that reflect real-life racism and Christian supersessionism.

Now, this is NOT some sort of holier than thou Fandom Purity dunk to say that it’s Bad or Wrong to care about Hallownest’s nobility. Like, one of my favorite characters in this dang game is the White Lady, who spent a long ass time enabling her husband’s actions before she finally walked out on him over the mass infanticide thing. You can, and it is okay to, love TPK and want rehabilitation for him while acknowledging that the dude has done objectively bad things.

I just feel that it’s important to keep things in perspective so that we don’t wind up stirring a bunch of real-world bigotry into our fandom funtimes. A lot of us don’t have the luxury of turning our brains off and simply Not Seeing It, because these same sorts of dynamics are behind a lot of the hardships that threaten our everyday stability.

It’s pretty hard to have conversations about those things in real life if one can’t even recognize them in fiction. So, this might be a good opportunity to start practicing anti-racism so we can better utilize that ideology in real life, where the stakes are much higher.

#hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers #hollow knight meta #myla hollow knight #the radiance #hk myla #hk radiance #essay #long post under cut -

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zeta-in-de-walls · 4 years

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Okay, in the wake of the L’Manburg war, allow me to get meta for a bit.

Now obviously the war, and the SMP server in general, are just for content. The stakes are all fictional - nebulous things like freedom on a minecraft server, sentimental value placed on music discs and all that nonsense.

Bearing that in mind, I want to discuss how it played out.

Who were the best players? It’s clear who were the most powerful and dangerous as enemies - Dream, George, Sapnap and Punz. (I’m leaving aside Eret for the moment btw) They all had full netherite armour, planted TNT traps and planned betrayals and ambushes to win the war. They had the upperhand throughout. Meanwhile the other side felt weak and ill-prepared and did very little damage to any of their opponents.

But you know, being more powerful doesn’t actually make for much content on its own. What makes good content? A good narrative filled with drama, tension and excitement. In those terms, we’re looking at Tommy and Wilbur carrying the server with this war.

The second they said independence and made some grand speeches, there were stakes. Instead of the server being a somewhat peaceful building simulator, it was in a state of conflict. Alliances were created, flags were made, Hamilton and Revolutionary war references were heard, matching skins and all that were being created. Putting great significance into stuff like a patch of tilled soil, suggesting carrying sticks instead of weapons and wearing no armour but fighting with words - that’s the sort of stuff that made this whole scenario work. Without it, this dispute wouldn’t have been able to call itself a war. They even make ridiculous stuff sound convincing - just the idea of calling L’Manberg its own separate server that happens to be inside another server with the running costs still being paid by Dream. It’s crazy but it works.

And my goodness, did they have their work cut out for them.

You see, I feel like Dream and co. weren’t really playing along. They heard ‘war!’ and thought - let’s win. Let’s absolutely crush the enemy! No mercy.

Now playing the villain can be cool, sure. And it kinda worked here. But only just. Some of their actions definitely irked me.

See, there are kind of unspoken agreements in stuff like letting people prepare, not attacking too early, that sort of thing. You tell everyone that the war’s gonna take place at 7pm and sure enough it does. And there’s Dream’s server rules: No stealing and no griefing. These rules do get bent in the middle of an ongoing battle - eg battles often involve a lot of placing and breaking blocks and when you’re low on stuff, trying to run to a nearby chest to grab some last minute supplies is going to happen (and later after the battle’s done you’ll probably get yelled at a little before making up) - but generally they are upheld. Especially when others are offstream and you aren’t in the middle of something.

‘Ah but it was war - rules can be broken!’ one might argue. Yeah, no, this is entertainment. You don’t start early because you’re going to ruin the stream and make the content worse - and the whole point of the war is to make good content. Like, when WIlbur’s stream died - they asked for a pause so WIlbur could sort out technical difficulties before continuing.

Yeah so Dream and Sapnap basically broke all the rules in order to win. Fundy and Tommy put up insulting signs in different languages. Funny content. Dream and Sapnap burned Tubbo’s house to the ground. Err... okay that’s a bit excessive but we can make it work. No mercy, ha.

So Tommy asked Tubbo to prep for the war. Tubbo agreed and got to work to try and balance the already uneven odds. At this point, the war’s in a day and all of Dream’s side has full netherite and none of L’Manburg do save Eret. Time is short but that just makes it all the more exciting.

So Tubbo uses villagers and trading, stealing a frugal amount to get himself started before really getting into it and grinding for diamond armour and makes nine stacks of emeralds - enough to place some high level enchants and even the odds a little and make the fight interesting.

While Tubbo’s offline, Sapnap comes in and steals them, getting books to enchant his own set of netherite armour using Tubbo’s set up. Well then. There goes any hope of a fair fight. And they are trying, you know. They realise the armour discrepancy so they’ve been trying to get potions but even that’s a struggle - when Dream finished his apology stream he logged on to the SMP without warning and managed to kill Tubbo before he could get away while his inventory had been full of potions. (Tommy and Tubbo had been visiting Dream’s base to put a sign in it - an offer of Mellohi for peace. Nothing comes of this sign or any of the other Tommy put in other people’s houses - more potential good content there like demanding Sapnap stay neutral in return for a supply blaze powder (a ref to the drug war that preceded this conflict)). It’s not that Dream killing Tubbo is the issue - it’s more how he logged on basically without warning so Tubbo had little chance to get away as he was mostly unarmoured and ungeared.

Still, the next day Tubbo is trying to grind back up, to even up things a little. He’s only managed to get 2 end crystals and he has a few sets of plain diamond armour and a few books. So he grinds like crazy in the limited time, trading all his iron, chopping trees, carrots, bamboo, sugar, everything he has into emeralds. But he needs levels. He tries to go to the spawner which the other side has been freely using to grind up exp and they kill him when he goes near. One time, Dream kills him while he has several books on him so he has to trade back emeralds to get them again. And now he doesn’t have a good way to get experience so he can’t even the odds. Punz and Sapnap even combatlog inside the spawner so if he goes near they’d come online and kill him. And yeah, they’re stream sniping. They’ve all streamed very little, hiding all their preparations while taking advantage of the fact that the other side have all been streaming everything they’ve been doing.

‘Imagine streamsniping.’ Tommy and co. said that at one point during today’s conflict. It’s cheap - it’s not fun, it’s taking advantage - one that’s not even necessary as you’re already all OP. Dream’s side aren’t the underdog, they don’t need every single advantage to win this. Instead it’s more like rubbing salt into the wound.

And yeah, despite all the griefing that Dream side have done, not once does anyone grief anything of theirs - like the chat was totally asking for them to burn down Punz’s house. No, they just place signs and talk.

Okay, so Tommy announced the war would be at 7pm. He logs on at 6.45 to say hello and hype all his viewers up, get his music playing and give a rundown of the situation and what’s occurred since he’s last streamed. No sooner has he logged on then Tubbo gets ambushed early! They attacked prematurely!

...

It’s like there was one rule - war begins at 7pm. And instead Dream, George and Sapnap all attacked Tubbo at his base at 6.45. Tommy is ages away and can’t do anything and Fundy’s in trouble too and Tubbo just barely manages to save the gear he has managed to prep. They’re even more on the backfoot. All their strats are known anyway as they’ve been watching streams so they know all about the potions and endcrystals while Tommy’s side are in the dark about Dream’s side’s preparations. For instance, offstream they filled Tommy’s base and L’Manburg with Tnt which they set off to devastating effect.

The ‘war’ is as one-sided as you’d expect. Tommy and co. are trying to attack even though they lack arrows and food and are hopelessly outmatched but they put up a pretence of trying anyway. At no point is a single one of Dream’s side even moderately threatened (except perhaps when they ambushed Tubbo early as he tried using harming potions) and everyone knows it.

Still, Tommy and Wilbur push on - they talk, they rally etc. Finally, Eret betrays them and they’re all killed in an ambush. And they’re shocked by this twist, they react, they call Eret their downfall. (Dream’s side didn’t need to resort to such tactics to win given their obvious advantage.) and Eret being a traitor is fantastic for content anyway so it is a great part of the narrative that they all react to perfectly. Eret seems to have a good instinct for making good content as well as this sort of twist is a good addition. It works because its drama - they trusted him and they never expected him to betray them to the other side after all they’d built together.

In the end, Tommy finishes it on a high with a dramatic bow duel followed by offering the discs in exchange for freedom. And fittingly, despite have being entirely outplayed in terms of power and tactics, they win the thing they cared about - which was the independence that they started the war for. The content - not anything material. Dream’s side was far stronger and better prepared and they weren’t given so much as a chance to catch up for a pvp conflict. But L’Manberg - they got that.

Okay, so this has been long and I’ll probably rewrite something similar soon - but I wanted to highlight how in meta terms, the war was being played unfairly and its obvious that Dream’s side had different priorities - win under any means necessary rather than continue to make great content for the SMP. They’re treating it like a manhunt or something when its absolutely not and shouldn’t be. They’re lucky that Wilbur and Tommy were so good at making it work as they do all the heavy-lifting for the SMP which ensures its got a healthy lifespan.

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fallenfurther · 3 years

Text

Homecoming

This is a story I’ve been planning for over a year and finally feel readyish to post it. This first chapter has been reread about ten times so it’s about time to release it. It introduces the main OC for the story, which will spend the next fifteen chapters exploring Jeff’s return to earth before Josie comes back into play.

Thank you @misssquidtracy for being my cheerleader, this would be no where near as far written if you hadn’t enjoyed it so.

I hope you enjoy chapter one, which is set between Series 2 and 3.

AO3 and FFN

First Impressions

Josie stood outside the hall and took a deep breath. You can do this, she thought, you already have the invite for the invite only event. They might be the big bosses, the people who matter, but you matter too. You just have to network. Don't sell yourself short.

She steeled herself again and swallowed. She really didn't belong here. London was a long way from the compassionate community she grew up with in Scotland. But the idea of getting stuck there and never fulfilling her dreams made her determined, despite the imposter syndrome that plagued her. She looked down at herself and tried to feel comfortable. They were her smartest clothes: a black pencil skirt, blouse with frilly collar and a fitted, thanks to Nancy's excellent seamstress skills, suit jacket. They were all high street brands which wouldn't compare to the designer suits and dresses she'd be mingling with. The only saving grace was the simple diamond chain around her neck. Worth more to Josie than anyone would know, and it gave her the courage she needed. Brushing down her jacket and holding her head high she strode forwards.

She had been so fixated on herself that she almost bumped into a mature couple. Josie stumbled out an apology and let them in first. Flustered, and having lost any semblance of confidence, she entered the room.

****

Another networking event, this time forced on him by Lady Penelope. Scott scouted out the room as he sipped his Scotch. Many eyes were on the two Tracy brothers, all wanting but not yet daring, to approach. The power of his presence in a room of businessmen never ceased to amaze him.

"Found someone you like yet?" Gordon chimed cheerfully from beside him, though Scott knew him well enough to hear the bored undertone. Penelope had invited Gordon and of course he had said yes, his brother absolutely smitten with the lady. Scott shook his head. Events like this maintained Tracy Industries reputation, though they also gave Scott his player reputation. It was an easy place to pick up a girlfriend or let off some steam. Scott surveyed the room again. Within sight there were a few women who appealed to him.

"I don't always leave with someone."

Scott took a sip of his drink.

"Oh, so you're not the ever-successful ladies’ man we thought you were?" Gordon teased.

"Well, I didn't say that." Scott chuckled. "I just don't always want company."

Gordon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. I bet you've had many failed conquests. You just don't want to admit it."

Scott shook his head. "You believe what you want, Gordon."

"Bet you can't get a random woman to sleep with you," Gordon challenged.

Scott bit his lip, trying not to rise to Gordon's bait. Yes, Scott had been planning to find some company for the evening, but a bet? He shouldn't sink to that. Thankfully, the CEO of a small engineering company that had worked with Tracy Industries a year ago strolled over. Scott slipped into CEO mode and exchanged the required pleasantries and confirmed that they were considering working with their company again, before one last handshake.

"So, the Great Scott Tracy is backing down from a challenge?"

Scott rolled his eyes. Gordon was bored and just trying to find a way to entertain himself, but Scott did like a challenge. What's the worst that could happen? With a sigh, he gave in.

"What are the stakes?"

"If you can't seduce the woman I pick, then you give the swimming pool its biannual clean."

"And if I win, you are on deck lounger duty for a month."

“Deal.”

Gordon held out his hand and Scott shook it. He knew this was a bad idea, but it

would liven up the evening a little, and Scott was in the mood for a little fun. Something to help him relax after a tough week. His brother’s eyes scouted the room looking for the ideal candidate. The smirk that appeared on Gordon’s face worried him.

“The next woman to walk through the door.”

Scott raised his eyebrow. It was a gamble, but Scott understood why Gordon had

done it. He nodded and took a sip of his drink. Both men had their eyes on the door. A few people left, but no one entered. When the door finally opened, they both held their breath. An older couple entered, their outfits and demeanour radiating their importance. A quick sideward glance at Gordon confirmed he was holding back a laugh. Scott sighed before looking back toward the couple. Behind them the door opened again and in walked a lone woman.

“That one, the nervous blond.” Gordon announced.

A nod from Scott and he accepted the challenge. His eyes surveyed the woman. She was young, probably about Virgil’s age, and she definitely looked uncomfortable. Her clothing was smart and fitted her well, but he could tell they weren’t the high end fashion that many were wearing that evening. Her hair was loose, brushing down past her shoulders, and there was nothing wrong with her features. She had the kind of appearance most people would look over, including himself, for someone more striking. Scott started to formulate a strike plan. He knew he had to avoid overwhelming her, she probably wouldn’t be expecting to get the attention he was going to give her. He turned back to his brother; whose attention had turned to something else. Scott followed Gordon’s gaze to see Lady Penelope with a tall man, laughing away. The man was obviously flirting with the aristocrat. The clenched jaw and stiffened stance of the aquanaut gave in to jealousy he was feeling. Without a second thought, Gordon strolled over to the gathering and joined in, a fake smile plastered his face. Scott shook his head, before turning back to his target.

****

The glass was chilled in her hand, and Josie took a sip of the non-alcoholic mojito with the hopes it would help steady her nerves. Practicing her breathing techniques briefly, she turned around only to come face to chest with someone. She was flustered again and felt heat rise in her cheeks. Her eyes fell on the man in front of her and her heart jumped.

She froze. Her instincts put her on high alert. This man looked like trouble, and she had just made contact with his deep blue eyes. He smiled at her, dimples deepening in his cheeks when he did so. Mind over body, mind over body, she repeated in her head. It was the intensity he gave off, the way he held himself like he was in control. He hadn't been surprised by her almost bumping into him. He'd know she was there and hadn't moved. She'd seen this before at university, she'd learnt the signs from experience. But still, why did they always have to be attractive? Why did they always gravitate to her? Josie rolled her shoulders back and gave him a brief nod.

“Excuse me.” Josie smiled politely, ducking as gracefully as she could past him.

“I’ve not seen you here before.”

Josie paused. His deep voice demanded her attention. She was here to network, at least she could get him over and done with. She could keep her cool, watch out for his game. Josie was wiser now. She turned around and held out her hand.

“Josie McNelly, engineer for Taybrooke Aeronautics, Satellite division.”

He shook her hand firmly. The man looked familiar, though she couldn't place where from.

“Scott Tracy, CEO of Tracy Industries.”

That explained the familiarity. She smile grew as she thought of her brother’s prized

poster of Jeff Tracy which had hung above his bed. Josie could see the resemblance

to the astronaut. Same eyes for certain. She'd been shocked at the sudden loss of the great Jeff Tracy. Not that her brother had ever met him, but the astronaut had been such a big part of their childhood. Especially the fights over who was greater, her admiration for Neil Armstrong was still just as strong. The memories threw her, and suddenly she had no idea what to say next. How do you network again? What do you talk about with the CEO of Tracy Industries, one of the best engineering companies in the world? Facts about the company filled Josie's head and thankfully one stood out.

"Tracy Industries doesn't have a UK branch, so may I ask what brings you to London?"

Josie took a deep breath as the man paused; glad she could make an impression. She congratulated herself while remembering what she was here to do. She'd failed to get a job at Tracy Industries on multiple occasions, maybe this could be a way in. She almost laughed at herself. The CEO was unlikely to care for someone as low down the pecking order as she. Part of her wanted to try, just in case. If people less qualified could get experience and jobs over her by knowing the right people, maybe she could too. That was why she was here, to get the contacts so she could play their game.

"You've done your research. Tracy Industries works with some UK based companies that are represented here tonight, and the event is being hosted by a good friend of mine. I've not heard of Taybrooke Aeronautics before, care to give me some insight?"

His strikingly blue eyes gazed down at her with sincerity. It threw Josie to see it in someone she suspected of having ulterior motives, however she'd tried to keep her cool. Staying wary, she engaged with him.

"Taybrooke Aeronautics is a small Scottish company. It started with plane design and manufacturing then branched out into satellites and astronautical technology. It's well known for its niche and unique satellite designs. It's entirely based in Scotland and has various sites throughout the country."

"Have they done anything I might have heard of?"

"Have you heard of Global One?"

"The GDF's space station."

"Yes, the thrusters that keep it in orbit are a product of Taybrooke Aeronautics. They are actually my design."

"Your design? Aren't they normally developed by a team of engineers."

The surprise on Mr Tracy's face was priceless. It wasn't the first time people were shocked by what Josie could do, and she was planning to make sure it wasn't the last. If she wanted to become a big name rocket designer, she was going to have to blow a few minds.

"The initial design was mine, obviously other engineers had input over materials and the like, but the actual design hasn't changed much. Taybrooke owns the patent, but my name is on it, so you can check it if you don't believe me. They aren't the only thing I've designed that's currently on orbit. Two of my resistojet rockets were used in some private satellites that were launched late last year."

Josie refused to hide her pride. Her family was proud of her achievements even if they didn't understand them. It was why she was here, to continue making them proud of her. She and her brother had had a dream and she was going to fulfil it if she could.

"That's impressive. Have you considered applying for a role in the Tracy Industries aeronautical department? I'm sure we are always in need of people with your kind of skills."

Josie took a deep breath. She wanted to believe Mr Tracy. Every engineer wanted a job at Tracy Industries, it was considered one of the industry leads and had fantastic employee benefits. The company was known worldwide for taking care of its workforce, but she had never made the cut. Neither did she believe this man would remember her beyond today. It was time to end this conversation and see if anyone here might actually be interested in hiring an engineer. Josie met his gaze and prepared to say her piece.

"I have applied for various aeronautical and astronautical roles at Tracy Industries since graduating. I've been called to interview twice, one at the European branch in Germany and another at the Japanese branch. Both times I was turned away for lack of experience. The Japanese branch didn't believe I would fit in with the company's culture and the European job was given to the son of one of the employees. It appears that I’m currently not what Tracy Industries is seeking. It’s been interesting talking with you Mr Tracy, but I have just spotted someone that I would really like to speak with, so if you’d kindly excuse me. Have a pleasant rest of the evening.”

Josie turned and strode away from Mr Tracy. She headed into the crowd, not looking back, keeping her eyes open for the people she'd flagged on the short guest list she had managed to obtain. There were representatives here that might help get her into the industry. Not that she wouldn't stop applying to Tracy Industries jobs, a girl could dream, but she was realistic. Josie knew she had to work her way up and she needed to make the right contacts.

****

Scott watched Josie walk away. She weaved into the crowd and disappeared from his sight. Gordon had lucked out and this bet was going to be harder than he thought. Miss McNelly may be nervous, but there was something beneath her words and her guard was up. He would have to change his approach, and unfortunately, he couldn't use Tracy Industries as bait. Josie wanted a job and she seemed to believe Tracy Industries didn't want her. Even if he could promise her a job, he was sure she wouldn't believe him. Scott was so used to women warming to him, swooning over his smile, and in many cases excited by the prospect of spending the evening with someone from International Rescue. Josie hadn't even mentioned it or made an indication that she knew he was part of the elusive organisation. Scott headed to the bar and ordered another scotch. He lent against the polished wood, swirling the drink in thought. He had to get her to lower her guard, to open up. His eyes hit the crowd and he sighed. Scott knew he was going to have to take the plunge.

Almost an hour later and Scott hadn't been able to get close to Miss McNelly. He'd glimpsed her but being in the crowd meant he had to be polite to the other attendees, especially those who the company did business with. Duty called without the usual klaxon that echoed through the villa. Although Scott did want to be rescued from the current conversation; fisheries in the Atlantic were more Gordon's realm. He inspected the room, going from head to head in search of Miss McNelly. He easily spotted Gordon, standing next to Lady Penelope who was conversing with a young businessman. At least his brother wasn't having much luck either. Continuing, he spotted Mr Sandip with whom he'd had a pleasant conversation with at a previous gala. Excusing himself, Scott headed over to the man, but as he neared, Scott got a glimpse of whom he was talking to. Josie's hands were moving as she described something, and as he stepped up to the pair, he could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. There was a sparkle in her grey eyes that hadn't been there previously.

"Mr Tracy! How good to see you again? How have you been?"

Mitchell Sandip had spotted him out of the corner of his eye and had turned to offer him a hand, which Scott took with a smile.

"I'm very well, thank you, though I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yes, well, the representative from the engineering department that was meant to attend became unwell. With so few people free to come, I drew the short straw. Though, seeing you has greatly improved my night."

Scott laughed at the accountant, his friendly demeanour had charmed Scott last time they had met.

"Now, Mr Tracy, have you met Miss McNelly? She has quite the head for numbers. Unfortunately, she's not after an accounting job otherwise I'd snap her up before anyone else could!"

Scott turned to the woman in question, eyebrow raised. Head for numbers, well she was an engineer. He watched her straight up and nod politely at him.

"I'm rather good with calculations.”

Mitchell's hand landed on Scott's arm, drawing his attention away from Miss McNelly. The shorter man's hazel eyes peered up at him full of excitement.

"She's being incredibly modest, Mr Tracy. I was certain someone was pilfering funds, and after a week I managed to work out who and how, but I hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet. I’ve just finished collecting all the evidence and sent it to HR. Well, I was just discussing yearly finances with Mr Yang over there, and I was just throwing a lot of numbers about, as you do, trying to show off, when Miss McNelly pipes up saying my calculations are wrong. I told her they weren't, and she said they had to be unless someone was swindling money. I was shocked that she could work it out like that, then she rattled off her calculations faster than anything. Like I said, I hadn’t told anyone and Miss McNelly here was able to work it out in minutes. Obviously, I had to confirm this wasn’t just a one off, so Mr Yang and I rattled a few numbers off, and Josie performed the calculations there and then. All in her head and fast as can be. It was incredible!"

Scott turned with Mitchell back to Miss McNelly. There was a proud smile on her face, even if he could see that she was still nervous. Her fingers were playing gently with the hem of her jacket.

"I've always been fast with numbers."

"Are you certain you don't want to be an accountant?"

Miss McNelly laughed, a blush coming to her cheeks.

"As I told the Professor during my interview at Cambridge, when he asked why I was pursuing a career in engineering over mathematics; for me mathematics is easy. I don't want to be bored. I want to be challenged."

A cheeky grin graced Josie's lips, obviously warming to Mitchell's easy charm. It was hard not to smile around Mitchell, the man had a unique manner that just set people at ease.

"How about a drink then?"

“Fantastic idea, Mr Tracy. I’m sure Miss McNelly is in need of one too.”

Scott beckoned over a waiter, who swiftly moved around the other attendees to reach them.

"I'll have a sherry, if you don't mind."

"I'll have a Scotch please. What would you like, Miss McNelly, another mojito?"

Josie hesitated a moment and seemed to become uneasy, her fingers returning to her hem.

"Another mojito would be lovely, thank you."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you."

Scott dismissed the waiter, still intrigued by Miss McNelly. There was so much to uncover, and although he was starting to feel that he'd be cleaning the pool next week, he hadn't given up. Mitchell was just the person he needed to help break down those walls of hers.

"So, a Cambridge graduate then? I've a friend who did engineering at Cambridge university."

"Yes, it's a fantastic institution. It took me a year to find my feet, but I thrived once I did. Did you visit your friend while he was there?"

Scott chuckled slightly at the thought of visiting Brains at university. His father hadn't met the man yet and he would have been a kid himself.

"No, I never got the chance."

"That's a shame. It's like a world of its own. All the best equipment within old buildings and traditions which go back centuries. Although it was fun at the start, with all the formal dinners and dressing up in your gown, it does get a little mundane after the umpteenth time. Sure, it's a three course meal with wine from some excellent chefs, but you can't eat that rich food every day and it's expensive. I could keep myself fed and watered for a week for the price of two evening meals!"

"I must admit, I didn't make the best decisions when it came to food during my first years in the Air Force."

Scott thought back to the instant noodles and takeaways he'd indulged in on the weekends. The freedom that came with not having to eat Grandma's home cooking had been liberating. Though he did eventually learn to cook a few simple dishes during his time in the Air Force.

"Most of us make bad choices at university. It comes with being young and free."

There was a sadness in her tone and her face dimmed slightly. What mistakes had this woman made that she regretted? Did it have something to do with the guard she hid behind? She put on a forced smile, and he knew he had to keep her engaged. Unfortunately, Lady Penelope and Gordon decided to make their entrance to the group.

"Oh! Why hello Lady Penelope, and you are…."

Mitchell held out his hand to Gordon, who shook it with his usual amount of enthusiasm. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott caught the movement of Miss McNelly's hand. She was once again fiddling with her jacket.

"Gordon Tracy."

"Ahhh, Mr Tracy's brother. I see the resemblance now."

Scott hid his laugh behind a grin, though he caught Miss McNelly’s eyes darting between him and Gordon. He wondered if she was picking up on the same resemblance. Scott watched as Lady Penelope, and then Gordon, introduced themselves. The drinks they had ordered arrived, and Scott noted the way Miss McNelly took a tentative sip of the drink. The small talk started, though Scott caught the small sips she took frequently, as a way to keep herself busy. She was definitely out of her element, which might explain why her guard was up. He listened in, gaining snippets of information about the woman. Gordon was keen to keep her chatting, probably as a way of distracting her from him, thus improving the chances Scott was going to lose the bet. After a while, Miss McNelly politely excused herself. Scott watched as she headed in the direction of the bathrooms, he hoped that meant she’d be back.

“Miss McNelly is quite the interesting character, don’t you think Scott?”

Scott could see the small grin on his brother's face and the gleam in his eye that revealed to Scott the hidden meaning. Gordon thought the bet was his and he’d gotten out of his chore. Another business associate of Tracy Industries joined their group and stole Scott’s attention. Miss McNelly never returned.

****

Finally getting away from yet another business proposal, Scott headed to the bar where Gordon was perched. He lent against it and turned to survey the room with his brother.

"No success then?"

"As much as you've had with Lady Penelope."

Scott's eyes fell on Miss McNelly. She was chatting with Mitchell again. Maybe he still had a chance. Turning to the bartender he ordered a Scotch and mojito. Gordon raised his eyebrow at the order.

"One last chance. I'm not going to give in that easily."

Scott grabbed the drinks and headed toward Miss McNelly. She'd just shaken hands with Mitchell and the man had turned to chase down someone on the other side of the room. He took a breath and turned on the charm.

***

Josie watched Mr Sandip hurry after someone and smiled to herself. He'd promised to pass on her details to recruitment. She was feeling beat but was pretty pleased with her efforts. She'd sold her company and thrown out a few business cards. Hopefully she'd made her mark. The whole event hadn't been as bad as she'd expected, though that one alcoholic drink had eased her nerves a little. She was happy to have been able to keep it to one. Glancing at her watch, she confirmed it was late and she still had some travelling to do. It was time for her to leave.

"Miss McNelly, care to have a drink with me?"

Dread filled her as the familiar voice spoke from behind. Turning she immediately noticed Mr Tracy was standing between her and the exit. She took a deep breath. In the man's hands were two drinks: an amber spirit and a mojito. Her breath caught in her throat, the situation bringing her back to a night she wanted to forget.

"You got me a drink?"

She stared at the glass. She suspected it had alcohol in it, having ordered one in front of him, but what else did it contain? She couldn't confirm it wasn't spiked. Would he do that sort of thing? Save people one day, drug them the next? Rich people never made sense to her though. They defied logic.

"I thought we could chat a little more."

He held out the mojito, forcing Josie to make a choice. Did she trust the man? She looked up into his face. He had a warm smile that met his eyes and she wanted to trust him. She wanted so much to believe he was a good guy. But her fear was there, deep inside as it always was, and she couldn't. She smiled at him as she reached out her right hand and plucked the glass of what she hoped was scotch, from his grip. Josie kept her eyes locked on his as she raised the glass to her lips. The amber liquid was not one she'd tried before, probably a vintage out of her price range. She was thankful it wasn't peaty; she hates those. His mouth dropped in shock as he looked at the cocktail in his hand. Josie couldn’t help the smile as she fought not to laugh. She let the liquid roll over her tongue and down her throat.

"I'm Scottish and it's the end of the night. You never asked me what I wanted."

She locked eyes with him as the shock faded from his face. Mr Tracy glanced down at the cocktail briefly, indecision in his eyes. Josie was still on edge, ready to step back if she had to. She decided to test the water.

"Take a sip. The mojitos here are the best."

Josie challenged him. If he refused to drink it then it must be spiked. If it wasn't, there was no reason not to take a sip. His hand stayed where it was.

"I'd rather the scotch."

"This scotch is mine now, and you don't want to waste that drink now, do you?"

****

Miss McNelly's face was serious. Scott felt slightly uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. It was a challenge. For some reason, she wanted him to drink the mojito. He hadn’t expected her to take his drink and she had sipped it without grimacing. Never before had he met someone who acted as she did. Most people wanted to know more about him, most pestered about International Rescue, but not Miss McNelly. It felt like she had never warmed to him, even if she had seemed better and more relaxed during their conversation with Mitchell. Scott didn't want to drink the mojito; it was his most despised cocktail. What was this woman's game?

"No, thank you."

"Fine."

Scott was shocked again when Miss McNelly took the cocktail from him. What happened next, happened both at lightning speed and in slow motion. There was nothing Scott could do to stop it.

"Thank you for the drink, but I don't appreciate the attention you've given me. I tried to make it clear I wasn't interested."

The cocktail glass was thrust in his direction, its contents flying out at him. Ice and mint hit his face as the sticky fluid started to soak into his shirt. As if that wasn't enough Miss McNelly stood on her toes, stretched up and poured the scotch into his hair. It trickled down his neck.

“I’m not interested.”

Miss McNelly stalked past him. Scott didn't know how to react. One part of him wanted to storm after her and demand an explanation, though that would probably make things worse. This is what he gets for accepting a silly bet. He turned on his heel and headed towards the exit. Gordon was sitting at the bar and the smirk on his face became laugher as Scott approached. His brother was struggling to stay in his stool.

"I'm calling it a night."

"Sure Scott….I look forward...to watching you...clean the pool." Gordon gasped between spasms of laughter.

****

Josie bolted. She started running once she had heard the door shut. She didn't stop, not looking back and running as fast as she could to the nearest light rail station. Fear was a great motivator, and she didn't slow until she was on the platform where she gasped for breath. Josie had never been a runner. She hated it. Her eyes never left the entrance until she was on the train. Only then could she start to relax. Once in the carriage the tears started to fall. She’d overreacted. She'd made a scene. Her body shook. How stupid could she be? Slipping her phone out of her jacket she swiped up her call history and tapped the first person on the list.

****

Josie lay back on the bench. It was around the corner from the hostel she’d booked for the night. The cheapest way to stay in London was to share a bunk bed with a stranger. There was no way she could have a private conversation in a room of sleeping people, and this random street bench was the easiest option. If there was ever someone she needed right now, it was her best friend Graham. His thick Scottish accent rang out from her phone.

“Seriously Josie, ye need to stop seeing every man as a potential threat. Cannae a man just be polite?”

“I don’t suspect all men, just the ones that make me feel uncomfortable.”

“Ye said this guy was Scott Tracy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Scott Tracy, the Commander of International Rescue and pilot of Thunderbird One?”

“Maybe, I can’t remember which one flies which.”

“Hold on, ye can list every damned fact available about the Thunderbirds, but ye cannae tell me who pilots them?”

“You sound like my brother! Why should I care who flies the Thunderbird? I want to know how they fly!”

Graham rolled his eyes, and Josie couldn’t help but laugh at him. She twisted onto her front, her arm aching from holding her phone in the air.

“Well, I’ve looked him up and I think ye would have been safe to drink that mojito. Although I’ll admit that he probably was hitting on ye. According to the gossip blogs he has picked up the odd girlfriend from events like that. Not that they last long, with him spending most of his time savin' people. If ye hadn’t been so aggressive ye could be heading back to Scotland with a great story! Imagine being able to say ye slept with the pilot of Thunderbird One!”

“A. I prefer Thunderbird Three. B. I’d rather spend the night with Thunderbird One herself. C. If I’d known, I would have given him your number.”

Josie stuck her tongue out, only to watch Graham contort his face in response. They both ended up in a fit of giggles.

“At least ye still have a good story for the next campfire. Many girls have slept with Mr Thunderbird One, but I doubt many can claim they threw a drink in his face.”

A groan left Josie as she placed her forehead against the wood, breathing in its damp musk. She was never going to forget this and once it’d been passed round the town, it would definitely make its way to work. They would never let her go to another event again.

“I’m an idiot. The whole night was pointless. No one is going to want to hire me now.”

“Definitely an idiot. They only let those into private schools.”

Josie scowled at her friend, though she was fighting a smile. It was an old joke, one that Graham used when she needed to see perspective. It reminded both of them how far they had come. Even if Josie was still stuck in Scotland. She yawned at the same time as the fifteen-minute warning was announced on Graham’s end.

“Looks like we’re both in bunks tonight.”

��Righty-ho. G'night Josie.”

"G’night Grey.”

Josie was just about to end the call when Graham decided to get the last word in.

“And Jo, FYI Gordon Tracy pilots Thunderbird Four.”

Josie glared at him. The last thing she heard was Graham’s laughter as the screen went black. Cradling her phone in her hand, she stared at it, before turning her head to the sky. She couldn't see the stars that she knew were there. Josie may not have her dream job, yet, but Graham always reminded her of how lucky she was.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #Scott Tracy #original character #Gordon Tracy #Lady Penelope #gala #bet #homecoming #first impressions #there has to be a scottish character

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maknaesdancersrappers · 4 years

Text

the truth about you.

⁕ commission ⁕

warnings » smut (explicit sex scenes; oral, fingering, corruption kink), language (repetitive use of profanities), themes (friends with benefits, underage drinking, pregnancy scare), angst (please have a fluff fic ready to read after this one)

genre » high school!au, fwb!au

word count » 25k

playlist » link

dedicated to » jae ♡ ; thank you so much for commissioning this fic, it was draining to be honest, but i’m happy of how it turned out and i’m glad you enjoyed it.

+ timeline is a bit messy, but hopefully none of you catch it ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ

terminology » yakgwa (korean honey cookie), ssireum (korean wrestling)

The library is your safe haven. The soft murmurs, the books, the cold air — all of these brought you peace and was the most ideal studying environment for you. It didn’t matter to you if your schoolmates called you a nerd all your high school life; let’s see who’ll be graduating with honors and, hopefully, a full scholarship to Seoul National University.

The only time you didn’t enjoy the library was when midterm exams were around the corner and students were cramming at the library, rushing to make reviewers, or even learn what they should have already known had they listened during class. This was the breeding ground for one of your pet peeves: people who can’t control the volume of their voices. Why do they even bother whispering if the entire library could hear it? You especially hated those whose voices get gradually louder and louder until they’re already practically exclaiming.

You would have gone to a lesser known cafe but you’d have to pay for a drink to stay there, whereas the library allowed you to bring in your own drinks as long as they were in reusable cups or tumblers. Today, however, you were only dragged here despite it being peak cramming season because your best friend had begged you to tutor him.

“I love you with all my heart, [Y/N].” Jungwoo grabs your hands and brings it to his chest. “Only you could teach me chemistry better than Mrs. Yoon—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” You had just arrived at the table he was able to reserve and barely put your things down before he started acting dramatic. “Just highlight which topics you don’t get—”

“Everything.” He says in one breath, pulling out the best puppy eyes expression he could muster.

“Everything?” You browsed through your chemistry notes and sighed. This was going to take longer than you expected.

Sensing your apprehension, Jungwoo grabs your hands again, “I’ll buy you lunch for two days, please!”

You sit down beside him after shaking his hands off yours and settling in, “That’s not why I’m having second thoughts, Woo. I need to study for other subjects, too.”

Jungwoo scoffs, crossing his arms and leaning away from you, “Baby, you’re top 1 of the entire batch.”

“No, I’m not.” You scowled, turning around to grab your pencil case from your book bag. As you did so, excited murmurs erupted from the table beside yours and curiously, you followed the gazes of the girls to the door that had just closed. Sitting back up, you huffed, “I would be if he wasn’t around.”

Your best friend moves his attention to the person in question and lets out a sound of acknowledgement.

Jaehyun was never your classmate, but he’d been vying for the top spot against you for years. He was the living proof that God had favorites; blessing him with brains, beauty, and brawns. Aside from being an honor student, he played for the school varsity basketball and was a substitute player for the soccer team. This guy was annoyingly handsome as well; drop dead gorgeous with flawless, fair skin.

“He’s so hot.” Jungwoo sighs, taking a second to realize what he said and looked around to make sure only you had heard. “You know I was classmates with him freshman year, right? After gym, all the guys would shower in the locker room and I could confidently tell you that he’s packing—”

“Jungwoo!” You scolded, raising your voice just loud enough to get hushed by the librarian and everyone turns their heads towards you. You mouthed an apology and bowed your head, feeling your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. Of all the places your eyes could fall onto, it had to be on Jaehyun, who by the looks of it, was amused at what had happened. “I hate you.” You whispered to Jungwoo.

“Sorry. At least everyone’s a lot quieter than earlier.” He gestures to your notebooks, “Let’s get started. You know I can’t fail chemistry.”

Before you could open your notes, Jaehyun is looming over your table and leaning on one arm.

“Hi, Jungwoo.” He greets, flashing that infamous dimpled smile.

“The last time we spoke was during freshman year.” Jungwoo points out, unaware he sounded rude, but Jaehyun didn’t seem fazed by it. In fact, he seemed to agree with the statement.

“Do you need something?” Your peripheral vision catches some jealous frowns from the other table, “We’re kind of busy.”

“[L/N] [Y/N].” Jaehyun cocks his head to the side, “I was just wondering why you’re here during midterm season. You never study in the library during this time.”

“How do you know?” You ask, glancing at Jungwoo. He’s already ignored Jaehyun, reading through his notes.

“I like to keep my eye on the competition.”

Even this makes Jungwoo look back at him, moving his gaze back and forth between the two of you.

You stare up at him, a little dumbfounded, before your brows slowly rise up. “So you keep tabs on me?”

“I was really disappointed in myself when I was top 2, you know. But I gotta admit,” He chuckles, “It’s impressive how you were able to beat me a couple of times.”

There was something in his tone that didn’t sit right with you. It wasn’t just him being conceited about it. Is he taunting you?

“Well, it’s not a difficult feat to beat you.” You shot back.

Jaehyun smirks, clearly enjoying this squabble with you. “So you think you could beat me? There’s only two major exams left for senior year. This week’s midterm and next year’s final exams before graduation. You think you could beat me for both?”

“You can bet on it.”

“[Y/N].” Jungwoo whispers, putting a hand on your arm, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Bet? You wanna bet on it, [L/N]?” Jaehyun straightens himself up and crosses his arms over his chest, emphasizing how tight his sleeves are on his shoulders and biceps.

You could have been swooning with Jungwoo right now but there was a flame of aggression burning in your chest at the prospect of beating Jaehyun and getting him to do something for you. “We can decide what’s at stake after the exams.”

“Deal?” He puts out one hand towards you, a confident smile plastered on his face.

For the brief second you hesitated, you thought of all the possible things he’d ask for. Bragging rights, definitely. Personal assistant, maybe? He wouldn’t ask you to do something wild like run naked during one of his halftimes, would he?

“Scared?” He pulls you out of your thoughts and you huff at him, grabbing his hand and giving it a firm shake.

“Deal.”

Jaehyun grins at you, repeating the agreement, and bids both of you a good day. Once he leaves and joins the table two rows down. Did he really skip his table just to challenge you?

“Are you crazy?” Jungwoo pulls on your arm and you wince at the pain, “The only reason that guy is an honor student and plays for two sports is because he’s competitive as fuck. Don’t you remember he got benched for the consecutive fouls he got in sophomore year because we were losing by 2 points? 2 points! And it was only the first half of the game!”

You do, in fact, remember that time. You couldn’t stay long too watch the game and ran into him while you were heading out. That was the first time you ever interacted with him, as well as putting a face to the name that stole the top spot of the honor’s list. He was visibly annoyed; silently fuming in front of the vending machine and angrily jabbing his finger at the canned iced coffee button. Curiously, you approached him to ask if it was broken and he apologizes, saying he just didn’t have change on him since he was wearing his uniform. He moves away to let you use the machine and you end up buying him one before catching the bus to your old dorm.

“I remember and so what? Do you think he’s going to cheat? He’d be expelled.” You briefly glance at your notes before glaring back at him, “Do you think I can’t beat him?”

“No.” Jungwoo shakes his head, “But what if he does? We don’t know what he would do to you.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” When he opens his mouth to rebut, you quickly ask him, “What’s the atomic number of gold?”

You always entered the classroom during exams with confidence; not an ounce of panic or distress in your system, unlike the rest of the class as they scrambled to check their reviewers a few more times until the teacher came inside.

Today was a little different.

There was a heavy, upsetting feeling in your stomach all because the bet between you and Jaehyun was nagging at you in the back of your mind. You poured in a few more hours a day to review, even during your part time work at the convenience store Jungwoo’s family owns.

Speaking of Jungwoo, he looked a lot more confident than you. He was fiddling with his pencil and murmuring to himself, probably recalling the terms needed for the exam.

The teacher comes in and the whole class falls silent, sitting straight in their seats. Because you were seniors, Mr. Cho took it upon himself to give a small speech about how this exam isn’t something to worry about as he has full confidence in everyone that they’ve studied well. Of course he said this while smiling at you and you’re hoping you didn’t over-study yourself to the point of blanking out when the test papers are in front of you.

Fortunately, when he was done with his little monologue and finally passed the papers, you were able to breeze through the questionnaire once he gave the go signal to start. You were even able to go through your answers thrice until time was up. Your worries start to ebb away as the day continues on and until the last test is submitted in, you finally feel the weight over your shoulders lift.

“That was exhausting.” Jungwoo complains once he walks over to your table with his bag haphazardly hanging off his shoulder. “Why can’t there be two days for exams?”

“We had too many suspensions because of the monsoons.” You reminded him, standing up once you’ve gathered your things. “But at least it’s over. How was chem?”

He groans, hiding his face into his palms, “I messed up a few of the balancing chemical equations, but I think I did pretty well. I mean, I can only thank my wonderful tutor if I get so much as a B- on chem.”

“Aunty said she’d make yakgwa for us for finishing our midterms. Could you save some for me?”

Students were rushing out of the room, meeting their friends in the hallways to express their joy and relief that the exams were over and discussing their answers. You and Jungwoo always waited until the crowd had thinned before heading out yourselves.

“Sure. Where are you heading off to?”

Reaching your lockers, you grabbed a book and slipped it into your bag. Seeing this, Jungwoo bleats at you.

“We just finished midterms and you’re going to start studying already?”

“The next exam we have is CSAT in November. I just want to start refreshing myself since the coverage is what we’ve learned through high school. I’m not pulling an all nighter or anything.” You close your locker and adjust your bag strap on your shoulder. “Do you wanna join me?”

He makes a face at you, stepping away, “No, mom made yakgwa and I’d like to eat them as soon as possible. I’ll leave you one piece, okay?”

You swing an open palm at his arm and he flinches away, retracting his statement and promises to save you no less than 5 pieces. With that, you two part ways down the hall and you head for the library.

The silence was welcoming as you walked through the automatic sliding doors of the library. There’s a few people scattered throughout the first floor tables, maybe passing time or preparing for CSAT like you — you couldn’t possibly be the only one thinking about it, too. For a change, you head up to the second floor and find a nice corner table that was tucked away between the towering bookshelves of the periodical section.

You set your little station up, taking your pencil case, notebook, and your history book out and setting it down in front of you. Opening it up to the first page of the first chapter, you look through the words you’ve already highlighted, remembering each one while mumbling it to yourself.

“Studying already?”

You gasp, whipping your head up to the newcomer and huffing when you recognize his face. “Oh my god, Jaehyun. Can you not sneak up on me?”

He pauses for a moment before his lips grew into a little smirk, “Midterms just finished and you’re burying your nose into a textbook in the library. I feel like I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

“So I want a head start in reviewing for CSAT, what of it?” You watched him take a seat on an empty chair with disdain. “You’re here, too.”

“Yeah, because I saw you go in here after you separated with your boyfriend.”

“Jungwoo’s not my boyfriend. We’re best friends.” You quickly correct him, “So you’re stalking me?”

Jaehyun sighs, leaning his cheek on his knuckles over the table. “I’m just keeping an eye on the enemy.”

“Enemy?” You frown at him, “You think of me as your enemy?”

“Well, we’re both running to be valedictorian, aren’t we? There could be only one.”

You nod at his words, “Yeah, but I don’t think of you as the enemy. I think it’s too strong of a word.”

“Then what am I to you?”

“Some guy,” You shrug your shoulders, “Some guy who’s in my way.”

Your words make his mouth slowly drop open and you can’t figure out if he’s stunned or offended by your statement. Eventually Jaehyun scoffs in disbelief and smiles, “I’m in your way?”

“Yep.” Emphasizing your answer by popping your lips at the ‘p’, “Like you are now.”

“Am I distracting you?” He gestures to himself and items on the table.

“Obviously.”

“Good.”

You closed your eyes and heaved a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. Glancing around, you two were practically concealed in the corner and you couldn’t see where you could move to.

“Are you really here just to annoy me?”

Jaehyun purses his lips and you scold yourself for staring at them. How could a boy have such pretty lips? They look naturally pink and plump. Even Jungwoo’s pouty puckers couldn’t come close to his.

“Unless you consider me trying to get to know you a nuisance, then yes, I am most definitely here to annoy you.”

You prop your elbow up on the table and leaned your cheek on your knuckles, “Now why would you waste your time on something like that?”

He mimics your posture, except he cradles his chin on an open palm, “What makes you think it’s a waste of my time?”

The longer he stares at you, smiling softly with his dimples just peeking through his cheeks, the more your heart beats faster. This was only the third time you’ve ever interacted with him and the most you’ve exchanged words.

“Why are you flirting with me—”

“Why not—”

“ — and don’t,” You unconsciously lean away from him and cross your arms in front of you, “answer with a question.”

Jaehyun pouts, jutting his lower lip out, and it makes you wonder how they feel like; against your fingertips, your skin… your own lips.

Unconsciously, you lick your own lips as you divert your attention down to the open book.

“Hm,” He hums, “Have you thought about what you want if you win our little bet?”

“I have.” You rest your intertwined arms on the table and straighten your back, “Are you free every Friday and Saturday nights?”

There was a sleazy grin on his face that immediately tells you he’s misunderstanding your question. He chuckles, “You don’t have to win a bet if you want to go out on a date.”

You giggle, making it sound as real as you can as you fight the urge to roll your eyes, “I’m not asking for a date, Jung.”

It was oddly satisfying to see his face fall and stutter over his mistake, the tips of his ears turning a little pink.

“I just want you to take a few shifts for me at my part-time job.” You explained, “I work at a family convenience store every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, and every morning on the weekends.”

“So let’s say you do win the bet and I take over your shifts,” Jaehyun grabs your pencil case and inspects it. Seeing it in his hands makes you realize just how old and dirty it was; it’s a furry case that was a shining silver when you first got it, as if the fibers were spun out of real silver. Now it was just a light gray with its once soft fur now patchy and rough. He looks at it contemplatively, “What are you going to do on your free nights?”

“Go on dates, duh.” You roll your eyes at him, gesturing with a hand. After a few seconds of silence, you snort, “I’m kidding. I don’t go on dates — never been on one. What I’d do on my free nights is not your business.”

He looks at you like you’ve grown another head, “You’ve never been on a date?”

“N-no...” You clear your throat, “Unless you consider all the times I’ve went out on Jungwoo—”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“No!” You hissed, “I already told you that we’re only friends.”

“Then it’s not a date.” Jaehyun says in a-matter-of-fact tone, “You go on dates with people you like to get to know them more. Wait.”

His eyes squint at you, but not in a manner of judgement. It's as if he’s trying to rack his brain for the right words to say.

“You’re a virgin, then.”

You feel your heart drop to your stomach and your cheeks burst into flames. It was purely reflex, reeling your hand and swinging an open palm across his cheek before either of you could blink. The snap of your palm on his cheek left a resounding echo in the nearly empty library and thanks to his pale skin, your handprint grows bright red right away.

It takes a second, but you realize what you’ve done and you begin to pack up your things.

“No, wait,” He grabs your wrist, “I deserve that. Don’t leave yet.”

Against your better judgement, you stayed put, although keeping your book bag on your lap.

He breathes in, “I’m sorry. That was none of my business.”

“Did I,” You move your head closer to the imprint on his face, “Did I hit you too hard?”

He raises his fingers to where you’ve slapped him, doing his best not to wince, “I’ve been through worse. You know, you’re the first girl to ever slap me.”

“Are you insinuating that you’ve done things that you should have been slapped for?” You ask in an incredulous tone, “Either way I can’t say I’m proud of it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, by the way. It’s your life.” He licks his lips, “So you want to wait until you’re married?”

You shrug your shoulders, “It’s not that I want to wait until I get married… it’s just… it seems daunting. How do you even know what to do?”

He stifles a chuckle, shaking his head, “It’s human nature. It’s not something you study for.”

“As someone who takes studying seriously, I don’t think I can be put into a situation where I’m expected to do something I have no knowledge on.”

Jaehyun stares at you, considering your words as he slowly nods, “Okay… would you… like to learn?”

You cock your head, thinking you misheard him, “What?”

“I’m asking you if you want to learn… firsthand… about sex.”

When you finally wrap your head around his question after a good minute, you scowl at him, “Is this some ploy for you to get laid?”

“Don’t slap me!” He leans away when you move your arm, “You said you find sex intimidating and I’m telling you it’s not. You think you have to learn to have sex, well then I’ll—”

“Offer to teach me with your extensive knowledge and skills on it?” You deadpan, pulling your lips taut into a tight line. “What makes you think I'd say yes?”

Jaehyun raises his shoulders, “Most girls would have.”

“Oh.” You say, tasting something bitter in your mouth, “So you’ve offered these kinds of services to other people then?”

“No.” He quickly denies, “Just you. Other times, it’s the other way around and before you say anything smart, no, I don’t always say yes.”

Unconsciously, you hug your bag to your chest. You barely know this boy and he’s here offering to teach you about something you have absolutely know nothing about aside from the reproduction aspect. Are you willing to bare yourself to him? You hear the rumors in the girls’ bathroom; how they say he’s good in bed and going as far as calling him a sex god. What does that make you?

“Okay, wait,” Jaehyun starts, “I’m telling you right now so you have time to think it through. I don’t wanna force you so you can say no if you don’t want to and I’ll think of something else. If I win our little bet, let me teach you about sex.”

You internally scream at yourself for even considering his offer. You made a promise that you’ll only focus on school and won’t date to avoid distractions — but what Jaehyun was offering wasn’t even technically dating. What would your parents think about their breadwinner sleeping around with some guy she doesn’t even love? What if the school finds out? How would the girls pining after him, who are undoubtedly prettier than you, treat you, the school nerd?

“I don’t have to think about,” You held your chin up, “Because I’ll be top 1.”

“How tenacious.” He muses, leaning his cheek on his knuckles..

“I can say the same about you.” You mumbled under your breath, checking your phone for the time. “Well, you’ve successfully derailed me from studying.”

He flashes a victorious grin that both gives you butterflies in your stomach and fist clenching in annoyance. “Do you need a ride home?”

“I don’t need you to know where I live.” You snap, “And if you even try to follow me, I promise to get a restraining order against you.”

Jaehyun pouts at you and you feel them again, the butterflies wreaking havoc in your core. “Fine. But I have one more question.”

“And that is?”

“Have you had your first kiss?”

You sneer at him, a little offended, “Yes.”

“Don’t tell me it’s Jungwoo.”

“And if it was?”

He presses his lips together before sighing, “Let me be more specific with that question. Have you ever kissed anyone, not with just your lips, with your mouth — tongue and all.”

You suck your teeth and gaped at him, clearly looking like a deer caught in the headlights. When you had your first kiss with Jungwoo, it was only because both of you were in high school and have yet to kiss anyone. It also served as the reason that neither of you will ever see each other as anything more than friends.

“I’ll take your silence as a no.” Jaehyun hums, “What would you do if I’d kiss you right now?”

“I’d slap you.” You answer immediately, not batting an eyelash to prove how serious you were.

He inhales sharply, “Okay, uhm, what if I asked?”

“Do you always think with your dick?”

“That’s not a no.”

“And you didn’t deny.”

You bite on your lower lip to stop yourself from smiling, looking away when his face breaks into a wide grin. What were you doing? Get a hold of yourself. But…

“I’ll admit there are times I’ve thought with my dick. Just your average hormonal teenager.”

“And I’ll admit,” You pause, “that I can’t say I’m not completely opposed to kissing you right now. Just, you know, your average curious teenager.”

He studies your face for a moment, “Yeah?” He starts scooting closer until he’s right where the corner of the table is.

“T-this doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to sleeping with you. I’m still firm with my decision of declining your offer.” You raise your hand in front of him and he takes hold of it.

“Maybe this would sway you.”

He waits for you to lean towards him, still holding your hand. His hand was soft and warm around yours, his thumb gently moving over your knuckles like it was fragile. He looks different, almost a little serious compared to the flirty, playful persona he had a few seconds ago; his eyes looked considerably darker, watching you study his face. His lips are parted, just as pink and full like always.

You nervously glanced at the opening of the little area, worried the librarian or another student would catch you two, although it was unlikely since no one really bothered going to the periodical sections.

“Don’t worry.” He whispers, “It’s just you and me here.”

“You’re not going to tell others, are you?”

With his free hand, he tucks your hair behind your ear. It was cliche and you would have pulled away or slapped his hand off, but all you could feel were the butterflies fluttering in your stomach for the third time in the past hour.

“I won’t. Whatever is going to happen stays here between the periodical section shelves.” His eyes shift down to your lips and you gulp when his tongue darts out between his.

“I… don’t know…” You’re losing your ability to speak, tuning everything out and focusing on him.

“It’s okay just follow my lead.” He guides you to lean forward, inclining your body over the table corner. His face was a few inches away, with his breath ghosting over your philtrum, but he doesn’t kiss you yet, waiting for your go signal.

When you fervently nod, he closes the gap between your faces. Just as you thought, he had soft lips; like the petals inside of a rosebud. Cupping your face, he runs his thumb over your cheekbones while he tilts his head to the side for better access. You gasp at the sensation of his tongue skimming along your bottom lip and he uses this as a chance to slip the muscle into your mouth.

It felt foreign, but also oddly nice. He tastes like bitter coffee and sweet mint combined. Without meaning to, you sucked his tongue and he let out a soft groan. Whenever you overhear someone saying how hot it is for a boy to moan, you never understood them until this moment and you want to hear more of it.

You push yourself closer to him, moving your tongue against his and fighting for dominance. Your head was spinning as if he was some hard liquor and you’re getting drunk off of him. When you feel his hand disappear from your cheek and find its way by your chest, inching towards your back, you panic and pull away.

He looks surprised and a little disappointed, nonetheless he doesn’t say anything and watches you. You’re breathless, face hot and flustered, unable to meet his gaze.

“I…” You swallowed, still tasting him on your tongue, “I need to go.”

“I…” Jaehyun nods, “Yeah, okay. Are you sure you don’t need a ride?”

“Yeah, thanks anyways…” Your hand twitches and it was only then both of you realize you were still holding hands. You retract yours first, using it to grab your bag by the strap and shrugging it over your shoulder. “Uhm, bye.”

“Y-yeah, uh, take care.” Jaehyun stays glued to his seat as you scurry off away from him. He stares back at the hand that held yours, discerning how cold it was now that you were gone. He groans, lurching forward to rest his head on his folded arms as he wills his little problem away. You looked so pure and innocent, cheeks bright pink and glowing, looking absolutely breathless from the kiss.

Meanwhile as you hurriedly walk out of the library, you swipe your tongue over your lips, still tasting the mix of coffee and mint. That was your first real kiss. Jung Jaehyun gave you your first real kiss - no, you had your first makeout session with him. You could still feel your cheeks burning at the thought, but you’re hoping it’s just your annoyance at him because he was right.

You really were considering his offer.

“Why are you so nervous?” Jungwoo grabs hold of your hand and pulls your fingernails away from your teeth. “I’m sure you’re number 1. And if Jaehyun is, then he couldn’t have betted on something bad, right? He doesn’t seem like the type.”

It’s been more than a week since the exams and the… event… at the library. It took you a day or two to go back and Jaehyun, thankfully, didn’t turn up. You didn’t tell a single soul, not even Jungwoo, who you’ve been confiding every dark secret you had to.

You both woke up early to see the results posted on the schoolyard before the other students flocked the bulletin board and it’ll be a battlefield for a chance to read the results up close.

Walking up the rickety bulletin board, you hold your breath before approaching the list for seniors on the left. You could hear your own heart beat hammering in your chest.

“Hey! I’m 53! Dang, that’s 3 spots from being top 50.” Jungwoo points at his name on the middle section of the board. “Ha! Nakamoto Yuta is 51! I just need to surpass him and these other two for the finals. How about you?”

His face drops when he sees you staring at him, crestfallen. It wasn’t hard to spot your name; there were only two spots possible for you and this time it just had to be below Jung Jaehyun’s. Your mouth feels dry as you respond to him, “I’m second…”

“Oh, [Y/N].” He comforts, pulling you into a hug. “Maybe he’ll ask for something petty?”

“Jungwoo, there’s something I need to tell you. Can we go to your club room?” You look back at the school entrance, seeing a few more students come in. Jaehyun was the few students who already had their license so it should be easy to know if he was arriving or already here.

Jungwoo was part of the board games club. You’ve sat in a few times during their club meetings since they only had a few members and it was always fun playing board games that aren’t monopoly or snakes and ladders. Their club room was one of the extra rooms under the library’s second floor that was only accessible outside, beside the anime club, and was very secluded.

He digs his fingers inside a flower pot on the window sill and fishes out a key that he dusts off before unlocking the door. You enter first while he puts the key back into the soil of the poor, harassed petunia plant.

“Jaehyun said he wants to teach me about sex.” You blurt out once Jungwoo closes the door behind him. His eyes go wide and he pretends to clean his ears.

“Come again?”

“Remember how I went to the library after midterms? He followed me there and we started talking and he kept asking these questions and — and it somehow ended up with him figuring out that I was virgin and I slapped him and then he said if he wins the bet, he’d want to teach me about sex but if I don’t want to then I can say no and he’ll think of something else.” You inhaled deeply once you let it all out like vomit.

Your best friend stares at you, visibly confused, “Wait, that’s a lot to take in… you slapped him and then he offers to teach you sex? And if you can decline it, then why don’t you just say no?”

“We kissed.”

“You what?!” Jungwoo screeches, “You kissed him and you didn’t tell me?!”

“I’m sorry! It’s just,” You shrug your shoulders before defensively crossing your arms in front of you, “you know me, Woo. I’ve never kissed — made out — with anyone before and…”

“You want more?” He finishes for you and you slump down the nearest chair.

Exasperated, you stared up at him, “Tell me I shouldn’t say yes to his offer.”

“I think you should say yes to his offer.”

You sighed in relief, grateful you had someone like him to help you — wait a minute.

“What?!”

He holds his hands up in front of him as you jumped up from your seat, “I mean, if Jung Jaehyun had offered to teach me sex, then I’d definitely say yes. Is it a friends with benefits type of deal?”

“We’re hardly friends. If I say yes, then we’re fuck buddies.” You sit back down and look at the shelves where they kept the board games. “I need time to think about it. Please help me avoid him.”

“[Y/N]...”

You put your hands to your face, “I swear I’m not running away from it. A deal is a deal. I just need a little more time to think about it.”

Out of habit, you bite on your thumb and space out. You’ll handle this situation like how you handle every decision: weigh out the pros and cons.

Pros: you’ll learn something you’ve been very curious about and your “teacher” is quite skilled according to the female populace, so you’re in good hands. It’s not a merit you want, but you can say you’ve slept with the ever popular heartthrob, Jung Jaehyun.

Cons: you could get pregnant regardless of the use of contraception and you’re prone to sexually transmitted diseases. You could get possibly addicted to it to the point it would distract you from school and ruin your chance to get your scholarship.

Where does falling in love with Jaehyun fall under?

You mentally slap yourself; no one is falling in love in this predicament.

The sound of the door opening pulls you out of your thoughts and your eyes meet with sophomore member of the board games club, Mark Lee.

“Oh! No wonder the door is open. What are you two doing here?” He nods at the two of you and you respond with a smile.

“Just needed a private place to talk.” You explain, catching Jungwoo’s gaze. “And you?”

“Oh,” Mark sheepishly scratches the back of his neck, “I was gonna skip my first class to study for recitation on my second one.”

Jungwoo puts a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry we all have days for that — unless you’re [Y/N].”

“Hey! I saw that you were top 2! Congrats!” He claps his hands, but eventually stops when he senses neither of you were in a celebratory mood. “Is… something wrong?”

“I was just really… betting on getting top 1. No big deal.” You wave a hand in front of you, “It’s not like being second affects my academic standing.”

“Well, if you won’t celebrate that, then let’s celebrate my birthday! I’m having a party at my place this weekend. Nothing big, just the club and a few other people.” He rubs his hands together, “You don’t even have to give me a gift. Your presence is a gift—”

Mark’s mouth forms into an ‘o’ and he snaps his fingers, “Your presence is a present!”

Maybe Jungwoo laughed out of pity while the younger nearly pissed himself in a fit of giggles, but your mind is thinking about the bet again. What were you going to tell Jaehyun?

By some miracle, Jaehyun didn’t hunt you down for your answer and you wouldn’t say you avoided him since you two never really crossed paths before. Jungwoo’s mom let you and Jungwoo off for your Saturday shifts for Mark’s party and even though he said not to get him anything, you and Jungwoo still got him something.

It was a casual gathering so you didn’t feel the need to get dressed up, however you do enjoy wearing light dresses since it was summer season, throwing a cardigan over your shoulders when the night air gets too cold on the way home. You might be a nerd, but like any other girl, you liked to put on makeup when you felt like it, but today you simply wore strawberry-flavored lip balm.

The two of you were at Mark’s place a little after six and the birthday boy opens the door with a huge grin as you both greet him.

“You’re both here! Come in!” He ushers, stepping to the side. When Jungwoo hands him your gift, he clicks his tongue, “Ay, I said you didn’t have to.”

“We can serve this, you know.” You quip and Mark cocks his head, eyes growing wide when Jungwoo finally drops the gift into his hands.

“Yo! Is this what I think it is?” He exclaims, ripping the lid of the box off to reveal a watermelon.

You’ve never seen anyone get so excited over watermelon before — but maybe that’s what makes Mark loveable. You open your arms to him for a hug and once he returns the gesture, your eyes go down the hallway and see the one person you didn’t expect to see here.

“Uhm,” You push Mark off a little hastily, “I-is that Jaehyun?”

Mark glances back to see the boy in question helping himself to the drinks on the kitchen island, “Yeah. He was my student facilitator during freshman orientation. Do you wanna meet him?”

You scowled, “Oh, we know each other. I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“He’s cool.” Mark shrugs, “Well, let’s go in! I’ll figure how to slice this up.”

“Let me. We don’t want the birthday boy to lose a finger during his birthday, now do we?” You nervously laugh, taking the large fruit away from him. You shot a nervous glance at Jungwoo and it was all he needed to know that you were finally going to talk to Jaehyun.

While Mark and Jungwoo head into the living room, where everyone was gathered, you walk to the kitchen just as Jaehyun was about to return to where everybody was. He stops in his tracks, clearly surprised to see you.

“[Y/N]?”

Hugging the melon to your stomach, hoping it crushes the butterflies before they go wild, you nod, “Hi.”

He was wearing a plain black shirt and some ripped skinny jeans; something so simple but it looked like he walked right out of a photoshoot.

“I didn’t know you know you were friends with Mark.”

“I said the same thing about you to him.” You look around the kitchen for the knives.

His eyes drag down your body and you suddenly feel self-conscious, “What are you holding?”

Finally spotting the knife rack, you smile at him, “Mark’s birthday gift.”

Walking over to the counter, you pick a knife and a chopping board before removing the watermelon from the box.

“Ah, that’s a smart gift.” He comments, appearing beside you all of a sudden that you flinch as you look up at him, “I’ve never seen anyone love watermelon so much.”

“It’s cute.” You shrugged, starting to slice the fruit up. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Hm?”

“Congratulations.” You peek up at him, “Congrats on being top 1… and winning the bet. I’m surprised you didn’t hunt me down.”

Jaehyun leans on the counter and watches you make delicate movements with the knife, “I figured you needed more time to think about it.”

“Yeah, I did.” You quietly admit, putting the knife down and starting to look for a plate to serve it in.

“So?”

Licking your lips, you swallowed, “Yes.”

“What’s your answer?” He asks, not understanding you had already given him an answer.

You spin in your heels and cross your arms, a little annoyed, “That was my answer. Yes.”

You curse yourself for melting at the sight of his lips quirking upwards and eventually growing into a huge grin.

“Really?”

“Do you want me to take it back?”

“No!” He puts a hand out, “I just can’t believe you said yes. Well, okay then. When do you want to start?”

You didn’t think this far ahead. “I have work Friday nights, weekend mornings, 6-12 noon, and Saturday graveyard shifts.”

He frowns, “You have work later?”

“No, someone filled in for me since I said I’d have a party to attend to.” You hesitated; should you tell him that you live with Jungwoo and work at his family’s convenience store? “I think they expected me to get drunk, but I don’t really drink.”

“What time do you end on Fridays?”

“10pm.”

Jaehyun purses his lips and you realize it’s a habit he makes when he’s thinking. “Then Mondays through Thursdays, after school. Whichever day you want. Basketball training doesn’t resume until next month.”

“Okay.” You slowly say, “Uhm… where?”

He blinks at you, “We can’t do it at your place? Don’t you dorm alone?”

“No!” You vehemently shake your head, “N-no, I’m… renting a room at… Jungwoo’s.”

“You live with him? Is that even allowed?”

“It’s a gray area. Don’t tell anyone.” You instinctively reach out and hold on his arm, giving it a soft squeeze. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.” He licks his lips, visibly having an internal debate within himself. “I guess we can do it at my place. My dad is abroad at the moment and my mom works late shifts.”

“Alright.”

Jaehyun turns around and finds two plates for the watermelon slices, arranging the fruit for you. “Great. So—”

“Wait.” You grab his wrist, “Can we keep this a secret?”

He twists his hand so he’s holding yours, “Of course. Whatever you want.” He brings your hand up to his lips and kisses it.

“This is just a,” You stare at the hand holding yours, “physical relationship, right? I mean, how long does it take for someone to learn sex.”

“Oh, baby.” He chuckles, low and slow, “You can’t learn a whole new world in a few nights. You keep learning new things every time. I’ll teach you the basics up until you have your sexual awakening.”

“And if I never have my sexual awakening?”

He leans closer, just like in the library, and his breath is just ghosting over your lips. He lets go of your hand to tip your chin upwards to him, “Then we keep trying until you do or you find someone else, but that’s a blow to my ego.”

“The next person I should be sleeping with is my boyfriend.” You inch away from him and he reluctantly pulls back from you while you pick up one of the plates, “If I ever get one.”

Jaehyun mimics you, picking up a plate and following you out of the kitchen, but stops you before you pass through the door frame. “Let’s be friends, alright? I don’t like pretending not to know someone I’ll be getting intimate with. You won’t either; I’d like to see you try to explain the sexual tension.”

“Okay.” You enunciate each syllable. “Friends, then.”

He gives you a swoon-worthy smile and you try to leave before doing so, but he stops you again. “By the way, you look really good tonight.”

You roll your eyes, the gesture making him chuckle, and continue to head into the living room, “You’re not so bad yourself.”

The rest of night plays out like how it always does when you’re at a party; you and Jungwoo are stuck by the hip, the board game club members make petty problems with each other bigger than they really are and settle it through — you guessed it — board games, non-club members were taught new board games, and it wouldn’t be a birthday party without cake — being smashed into Mark’s face.

It was a fun night. You almost forgot that you made an agreement with one of the attendees to teach you about intercourse, but you can’t deny Jaehyun had made things a lot more interesting during the evening. You caught him multiple times watching you, especially during your little victories in board games, and he’d either give you a little smile or boldly wink at you. You’re thankful no one caught you getting flustered over it, but it took you some time to calm your heartbeat.

Today was the day. You’re embarrassed about actually preparing yourself today ever since Jaehyun sent you a text the day after you exchanged numbers at Mark’s party. You woke up an hour earlier to exfoliate your body and wore the best undergarments you owned. You didn’t want to try too hard that it’ll be too obvious since you still had school.

You told Jungwoo’s mom that you’ll be home later to tutor a classmate and she didn’t find anything suspicious; you’re just hoping she’ll relay the message to your mom whenever she calls to check up on you.

Because you didn’t want anybody in school to know you were going home with Jaehyun, you had him pick you up three blocks away from the school district.

“My mom should probably be gone by now.” Jaehyun checks the watch on his wrist briefly before returning his attention to the road, “Do you wanna eat first?”

“No, I feel like throwing up.” You confessed, holding onto the hem of your school skirt.

“You know you can back out, right?” He shoots you a sympathetic smile, “I don’t wanna force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I know. I’m just nervous.”

“I’m not going to jump you the second we get inside. We’ll take it slowly — as slow as you want and need. We don’t even have to go all the way tonight.”

This makes you smile at him. For someone audacious enough to offer sex, one would assume he’d be a jerk, but he’s truly a sweetheart. It was wrong of you in the first place to think he was the stereotypical mean jock in a high school food chain.

“Oh, shit.” He curses under his breath, slowing the car down to a full stop in front of a simple two-story home.

Seeing that he lived in a house in Seoul was enough to tell you that he comes from a rich family, which you should have guessed already since he mentioned his father working abroad. It made you feel uneasy though, knowing you two are from completely different backgrounds.

“My mom’s still home.” Jaehyun checks his watch again, “It’s past 6, she’s late.”

Following his gaze, you see another car in the garage — another indicator of their wealth. 2 cars? Geez.

“The gates are open. She must have forgotten something?”

He doesn’t say anything, driving past the gate and parking it beside the other car. As you both unclipped your seatbelts, you see a door open in your peripheral vision and make eye contact with a young woman.

She looks a little frazzled, but more surprised to see you in the front seat of her son’s car. Getting out of the car, you bowed at her with a smile.

“Jaehyun, I didn’t know you were having someone over. Hello!” She waves at you.

“Hello.” You meekly reply, “I’m [Y/N].”

“What a beautiful name. Welcome! Had I known you were coming, I’d tidy things up more inside and made more dinner.” She frowns, putting a hand on her cheek, “Jaehyun, if the food isn’t enough you can always cook for her, yes? I don’t like having house guests being hungry.”

“I know, mom, I will. Aren’t you late for work?” He gripes, kicking the floor like a child.

She tuts at him, “I thought I left the oven on so I had to turn back around. Don’t worry about me. What are you two going to do?”

Her eyes are looking straight at yours and you answer in the steadiest voice, “Well, Jaehyun and I are the top two students and our teachers asked us to work together to help create reviewers for the upcoming CSAT.”

Jaehyun’s mom gasps, “Already reviewing for CSAT?”

“Well, it would take some time before we figure out the topics we need to focus on, compile everything, have it approved,” Jaehyun drawls, glancing at you, “Mom, aren’t you running late?”

She wags a finger at him, returning her attention to you. “Top 2, you say? My, then you’ve quite got a brain on you. A beautiful face and a beautiful brain; your parents must be so proud of you.”

“Thank you.” You feel your face grow warm, not used to compliments at all. “But I hope you don’t take offense to this, Mrs. Jung, but I have every intention of beating Jaehyun and claim top 1.”

This makes her laugh, “A feisty one! Well in case you do, my Jaehyunnie has his momma to comfort him.”

“Mom.” Jaehyun strains, pointedly looking at her.

“Remember this: he blushes with his ears.” She winks at you and this makes him physically usher her to her car. She waves at you, “It was nice meeting you, [Y/N]! Come by again soon! Make sure you bring her home, Jaehyun.”

“Okay, Mrs. Jung.” You wave back, stifling your giggle as Jaehyun continues to hassle her into her car, but not before she demands to kiss him on his cheek.

When she was finally coerced into leaving and left you two alone, Jaehyun lets you into the house.

“I’m sorry about my mom.” He sighs, removing his shoes and handing you spare house slippers.

“It’s fine. I’m not as nervous as I was on the way here.” You wear the slippers he hands you and put your shoes beside his on the mat. You look around and spot some picture frames on the wall, approaching one family photo. “You’re an only child?”

He stands beside you, “Yeah. That explains why my parents and I act like best friends.”

“Aw,” You coo, moving to a baby picture, “Baby Jaehyunnie is so cute.”

“Okay,” He puts a hand on your shoulder and gently pulls you away from the wall, “That’s enough. Let’s go up to my room.”

On the way up to the second floor, you start to tense up; his arm was still around you like he was a personal escort to your deflowering. From the stairs, his room was the second door to the right.

It was a lot cleaner than you expected, although it had trophies and certificates that proved his achievements growing up. It reminds you of the living room back at home; a shelf full of awards for spelling bees, best in subjects, and honor certificates. You remember the pride and joy in your parents’ eyes every time they put a new one up.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?” Jaehyun asks, closing the door behind him.

“I’m good.” You walk over to his bed and sit down on the edge, looking everywhere but him. He had a fancy looking computer set-up in the corner of the room by another door that probably leads to his bathroom. “So… what now?”

The space on the bed beside yours dips, “Let’s get you in the mood first. Look at me.” His hand falls on your thigh; most of it still over your skirt but his fingertips touch your skin.

You look down at his hand before meeting his piercing gaze, without meaning to, you lean away from him.

His expression immediately softens, “I’m gonna remind you that you can still back out. I don’t want to force you into doing something you’re not sure about.”

“How do I get into... the mood?”

“Remember how we kissed in the library?” Jaehyun says, “Let’s do that again. This time, I’m gonna touch your body, alright? There’s no table between us now. You can touch me, too.”

Your mouth goes dry at the memory. Ever since you went back to that area in the library, you can’t help but think about kissing him. It makes your face burn, heart rate pick up, and core clench. “Okay.”

His other hand tips your chin upward to make you face him, “You’re so cute, you know? So innocent like a little kitty.”

He kisses you all of a sudden, just pressing his lips over yours. The fingers on your chin move to tuck your hair back behind your ear just like last time and he whispers, “I haven’t stopped thinking about our kiss. If you only knew how excited I am that I get to kiss you again… kiss you and more.”

And more.

There it is again, the action your body never made before; your vagina clenching at his words. Your breath hitches as he slowly moves forward, capturing your lips once more. Just like before, he tastes like coffee and mint. The kiss is gentle and calm, almost tentative, like he’s giving you a chance to stop him. You bring your hands up to his chest and nape, threading your fingers on his soft, thick hair. And when you feel his tongue glide along your lips, you part your lips for him and everything just clicked.

The kiss grew carnal; desperate for more. His hands have moved to hold your midriff, thumbs just barely caressing the bottom of your breasts. It felt too hot — literally. You wanted to take your clothes off, but you don’t know how to feel about him seeing you naked, which was a dumb thought since you had to be naked to have sex.

“I wanted to kiss you so badly at Mark’s party.” He confesses when he pulls away to catch his breath, panting over your mouth, “If you’d have let me, I would’ve taken you upstairs and fucked you there.”

Fucked. You’ve only ever used the word to curse so hearing it from him as something he’d do to you sounds like it would hurt.

“But I want to take my time with you,” He kisses the corner of your lips, trailing down your jaw until he settles on a spot on your neck that simultaneously tickles yet you crave for more, “I’ll show you a whole new world you’ve been missing out on.”

You slide your arm around him, instinctively pulling him closer to you as he finds a new patch of skin on your neck to kiss. You couldn’t help but moan when you feel his teeth lightly biting your flesh.

“You even sound cute.” He muses, working his lips back up your face. “This is lesson number one: foreplay. It can stretch on for hours, but this helps make penetration a lot easier.”

Damn. Penetration is such an ugly word, but the way he said it made it sound hot. When a hand comes over your breast, your entire body freezes and he stops.

“Is this too fast for you?”

“N-no, I’m just not used to it.” You take a deep breath, “Please keep going.”

Jaehyun smiles, “You’re liking it so far?”

You nod, bashfully bowing your head in embarrassment. Other girls must be throwing themselves at him at this moment.

“Can you learn with your head down?” He playfully scolds, “Keep your eyes on me.”

He kisses you again, slipping his tongue into your mouth as his hand tenderly squeezes your chest. He starts to nudge you to fall back against his bed and he tugs your shirt out from being tucked into your skirt to sneak his under. His fingers leave a hot trail in their wake, burning your skin the most satisfying way, reaching for its previous purchase but hindered by the tightness of your school blouse.

He pulls away once more and you whine, chasing after his lips. With a little chuckle, he grants you a quick peck. “Can I take your clothes off or do you want to do it yourself?”

“I’ll do it.” You start to pop the buttons of your shirt when you hesitated, “Wait, what do you prefer?”

“Don’t think about it; this is about you.”

“No, this is about you teaching me about sex and among the few things I know about sex is that it’s all about making each other feel good. So this is about you, too.”

Jaehyun stares at you, considering your words and smiles to himself, “Alright. We can do it together. Unbutton my shirt for me.”

He reaches for the button beneath the last one you had unbuttoned and continues down the line, licking his lips as more of your skin is exposed. Meanwhile, you shakily began to unbutton his.

Sensing your nervousness, Jaehyun ducks his head back to your neck to kiss it. It makes you sigh, losing your grip on the button you’ve working on and when you try to blindly find it, your fingers find the smooth, hard muscle of his chest instead.

He momentarily pulls away to push your blouse off your shoulders, kissing each one before moving to your collarbones. You feel your face heat up as you completely shrug your shirt off and throw it by your feet. His face is right above your chest, kissing down your sternum and just over the swell of your breast.

He tugs on your skirt’s zipper as he does this, jerking the flimsy material off your hips once you lifted yourself up off the bed to help him. He stands up in front of you, pushing you back until you’re lying down on the bed.

“It feels like an honor to see you like this.” He finishes popping the buttons you failed to remove, shrugging the material off his upper body and leaving you to ogle his body. It’s no surprise he’d have such a good physique from all the sports he does.

“Oh, you have an outie.” You pointed out, biting back a giggle. “That’s cute.”

Jaehyun looks down with a slight pout and covers his belly button, “Is that what you’re really looking at?”

“My baby brother has one and it reminded me of him.” You shake your head, almost forgetting you’re nearly naked in front of him, “Sorry.”

He hooks one finger each on your socks and drags them down your legs until they’re completely off and joining the rest of your uniform on the floor. He climbs onto the bed and hovers over you, watching your reaction as he cups your midriff and raises it up to one of your breasts.

His hand was warm and heavy, gently kneading your breast, and focusing his thumb over your nipple. Straddling your hips, he gives your neglected breast the same treatment with his other hand. You’ve never even touched yourself like this, not even when you lather soap on your body, and it felt so good.

“Let’s take this off of you, hm?” He reaches between your back and the mattress, unhooking your bra faster than you could have. Once he slips the straps off your arms, you instinctively cover yourself and he chuckles, “Can I see them please?”

It annoyed you that he spoke to you like a child, but you relent and drop your arms to your side, looking away from him.

“Ah, beautiful.” He murmurs, putting his hands back over each of your breasts. Without warning, he bends down and licks your nipple causing you to gasp and grab his shoulders. He doesn’t say anything, continuing to lick and suck one nipple and rub his thumb over the other until they’ve both hardened and pebbled. He switches between them for a while until he pulls back, satisfied after seeing your flustered face. “Did you like that?”

“It felt weird at first,” You admitted, “But I liked it.”

“That’s good.” He kisses your forehead and moves so he was practically lying beside you, “So you like having your boobs played with.”

You don’t know how to respond to that, but you don’t have to because he kisses you again. A little more confident, you tried to slip your tongue into his mouth and you’re met with a happy, surprised hum. He lets you take over this kiss, welcoming your tongue.

“You’re getting good at kissing.” He comments as soon as you two break for breath of air.

“It’s addicting.”

“You’re addicting.” Jaehyun counters, pressing his lips on your jaw. “So sweet.”

His hand soothingly rubs your side; up and down in a lazy manner while locking lips with you again. He then brings his hand between your legs, making you flinch and gasp into his mouth. Instead of asking if it was okay first, he decides to continue his action, moving three fingers over your panties.

You want to shut your legs close, but his thigh is holding one of them down.

“Do you want me to stop?” He asks when you cover his hand with your own.

“N-no, not really.” You hide your face in the crook of his neck as you press his hand over your clothed mound. “Keep going.”

“Do you like this more than playing with your boobs?”

“I think so.”

Jaehyun stops to slip his hand into your panties and you choke down a moan. “You can be as loud as you want. Let me hear you so I know you feel good.”

His fingers slide along your labia, petting you like a kitten. You’ve never even masturbated before yet here you are having someone else’s fingers touch and please you.

“Ah, there it is.” He chuckles into your ear, making you look up at him, “You’re getting wet.”

“Don’t tell me that!” You scold, shying away from him, but he quickly maneuvers his body so he’s back on top of you.

He starts to push a single finger inside of you, observing the way your mouth drops open at the new sensation. You’re wrapping quite nicely around his finger, sucking the digit in bit by bit the more you clenched your walls. When he starts to move it in and out of you, you whimper, holding him by his shoulders again.

“Does it hurt?”

You shake your head. It didn’t hurt, but it just felt too odd and new for you to like it just yet.

Jaehyun continues his action a little longer until you start getting used to it, even when he adds another finger. This was your first taste of pure, unadulterated sexual pleasure. It was just as addicting as kissing him and the longer he does it the more your toes curl.

You let out a loud moan, a sound neither of you expected. Fueled by your moan, Jaehyun pumps his fingers into you faster. A hybrid of moan and cry falls from your lips as a surge of pleasure pulsates through your veins. You shut your eyes and hold onto his bulging arm for support, curling your upper body towards him. You could hear the wet squelch as he fingered you.

There was something tightening in the pit of your stomach and you can’t decipher if it was good or not, but when Jaehyun removes his hand from your underwear and the feeling disappears, you want to cry.

“Why’d you stop?” You whine, pulling his hand back.

“I don’t want you to come yet. I don’t think it’s best for you to be too sensitive on your first time.” He kisses your forehead before sitting up to put the two fingers he had in you into his mouth. He moans a little, “Sweet.”

He starts to take your underwear off, rolling it off your hips down to your ankles. He chuckles at your attempt to squeeze your thighs together and hide your pussy from him.

“D-do you have a condom?” You stutter, trying to stall him.

“I do. I always have one.” He nods at the drawer by his bed. “But I wasn’t going to do that yet.”

He massages your thighs, silently coaxing you to open your legs for him. Still covering yourself, you obediently part your legs and he makes himself comfortable between them with his face right by your core.

“This is my favorite kind of foreplay. If you don’t mind, I’d like to show it to you.” He kisses your knuckles, “There’s nothing to be shy about, [Y/N].”

You let him pry your fingers off your, watching his eyes light up once they lay their sights on your pussy as if they had discovered gold. With two fingers, he spreads your labia apart and you hold your breath as he veers forward to latch his mouth onto you. You gasp, bucking your hip upward at the sensation of something wet and warm against such a private part.

You could feel his tongue slithering and teeth teasingly nibbling at your lower lips. Again, it felt so foreign and unusual, but so, so, so good. You moaned out his name and he groaned in response, the vibration adding fire to the burning pleasure he’s building up in you.

Like last time, when you start to feel that knot in your stomach, Jaehyun pulls away and you whimper in frustration.

He stands up to walk over to the drawer, fetching the condom you requested for and returns to the foot of the bed. “Scoot up a little.”

After doing so, you watch as he unzips his pants, letting it fall to the floor with his boxers.

“That’s not gonna fit.” You immediately fold your legs close and sit up. Are penises supposed to be this big? It’s entire length is pink and veiny, while the tip was a bit more red. It bobbed up and down as he clambered onto the bed, pointing at you as if it knew you were its prey. Gulping, you repeat, “That’s not gonna fit. I can’t do this.”

“It will. You’ll stretch around it. Give me your hand.” He kneels in front of you, knees apart.

You give your hand to him and he brings it around his cock. It was a lot warmer than his hand. You wrap your fingers around it a tad tighter and he moans, biting his lip. Meekly, you ask, “Do you like that?”

“Sorta. Here.” He moves your hand over his length, all the way to the tip and back to the base. “I like it better this way.”

“Like this?” You followed what he showed you, twisting your wrist a bit.

“Yes, fuck, like that.” Jaehyun closes his eyes, letting you take over. “Just like that.”

With his eyes closed, you feel a little more comfortable studying his body up close. He has such pretty skin, fair and flawless. His muscles were beautifully defined, rippling with every movement, especially the muscles on his abdomen as they flexed with each sharp breath he takes. Your attention is brought to cock in your hand after feeling it twitch a couple of times. The tip started to glisten under the lights of his room. You watched in amazement as a small, translucent white substance emerges from the tiny opening on the top, something akin to a pearl, and it dribbles down to your fingers.

He had your mouth on your genitals and you liked it. Will he like it if you do the same?

You bend forward to taste the thick liquid on the tip of his cock. It was incredibly salty and just as hot as his length as you continued to work your fist around him. Wanting to taste more of him, you bring your lips over his tip.

“What the fuck?!” He exclaims, hands flying to your shoulders, and you immediately pull away.

“I’m sorry.” You retract your hand away from his body.

“No! No, you just caught me off guard.” Jaehyun takes hold of your hands and smirks, “I didn’t expect you to blow me.”

You look away, flustered at his expression, “I was curious.”

“It’s okay. God, you’re so cute.” He cups your cheeks and kisses you, “I’ll teach you some other day, okay? I don’t think I’ll last a second if you use your pretty little mouth on me.”

“O-okay.”

“Now watch, this is how you put a condom on.” He takes the foil square and rips it open. He shows you the condom, pushing the center out a bit to pinch the end, and places the rubber ring on the tip of his cock. He rolls it down about a quarter way until he stops and grabs your hand, “Finish putting it on for me.”

Without another word, you obey him, pushing the ring down until his cock is completely sheathed with minor difficulty.

“Lie down.”

Once again, you silently obey him, maintaining eye contact with him. He adjusts your position in front of him by grabbing your hips and parting your legs to kneel between them. He runs his hands over your thighs, “Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

“I need you to be sure.” He leans down to kiss your belly. “I’m not going to continue if you’re not a hundred percent sure.”

“I am.” You nod, “I’m sure.”

He kisses up to your neck, licking the expanse of skin. “This is going to hurt, okay? You just have to relax. The more you tense up, the more it’ll be difficult for both of us, and the more it’ll hurt for you. Just relax.”

“Okay.”

Jaehyun kisses your lips, flicking his tongue into your mouth for a brief moment. He tasted a little different now. Was it from him giving you oral? Were you tasting yourself on him?

“If the pain is too much, just tell me and I’ll stop.” He sits back up, holding his cock in his hand and positioning it right in front of your entrance. He waits for a while, moving a fist over his length as he studies your face. “I’ll ask you once more, [Y/N]. Do you really want to do this? Not because of the bet, but because you really want to?”

“Yes. I do.” You answer in a firm voice. When you give him a little nod, he runs the tip of his cock over your entrance a few times until he pushes into you.

It definitely hurt. It was like you were trying to put something where it didn’t belong. Although it was bearable, your body’s instinct was to stop it.

“Fuck, [Y/N], baby, please relax, you’re squeezing me.” He grips your thighs with a sense of urgency, “Relax, baby.”

You’re breathing heavily, trying to do as he says. You look down between your bodies and you feel your eyes well up with tears when you see he’s barely halfway in. You don’t know how but you try to accommodate his girth.

When he’s pushed the remaining inches inside you, you choke down a sob. It hurt a lot. You feel stretched out and full; unable to open your eyes as you absorb the pain. But underneath it all, you can’t deny that it felt good in a way.

“Are you okay? Shit,” He starts to pull out and you yelp.

“No! No! Don’t move. Please don’t move. Just,” You hold onto his shoulders, sniffing, “Let me get used to it. You’re… big.”

Jaehyun chuckles, “At least it fits.”

“Barely.” You retort. As you blink, the tears drip from the corner of your eyes. They left a cool trail over your burning face. He kisses each one, lapping the tears up with his tongue.

“Tell me when it’s okay to move, alright? Just don’t… squeeze me too hard or else I’ll come before I get to make you come.” He sees you pout as you move your head to acknowledge him and he can’t help himself but kiss you again.

It helps distract you from the subsiding pain. You try to think of other things as well. Is he always this sweet to the other girls he sleeps with? You hope your first boyfriend would be like him.

A surprised moan escapes you after you try to pull him closer to you and your hips move against his. For a moment, you even forgot he was inside you. He has a wide grin on his face, clearly pleased at hearing this. With a hold on your hips, he slowly pulls out of you and just before the tip is out, he pushes back in. He observes your reaction, slowly gaining speed as your mouth loses its ability to close and is perpetually agape, letting a string of whimpers and mewls escape you.

“Lesson 2 is all about positions, baby.” Jaehyun starts, falling forward and uses one arm to hold himself up above you, “This is the most basic one: missionary. Guy on top.”

You can’t even process his words, mind clouded with lust as your body experiences something it never has before. It felt good… amazing — you couldn’t even explain it.

“How are you feeling, [Y/N]?”

“So,” You gasped, “Good.”

“Yeah?” He moves the hand on your hip up to your chest, giving one of them a hard squeeze. “You feel really good; nice and tight.”

He gives a particularly hard thrust and you gasped, holding onto his shoulders for purchase. “I’m going to go a little faster. Tell me if it’s too much and I’ll slow down.”

Right as he said it, his thrusts grew faster and faster. His movements shook the bed, the headboard bumping into the wall. Your body was burning hot, like he was pumping lava right inside your body, filling you up until you’re melting in his hold.

“Jaehyun.” You moan, arching your back off the mattress. You don’t even know why you’re calling out to him. You just want to chant his name, so you did.

“God, I wish you could see yourself, baby. You’re taking me so well for your first time. Does it still hurt?”

“No.” You mewl, “I feel really good.”

“You’re so pure, [Y/N]. Fucking precious. Now look at you, enjoying your first time at sex. Think of all the other things I can teach you; things that’ll corrupt your innocent little mind.”

You whimper at his words. He sounds like he’s degrading you but why does it sound so hot? You voluntarily clench around him and earn a guttural moan from him.

“And you’re fucking enjoying it, aren’t you?” Jaehyun brings a hand down between you and massages your clit. “Like a fallen angel.”

There it was again; that tightening feeling in the pit of your stomach. You were afraid he’ll notice like the last two times and he’ll stop, but he doesn’t. His hips start to move frantically, gyrating against yours as he enters you deeper.

“Jaehyun.” You cry, “Wait—”

“It’s okay, baby, just let it go.” He hushes you, “I’m going to give you your very first orgasm.”

The fingers on your clit rubbed faster and you try to stop him, “Oh god—”

You feel like your bladder is full and you explode, convulsing beneath his body as his thrusts slowed to a stop. He kisses you, sloppily on the mouth, drowning out all your moans. You feel lightheaded, head spinning as you catch your breath after he moves his lips to your cheek.

“I—” You wheeze, “Wow.”

Jaehyun laughs, pecking your cheeks repeatedly. “Cute.”

His cock is still inside you, hard and throbbing. He sits up and carefully pulls out of you until his cock is freed and bobbing up to hit his abdomen. The sheer latex is shining with your essence. It hits you late, but you’re not a virgin anymore. You didn’t feel any different — well, you felt like you were on cloud nine — but you didn’t feel like anything changed.

You watch Jaehyun as he takes the condom off, tossing it to the floor and begins to touch himself. “What are you doing?”

“Just finishing myself off. You can rest up a bit and we can have dinner.”

“Can’t I help you? Why didn’t you come in me?” You sit up, although your body feels heavy.

“You can help me just by spreading your legs and giving me a nice view of your pussy.” Jaehyun kisses you, “Besides, you’re sensitive after coming. I wouldn’t want to overstimulate you on your first time.”

“I’m not sensitive.”

He raises a brow at you, pushing you back on the bed and ducking his head between your legs. He blows a soft puff of air on your vagina and you flinch, automatically trapping his head between your thighs as you try to close them.

“See? Be a good girl and listen to your teacher.” He teases, turning his attention back to your core.

“Then…” You lick your lips, “How about teaching me how to give a blowjob now?”

Jaehyun looks stunned, “I’m starting to think you’re not a virgin from the get-go…”

“Hey,” You frowned, “Why would I lie about that? I just like to learn.”

“Then you probably have a nympho asleep in you.” He crawls beside you, sitting against his headboard and motions for you to go between his legs.

Once you situate yourself between his legs, you take his dick into your hand and form a fist around it. He’s a lot wetter now, sticky from all the precum that accumulated. “Would it be a good thing if we wake her up?”

“Maybe.” He pets your head while you find a position you’re comfortable in, settling to lie flat on your stomach with his angry, leaking cock just by your face. “I’d love to see her.”

You kiss the tip, tasting the salty substance on your lips. You look up at him as you hesitantly licked him, collecting more of the precum on your tongue. He nods, chewing at his bottom lip. Glancing down at his cock, you lick a strip from the base of his length up until the tip. You do it a few more times until you wrap your lips around the head and gently suck.

“Fuck.” He grips your hair, the action stinging your scalp, “Don’t focus on the tip just yet. Try to take my entire cock in your mouth.”

“The entire thing?” You repeat, “Are you aware how thick this is?”

“Then take as much as you can. I’ve never been deepthroated before.” He sounds a little proud as he tells you this. He adjusts his grip on your hair, combing most of it to hold it back like a ponytail.

“Deepthroat? You mean shoving this thing all the way into the back of my throat? That sounds like torture.”

“I’m not telling you to do it. I’m just saying I’ve never had anyone put my entire cock into their mouth without gagging so badly.” He shrugs, “This is what you do: put as much as you can in your pretty little mouth and hold onto the rest, squeeze me a little, maybe twist your hand a bit. Just don’t bite me.”

You follow his instructions, getting probably a little more than a half of his length into your mouth.

“Now suck.” When he feels your lips wrapping snuggly around him, he pulls your head away from his cock and pushes you back down. “Again.”

You treated him like a salty push-pop, bobbing your head as you continue to suck him. His grip loosens on your hair once you get the hang of it and don’t need his guidance. Although you still look up at him through your lashes to make sure you’re doing okay and from the way his dick twitches in your mouth, he definitely likes it.

Curiosity and greed gets the better of you; is deepthroating him that big of a challenge? You push yourself down on him until your lips are at the base. Both your mouth and throat are squeezing down on him as you still attempt to suck his cock.

“Oh my god.” Jaehyun groans, throwing his head back and re-tightening his grip on your hair. “Fuck, [Y/N].”

You like how he moans your name and you want to hear more of it. Flattening your tongue on the underside of his dick, you dragged your mouth up just before releasing the tip and plunged his length back to your throat.

There was a frustrated grunt from him as he holds your head in place and starts to thrust into your mouth. It was a lot harder to control your gag reflex like this, but you stayed put and let him do as he pleases; it’s getting you excited, too. Tears spring to your eyes as you start to choke, losing your breathing pattern for a moment when his movement became sporadic.

“Oh, fuck.” He stills, plugging your entire mouth with his cock and making it a little hard to breathe. Warmth drips down your throat and once his grip loosens, you pull away. His cock is still twitching, still shooting out the thick liquid in your mouth.

And quite frankly, you hate it.

Out of courtesy, you wait until he’s done, falling slack against his headboard. As he catches his breath, he gives you a sleazy smile, reaching out to you but you bolt away from him.

“[Y/N]?” He worriedly calls out after you as you run into his ensuite bathroom.

Hurriedly, you switch the lights on and knelt down in front of the toilet to spit his load. You’ve never tasted something that foul in your life. It was like you tried to swallow salty battery acid — and you don’t even know what battery acid tastes like.

You feel fingers in your hair as Jaehyun helps you hold your hair back when you end up gagging yourself and emptying the contents of your stomach.

“I don’t want to do that again.” You wheeze, wiping the back of your hand over your mouth before flushing the toilet.

“That’s too bad, but for the record, I didn’t tell you to deepthroat me.” He helps you up and gestures you to the sink.

“I didn’t mean the deepthroating part,” You open the faucet and begin to wash out your mouth of the acidity left over, “I meant swallowing. Do other girls swallow your cum and not complain?”

He looks slightly offended, “Most do, some don’t…”

You pat your lips dry with tissue paper and throw it in the bin, “Then they’re either lying about wanting to swallow or your cum burned their taste buds off.”

Jaehyun huffs, “It can’t be that bad.”

“Then see for yourself.” You’re about to step forward when you feel something drip down between your thighs. The same translucent substance is dribbling down your length and you quickly clean it off with tissue paper.

“Are you hurting though?”

You glance back and you become hyper-aware that you’re still both very naked, and despite being intimate with each other just a few minutes ago, you become shy around him.

He’s quick to take notice of your sudden change in demeanor, trapping your body against the sink. He kisses your shoulder, “We just had sex, what are you getting shy for?”

“I don’t know.” You look at him through the reflection. Is this what it feels like having a boyfriend? You avoid his gaze just before he meets it through the mirror; you shouldn’t have those thoughts while you’re with him.

“Well, that’s our lesson for today. Unless you want to review.” He chuckles, cupping your boobs and kneading them with his palms.

You tear his hands away and laugh, “It’s a school night.”

“Oh, so if it wasn’t, you’d be down to go another round?”

You shrug your shoulders, “I thought you would have already figured out that I like to review things I’ve learned. Repeatedly. Even though I’ve understood the lesson already.”

“Fuck, [Y/N], don’t say things like that. I’ll get hard again.” He tuts, pinching your ass.

You yelp, giggling as you dodge another pinch from him.

“Let’s get dressed and let me feed you before I take you home.” Jaehyun hums with a small smile, cupping your cheeks and kissing your lips.

Your heart flutters; a different kind of warmth floods your senses. It feels like all the holidays you get to go back to your family, greeting your siblings with bear hugs, and scarfing down all the meals your mother made from scratch. You move away from him, blinking your eyes and looking mortified at your realization.

Jaehyun mirrors your expression, pupils shaking as awkward silence surrounds you.

“Uhm,” He clears his throat, “I…”

“Can I,” You say at the same time with him, “use the bathroom?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll— I’ll, uh, go down to the kitchen and dinner— prep dinner — prepare dinner.” He leaves you in the bathroom and closes the door for you.

You immediately wash your face to cool it down. What the hell was that? It couldn’t be what you thought it was. It should be the last thing on your mind after having sex with him. Falling in love with Jaehyun is out of the question; you want a storybook kind of romance — meet him in a bookstore type of situation. Not making a bet in the library that involves losing your virginity.

You switch the tap off and go out to put your clothes on. You stare at the mattress, the one you just lost your innocence on, and somehow remember Jaehyun’s face after the last kiss. It looks like he didn’t want to be in that kind of relationship with you either. You’re just another girl that he sleeps with and he’s just someone teaching you the ropes of it all. That’s all there is here.

“Wanna take a break?”

You gasp out loud, dragging the tip of the neon green highlighter upwards onto words that didn’t need it. You stare at the jagged line in shock before sending a piercing glare to the reason behind it.

Jaehyun sheepishly apologizes, sitting down on the chair to yours.

“Why aren’t you studying for CSAT?” You cap your highlighter and close your review material.

It’s been a couple months now and Jaehyun still had plenty of things to teach you in terms of sex, but ever since his basketball training started, your meetings turned into something just a twice or thrice a month rather than the usual once every week.

He’d taught you a handful of positions — that you all liked — and learned how to have sex in different places like under the bleachers and at the back of his car. Like in the very secluded corner of the library you two were in right now. He had you bent over the table once and from the looks of it, he wanted to do it a second time.

“I’m done for the day. You should take a break, too, you know.” He moves your materials away from you, “You’re top 2 in school. You don’t need to study that hard for CSAT.”

“Is there something else you want me to study?” Flirting with him got a lot easier, although you still get flustered from time to time, you’re still able to hold a flirty banter with him.

He taps your nose, “Smart girl. What are all the lessons I’ve taught you so far?”

“Foreplay. Positions. Masturbation,” You whisper; the library was full today since everyone was reviewing for the test this weekend. A few weeks back, he gave you “homework” to masturbate while thinking about him but with barely any privacy in your place and feeling awkward to even touch yourself, you failed the very first homework of your entire life. He made you sit between his legs and watch porn, guiding your hands in your panties. Shrugging, you finish answering, “And places. Is there still something you have yet to teach me?”

“Kinks.” Jaehyun slowly drags the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip, staring at your lips.

“Like… fetishes?” You glance at the opening of your secluded area, “You have fetishes?”

“A good number of them.” He hums, “But forget about me. We’re going to see if you have any kinks.”

“Well,” You feel embarrassed to say this out loud, but you’ve actually researched these things already. You wanted to surprise Jaehyun with something, but you never knew when to since he’s always in command of how things go, “I’ve read a couple of things.”

He grins at you, “Oh? Advance reading?”

You roll your eyes, “Shut up.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. So?”

“Your hands.”

“My hands?” He lifts one up in front of his face, “What about them?”

You get distracted just by seeing them, “Uhm, I like it when you touch me with them.”

There’s a growing smirk on his lips, “Touch you where?”

“Anywhere.” You watch as he holds his hand out to you and cup your cheek, “Everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” He repeats, moving his hand down to your neck and wraps it around your throat. “Even here?”

You gasp, your own hands flying to grab his wrist, “Jaehyun.”

“I’m not going to actually hurt you. Choking can be hot; it can increase pleasure during sex.” His gaze flickers down to where he held you, “It brings out this innocent little look on your face that I love.”

You scoff, “I’ve learned that you have a corruption kink.”

“And you’re to blame. God, it’s been months of fucking you but you’re still so innocent.” Jaehyun brings his hand down to your thigh, “Like a tainted angel.”

“I’m hardly an angel now.”

“Oh? Then spread your legs right now.”

You blink at him, “Now? But—”

“See? You’re hesitating.”

“I’m not doing this with you here, not when there are clearly more people in the library compared to the last time.”

He frowns, almost pouting, crossing his arms in front of him like a child put on timeout. He glances around and swiftly moves his chair beside yours.

You warily watch him, confused at his actions until he brings his hand back to your thigh. “What are you doing?”

“No one’s gonna see and if you keep quiet, they’ll never know.” He inches his fingers under your skirt, close to touching your mound but you stop him.

You can’t deny that doing something risky like this in public — in school — gets you excited, although at the end of the day, you had to keep your dignity. You’re glad he’s kept his mouth shut about this arrangement as well, but it was rather odd that his friends don’t wonder where he goes off to when he goes to you.

“You’re already so wet, baby.” His fingers drew lines over your panties that were undeniably wet the moment he came up. It was a natural reaction for your body to want him just by looking at him at this point, craving to be touched like you are now.

Baby. He calls you this so fondly. Of course, it was only during times like these when he does so, but it makes your insides gooey and your heart flutter.

You exhaled slowly, eyes wide and staring at him. He merely smirks, thinking it was from his fingers slipping past your panties. This was the worst possible scenario; being fingered in public while you were reviewing for the CSAT — the test you cared about passing the most — by a boy out of your league and realizing you’re falling for him.

You’ve done so well for the past months to foster such feelings for him. Why now? Why now while you’re in the middle of messing around with him? While you were studying for the single most important test of your entire student life?

He flexes a finger inside of you and you flinch, grabbing his arm and biting down your lip.

“You like that, huh?” He teases, kissing your ear.

It’s not the only thing I like, you scream in your thoughts.

It doesn’t take long for you to come, shaking in his hold as he softly sucks on a patch of skin under your ear. He even fixes your panties for you before pulling his hand away and licking his fingers clean of your essence.

He notices how you’re still distraught, blown out eyes staring up at him and heaving slowly, and asks if you’re okay.

You manage to nod at him, waving his concern off and adjust yourself in your seat.

Jaehyun stands up and puts the chair back in its proper position, “I’ll go now. Good luck this weekend.”

“You, too.” You mutter, watching him leave and your heart drops. You’re not stupid. You know he’s only using you for sex and it wasn’t something you minded because you were benefiting from it too. He doesn’t see being in an actual romantic relationship with you, and you can’t blame him for it. You’ve made it very clear that school is your priority.

The only thing left to do is either tell him about your feelings and face the consequences, bottle it up and will them away, or end things with him and maybe these emotions will leave with him. After CSAT, you promise yourself, you’ll make a decision after this weekend.

“Am I in trouble?” You quietly ask, looking between the principal, Mr. Jang, and the guidance counselor, Ms. Kwon.

Ms. Kwon had run after you as you finished your CSAT, on your way to the front gate to meet up with Jungwoo, and she escorted you to the principal’s office. She’d been of tremendous help for you when you applied for scholarships. Your first thought was someone had caught you and Jaehyun somewhere in school and reported it, but didn’t think that was the case since he wasn’t in the office with you.

“Heavens, no. I would like to personally tell you and congratulate you about your scholarship in SNU.” Mr. Jang reminds you of a typical, jolly grandfather, had silver, combed-over hair, and wore suspenders everyday.

“S-scholarship?” You repeat, thinking you misheard him, “I-I thought… scholarship announcements aren’t made until the end of the school year.”

He grins at you, handing a large white envelope with the university insignia on it, “Yes, but they saw your outstanding school records and gave you approval right away. Congratulations, Ms. [L/N], your application for a full scholarship to SNU has been approved. You’re the first student in my 30 years working here to get one.”

Your mouth is perpetually agape, accepting the envelope and opening it right away. Your eyes scanned through the letter inside a couple times until it finally hit you: you’re going to SNU. “I… but…?”

“Of course, they still have to wait for the results of the CSAT, but it should be no problem for you, given your previous records. And between us three,” He leans forward on his desk, “You should start drafting your graduation speech.”

“My… graduation speech?” You pause, “You mean I’m valedictorian?”

“If you maintain your class standing and stay out of any trouble until finals, then congratulations again Ms. [L/N], you’re this year’s class valedictorian.”

“But… Jung Jaehyun—”

Mr. Jang sighs, “Ah, yes, Mr. Jung. His grades are remarkable, yes, but he has a couple of misdemeanors on his file to even qualify for salutatorian. It’s a shame. Are you friends with Mr. Jung?”

You open your mouth to answer, but you realize you don’t know what the answer is. You’re not exactly going to tell the school principal the exact premise of your relationship. But are you two even friends? “Uhm, we know of each other?”

“Hm, well I would avoid befriending Mr. Jung if I were you, Ms. [L/N]. I’m sure he’s a wonderful person, but he could still be a bad influence on you.”

Your stomach drops as you consider Mr. Jang’s words, nodding to them even though you were still processing it. Was he being a bad influence on you?

As you leave the principal’s office, it finally hits you: you’re going to SNU. You’re going to your dream school with a full scholarship and there’s a high chance you’ll graduate as valedictorian. The slow, steady footsteps you took since stepping out of the office broke into a sprint as you ran towards the school gate to meet Jungwoo and tell him the good news.

As you turn around the corner that led to the lockers, you almost collide into Jaehyun, who was just as surprised to see someone hurtling towards him.

“[Y/N]? Why are you crying?” He closes his locker and steps closer to you, concern etched on his face.

“Crying?” You touch your cheeks, feeling the damp streaks and laughing at it, “Oh. I didn’t know I was crying.”

“What’s wrong?”

You shake your head, “Nothing’s wrong. I’m— I’m just— Jaehyun, my application for a full scholarship to SNU has been accepted. I just need to score high on CSAT—”

“Then you’re definitely in! [Y/N]! Congrats!” He opens his arms to you and by instinct, you just jump into them and let him engulf you into a giant hug. “That’s amazing! You did it, [Y/N].”

“Thank you.” Your voice was muffled from having your face pressed up into his chest. You pull away first, “I can’t believe it.”

He offers you a small smile, “You’ve worked so hard for it. You deserve it. I’m really happy for you.”

A phone chimes just as you were about to thank him once more. You check yours and find an impatient, yet worried text from Jungwoo, who you had completely forgotten about. “I, uh, need to go.”

“Hey, wait.” Jaehyun stops you just as you were about to side step him, “We should celebrate this. There’s a party at Cha Eunwoo’s house tonight. You should come.”

“It’s a Saturday. I have work tonight, remember?”

He looks disappointed, “You’re going to work after taking the most draining exam in our lives?”

You shrug, apologetically, “I need the money. Big crowds aren’t my thing either.”

“Then how about just the two of us? Tomorrow night. I’ll drive you somewhere out of town and we’ll get drive thru.”

Your heart races in excitement at the prospect, but you catch yourself. That sounds like a date although you knew it would end up with the two of you doing it at the back of his car. Nonetheless, you agree to the arrangement and wave at him before leaving.

“But Auntie,” You stand up to take the dishes from her, but she swats your hands away, “I don’t mind working tonight.”

“[Y/N]! You and Jungwoo can have the weekend off! You two have worked so hard. And to think you got the scholarship for SNU!” She tuts, sashaying to the sink, “If I could afford it, you can have the entire week off with paid leave!”

“She’s our valedictorian, too!” Jungwoo pipes up, doing a little shimmy after taking a bite of the cake his parents got the both of you for finishing the exam.

“All the more reason for you not to work.” She pinches your cheek. “Isn’t there a party or two being thrown by your schoolmates? There’s bound to be one, right? There were about 8 during my time. You two should go to one.”

Jungwoo brings his empty plate to the sink and exclaims, “Oh, yeah! Eunwoo invited me to his party. Do you wanna go?”

You stare at him, “Cha Eunwoo? You know him?”

“We were classmates last year. We’re not close, but he’s really nice and friendly.” He claps his hands, “Oh, let’s go, [Y/N]!”

A part of you only agreed because you wanted to see Jaehyun. It would be hard to interact with him since your real relationship with him was still a secret, but you still wanted to see how he’d react to see you there. Perhaps that’s the reason behind the extra effort of getting ready; putting on that same dress you wore to Mark’s party, patting the lightest blush on your cheeks and a soft red tint on the inner parts of your lips, and spritzing perfume on your hair.

“Wow, all this for Jaehyun?” Jungwoo teased, simply changing out of his house clothes into a pair of blue jeans and a raglan shirt.

“Shut up.” You snap, “Wait, is it too much?”

“No.” He shrugs, “I just noticed because I’m not used to it. I bet he’ll appreciate it though. Are you ready?”

After another look in the mirror, you let Jungwoo lead the way to Eunwoo’s house. It was only a short bus ride there and it was the richer side of town, a few streets away from Jaehyun’s. You’ve never met him and you’re pretty sure you’ve never interacted with him either. You just know that he’s one of Jaehyun’s close friends, also part of the basketball team, and just as popular with the girls from school.

It takes no less than half an hour for the two of you to arrive, spotting the other teens walking up to the huge house that had strobe lights and muffled music blasting inside.

“I can tell I’m not gonna like it inside.” You warily watch a rowdy group of boys cheer each other on as a ssireum contest begins in the empty, open garage. “We don’t have to stay long, right?”

“Let’s have a few drinks and leave.” Jungwoo walks up to the house and you follow closely behind him.

Not all the faces were even familiar to you, maybe they’re from other schools. The music gets progressively louder as you walk up to the open door and you can pick out a few voices trying to talk over the bass. Past the door, Jungwoo greets a few people and you offer them all a small smile. They all seem surprised to see you here, obviously knowing this isn’t your kind of scene. Jungwoo holds a conversation with them and you look around some more.

There were people drinking out of red cups, bouncing on the balls of their feet to the fast tempo song, some were brave enough to make out against walls, and others were just blatantly humping each other in lieu of dancing. You make eye contact with a girl who you recognize as Kim Minkyung, twin sister of Kim Mingyu, who was also another close friend of Jaehyun’s. She was notoriously aloof and introverted compared to her social butterfly of a brother.

Minkyung stares at you, eyes just squinting slightly as if to discern if it was really you she was seeing, and you feel both confused and nervous by it. Is it really that weird that you’re at a party? You break eye contact with her to tell Jungwoo you’re heading to the kitchen to grab drinks for the two of you.

It was a big house, bigger than Jaehyun’s, but you think you can guess where the kitchen was from the number of people leaving the room with a drink in hand. You managed to catch Minkyung’s gaze again and her expression this time looked… worried? You ignore it and step into the white room. There were food and drinks lined up on the kitchen island and counters, a large stack of red cups beside a keg. As you approached it to get beer for Jungwoo, a roar of laughter erupts in the next room over. Being naturally curious, you walked over to the opening and peered through other curious people’s shoulders to see what the commotion was about.

It looked like the dining room with a large wooden table in the middle that had been turned into a beer pong arena. You see Kim Mingyu taking a shot beside the house owner, Cha Eunwoo, over to the other side and huffs as he misses his shot. Looking over at their opponent, your chest constricts. It was the soccer team’s MVP, Nakamoto Yuta, who was also your acquaintance as he liked to crash the board games club from time to time to bother Mark, and his partner for the math, the only boy you wanted to see in this party.

Jaehyun had his signature black outfit on; you’ve spied the contents of his closet once and reeled at the sight of it being 80 percent black, 15 percent white, and just a handful of miscellaneous colored clothing articles. His hair was pushed back to prevent the fringes getting into his eyes. But that’s not what you’re focused on, that’s not what made your heart crack. With one hand, he held a ping pong ball, waiting for his turn, while the other held another girl’s hand.

Areum. You think that’s her name. That’s right, Cho Areum. She’s the embodiment of her name; beautiful and stunning from head to toe. Funnily enough, she’s part of the cheer squad. Classic, you think, a cheerleader and a basketball player. A cliche, but perfect pair.

It’s finally Jaehyun’s turn and he gets the ping pong ball right into the farthest cup, and his team rejoices. He gladly turns his head to Areum and your heart falls to the floor, shattering in tiny pieces as your ears ring. You’ve never felt jealous in your entire life, you just weren’t raised that way. You’ve lived your life with people who have so much more than you, but you never wished you were in their shoes until you see Areum. She’s pretty, she’s tall, she’s also top 20, meaning she’s smart, too. She also gets to kiss Jaehyun in public, while you’re just the girl he keeps a secret.

But now you’re just confused. Was he cheating on her with you? And if he was, why would he cheat on her for you?

Your thoughts are interrupted when a hand is placed on your shoulder and you turn to find Minkyung, looking distastefully at the same scene you were witnessing.

“You shouldn’t be here.” She finally turns to you, voice soft and almost sympathetic. “They’re going to make fun of you if they see you, especially with your eyes looking wet. Come on.”

You blink and you realize what she was talking about as your vision blurred. You nod and she leads you away from the party, out to the backyard where there were less people and considerably darker. You sit by each other on a lounge chair and stare at the pool.

“I don’t…” You pause, not knowing what to ask.

“My brother and his friends aren’t nice people.” Minkyung states, looking past the pool and into the window that showed the living room. “They spend a lot of time after school at our house so I know about the things they talk about… all the shit they do.”

“Okay…” You don’t know where she’s going with this but your gut tells you it’s not going to be good.

“At the start of the year, the basketball team was at our house and they were drinking. And I don’t know how it came to be but someone suggested to make a checklist for all the girls they should fuck. From every clique like a girl's sports team to distinguished individuals… like the class valedictorian.” She glances at you, apologetically, as if it was her fault or to apologize on her brother’s behalf. “But I guess yours was a different case.”

“I’m… wait, I don’t understand—”

“Everyone agreed that it would be hard to sleep with you. No one knew you well enough until someone pointed out that you and Jaehyun were always volleying the top 1 spot between each other every semester. But even he didn’t think he could do it, so his friends did the only thing that would make him agree to trying to sleep with you. They made a bet and riled him up because everyone knows how competitive Jung Jaehyun is.”

You let her words sink in, “So he made a bet with me to be top 1 and offer to teach me sex so he could win an entirely different bet.”

“Wait a minute—” Minkyung grabs your wrist, “He said he’d teach you sex? Oh my god, that’s just fucking gold.”

She bolts up to her feet and scornfully laughs, pacing in front of you.

“What?”

“Let me guess,” She spins back to face you, “He’ll teach you lesson by lesson because you can’t learn a whole new world in a couple nights? That lesson 1 is foreplay, 2 is positions, and so on?”

“H-how did you know that?”

“Because he said the same things to me 3 years ago. Jung Jaehyun took my virginity from under the guise that he liked me, too. And guess what? When shit went down, he turned my own brother against me. He turned the person I shared a womb with against me and branded me a slut. Don’t you ever wonder why I don’t run in the same circle as my twin? Mingyu used to be so protective of me; I was off limits to his friends until Jaehyun happened. He joins his friends branding me a slut. Jung Jaehyun ruined my life and he’s going to ruin yours.” Minkyung grabs your shoulders and squeezes them, “Walk away from him now, [Y/N]. Please, I know we’re not friends but I’m telling you the truth. You saw him with your own eyes; was it you he was kissing in there? Because here’s the cold, hard truth, [Y/N]: Jaehyun owns each and everyone of us, but we can never own him for ourselves.”

You expel a harsh breath, unaware you had been holding your breath. You stare into her eyes and it’s glistening under the underwater pool lights. You wanted to give Jaehyun the benefit of the doubt, but you could sense how genuine and concerned Minkyung is.

“Okay.” You mumble, licking your lips. You’re better off without him anyways. Aside from sex, what else has he given you? You stand up and accept the hug Minkyung offers as she holds out her arms for you. “Thanks.”

“I wish I warned you sooner. I’ve tried to warn every girl he was after — or any girl the team was going after — but my reputation makes it hard for them to believe me. If anything, they made it worse.” She pulls away and looks back into the house. “Thanks for believing me.”

You follow her gaze and see Jaehyun, jumping to the beat of the song playing, with Areum in tow. “Does she know he’s cheating on her?”

“Areum? They’re not exclusive, that’s what he claims. She says they’re in an open relationship, so she probably knows about you.”

Knowing that she, as well as his friends, knows about you and Jaehyun sleeping together doesn’t sit well with you. Does he tell them about it every time? They must laugh at how innocent and pathetic you were.

“God,” Minkyung scowls, “What did I even see in him? If he wasn’t at the top of the class, I would have believed he had a dick for a brain.”

You giggle at this, knowing she’s doing her best to lighten the mood.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten anyone pregnant yet.” She laughs, “I wonder how he’d react to that.”

Your laughter falters.

Minkyung watches as you scramble to take your phone out, opening up an app you kept to track your period. You had a normal cycle, this tracker is proof. But the past month has been so hectic that you didn’t even notice.

“I’m… two weeks late.” You look to her for help, fingers shaking in panic. “I’m never late. I—”

“Wait, [Y/N], calm down. Being late for your period doesn’t mean you’re pregnant.”

“I know that!” You exclaim, “But what if I am?”

You think about your scholarship, graduation, your parents — how are you going to tell your parents if you were, in fact, pregnant?

Before you bring yourself into a panic attack, Minkyung shakes your arm, “[Y/N], calm down. Do you want to take a pregnancy test?”

“I can’t take that back home—”

“Then take it back at my place. I’ll buy you the pregnancy test.” She fishes car keys out of her pockets, “Come on. Mingyu can find a ride home himself, I don’t even know why I let him drag me to be his personal driver.”

“Why are you so nice to me?”

Minkyung doesn’t answer immediately until she shrugs her shoulders, “If I were in your position, I’d wish someone would be there who understands and helps out.”

She was right. You don’t even know how Jungwoo would react, let alone do.

“Wait, let me go back inside and tell Jungwoo I’ll be going.”

“Kim Jungwoo? He’s gay, right?”

You gasp, petrified at her question, “How did you— I mean, no!”

She chuckles, “Don’t worry. I understand. It takes one to know one. I’ll go get the car. It’s a red volvo.”

As she leaves, you head back inside to look for Jungwoo and it’s not that hard thanks to his height. You flag him down, grabbing his wrist and dragging so you could talk right into his ear.

“Can I go ahead? I’m not comfortable.”

“Okay, let me say goodbye—”

“No! You’re clearly having fun. It’s not that late, I can go home by myself.” You try to walk away, but he seizes your hand.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to cry.”

Bless his heart. Only Jungwoo could read you like a book. But you’re not ready to tell him, not until you’re sure, so you just smile and nod. Fortunately, he lets you go and you quickly make your way through the crowd to reach the front door. Just as you were about to step out, a hand wraps around your wrist and you think it’s Jungwoo.

But of course it wasn’t.

“Hey, you came.” Jaehyun lets go of you once you turn around. “I thought you had a shift?”

“Yeah. I’m heading back over now. I thought I’d drop by with Jungwoo.” You hug yourself, doing your best to meet his eyes so he wouldn’t suspect anything. In your peripheral vision, you see his friends watching from another room. “So, I have to go.”

“Did you try and find me?”

The wording to his question was off, but you shake your head, “The crowd is a little… overwhelming. I don’t think I could have seen you even if I tried… I’m gonna be late for shift change.”

“Do you want me to drive you there? My car’s at the house though—”

“Then no.” You forced a smile, “You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

Jaehyun frowns, but relents, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “Okay. Tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Our own little celebration about your scholarship?”

“Oh… yeah, sure.” You try to think of an excuse to back out of it, but you’re too flustered under his gaze to even do so. “S-see you then.”

He cracks a smile, and maybe it’s just your feelings for him, but you swear he seems genuinely excited about it, “Okay. I’ll text you.”

You turn around and start to walk, taking slow steps out the door until you see a red volvo pull up. Minkyung rolls down the window to let you know it was her and you get in. After putting the seatbelt on, she hands you a pack of tissues.

“You can cry. I’m not going to judge you.”

“I know.” You let the initial tears slip down your cheeks. “I should have known something like this was going to happen.”

She rubs your back for a while before starting the car and driving away. It was strange to think you barely talked to her for an hour but still felt closer to her than Jaehyun, who you’ve spent months with. Did she have a pregnancy scare as well? More importantly, did she have someone to confide to?

You finally let yourself break down into a sob. It was dumb and foolish of you to think he had the best intentions for you. You were both in it for the sex and all you asked was for it to be kept secret, but the worst people to find out about it already knew about it. It was stupid of you to even fall for him — no, it was more stupid of you to make a bet with him in the first place. You can’t even believe you walked into that party with the intention of confessing your feelings for him.

“He’s still coming by the store. You should have never told him where you worked.”

You sigh, lathering the washed cabbage heads with the bright red paste your mother had already made. It was the holidays and you went back home to your family like you always did. Being with them brought you so much relief after everything that had happened after CSAT. You excitedly told them about the scholarship, presenting the letter as proof, as well as the high chance of you graduating as valedictorian. You even introduced Minkyung to them through video call as you two had become considerably close. The only thing you left out to your parents was Jaehyun. They didn’t need to know that at all.

You thanked every god and your lucky stars that you weren’t pregnant — the missed weeks probably due to the stress — and the dreaded red week came a few days when you went back home.You had burst into tears of joy at the sight of blood stained sheets and your mother excused it as your hormones acting up.

As for Jaehyun, you didn’t reply back to him when he asked if you were ready to meet up the day after the party. You didn’t pick up his calls. You worked twice as hard, enlisting Jungwoo and Minkyung’s help, to avoid running into him at school. Minkyung had to block his number for you because you didn’t have the heart to do it. You felt bad for doing this to him, but they reminded you of everything he did to you and you just feel just a tiny bit of guilt for ghosting him.

But as Jungwoo had just reported over the group call you had with him and Minkyung, he came by the convenience store almost everyday, hoping to catch you on your shift. When Jungwoo finally snapped and told him you were back at home, he comes in every other day to ask where you lived.

“I would ban him from the store if I were you.” Minkyung suggests.

“You know I would’ve if I could.” Jungwoo gripes, “But you can’t ban people if they’re just annoying you. I can’t even say it’s borderline harassment since he leaves after I shoo him off.”

“I don’t get it.” You huff, stuffing the freshly made kimchi into a large jar. “Min, you said he’d stop after a week. It’s almost the end of Christmas break and he’s still trying to contact me.”

“I’m just as confused as you. Maybe his pride is hurt. He’s the one being dumped for the first time and you know what? Good for you, [Y/N], for being the first to break his heart.”

You smile at them through the camera, but you hope it was believable enough through the screen. You’re still in love with him. You realize this after finding yourself constantly thinking and worrying about him when you’re not occupied with house chores or farm work. You’ll never tell Jungwoo or Minkyung, but a part of you really misses him.

“Oh my god, he’s here at my house.” Minkyung whispers as if he could hear her as she peeks through her blinds. “I’m gonna eavesdrop on them.”

“Kyung.” You warn, wiping your hands on a kitchen towel after you washed them. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” She huffs, “What if he’s trash talking you? You’re my friend now and this is my house, I have every right to throw him out.”

“If he’s trash talking me, then I’m gonna want to talk to him. You know,” You put the jars of kimchi you made into the fridge, “For closure.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Minkyung sighs, “That’s a dangerous plan.”

“I agree.” Jungwoo pipes in, “He was able to convince you to sleep with him. He can definitely do it again. You’re in a vulnerable state, [Y/N], whether he knows that or not. You don’t have any prior knowledge on this while he’s an expert.”

“It’s breaking off a relationship — not even, it was just a deal we made.” You look outside the window to make sure your family is still outside, “How hard could it be?”

“Says the girl who let someone teach her sex after losing a bet.” Minkyung snides, “Your emotions could get the better of you once you face him. I think it’s better to avoid him until he finally accepts the fact that you’re done with him.”

And she was right. Although you really did want to talk to him, at least one last time and face to face, they were right about him possibly coercing you again. You didn’t think you would fall for him this hard even though you know about what he’s done.

Returning to the city a week before the holiday break ends always puts you into a sad mood since you have to leave your family and now it makes you feel anxious because you can’t possibly hide from Jaehyun until graduation. Minkyung tells you that he and his friends will be out of town for a few days and she invites you over to hang out. Jungwoo couldn’t come because he and his parents visited his older sister’s family.

“As promised,” You said after greeting Minkyung as she opened the front gate, “Kimchi made by yours truly using my mom’s pepper paste made from our farm’s chili peppers.”

It was a sizable container, good for a family of 5 for two weeks at most. Minkyung squeals as she accepts it, “Thank you! I’m so excited to try it out. We’re definitely eating this for dinner later.”

Her house had almost the same layout as Mark’s house, but had a more contemporary interior.

“Oh my god,” You gasp, approaching the photo wall and pointing at a portrait of two children as you unwrapped the scarf from your neck, “You’re so cute!”

“Our mother was obsessed with making us match clothes before.” She sighs, stopping beside you.

“Wow, you two looked really identical.”

Minkyung scoffs, “Yeah, thank god we don’t anymore.”

Before she turns to lead you to the kitchen, you swear you caught a frown form on her face.

You two had a baking agenda today ever since you found out she loved to bake with her mother when she was younger but never got to do it again since her mother got busy with work. She still bakes from time to time but doesn’t find it as fun when someone else is around.

The kitchen island had all the ingredients laid out and the oven had preheated. You two only talked about making cookies and cupcakes, but it looked like there were enough to make cake and bread.

Minkyung puts the kimchi inside their fridge and you wait for her in front of the ingredients, “So how do we go about this?”

“Let’s do a headstart on cupcakes first so they can cool down before we get to decorate them.”

It feels like a nice change to be hanging out with another girl. You love Jungwoo, but there are things you can’t say or do with him because it felt too awkward. Also, compared to you, he has other friends he likes to hang out with while you can count all yours with one hand. Minkyung was a lot bubblier once you got to know her. She always kept to herself in school and seemed so chic and mysterious, but was just as eccentric and clumsy as Jungwoo. It was a weird way to start a friendship, sharing the same experiences with Jaehyun, but you’re really glad you’ve become friends with her.

A couple of hours into baking, you took charge of icing the last couple of cupcakes while Minkyung tries a bite of the experimental cookies you made with cinnamon and marshmallows.

“Is it good?” You place the cupcake you finished icing on the cake rack.

She walks over to you to feed you a piece, “Like a starbucks drink. It’s not bad, no?”

It did taste like a starbucks drink made into a cookie, but you liked it. “I think it’s okay. Nothing beats your chocolate chip, though. I can’t wait to go back home and make it for my siblings. Thanks for sharing your recipe. I promise to take it to my grave.”

“Tell me what they think of it.” Both of you pause when you hear the car gates creaking open. She looks at you, clearly confused, “Did my mom come home early?”

You put the piping bag down and went to wash your hands in the sink of stray icing as she bounds towards the foyer. Minkyung talks fondly of her mom and mentions how she wanted to meet you. You dry your hands on the apron before taking it off, placing on the counter and following after her.

Just as you walk out of the kitchen doorway, you hear Minkyung exclaiming, “Why are you here?”

It was a split second realization from the hostile tone of her voice that tells you who was at the front door, however your body reacts a split second too late and you end up stepping into the hallway that led to the foyer.

“[Y/N]?”

You’re frozen in your spot, absolutely mortified to see Jaehyun standing behind Mingyu.

“What are you…?” He steps forward and pauses, connecting the dots in his head. He turns to Minkyung and grabs her arm, “What did you tell her?”

“The truth about you.” She hisses, shaking his hold off. Once she does, she moves away from him and closer to you. “You ruined my life and I’m not going to let you ruin hers.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, sis.” Mingyu puts an arm out between them.

Jaehyun moves around him to walk towards you, but Minkyung blocks him. He scowls at her, “[Y/N], whatever she told you is a lie.”

The Jaehyun in front of you scared you; he looked so angry and hurt… like that time he got benched in sophomore year. His jaw is tight and his nostrils are flaring as he and Minkyung stared each other down.

“No, it’s the truth.” She glances back at you, gaze firm and unwavering.

“Kyung, give it up.” Her brother grabs her hand, “It’s been, what? 2? 3 years? Get over it.”

Minkyung indignantly huffs, slowly turning her head back to them, “Get over it? He took everything from me and you just want me to get over it? He took everything from me.”

Her voice cracks as she begins to sob, shoulders dropping as she faces her brother. “And you let him, Mingyu… You chose him over me, your goddamn twin sister.”

Your heartbreaks at the scene in front of you. Minkyung always made snide remarks about her brother, scowling as she speaks about him, but that frown you caught earlier should have told you that she misses him. You can’t imagine the pain she feels of losing someone she spent her whole life with — her own brother — and be torn apart because of something Jaehyun had said and done.

Minkyung sniffs, snatching her hand away from Mingyu and walks to you, “I’m sorry. We were having so much fun… but I want to be alone right now. I’ll drive you home—”

“No, go ahead. I…” Your eyes flit towards Jaehyun, “I want to talk to him.”

She stares at you, briefly sending a glare over to him, “Are you sure?”

You nod, “I can’t run away from forever. I’ll be fine.”

She gives you a tight hug before heading towards the stairs. Mingyu tries to stop her but she starts to run up the steps.

“I’m gonna talk to her.” Mingyu pats Jaehyun’s arm, spares a glance at you, and goes up after his sister.

You and Jaehyun stood in the foyer, awkwardly waiting for each other to say something.

“Can we talk?” He finally breaks the silence.

“Yeah.” A door being pounded on and shouting was heard above your heads and you smack your lips, “Uhm, somewhere else?”

“Yeah, okay,” He takes his car keys out of his pocket, “I know a place.”

Sensing your hesitation, he quickly follows it up with, “Don’t worry, it’s not my house.”

You decide to trust him, gathering your things and following him out the door to his car. It felt weird to be seated back inside and even weirder to think about the times you’ve spent together in it. He plugs his phone to the aux cord and chooses a random song to play on the softest volume before he begins to drive.

“I thought you guys had an out of town trip?” You quietly ask, seeing the duffel bag on the backseat.

“Yeah.” He clicks his tongue, “We were uninvited. The villa we were going to is owned by Areum’s family and you can say I chose the wrong day to upset her.”

“What did you do?”

Jaehyun sighs, keeping his attention on the road, “You know, when you didn’t respond to my texts, I got worried about you. I thought you got in trouble or something. You wouldn’t pick up my calls, Jungwoo wouldn’t tell me where the fuck you were, and up until I realized you blocked my number, I started to understand the situation.”

You turn your attention to the window, watching the world pass by.

“You saw us, didn’t you? Me and Areum. You saw us that night at the party? Is that why you stopped talking to me?”

“It’s so much more than that.” You cut in, making sure your voice is as steady as you can make it out to be, “Besides, it’s not my business. I’m just the girl you keep a secret—”

You let out a disbelieved laugh, “Wait, I can’t even say I’m the girl you’ve been secretly fucking.”

“What are you talking about?”

Taking a deep breath, you ask him, “Is it true that you and your friends made a — a fuck checklist and I was on it?”

The car was stopped at a red light, it was the only time for him to look at you but he chooses not to.

“Did you agree to a bet with your friends that you could sleep with me? And that was what prompted you to approach me in the library in the first place?”

He finally looks at you, stunned like a deer caught in the headlights, and it was enough to break your heart all over again. He opens his mouth to respond, but the car behind you honks its horn and Jaehyun starts to drive, not noticing the green light.

“All I wanted was for us to be a secret. I wouldn’t care about Areum or any other girl… or so I thought,” You grumble the last part, “I thought you were holding up that end of the deal, but it turns out people already knew. God, Jaehyun! For someone who’s top 2 in school, I’m so fucking stupid to believe you.”

He stops the car and lets out a heavy breath, “I’m sorry.”

“You think that’s enough?” You snap, facing forward and seeing a lakeside picnic area. “Where are we?”

“My parents and I went here during spring when I was younger. I like to come here and just watch the water.” He licks his lips, “I was supposed to take you here that day after the party.”

“Why?”

“I…” He shrugs, “I’m gonna sit outside for awhile. You can join me if you want.”

“It’s nearly 3 degrees outside.”

He opens the door and the cold rush of air makes you hug yourself. He steps out and closes the door behind him, walking up to one of the picnic tables to brush off some of the snow and sit down on it, looking off into the distance of the frozen lake.

You gather up the courage to face the biting, icy air, pulling the hood of your jacket up and going after him. You take a seat on the bench of the table beside his and hide half your face into your scarf. His face was ghastly white, save for the apples of his cheeks, tip of his nose and ears, and his lips that were bright red.

“Do you have plans to freeze to death?”

Jaehyun chuckles, “I like winter.”

“I prefer spring.” You mumble, crossing your arms to preserve your body warmth. Looking back at the lake, you comment, “Must have been a nice view if I had gone with you that day.”

“I personally think it’s a nice view all year round.”

Silence falls over the two of you, along with it was the awkwardness and tension. You feel like you couldn’t breathe despite being in an open area.

“It’s true.” He breaks the silence after a few minutes, “We were all drunk and I don’t even remember who suggested it, but everyone thought it was a great idea — a fuck list. From cheerleaders, to band geeks, to bisexuals… to the valedictorian… one of us will sleep with any of those and it’ll be checked off the list.”

This makes your stomach churn; disgusted and disappointed at the thought. Being drunk isn’t an excuse for the nasty things that go through someone’s head.

“No one was willing to do you. No one had connections to you. Until Eunwoo said we were always switching places as top 1 every semester. They said it would be like an ice breaker between us and they left me to think about how I could get in your pants.” He took in a deep breath, “But believe me, I didn’t want to. I didn’t even think you’d give me the time of day. You didn’t seem interested in anyone and your nose was always stuck between textbooks. So they riled me up and I let them push me into doing it.”

“And then you orchestrated this whole plan of baiting me into making a different bet with you where you try to sleep with me and disguised it as teaching me sex.” You click your tongue, “I was a much easier target than you thought, huh?”

“It was supposed to be a one time thing, but I meant what I said that you can’t just learn sex in one night.”

“Minkyung said you told her the exact same words 3 years ago.” Your heart grows heavy at the thought of her, “Did you even really like her back?”

Jaehyun closes his eyes, hanging his head low and slowly shaking it sideways. “No.”

“How could you turn twins against each other?” You scowl, “I can’t even fathom how you were able to do that!”

“Well, I don’t either! I care about Mingyu, too. I knew he’d kill me if I even dared touch Minkyung, but she practically offered herself up to me.”

“Choose your words carefully, Jung.” You warn, gritting your teeth, “That doesn’t mean you accept it, let alone use that fact against her. She was— was ostracized! By her own brother!”

“That’s on him! I know what I did was shitty and I owe her an apology. I’m not the same boy I was 3 years ago!” He shoots up from his seat and walks closer to the lake, “My high school life is full of regrets, okay? I have vices. I let my dick decide for me. I’m a fucking teenager. I know I’ve hurt people and they probably won’t forgive me so I don’t bother with apologizing to their faces, but I regret my actions, alright?”

“So you regret sleeping with me?”

Jaehyun looks back at you, staring into your eyes with an unreadable expression. After a moment, he inhales, “I regret sleeping with you under those circumstances.”

You frown, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I liked being with you. Aside from the sex or the pillow talk — the small conversations in my car or at the library… I looked forward to those the most.”

“Then why did we always have sex?”

“Because that’s what you were looking forward to.”

“Because that’s the reason why we were meeting up in the first place!” You exclaim, “If you wanted to talk, you could have just told me. We can be actual friends, you know.”

“But what if,” Jaehyun nervously licks his lips, blinking rapidly as the wind picks up a bit, “What if I wanted to be more?”

Your ears are ringing as if they popped. Did you hear him right? He wanted to be more than friends? “But… Areum…”

He immediately denies it, “We’re not even dating. I mean, we act like we are, but all we’re doing is using each other. We have sex and she uses me as a status symbol or something — we got uninvited to her villa because I told her last night that I didn’t want to share a room with her. I didn’t want to do anything with her anymore, to be exact.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? I like you!”

You gaped at him like he had grown a second head, “You like me? Jaehyun, you could literally have anyone — anyone — in the whole world!”

“Then why can’t I have you?”

“But…” You shake your head, “Why me?”

Now it was Jaehyun’s turn to look at you bewilderedly, “Why not you?”

“God! You know I hate it when you answer my questions with a question!” You stand up and march towards him, “Why would you choose me over Areum or Minkyung—”

“Stop bringing other people into this,” He interjects, “This is about you and me.”

“You’re better off with them. Or anybody else.” You look down at your feet to avoid his gaze, “I don’t have time to be in a committed relationship. Not when high school is almost done and college is around the corner.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.” His lips form a forlorn smile, “I wanted to tell you earlier. I wanted to tell you that day we were supposed to come here.”

“You wanted to tell me that day?” You repeat, waiting for him to confirm, “You wanted to tell me that you like me that day when just the night before you were partying with another girl… kissing her and holding her hand… you want me to believe that you like me the entire time you were doing those things with her?”

Jaehyun starts to look flustered, “I-I told you. Areum and I aren’t dating. It’s all for show—”

“Could’ve fooled me.” You say in a higher pitch than your regular voice. “Do you hear yourself? You wanted to tell another girl you liked her after you were with someone else the night prior?”

“[Y/N], just listen to me first—”

“No. You listen to me.” You demand, “I was on cloud nine that day, Jaehyun. My scholarship application for my dream university was accepted, I was told I was graduating as valedictorian... just all the hard work I’ve dedicated my entire school life was paying off. I didn’t mean for you to be the first one to know, but I wanted to celebrate it with you, too — so, so badly, Jaehyun.”

Your sight starts to blur as you pause to take a breath, “I didn’t mean to go to that party, but I wanted to see you again. I spent extra time to fix myself up for you because you always called me nice things when I was naked and I wanted to hear you say those things when I’m clothed. I hate crowds — I hate them so much because I feel so out of place, but I ignored them all. I just wanted to see you. And I did. And I saw her.”

Your throat burns as you do your best to choke down your tears. He watches you, unmoving and unsure, so you continue speaking.

“And— and I-I’ve never… I’ve never felt that, you know? Just pure pain in my chest. I’ve never been jealous of anyone until I saw her. My head hurt with so many questions and if Minkyung hadn’t brought me out, I would have passed out. When she told me her story, my heart ached even more. I couldn’t believe you were capable of doing that to anyone but our stories matched up, word for word, Jaehyun. It made sense and up until on the way here, I would have given you the benefit of the doubt, but you didn’t even deny it.” Unable to hold back, you start to sob, “I wanted to tell you I loved you that night, Jaehyun.”

Saying those words out loud brought both relief and horror to your system; it felt nice to have something you kept to yourself for so long to finally see the light of day, but the last person you wanted to hear them was the person those words were for.

He’s visibly astonished by your confession; eyes wide and misty, and mouth agape, letting you see the soft wisps of his warm breath react to the cold air.

“H-how long have you been…”

You angrily shrug your shoulders, “I don’t know. I had inklings of it every time you were sweet to me, but I ignored them. But I knew I was when I saw you with Areum… because why else would my heart break for someone who isn’t mine.”

“I can be yours.” Jaehyun takes a step forward but you put your hand up to stop him, “It’s not too late, [Y/N].”

“I had a pregnancy scare, Jaehyun.” You softly admit, “I realized I was late, ironically, at the party and Minkyung took me back to her place so I can take a pregnancy test. It came out negative, but until I finally got my period days after I went back home to my parents, I was so fucking scared, Jaehyun.”

“Fuck.” He curses, “Shit, I’m sorry, [Y/N]. I… I should have told you the condom broke.”

Your ears were ringing again. It was as if the entire world decided to stop and the silence was deafening.

“You knew the condom broke and you didn’t tell me…?”

“I panicked, too! It’s the first time it happened—”

“Well, fuck, Jaehyun! Congratulations, you know what to do next time it does!” You start to breathe heavily, remembering the anxiety you felt a few weeks ago. “Do you know how hard it is to look my parents in the eye and tell them everything is fine when in the back of your mind you don’t know if you’re pregnant or not? And if I was, how the fuck am I going to explain our relationship to them? I’m the breadwinner of the family. I had one goal: succeed in school to get a good job in the city. Getting pregnant in high school? That is the easiest way to ruin everything both me and my parents have worked hard for.”

He swallows hard, “Would you have kept… the baby?”

You answer in a broken voice as another sob escapes you, “Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have let you go through that alone, [Y/N].” Jaehyun holds your hands, both frosty from being exposed to the winter weather, “I’m going to take responsibility. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, [Y/N]. I should have told you the moment I found out. I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”

Your palms started to feel warm now that he held them tightly. This was the first contact you had with him in weeks. You would have thought you would crave more, but you don’t. You liked his hands, you told him this, you liked it that he touched you with them, but now they just felt like any other set of hands.

“You’re as clueless at love as me… just like how I was with sex a few months ago.” You try to crack a smile and force out a chuckle, but you end up streaming new tears down your cheeks. “And it’s easy to say that we can learn this together.”

His eyes light up, hopeful with your words. Only to grow wet as you struggle to say the next words.

“But I can’t.” You choke out, “I can’t be the one to learn this with you.”

You retract your hands from him, slipping them out of his hold, and curling them into fist to keep the warmth in.

“[Y/N].” His voice quivered, looking down at his empty hands, “What do I have to say or do for you to stay?”

It was odd and painful to see him cry; he exuded such a strong image and power with charisma that can be seen and felt for miles. Yet here he was, crumbling in front of you.

“Nothing.” You bit down your lip to keep it from trembling, “It was a mistake to even make that bet with you… but I don’t regret it.”

Jaehyun sniffs, cheeks and nose even redder now. You bravely put a hand on his cheek, wiping his tears with your thumb.

“A part of me will always be with you. It’s a part I’ll never get back and I don’t mind. Even though it was brief, I don’t regret falling in love with you.” You step closer to him, placing your other hand on his chest. He puts his hand over yours on his chest and the other on your waist. You look into each other’s eyes, studying each other for the last time before you push yourself up and kiss him.

It was bittersweet knowing this was the last kiss. Maybe that’s why both of you made the most of it, clinging onto each other like you were each other’s lifeline. There was no fighting for dominance, just moving your mouths against each other in complete sync. You exert every last drop of your emotions for him with this kiss until both of you pull away.

You start crying again, burying your face into his chest. His arms go around you, holding you tight as he starts to quietly sob as well.

“I wish I realized I liked you from the start…” He whispers, “If I had, I wouldn’t be saying I love you as a goodbye.”

His shoulders shake a little harder after he says those words and you hug him tighter. You stand in the freezing air, holding each other in silence until both of you notice the specks of white falling around you.

From an outsider’s point of view, seeing the two of you standing under the snowfall could probably paint a picture perfect scene of winter romance.

“I’m sorry.” You say, “You shouldn’t have brought me here. You had fond memories here.”

Jaehyun follows your gaze to the stretch of ice, the surface scratched up from ice skates. There’s no use in telling you that he still went here that day and witnessed a man go down on his knees in front of a woman. It had him thinking, but even then he knew it was ridiculous.

“And I still do.” He sniffs, returning his gaze to yours. “I’ll come back to this place and remember the times my family had picnics, or the times my dad and I went fishing, or skating, or skipping stones. Other than those, I’ll come back and remember this as the place I was able to tell the very first girl that I love her.”

Your chest constricts once more, but this time it doesn’t hurt. “You can come back here and remember that she loves you too.”

He smiles, although it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, or even bring out his dimples, “Even if she was the one that got away… I love her, nonetheless.”

You had always imagined breaking up would leave you broken beyond repair, sobbing in a crumpled up state on the ground — but then again, this wasn’t a break up. You two were ending things; a toxic relationship that neither of you acknowledged until it was too late. You still want to cry, you’re still hurting, but a part of you tells you it’s going to be okay.

The wind blows again and you gasp, shivering as the icy air seeped through your clothes.

Jaehyun chuckles, “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

You eagerly trek back to his car with him, putting your hands up to the heater once he turns it on. You think you heard him call you cute under his breath, but you don’t let it linger in your thoughts. You wait for him to play a song, but he never does. As he was about to reverse his car out of the parking lot, he pauses to look at you one last time.

He doesn’t say anything, so you don’t either. After a few seconds, he starts to drive and you watch the lake disappear from the side mirror.

» hope you liked it ヽ(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ let me know your thoughts through here

#nct smut #nct scenarios #jaehyun smut #jaehyun scenarios #commissioned

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lillupon · 3 years

Text

Soccer players!Minwon enemies to lovers

available on twitter

minwon w photoshoot encouraged me to dust off the soccer players!minwon enemies-to-lovers fic i wrote 4 years ago and never posted. i thought it was too ooc even for a fanfic, and they hated each other so much that i couldn't make them smooch lovingly ;;

reading this whole thing makes me scream omfg i can’t believe i wrote this LMAO it’s so far out of leftfield for me

The ball comes hurtling through the air and Mingyu launches himself into the opposite corner of the goal, just barely getting his hands around it. Hitting the ground knocks all the breath right out of him, but the ball is safely tucked against his stomach. He’s on his feet less than a second later.

“Fucking wake up!” Mingyu screams at his defenders, and in particular, Wonwoo. They’ve been sleepwalking through the entire game so far. Reacting seconds too late. From where he’s standing, his teammates look like they’re watching with their fingers up their noses as the ball sails over their heads.

“You can fuck right off, Mingyu!” Wonwoo flips the finger as he jogs backward.

Seething, Mingyu throws the ball towards Seungcheol, far away from Wonwoo, just out of spite. He can’t stand that guy. Wonwoo’s a mouthy son of a bitch. Thinks he’s hot shit just because he’s signed for half a million dollars a year and makes more money off endorsements than the rest of the team combined.

It’s only been thirty minutes and Mingyu feels like he’s been playing for hours. He’s heaving for breath. Pissed off at his defenders for letting the ball slip between their legs. If they had been doing their jobs properly, the other team should never have been close enough to even attempt a shot. But mostly, Mingyu’s frustrated at himself for letting in three goals. He’s getting sloppy, he knows. The pressure is getting to him. It’s a high-stakes game, one that will either bring in the sponsors or have their current ones jumping ship. The way things are going now? Mingyu may as well pull his pants down and present his ass for the reaming he’s going to get from their coach.

The referee blows the whistle, signalling the end of the first half of the game. They’re down four nil and the morale of the entire team is starting to flag. They want to give up, Mingyu can tell. It’s almost impossible to recover, especially since no one’s head is in the game. Mingyu can’t talk, either. He can barely see straight past the red haze clouding his vision.

He storms into the locker room without a single glance at his teammates. He yanks off his gloves and whips them into the far wall. They’re made of fabric, but when they hit the wall, it sounds like a gunshot going off.

Someone grabs Mingyu by the shoulder and wheels him around. He comes face-to-face with Wonwoo who looks as angry and frustrated as Mingyu feels. His brows are drawn into a furious vee and his cheeks are blotchy with red. He gives a shove that has Mingyu stumbling back into the lockers with a metallic rattle.

“What the fuck was that?” Wonwoo snarls.

“That’s what I want to ask you! Because it’s looking to me like you’re playing for the other team. Is someone paying you to throw the game?”

Wonwoo scoffs. “Oh, fuck off. You’re acting like it wasn’t you who let in all those goals.”

“Those goals would never have happened if you were doing your job properly, and you know that.”

“Yeah, just pin your failures on me,” Wonwoo says. “I wasn’t the one looking the other way when number fourteen scored.”

“I don’t think you understand how this game works. If you were doing your job properly, number fourteen shouldn’t have even gotten to me.”

“Sure, let your defenders do all the work. I guess you’re just getting paid to scratch your ass out there,” Wonwoo sneers.

A growl rips from Mingyu’s chest and he lunges, arms outstretched. Suddenly, Seungcheol is there, restraining him with an arm around his waist. Mingyu shoves him off. Doesn’t take his eyes off Wonwoo for a second. With a huff, Mingyu yanks down his jersey to straighten it out.

“What the hell’s the matter with you two? You guys are teammates, not on opposing sides of a war. Jesus,” Seungcheol, center back, says. He’s a good guy, veteran player. A real pacifist with more sense than anyone Mingyu has ever met. “We’re all trying our best out there, okay?”

“I wonder about that,” Wonwoo mutters under his breath.

Before Mingyu can respond to that, Seungcheol says, “Take a walk, Mingyu.”

“Me?” Mingyu asks, incredulous. “Why do I—”

Seungcheol fixes him with a deeply unimpressed look that has him falling into a grudging silence. Mingyu turns on his heel and leaves.

He finds himself in the storage room. It’s dark. He fumbles his way to the back. There’s a stack of mats in the corner and he punches them a few times to loosen the frustration coiling inside him. He takes a deep breath, holding it for three seconds before exhaling slowly. He’s been doing a lot of yoga and breathing exercises lately, trying to get all zen and shit. He’s not sure it’s working.

Mingyu scrubs a hand over his face and sighs heavily. He can’t help but feel like this game went to shit because of him. He says a lot of things to the defenders when they’re slipping, and he means every word. But when it comes down to it, he’s the one who either saves the ball or lets the other team score.

The door swings open then, letting in a flood of light. It’s Wonwoo.

“Jesus, what the fuck do you want?” Mingyu asks.

Wonwoo is smiling at him, which is never a good sign. “Seungcheol told me to apologise to you. Said it wasn’t good for us to go into the second half angry and resenting each other.”

Mingyu narrows his eyes. “So? Are you going to?”

“Take a guess.” Wonwoo comes closer. Mingyu squares his shoulders, ready for a fight. “I’m here to tell you to open your fucking eyes next half, you talentless piece of shit.”

“You need to sit the fuck down,” Mingyu snarls at him. He’s shaking with anger and adrenaline, blood pumping so hard it’s like he’s still out there lunging for the ball. He’s had it with this kid—never mind that Wonwoo is older than him. He doesn’t act like he’s older, spoiled brat that he is. “Get it out of your head that you’re better than the rest of us. Because you’re not.”

“I don’t—”

“Shut the fuck up. Everyone hears you complaining on the phone about how your teammates can’t play worth a damn. You mouth off on us and walk around like you own the entire team. This might come as a surprise to you, but you don’t.” Mingyu steps in close to Wonwoo, crowding him in against the wall. Their chests nearly touch and he can feel the heat radiating off Wonwoo. Wonwoo has to tip his chin up to look him in the eye, and it satisfies every petty inch of Mingyu.

Mingyu continues, “You’re just a two-bit rookie who doesn’t know center back from striker. You’re never where you need to be. You don’t pass when you need to pass. You think you can win on your own, and when we lose, it’s everyone else’s fault except yours. The only reason you’re here is because your daddy has connections.” And because you have a pretty face that the sponsors can’t get enough of, Mingyu doesn’t say. Wonwoo’s got the classic K-idol look, with his sharp cheekbones and defined jawline. Too bad he’s an asshole. You can’t win it all, Mingyu supposes.

Wonwoo is glaring up at Mingyu, breathing hard. The colour runs high on his cheeks and his jaw muscle jumps. He’s wound up so tight he looks two seconds away from either punching Mingyu in the face or coming in his pants. “Fuck you, Mingyu, you’re one to talk. You think everything is a challenge to your authority. You act like you’re the poster boy for good behaviour, but you’re the one who’s getting into fights out there, you hypocritical piece of shit,” he grits out. His mouth works, and then he spits a fat globule of saliva at Mingyu.

Mingyu recoils. Drags his forearm across his face. Growling, he grabs the front of Wonwoo’s shirt and slams him against the wall, pressing him bodily against it. They’re nose-to-nose and Wonwoo is going cross-eyed from trying to keep Mingyu in his sights. Jesus, Mingyu wants to bust him up. Make such a mess of his face that he cries every time he walks past a mirror.

Instead, Mingyu ends up glowering at him. He has no idea what it is about Wonwoo that riles him up. Every rookie wants to prove themselves, show that they can’t be walked all over by doling out as many caustic insults as they receive. Everyone’s frustrated and ready to lash out at the slightest provocation after a string of losses, and Mingyu gets that. But for some reason, Wonwoo manages to tick him right the fuck off.

Mingyu’s half hard in his briefs. It’s not unusual. All that adrenaline and pent-up aggression have to go somewhere. He just hates the fact that it’s Wonwoo that his body decides to react to. Mingyu grinds his teeth. His fist tightens on Wonwoo’s collar. Jesus, he’s not entirely sure if he’s going to deck Wonwoo or makeout with him at this point.

They’re pressed together from shins to chest, so it’s no surprise that Wonwoo notices that he’s hard. Wonwoo’s lips curl up into an infuriating smirk. “Don’t tell me this is how you usually react to our fights, Mingyu,” he says. As though he’s not fattening up in his shorts. Mingyu can feel it. “Is this what it’s been about all this time? You trying to get my atten—”

Mingyu smashes their mouths together. Wonwoo makes a muffled noise of surprise. Mingyu’s heart is beating somewhere up in his throat. He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, but he knows he’s gotten Wonwoo to shut up for once, and that’s no small success. Wonwoo struggles against him, puts hands on his chest and tries to push him off. Mingyu grabs his wrists and pins them to his side.

“I fucking hate you,” Wonwoo snarls against the press of their mouths.

And then he starts to kiss Mingyu back.

This has been a long time coming, ever since that drunken night that ended with them on the bar floor, dry-humping each other under the guise of wrestling. Wonwoo’s been an itch in his system for months now.

There’s nothing gentle about the kiss. They kiss like they’re fighting, all teeth and not enough tongue. Mingyu wedges a knee in between Wonwoo’s thighs and presses up, causing him to gasp out a moan. Wonwoo rocks his hips down in search of friction, a guttural groan vibrating in his throat.

Mingyu pulls away, breathing hard. He puts his back to the nearby wall to give him something to lean against. “Get on your knees,” he says.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Do you want this dick or not?” Mingyu asks. “I don’t care either way.”

He thinks Wonwoo will back out. It’s for the best if he does. They’re in public; they’re in the middle of a game; they hate each other’s guts; he’s pretty sure Wonwoo has a girl, or at least, someone he fucks, on and off. One of those reasons alone would have made this a colossally bad idea.

Instead, Wonwoo clamps his mouth shut and drops to his knees. Mingyu’s stomach lurches as though he is looking down from a great height. His mouth goes dry and he swallows with a loud and painful roll of his throat. No fucking way. Now here’s a sight he never thought he’d see: Wonwoo glaring up at him, somehow managing to look both pissed off and turned on at the same time.

Mingyu palms himself through his shorts. Wonwoo’s eyes immediately zero in on the movement. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and whatever shred of hesitancy Mingyu felt burns up.

He pushes his shorts down, just enough to get his cock out and to let his balls hang free. He wraps his fingers around the base of his cock and gives it a rough, experimental stroke. A pearl of precum has blurted out from the slit. He smears a thumb over it, the breath shuddering out of him.

Wonwoo is riveted, eyes tracking the way Mingyu’s hand works over his shaft. His own cock is tenting in his shorts. Mingyu absolutely lets it get to his head, his lizard brain preening. A reaction like that, just from a little bit of kissing, just from seeing Mingyu’s dick. In Wonwoo’s defense, it is a pretty good dick, if Mingyu says so himself.

Mingyu jerks himself off. Once, twice. “You want this?”

That seems to snap Wonwoo out of his cock-induced daze. “I’m not going to beg,” he says, but already, he’s leaning forward, mouth falling open in request.

It’s downright nasty, is what it is. Mingyu is sweaty and stinks of Eau de Hardwork. The fact that it’s Wonwoo of all people makes it all the hotter. His nostrils flare as he inhales the musk of Mingyu’s cock. His lashes flutter.

Mingyu feeds his cock to Wonwoo. Gets his hand slapped aside. Wonwoo takes over, curling his fingers around the base of it, suckling at the head a bit to get it wet.

Mingyu inhales sharply when Wonwoo licks a flat stripe along the underside of his cock where a vein throbs. Wonwoo tortures him with those kitten licks, hotly mouthing his way up to close his lips around the head of Mingyu’s cock.

Mingyu doesn’t want to show Wonwoo how affected he is by all of this, but he can’t help the low groan that leaves him when Wonwoo swirls a tongue around the sensitive crown. As though aware of Mingyu’s tenuous control, Wonwoo’s eyes crinkle with amusement. He pops off Mingyu’s cock. His mouth works. But this time, instead of spitting in Mingyu’s face, he dribbles a line of saliva down his length.

“Suck a lot of cock, do you?” Mingyu says. His voice is embarrassingly rough. He threads his fingers into Wonwoo’s hair and tugs in an attempt to get that mouth on his erection again.

Wonwoo’s response is to open wide and swallow him down, hand covering what his mouth can’t.

“Oh fuck,” Mingyu moans, head falling back against the wall with a thud. Unwilling to miss even a second of this once-in-a-lifetime moment, he looks between his legs from under half-lidded eyes. Seeing Wonwoo’s dark head bobbing up and down, hand moving in tandem with his mouth… The sight is as gratifying as the suction on his cock, if not more so.

Mingyu rocks his hips back and forth. This whole thing is so surreal that he can’t help but half-laugh, half-moan. “If I knew all it took you to shut up was a cock in your mouth, I would have done this a long time ago.”

Wonwoo’s teeth flash and Mingyu yanks him off with a hiss, fingers tightening into the short strands of Wonwoo’s hair. Wonwoo’s breathing hard, lips glistening with spit.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Mingyu says, hand tightening and giving Wonwoo’s head a little shake to punctuate his words, “or I’m gonna throw this door open and show everyone what a good little cocksucker you are.”

Wonwoo’s lips curl. “The door is five meters away, dumbshit. I’d like to see you try.”

A flare of anger spears through Mingyu—smug fucking bastard—and he doesn’t even think when he slaps Wonwoo across the face. It’s not a hard slap, but hard enough to let Wonwoo know that he means business. Except that fucker—he moans. The sound is so faint that it might be mistaken for a shocked noise, and it’s quickly covered up by Wonwoo who mockingly drawls, “Yes. I understand, Sir.”

Satisfied, he lets Wonwoo back on his cock. This time, Wonwoo doesn’t waste time teasing and swallows him down.

For a brief moment, Mingyu is still somewhat in shock. His own action took him by surprise. He doesn’t usually slap the people who blow him; he’s usually grateful. But Wonwoo brings out the worst in him. And then there’s the fact that Wonwoo moaned quietly—Mingyu knows what he heard—at the palm strike across his cheek.

Those thoughts are promptly sucked out of his dick. Mingyu doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone who looks so haughty while sucking cock. Sometimes, Wonwoo will pull off to circle his tongue around the head, the corners of his lips ticking up impishly. He’s full aware of the effect he has on Mingyu. Then he takes Mingyu almost all the way down to the hilt. The noises he makes are filthy and carnivorous. Hungry.

Goddamn, he likes this, Mingyu thinks wondrously.

Wonwoo’s eager. Squirming on his haunches. His free hand has found his way between his legs to knead himself. He’s getting distracted, the rhythm he built up faltering.

Mingyu shoves Wonwoo further down onto his length. Feels the tip of his cock hit the back of Wonwoo’s throat.

Wonwoo chokes and pulls off, inhaling on a gasp and coughing. He drags a forearm across his mouth, wiping, and glares up with watery eyes. The force of his glare is diminished by the redness of his cheeks. It’s a look that sends a jolt of arousal straight to Mingyu’s cock.

“Get back here,” Mingyu says. “And don’t get distracted by your own dick this time.”

Mingyu puts both hands on Wonwoo’s head and begins to fuck the tight circle of Wonwoo’s mouth. Wonwoo is ready for it this time. It doesn’t take long before Mingyu transitions from slow and shallow rolls of his hips to full-on thrusting into Wonwoo’s mouth. Mingyu curses, gut spasming with his rising pleasure.

Wonwoo’s throat works around the intrusion. His lips are stretched wide, chin coated with saliva. His eyes are wet, lashes clumped together. It’s all so obscene, so incredibly fucking hot.

Mingyu’s balls draw in tight and his breathing goes ragged. He fucks Wonwoo’s mouth a little faster, grits out, “Oh, fuck—” That’s all the warning Wonwoo gets before Mingyu is shooting his load. Mingyu groans loudly, hips jerking involuntarily. He keeps Wonwoo held down, the sensation of Wonwoo’s throat contracting around him prolonging his orgasm. Mingyu wants to laugh. Holy shit. “Yeah, that’s it,” he breathes. “Swallow every last drop.”

Wonwoo makes a valiant attempt at doing so, but there’s so much cum that it trickles out the corner of his mouth.

By the time Mingyu is done, they’re both breathing hard. Well, it’s Mingyu’s who’s breathing hard; Wonwoo is coughing and gasping for breath.

Mingyu’s not done here yet. “Clean it up,” he says. Wonders how far Wonwoo will allow himself to be pushed before he snaps.

Wonwoo is quiet when he uses the head of Mingyu’s cock to scoop up the errant drops of cum and push it back into his mouth. Then, he laps up the remainder of Mingyu’s release.

Mingyu shivers at the rasp of tongue on his softening cock. Once he’s clean, he tucks himself back into his briefs.

“What about me?” Wonwoo asks.

Wonwoo, rich and spoiled boy that he is, has probably been given everything he has ever asked for on a silver platter. He says “Jump” and people say “How high?” It wouldn’t hurt for him to work for the things he wants; that would be a first in his life.

And maybe, Mingyu is also thinking about how hard Wonwoo gets when he’s pushed around. How that light slap had him moaning softly.

With that in mind, Mingyu pushes his cleats between Wonwoo’s legs. The top of his shoe bumps his erection. “Go on,” Mingyu says. It’s no big deal, he tells himself even as his heart is pounding violently against his ribs, if Wonwoo decides that he’s had enough of Mingyu’s bullshit and stalks off. Mingyu has already gotten what he wanted.

“What?”

“You have thirty seconds to get yourself off. Go,” Mingyu says, prodding his toe against him.

Wonwoo’s eyes round and he flushes a violent shade of red. He opens his mouth as if to protest. But then he doesn’t. Just clamps his lips together and begins to move his hips. It’s possibly the sexiest thing Mingyu has ever seen. Blood rushes to his head, swelling and pounding and pulsing in his skull. A groan escapes Mingyu, as though he is the one getting much-needed friction on his cock.

“Look at you,” Mingyu whispers. “Rutting against my foot like a bitch in heat.”

Wonwoo honest-to-god whimpers. There’s no other way to describe the absolutely tiny, pleasure-filled sound that leaves him, so incongruous with the person Mingyu has always known him to be. He drives his hips down with increased desperation, moaning shakily. He clutches around the bend of Mingyu’s knee, forehead knocking against Mingyu’s thigh.

If Mingyu hadn’t spent just seconds earlier, he would have gotten hard again. Instead, he just watches Wonwoo bump and grind on him with a dry mouth.

Someone knocks on the door, three sharp raps. “Game’s about to start. You two kiss and make up yet?” It’s Seungcheol.

Mingyu yanks his foot away.

Wonwoo sobs out with loss. Tugs on his ankle. “No, I haven’t—”

“Too late. Your time’s up.”

He groans, a truly miserable sound. “I hate you,” he says, glaring up balefully.

“If you’d quit thinking with your dick for two seconds, you’d remember that we’re in a middle of a game,” Mingyu says.

Wonwoo stands up on coltish legs.

It actually hurts Mingyu’s heart a little to leave him like this. He leans in to whisper into Wonwoo’s ear, “So this is what’s going to happen. We’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna do our jobs. And if we don’t make a fool of ourselves out there, then I’ll take you back to my room and fuck you so hard you’ll be limping through practice for the next week. Sound good?”

After a moment, Wonwoo relents and says through gritted teeth, “You better. Or I’m going to flip you over and fuck you myself.”

Mingyu snorts. Yeah, that’s the Wonwoo he’s familiar with.

Wonwoo roughly adjusts his crotch. “Jesus, how the hell am I supposed to play like this?”

“If you don’t get your head in the game, we’re going to end up becoming the MLS equivalent of Brazil in the 2014 World Cup.”

Wonwoo blanches.

Miraculously, they end up tying the game at 4-4. It’s a better outcome than anyone could have expected. Wonwoo flashes a wicked smile, looking ridiculously proud of himself. And he should be; a single ball didn’t get past him in the second half.

Mingyu finds himself smiling back.

#my writing

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arrow-guy · 3 years

Text

Broken Flock (11/??)

Summary: It’s been two years since you uprooted your life and left to figure out who you really are, leaving behind Bucky and Clint with little more than a note as a warning. Now, New York is calling your name and it’s time to go home. How will Clint and Bucky react to your return, and how will the time have affected your relationship?

A/N: Okay I’m actually kind of really excited about this chapter. I feel like it got away from me a little bit for a sec there in the first half. That being said, I really love the end of this chapter, and I hope you guys will as well. Please enjoy!

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

Pairing: WinterhawkxReader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Discussion of human experimentation (not in depth), Discussion of politics (the Accords)

Part 10

“I didn’t expect to be stuck in a conference room for this.”

“Trust me,” Steve says. “I didn’t think it’d come to this either, but-”

The door bursts open and everyone turns to look. General Ross stands in the doorway, hands behind his back. He looks too smug for my liking. If I weren’t so sore, and if I knew I wouldn’t get in trouble, I’d wipe that look right off his face.

Steve groans. “We had a change of plans.”

“Ah, so good of you to join us, Ms. (Y/L/N),” he says. He strides through the room to stand at the head of the table and address us. “I was beginning to wonder where you’d gone.”

“Last I checked, I don’t answer to you,” I snap. “None of us do.”

“You dropped off the map for a good two weeks.”

“I was kidnapped.”

“Even so-”

“What the hell is this about?” I cut in. “Because I was under the impression that this meeting concerned myself and the Avengers alone. Not you and your little government issued lackeys.”

“You’re awful hostile for someone speaking to her superior,” he ground out.

“Who, me?” I glance around at everyone in the room. “I’m a civilian and the Avengers are a private organization. I don’t work for you, Ross. None of us do.”

“You will,” he says. “When the Accords are put into governmental procedure.”

“See, I don’t know if you’re ever going to make headway with that little project of yours.” I shuffled around in my seat before leaning on the table. “Considering the fact that you refuse to work with one of the biggest players in this, who knows how many signatures you’ll get.”

“To what do we owe the displeasure, Thaddeus?” Tony asks.

Ross’ eye twitches. “You missed your deadline.”

“We were a little preoccupied in finding (Y/N),” Steve says. “As she said, she was kidnapped. You would know this if you’d read any of the correspondence we sent you concerning this.”

“And we wouldn’t be in this position if you’d quit running in circles and rejecting any kind of amendments we suggest,” Bucky adds. “We’ve been trying to work with you on this for months, yet you never seem to be able to make up your mind on what you want from us.”

“He wants complete and total control over the Avengers,” I say.

“Excuse me?” Ross grinds out.

“I said, you want to control the Avengers,” I repeat. I look to Natasha. “Did I stutter? I don’t think I stuttered.”

“Not that I heard,” she says.

I look Ross dead in the eye. “Do you need me to speak up? Or would it be helpful if I just signed instead?”

“(Y/N),” Steve warns.

I glare at Ross, but sit back in my chair. “Sorry.”

“You’re not in trouble,” Steve says. “But I don’t want you to say anything incriminating.”

I simply nod and keep quiet. Steve gestures to Tony, who stands to face General Ross.

“We weren’t planning on announcing this today, but we’ve given your proposal some serious thought, and we’ve decided to turn you down,” Tony says.

“You’re what?!” Ross hisses. “You can’t do that!”

“Can’t we? Because we’ve been operating independently for the past two years, and things seem to be going just fine. The only major incident we’ve dealt with since Sokovia-”

Ross interjects, “Which was your fault, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Shut the fuck up, Thaddeus,” I snap. “You don’t get to interrupt people just because you’re a General.”

Clint snorts and I squeeze his knee in a silent plea for him to be quiet.

Tony clears his throat. “As I was saying, the only incident we’ve dealt with since Sokiva has been (Y/N)’s kidnapping. And we managed to find her just fine, no thanks to you.”

“And,” Natasha says. “If I’m remembering correctly, we’ve been fully functional since S.H.I.E.L.D. went under, even without asking for any assistance from the likes of you.” She tilts her head to the side and folds her arms. “And yet you expect us to just hand ourselves over to you.”

“You just don’t get it, do you?”

“No,” I say. “I think we understand perfectly. You think that the Avengers have too much power. The only way that you can see to ensure no one gets hurt is to put a leash on them. And I can see where you’re coming from, and your care for the public, if you can even call it that, is commendable. But this ass backwards, roundabout route you’re taking is absolutely fucking absurd.”

“You said you’re not part of this team!”

“I did, but I never said I didn’t have any kind of stake in whether or not the Accords are approved. I have powers, remember? I’m directly affected by whatever kind of legislation is put in place because of those Accords. But you could never understand that, because you’ve only ever seen people like us as power hungry egomaniacs. But look around.” I gesture to the room. “No one here asked for what we got. Bruce and I were accidents, Steve was a scientific crapshoot, regardless of how successful, Bucky was kidnapped and brainwashed and experimented on without his consent, Natasha and Clint’s backgrounds are questionable at best, and Tony was blown up by his own bomb. His first suit was built out of necessity, not curiosity or the need to seize power.”

“(Y/N)...” Bucky murmurs. He takes my hand and squeezes it gently.

“By all means, work with the Avengers. But quit acting like you’ve got the moral high ground, because all you've done is set up roadblocks and refuse to compromise in any capacity."

Ross looks down his nose at me. "You've got a lot of opinions for someone so vehemently against being part of their team."

"Well, you’re ready to imprison any single powered person who doesn’t sign, simply because you deem us to be threats.” I narrow my eyes. "But last I checked, you can't arrest someone for having opinions."

"Maybe not, but you certainly seem to know more about the Accords than what's been made available to the public-"

"We've kept her up to date with the proceedings," Steve says. "She has every right to know about something that would change the way she lives her life."

"That's not a decision for you to make."

Steve simply shrugs. "You never said anything about our discussions being confidential."

“Why you-”

“You do see the position you’ve put us in, right?” Steve presses. “We’re trying to work out ways to protect our loved ones, powers or no, and still do our jobs, but you keep blocking every single suggestion we make. You want us to cooperate, but you make it impossible.”

“You say that as if you’re not trying to bend the Accords to work for you.”

“No,” Tony says. “That’s what you’re doing. Your unwillingness to collaborate with just proves (Y/N) right. You don’t want to work with us. You want to control us. Because we’re not predictable, and that scares you and your little government buddies.”

Steve rises from his seat and stares Ross down. “See, we’d be happy to work with you. But that means working with us.”

Ross tries to protest, but shuts his mouth when Bucky stands abruptly. Bucky’s glare can only be described as glacial. No one says a word.

Ross shifts closer to Steve and Natasha shoots up from her chair. Clint, Tony, and I follow suit. I shake out my wings to make myself look bigger than I am and squint at General Ross. He’s startled to find all of us resisting him and turns back to Steve, only to find him with a similarly cold expression and his arms folded across his chest.

“If you’re not going to work with us,” Steve says. “I suggest you leave.”

“Fine.” He looks around the room at each of us. “But I will be back.”

“Until you’re ready to compromise, you’re not welcome,” Tony quips. “But we’ll gladly escort you out.”

Ross seems to know he’s been beat and makes a hasty retreat. His lackeys follow him from the conference room and down the hallway, back to whatever they arrived in. When I’m sure they’re gone, I sink back into my seat and cover my face with my hands. My heart is beating out of my chest and every ache from two days earlier is back with a vengeance.

“Are you okay?” Clint asks, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I nod and turn to press my face to his shoulder. “Too much excitement for one day, that’s all.”

Clint hums in agreement. “I don’t think he’ll be back for a while.”

I laugh. “Of course he won’t, he got stared down by a room full of Avengers. He probably shat himself as soon as Nat stood up.”

“Of course he did,” Clint grins at Natasha. “She’s terrifying.”

Natasha snorts and Clint tries to make another joke to actually make her laugh. Steve watches them and I wait till I can catch his eye to say something.

“Is it safe to assume that wasn’t part of the plan today?” I ask.

Steve sighs. “No, it wasn’t.” He glares at the door. “General Ross seems to have a bad habit of showing up when he’s least wanted.”

“And ignoring anything he doesn’t want to hear,” Tony adds. “I swear, we sent him at least three notices about the delay, and he just ignored every single one of them.”

“You seriously put off negotiations to find me?”

“Of course we did, (Y/N),” Tony says. “You’re family. You know what we do for family.”

I frown. “Drop everything.”

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, we did.” Bucky takes my hand. “We weren’t going to leave you behind after everything we did to find you last time.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I blink them away and whisper, “Thank you. All of you. Really.”

“There’s nothing to thank us for,” Natasha says. “Don’t argue with me about this.”

I laugh, but sniffle a moment later. “Okay, I won’t.”

“You wanna tell us why you actually wanted to meet?” Clint asks.

“Right,” Steve shifts in his seat. “We believe that we’ve apprehended everyone involved with your kidnapping, (Y/N). They’ll be tried and probably sentenced before the end of the month.”

“Oh, wow.” Surprised, I look between Steve and Tony. “I forgot how quickly you work.”

“We put in a rush order for our favorite Sesame Street character,” Tony says.

I laugh. “So I’m Big Bird now?”

“Well, you’re smart, you care about your friends and family, and you’re nice. Well…” He gestures vaguely. “Most of the time.”

“I’ll take it.”

Tony hums. “I started looking into Hoffman’s research, and it’s pretty grim stuff.”

“Oh?”

“A lot about genetic mutation and splicing animal DNA with human. From what Banner and I have found, she’d been doing this for a long time, and getting away with it, too. Based on her notes from the last five years, you’re her most successful experiment, and she didn’t even know you existed until six months ago.” He sighs. “I won’t go into too much detail, but the plans she had… she’s bad news in every sense of the phrase.”

“I got lucky, then.”

“I didn’t want to say that, but yeah. You did.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). You shouldn’t’ve been mixed up in any of this in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault. She would’ve caught up to me eventually. It’s not like ten foot wings are easy to hide.”

“All of that aside,” Steve says. “They’ll be going away for a long time. The rest of their lives, if we can manage it. They won’t be able to get to you ever again.”

I nod. “What’ll you do about Ross?”

“If we can manage it, we’ll keep pushing for reformed Accords. None of us want to be limited in what we can do, but it was easier to operate when we had the power of a government agency or two to back us up.” Steve shrugs. “If he can’t agree to that, we won’t be signing.”

“And you’re all cool with that?”

Tony nods. “We’ve argued over this for months, and getting your insight as someone on the outside helped as well. We’re not backing down from this.”

“Good. There’s no reason to roll over just because some dickhead bully demands it. He needs your support on this. He’s blind if he can’t see that.”

“Our thoughts exactly,” Steve says.

“Has she been cleared to go home yet, though?” Clint asks.

Steve nods. “She’s good to go as early as tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” Clint says, his relief obvious in his voice. “Simone has to go out of town on Saturday and without her, there’s no one left to dog-sit.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and Tony makes makes a joke about Clint’s loyalties lying elsewhere. I can’t pay attention to any of it, though. My thoughts keep straying back to what it’ll be like to be back in my apartment and away from the rest of the team. I can’t help thinking that it’ll be a little more peaceful, especially with the constant sounds of the settling apartment building around me.

Bucky squeezes my hand and I shake the fog from my head. “Hm?”

“You okay?”

I try to reassure him with a smile. “I’m fine. Just trying to plan what we need to do to get ready to go tomorrow.”

“We’ll head out bright ‘n early tomorrow. Okay?” I nod and he kisses my forehead.

“You’re sitting in the back, Clint.”

“What? You know I get carsick.”

“You don’t get carsick, you just don’t like the legroom in the back.”

“Can’t help that, Bucky, I’m a tall guy!”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You know (Y/N) needs the front seat. She can’t sit normally because of her wings.”

Clint scowls. “Then let me drive.”

“Hell no, you’re a nightmare behind the wheel.”

“You’re no fun!” I clear my throat and both men look to me and smile. “Hey! You’re finally up.”

I shake my head. “I was up an hour ago, I just wanted to make sure I had everything.”

“Oh, right.” Clint strides across the driveway and takes my bag from me. “We were just-”

“Squabbling,” I laugh. “I know. It’s what you two do best sometimes.”

“We can do other things too,” he mumbles.

Bucky shakes his head and joins Clint and I. “Ignore him. He’s just grumpy because someone called about a burst pipe in the basement.”

“Oh shit.” Clint scratches the back of his neck and I place my hand on his arm. “Have you called someone yet?”

“Yeah, they already showed up, but it won’t be a cheap fix.”

“It’ll be fine, I’m sure. We can get it sorted out when we get back, right?” He nods and wanders off to pack up the car.

Bucky hooks his arm around my waist and I tilt my head up to kiss his cheek. “You’re looking better this morning,” he says.

“I slept really well last night. Probably has something to do with you two.”

“You give us too much credit, (Y/N).”

“I don’t think you give yourselves enough.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “I’ll go get the car set up.”

“Okay. I’ll be over in a minute.”

I stand back and watch them move around the car. Clint scoops up two more duffel bags, I assume they’re his and Bucky’s, from beside the car and places them in the trunk. Bucky puts the passenger seat down and I can see him roll his eyes when Clint sidles up beside him and says something close to his ear. Clint laughs when Bucky pinches his side and I can’t help smiling.

It suddenly hits me how thankful I am that I have both of them. I don’t know what I would do without them, or even where I’d be right now if they weren’t in my life.

My smile slowly slips away as I realize that I love them. Different from when we first met and more than I did when I left.

My heart flutters and I press my fingers to my lips, just letting the realization wash over me. I’m not scared. Just peaceful. This feels right.

“You okay, (Y/N)?”

I refocus and meet Clint’s eyes. “Hm?”

“You were zoning out,” he says. “Are you feeling alright?”

I smile. “I’m good. Nothing to worry about.”

“You sure?”

I nod and approach the car. “Mhm.”

He wraps his arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “Okay, good.”

“Help me into the car?”

“Of course.” He grins and gestures to the open passenger door. “Your chariot awaits.”

----------

Part 12

How’s that for an ending? I’m pretty fond of it, personally. I promise this isn’t the grand ending, but we’re getting close, I think. But for now, we know that the reader loves her boys, and that’s what really matters.

I’d love to know how you reacted! I always love knowing what you guys think, so please comment, reblog, like, and/or shoot me an ask!

If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters, please let me know!

Tag list:

@ghostlyhamlet, @claws-of-vibranium, @creaturefeatures101, @buckysendoftheline, @imagine-assembling-the-avengers, @ptprocrastination, @1950schick, @amayasymone23, @arfrona-and-marvel, @ek823, @fanaticfangirl001, @furrywerewolfcollector, @kissofvenom922, @dawn-phantomhive, @fangirlwithasweettooth, @mairhof1, @starryeyesbadguys, @trap-house-homiecide, @buckywhitewolfbarnes, @kaepm981, @howdoesoneadult, @pcdmesamidala, @thefandomplace, @sian22redux, @skeletoresinthebasement, @lady-thor-foster, @jazzcutie, @gaytonystark, @geeksareunique, @nyxveracity, @breezy1415, @darling-loki, @lemonadeorange73, @tofeartheunknown, @queenoftheunderdark

This fic:

@avengerscompound, @nerdy-bookworm-1998, @shirukitsune, @keenmarvellover, @katebarton15, @feelmyroarrrr

#winterhawkxreader #readerxwinterhawk #winterhawk x reader #reader x winterhawk #bucky barnesxreader #readerxbucky barnes #clint bartonxreader #readerxclint barton #winterhawk #bucky barnes #clint barton #reader insert marvel fic

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rhysismydaddy · 4 years

Text

A High Stakes Game (Rowaelin)

This is me forcing myself to write something besides ACOTAR. (It’s still SJM but leave me alone). Lemme just preface this by saying I don’t know jack about poker, so everything in here is either from Wikihow or pulled out of my ass.

IK I said this was coming out yesterday, but I have a good excuse: I was reading From Blood and Ash (8.9/10 recommend... ending is super obvious but still so good)

I DIDN’T EDIT THIS AND I’M NOT SORRY (maybe a lil)

Masterlist

____________________________________________________________

Aelin Galathynius, professional criminal and longtime plotter of idiotic, amazing schemes that threatened the sanity of her closest friends, sat down at the poker table and smiled.

“Ready to lose some more money, Whitehorn?”

The man across from her scowled, making her smile grow. Irritating him was perhaps the only feeling better than kicking his ass at cards.

“It was only pocket change, don’t get cocky.” He tilted his head and smirked. “Plus, it sure as hell won’t be happening again. I think I’ve finally figured you out, Galathynius.”

Aelin rolled her eyes, trying to look unbothered.

His version of “pocket change” was twenty grand. And if she won that much tonight, she’d finally have enough cash to pay back Arobyn and get the hell out of his reach.

But that wasn’t what had her shaken.

It was the fact that in all her time playing cards and hustling men who couldn’t look past her cleavage, she’d never faced an opponent like Rowan Whitehorn. He watched her every move, made a note of all her expressions, and generally caused her to have to work ten times harder.

He was a pain in her ass, basically.

Had been ever since he’d shown up a month ago, looking like a dangerous, sexy villain in a gangster movie. Aelin would admit that at first, his looks had distracted her.

Until he swiped two thousand dollars worth of chips away from her.

Bastard.

Now that she knew better, she didn’t let the silver hair, piercing green eyes, or alluring ink of his tattoo distract her. She treated him like a real adversary, was cautious with her chips, and never, ever let him get under her skin.

So when he said he had her figured out... she didn’t exactly doubt him. And considering she’d had to pull out every single tip and trick she’d ever learned to beat him last Friday, he probably wouldn’t fall for any one of them again tonight.

Even if he was having a beautifully hard time focusing for once. His bright eyes kept darting over to her, sweeping over her bare shoulders, deep V of her dress, and bright red lipstick.

He always looked, but unlike the other men sitting around the table, he never said a word about it.

Interesting.

“Concentrate, Rowan,” she chided with a grin, leaning back to take a peak at her cards. “I’d hate for this to be too easy.”

Two aces, two kings, one five. Not bad, but it could be beat. She needed another ace or king to even be in the running.

“You’re so annoying,” Rowan growled back, sharp face not revealing a thing as he looked down at his cards. “Two thousand.”

Aelin called, keeping her face blank and uninterested. She’d brought ten grand with her tonight, and if this went poorly, it’d take her at least two more weeks to win it back.

“I’ll take one,” she told the dealer, sliding the five over.

The other players at the table--a three-hundred pound Russian named Vlad and a shifty, skinny guy that never said a word--made their plays.

“Two for me,” Rowan said, leaning back and sipping from his drink.

Aelin’s mind turned with possibilities, going through the list of cards they’d already seen tonight. Her bet was that he was shooting for a flush and needed two cards of hearts to pull it off.

The trick to counting cards, ladies, gentlemen, and criminals, is discretion. She’d never been caught and banned from any of the games in town because she never walked away with more than thirty grand. Small wins to some of the whales, but she didn’t want too much attention on her.

She peaked at the card she’d gotten and forced herself to look disappointed as she saw the ace.

Full house.

“I’ll raise to three,” she said, sliding a small pile of chips into the center.

Fat Putin called, Slender Man dropped out.

Rowan’s eyes narrowed as the bet came around to him. “Let’s go four.”

Aelin’s stomach dropped out. That was a nine grand bet on a single hand, and hers wasn’t even that great. If she bet and lost, she’d only have a thousand bucks for tonight. But if she didn’t, she’d lose the five grand she’d put down.

Another reason she was a winner at the table: she trusted her gut.

“I’ll call.”

The Russian gruffed something she couldn’t understand and dropped out. It was just her and Whitehorn now.

He looked down at his cards, then studied her face in a way that made her grit her teeth. Aelin propped an elbow on the table and narrowed her eyes, and he smiled, tattoo gleaming in the light.

His eyes swept across her face, then lower. Usually, when someone at the game looked at her like that, she made it a point to take their entire nest. But for some reason, she just returned the favor.

As was the last three times she’d played against him, he was wearing an expensively cut, jet black suit, which made the ink of his tattoo pop and his hair look like ice. His lips were in that permanent scowl of his, even though there was no anger in his eyes.

It really was a shame someone so handsome was so damn infuriating.

“I’ll raise to ten,” he said, shooting a meaningful glance at her nest. He wanted her to go all in on a full house? Before the flop?

She heard herself respond before her brain caught up. “Call.”

Jesus, A. Calm down.

Since they were the only two players at the table, the dealer nodded and flipped three cards up. Aelin felt like she might throw up as she saw that nothing in there would help her.

“Check,” she said, passing the bet to Rowan.

He gave her a smile that probably looked innocent to anyone else. “Fifteen.”

“You know I don’t have it,” she lied, following her number one rule to never withdraw any more than she had planned.

Rowan shrugged, leaning forward to brace both arms against the table. “Bet something other than money, then.”

Alarm bells, and a strange amount of intrigue, started flaring in her head.

“Like what?” she asked, coating her voice in confidence.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette, taking his time lighting it. After exhaling a thick fog of smoke, he looked her over and smirked. “One night with you.”

Every head in the place turned their way.

Up till now, this hadn’t been that interesting of a game.

Even though she could hardly breathe, Aelin said, “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, but I am.” He laughed softly. “You win, you finally have enough to pay Arobyn Hammel back. You lose, you come upstairs.”

Her brain couldn’t make sense of what he’d just said. He knew about Arobyn? Her debt?

“How do you-”

“I told you I figured you out.”

Oh, fuck. This was bad.

Or maybe not.

She couldn’t decide.

He was really going to trade sex for a poker game?

It wasn’t like she wasn’t ridiculously attracted to him. She definitely was. And she knew she probably would’ve slept with him if they’d met outside a hotel casino. But this felt... different than just having sex with him.

On the other hand, she could be done. Her hand was good, and depending on the next card flipped, it could get better. If another ace turned up, she’d have four of a kind.

And she’d be done. Debts paid, nothing holding her here. It was risky, but too tempting to shoot down.

“Deal.”

Rowan smiled, shaking his head softly, and gestured to the dealer who ignored how illegal this transaction was and reached to turn the last card over.

An ace.

Holy hell.

Aelin smiled and flipped her cards over. “Four of a kind.”

Which could only be beat by a straight flush or a-

“Royal flush.”

A gasp went through the crowd that had gathered around them as he flipped his hand over, and Aelin honestly thought she might pass out.

He’d won.

She forced herself to roll her eyes and smile. “Congratulations.”

On the bright side, you didn’t lose ten grand.

Just some of your dignity.

At the leering stares of every man in the room, she amended her thought.

Okay, all your dignity.

Rowan snuffed his cigarette out and stood, the group of people looking between him and Aelin with unabashed curiosity on their faces.

Even though he’d won, his face didn’t hold a single emotion as he walked over to her side of the table and extended a hand. “Let’s go.”

She bit her lip, trying to think what her odds would be of making a break for the door. She’d never be able to get through the crowd, though, let alone outrun him in all his long-legged glory.

So she grabbed his hand and let him pull her through the shocked, laughing, gaping group of people towards the elevator.

Once inside, she stood silent, not knowing exactly what to say.

He led her down a hallway and into a hotel room, then turned to her.

And stared.

She just stared back.

She was about to tell him that if he honestly expected her to sleep with him over a poker game that he go fuck himself when he shocked the hell out of her.

“Want to watch a movie?”

“Um, what?”

“We’re watching a movie.” He flopped down on the bed and grabbed the remote. “Sit down, Aelin.”

She stood standing. Rowan just sighed, kicked off his shoes, and messed with the remote.

When an actual movie--a very manly war movie, mind you--started playing, she realized he was serious and sat next to him on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

Her mind couldn’t stop reeling, though.

He’d been ready to give her fifteen grand for a night with her, and he didn’t even expect to collect if he won?

She eyed him curiously. He looked relaxed, harsh face not scowling for once. The light from the movie made his hair almost glow in the dark, and even though people were shooting and yelling and dying, he looked happy.

Aelin slid down a bit, continuing to stare at him until he turned to look at her, too.

Green eyes, soft lips, sharp jawline.

“You really don’t expect me to sleep with you?”

“I mean, you’re probably going to fall asleep at some point...” he joked, but shook his head and sighed. “No, Aelin. Despite what you apparently think, I prefer women who actually want to have sex with me.”

Her mind and body were reeling with questions and answers. Why had he bet that, then? Was this some seduction technique she’d never heard of; acting like you didn’t want sex when you did?

Hell if it wasn’t working.

She bit her lip, unable to not smile at the annoyed look on his face. “I never said I don’t want to, stupid.”

A spark shot through his eyes, and there was a soft smile on his face as he ran a calloused thumb across her cheek. “That was a really good deal for you, then,” he mused with a chuckle.

“You’re such a bast-”

He closed the distance between them, lips still smiling as they met hers. After three weeks of wondering what he’d taste like, Aelin finally had her answer.

She didn’t quite know how to describe it other than addictive as hell.

She slid her tongue in his mouth, and his hands moved down her waist to pull her on top of him.

“I can’t believe you put up fifteen grand to get me up here,” she murmured, sliding her hands into his hair.

“I knew I couldn’t lose.” Rowan smiled. “And I really, really wanted to see your face when you lost. You considered running, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” she laughed, leaning down to kiss him again.

His hands found the zipper on the back of her dress, and she pulled it over her head unceremoniously.

His eyes looked like emeralds as he took in everything about her in that serious, methodical way of his. “You’re beautiful.”

Her hands were on his chest, struggling with the buttons of his shirt. “I’m trying to see if you are, too, but your shirt’s putting up a fight.”

Rowan rolled his eyes, pushing away her hands and making quick work of the fabric.

Smooth muscle, tinted with the lines of ink that ran down his neck, chest, and toned waist. “I like your tattoo.”

He shifted underneath her to lie down fully, then gripped her thighs and pulled her up his chest. “Sit on it, then.” (AN: I LITERALLY SPEWED WRITING THIS)

Aelin laughed but sure as hell didn’t fight as he lifted her up, settling on his tan shoulders.

And she sure as hell didn’t argue as he tugged her underwear to the side.

With his teeth.

He pressed a kiss to her skin, and she grabbed the headboard to keep herself still. His hands gripped her hips, guiding her in a circle, and his tongue ran up her core.

She looked down, saw his tattoo half-obscured by her thigh, and almost came at the sight alone. One of her hands drifted to run through his hair, stark against the tan of her skin.

A moan escaped her, and he smiled against her skin.

His mouth kept moving under her, and soon even his hands on her hips couldn’t keep her still. She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep quiet, mindful they probably had neighbors.

But when his teeth grazed her, tongue diving deep, she let out a long groan as release found her.

His eyes peeked up at her, and she could tell he was quite happy with himself.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered.

Laughter bubbled out of him against her thigh, then he gripped her waist, lifted her, and fucking threw her on the end of the bed. Before she could react, he was braced over her, their mouths fused together.

Aelin could taste herself on his lips, and it messed with her mind in the best way. Her hands found their way between them to undo his belt and button, then she finally had him in her hands.

Rowan braced himself on his elbows, a serious, very concentrated look on his face as she stroked him and kissed his neck, right over that damned tattoo.

She ran her thumb over the tip, and he jerked involuntarily. Then growled at her and knocked her hands to the side.

His hips pressed into her, and Aelin’s back arched as he pushed into her with a muffled grunt.

Hell, even the sounds this man made turned her on.

Settled against her, he paused to give her a few moments, and she stared at the ceiling, mind and body adjusting to the full feeling coursing through her.

A hand gripped her chin, and her eyes met his. She nodded.

He started to move, and that, coupled with the piercing eye contact, was almost too much for her. But she still wanted more.

He was still gripping her chin; Aelin took his wrist and moved it to her throat.

“Fuck, Aelin,” he murmured, picking up the pace. His hand contracted lightly and all the blood rushed through her like lightening.

She moaned, and his lips came down to hers to mask the sound.

It was hopeless, though, because her body was reacting to Rowan’s like it had never with anyone else. His tongue was in her mouth as he swirled his hips, and she whimpered onto his mouth.

She only got louder as things progressed, especially as he moved his mouth to her ear, nibbling on it and pulling it with his teeth. One hand still at her neck, he used the other to lift her hip, going deeper.

Aelin opened her eyes, thrilled to see the strain on his face and know he was just as affected by this.

He sucked on her neck, and she moaned his name.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” he muttered in between kisses, and she smiled.

Then saw stars as he squeezed her throat again.

Her body went rigid and loose at the same time as she climaxed, contracting around Rowan and yanking him over the edge with her. He kept slowly moving, both of them riding out the high.

Then he stilled and lowered himself down, his weight pressing her down, their skin melded together.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, hands coming to play with his hair as he rested his head on her chest.

He made a happy, contented sound deep in his throat, and her heart almost exploded in her chest. Big baby.

Aelin wrapped her legs and arms around him, cocooning him with her body.

Even though she hadn’t won any money tonight and would have to work for a few weeks to pay off her debts, she wasn’t even worried about it.

In fact, there weren’t any thoughts in her head except of the man on top of her.

And one burning question.

She pulled his hair, forcing him to meet her eyes, and asked, “So, was it worth fifteen grand?”

He gave her that rare, genuine smile that made her breath halter. Then came to kiss her again and mutter, “I don’t know. I might need another go to tell for sure.”

Aelin rolled her eyes, all too happy to oblige him.

______________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading. Some Malorian next? Who knows.

@aesthetics-11 @b00kworm @bamchickawowow @hizqueen4life @savemesoon8 @musicmaam @sleeping-and-books @a-bit-of-a-cactus

#rowaelin #rowan #rowan whitehorn #aelin #aelin galythinius #rowaelin fanfiction #rowan x aelin #celeana sardothien #throne of glass #throne of glass series #tog #throne of glass fanfiction

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lakemojave · 4 years

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Supergiant Games: Same Bones, Different Skeletons

I just finished a retrospective of all 4 games by Supergiant on my twitch channel, and I have a few thoughts I wanna connect and questions I wanna explore. My love for these games is real strong and i could write a whole essay just gushing about them, but I wanna give some thought to what makes them so compelling: not just to me, but to damn near everyone I’ve talked to on their discord who feels the same. I myself rank Bastion among my favorite games ever, and Hades is climbing that list at a clip. And even though I could take or leave Transistor or Pyre, they keep pulling me back.

But I could talk a whole lot about each game’s appeal and waste a lot of time. I’ve gushed enough to my friends about how Bastion and Pyre’s rugged, apocalyptic atmospheres draw me in with their incredible vibrance to contrast. I could talk about how Ashley Barrett’s vocal tracks carry Transistor on their shoulders, or what makes Hades so much goddamn fun that the game doesn’t really need to be much else. But I realize that if the Supergiant library is so universally appealing to me, there must be some sort of connective tissue between them--some sort of fundamental similarity that makes them work. After thinking about it for more than five minutes, it turns out there are many; some are pretty obvious, and some less so. This brings me to the conclusion that the Supergiant library, with its four wildly distinct and different games, still follow a noticeable formula--one that is flexible enough to allow such completely different games.

Game Design

The Supergiant library are all essentially top down action rpgs, Transistor having the most elements of the genre. This is still a pretty weak connection, given how different they all play from each other. The only two that have much overlap in the most basic sense are Bastion and Hades, with the same general fast paced, real time combat. On closer examination, the two games have enough differences in the variety of mechanics at play, (Bastion with its multiple weapon slots and a shield, Hades with its sheer number of commands) that even they are hard to compare.

There are, however, several mechanics that the library loves to use. The first that comes to mind are the difficulty conditions: idols in Bastion, limiters in Transistor, titan stars in Pyre, and the pact of punishment--and arguably Chaos boons as well--in Hades. Their function is simple: increase your challenge for a little extra reward. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by fixing in world building elements to this mechanic; Bastion’s idols inform about the game’s pantheon, while Pyre informs about its, well, evil pantheon. The use of these conditions is indicative of Supergiant’s game design philosophy as a whole--you, the player, can make the game as hard or easy as it takes for you to have fun. The inclusion of infinite lives in Bastion or god mode or hell mode in Hades further builds on this point. This library is designed for all sorts of audiences, whether they want to be challenged by their games or simply immersed in the story.

Another repeating mechanic in these games are the use of challenge rooms, which started in Bastion as the training grounds and, to a lesser extent, Who Knows Where. In Transistor they are the sandbox test rooms, and in Pyre they are the beyonder crystal’s scribe trials. They appear in Hades a little more ambiguously; the infernal troves or Erebus rooms are not quite the same, but they serve a similar function. This function is a momentary break from the gameplay loop for a little extra reward, much like the previously discussed conditions. Transistor and Hades’ challenge rooms offer relatively negligible rewards; the sandbox rooms simply offer xp and unlock tracks for the jukebox, while the Erebus tiles offer double the reward for any normal tile. Bastion and Pyre go the extra mile by giving specific, long term rewards for their challenges. In Bastion’s training grounds, the Kid earns weapon specific abilities that are among the game’s most powerful; in Pyre’s scribe trials, exiles can earn character specific talismans that feed their specialization. For the most part, these rooms give the player a low stakes opportunity to practice, hone their preferred playstyle, and reward the effort, all while being completely optional.

Akin to these breaks in the game loop are designated resting areas/hub worlds. The Bastion, the Sandbox, the Blackwagon, and the House of Hades each offer a moment to interact with characters and lore, goof around with the environment, buy permanent upgrades, or just take a break. Transistor utilizes this function the least of the library, since it never once requires the player to enter the space. Pyre utilizes it the most since it has the most breaks in both frequency and number. In a way, this decision is both a game design and storytelling choice. Between all four games, perhaps excluding Transistor, this is where the majority of story beats take place. It is where the player can read up on some fresh lore or meet the ever growing cast of characters, and eventually grow to cherish them (as I often do playing this library). Without little breaks like these, the climactic or world/story shaking events that take place out in the actual playable space have no impact or narrative weight. The fact that all these sort of interactions are completely voluntary also rewards the player in the storytelling sense; by choosing to engage with the figures of the story rather than having that choice decided for them, the player feels as though they themselves have agency in the story unfolding.

Style

Perhaps the most distinct part of the Supergiant library, (and perhaps what I personally love most about it) is its aesthetics. There are few games that look, feel, and sound the way these games do. Yet, the four of them hardly resemble each other. Bastion is a rugged, frontier-esque sci fi apocalypse, Transistor is a sleek, cyberpunk apocalypse, Pyre is a high fantasy purgatory space, and Hades is simply stylized Greek mythology. It is a shock to remember, then, that these four games are all designed by the same artistic team.

I confess I don’t know much about art, so I don’t have anything too profound to say about Jen Zee’s art style, besides that I like it a lot. It is also worth noting that despite her spearheading art and character design for the whole library, each game still looks visually distinct, and not just in their overall aesthetics. Take the character design of the library, for instance. Bastion’s human figures tend to be short, stocky, with exaggerated facial features. Their colors are highly saturated, with a soft, almost blurry quality that gives a level of warmth to the fatalistic atmosphere. Transistor’s characters, barring Red, tend to be based around palettes centered around a single color, such as the Camerata red and the spectrum of the function character profiles. Pyre is the first of the library to use talking portraits, which contrast robed figures with stark color palettes and simple designs with unrobed figures with much noisier details. Hades is easily the most distinct of all four, using simple colors and thick outlines on all its characters. The most consistent feature of all their designs, as usual, is how wildly different they are. For Hades, Zee makes sure that characters only look alike in any way if they have some relation to each other, such as the Furies, Achilles and Patroclus, or Zagreus and his parents. On the whole, the versatility and variety in the character design is impeccable.

What I most enjoy about these games is Darren Korb’s soundtracks, which continue to vary wildly. From the closet-recorded Bastion soundtrack to the whole two and a half Hades score, Korb’s scoring keeps improving and changing in the 10 years Supergiant has operated. His music, which adds and changes motifs as each game progresses, contributes to the atmosphere just as much as the visuals do. Whenever he teams up with Ashley Barret to add vocal tracks to certain parts of the game, they always manage to place them at critical narrative or emotional beats, turning them into the games’ most memorable moments. The team goes one step further every game by incorporating a musician or source of music into each game, giving the music just as much character as the one performing it. It also sneaks its way into the aforementioned hub worlds by providing the player a means to play their favorite tracks whenever they want (except in Hades, where they have to pay in game for that privilege). In essence, Korb makes sure to give each game a distinct feel through its music, but familiar enough to connect the library in the player’s mind.

Just as Supergiant gets so much mileage from Korb and Zee alike, they also manage time and time again to make use of Logan Cunningham’s top notch voice over work. Originally the sole voice actor at Supergiant Games, Cunningham continued on from famously narrating Bastion as Rucks to remaining a ubiquitous voice throughout the library. His role as the Transistor in the game proper drives the emotional core of that game, and his role as the Voice/Archjustice proves to be a solidly effective, yet distant antagonist. In Hades, his roles are somewhat overshadowed by Korb’s performance as Zagreus, (which I’m still blown away he still had time to do) but his performance as Lord Hades is still excellent. Supergiant also uses Cunningham in Hades to sort of satirize how often he narrates for them by casting him as the narrating Old Man, then allowing Zagreus to break the fourth wall and acknowledge him. It is as if the team at Supergiant knows how much they use the same stylistic team, then mocking that same choice.

To other studios: learn from Supergiant

I’m running out of things to say and my ball of yarn that connects all these newspapers and polaroids on my wall is running thin. I would talk more about Supergiant really knows how to end a game and frequently does so in similar ways, or that their library is a masterclass in character-driven stories, but this little essay is long enough.

Instead, I wanna talk about how Supergiant does something right which so many AAA developers and publishers don’t seem to understand. To contrast with the Supergiant library, consider Assassin’s Creed, another franchise I have spent an embarrassing amount of time playing. This franchise releases a game almost every year, and in my experience, when a company does this, you tend to get the same pig with a different paint. From the original Assassin’s Creed to their most recent release, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the differences seem to be night and day. Combat and free running are far more complex than they once were, rpg elements to story and gameplay have been introduced, composers, writers, voice actors, and cast members have changed with each release, and the sheer size of the game has become staggering. Yet, in the 13 years and 11 main releases in the game’s history, (plus spinoffs) any change has not only felt incremental over time, but fundamentally insignificant to the skeleton of the game. Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2 play and feel differently, but the differences are subtle. The bones are different, but every year they assemble to form a vaguely Assassin’s Creed shaped thing. People who play games tend to hate this and frequently berate companies for this practice; Bethesda and GameFreak receive the same criticism that their games are so formulaic that their new releases might as well be carbon copies of the ones before it.

Yet, Supergiant Games, with its four games over ten years, has used essentially the same team and building blocks to make games that can hardly be considered interchangeable. Whether its the passion of this humble little indie studio or the sheer talent of this team, Supergiant takes the same pile of bones and assembles them in a different shape each time with care and attention. They are proof that a formula doesn’t need to be tweaked or altered or given a different coat of paint in order to be accepted; instead the formula needs versatility, the means to produce a fresh result each time. It also works best when we adore the result every time.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #got shit to say #bastion #transistor #pyre #hades #hades game #supergiant games #supergiant tag

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