#Does anyone ever find out she's half way responsible for what she did?
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Regarding Fhiaskko
One of my tiny, lovely shark rats! She has a lot more lore than I'd shared originally so I'm glad to be able to talk about her now without spoiling AoTH!
Under the cut to save your dash!
She is one of Mhonde's siblings, the second to youngest (so kid number 5). Fhia wasn't actively born cursed, it came much later. Being Priory, you can imagine the type of interesting artifacts and scrolls that one can find.
Her team were devoted to the research and study of newly made 'island' that Kralks body formed and the pieces of the Mists that it drug with it. Where else are you going to find chunks of the Godrealms that you can study? But we all know that Asuran curiosity often gets the better of them.
Already being doused in death magic, she'd had a knack for it since she was tottling around (a horrifying discovery for her parents, finding their then youngest with a crudely put together flesh wurm). So naturally she decided to explore the area devoted to Grenth.
The good news! Being Asura made her very much unafraid to delve into the deeper parts of the gods mechanisms and systems.
The bad news! Being Asura made her have absolutely no sense of reverence and a willingness to do extreme things for the sake of discovery.
Fhiaskko actually played a part in Riag/Ruby/Sigilis/Galla's story! I didn't get around to sharing it while the story was public but she was the one half way responsible for what set off the story's main driving point of Why is Trahearne Back and then What Do We Do Now.
The reason for why he is actually back is from an artifact discovered actually in Melandru's area that Fhia had the wise idea 'hey what if we take something that deals with life and nature magic and use it in the death and decay area - for science'. To which everyone in her team (also Krewe several joined the Priory with her) said:
"FHIA NO."
To which she said "FHIA YES."
She had studied some of Trahearne's magical workings in healing Orr and working with Undeath dragon magic and thought they could be extrapolated on to fit Death magic from God sources. While it had similar elements the Dragon magic has been studied more since people were trying to defeat Zhaitan and the magic of Grenth was seen as more of a 'this is holy/not something you go fiddling with/important to humans'.
Taking a step back for a moment, in my mythos - after the healing of Orr in Melandru's temple, whatever lingering influence of Melandru saw what the Commander the Marshal did and went 'oh cool thanks, i'll remember that'. The Gods aren't just like a singular entity but sort of a force. Kinda like a central figure but their energy is a slime mold that operates under a set of criteria (which is why humans can still invoke/call on the Gods even though they've dipped out because the god residue is left).
So when the same form of magic gets used in a place of death and influences of nature - that sort of ambient presence which only knows to create/influence life does the best it can.
However, since Melandru is more tied with humans than anything really Sylvari - it affects how he is brought back. This is why his pod is alarmingly 'not plant' when he emerges again. Also since it was used in a place of Death magic and he was so strongly associated with it - it like applies a filter for which energy to try and plop into a form.
Nutshell is something like this:
Fhia modifies some of the magic that Trahearne had employed in Orr, in a place of Death magic to activate a Life Magic based artifact ->
Lingering god residue recognizes the magic used but not the person so seeks out the original user ->
Original user wasn't Human so Life magic tries to create it as best as it can ->
The Dream is a collective library of experiences and personalities that sometimes get ladled out and mixed into new people ->
Given the filter being BIG DEATH MAGIC IMPORTANT HELPED IN ORR applied it really sorts out the pot and lets the right energy be picked, which happens to actually be Trahearne.
Meanwhile! Back to Fhia!
She done did a huge NO-NO! As a result of the life magic she activated, she is shielded from immediately being killed but the death magic has to go somewhere. So it's just around her in like an invisible shroud.
Her team went 'what in the actual fuck did you do' because they didn't see any like catastrophic results, it seemed to just fizzle out. The real workings of it were taking place back in the Grove, using the building blocks from the gods creation process of humans. So she just assumed it didn't work. Until hm wait why aren't the team following me back to the base camp they were right behind me - aaaaand they're all dead. That's unfortunate.
She was saddened but wrote it off as a 'well we are in the death gods slice of things it happens I guess!'
Naturally the rest of the Priory gave her the boot after finding out she did what she did and that her team had all suddenly died. So she goes back to Rata Sum to find a new Krewe to work on necro-technolgical studies and woops they all die in strange ways. Accidentally fell off of things, crushed by machinery, heart attack, attacked by animals, killed by bandits, you name it.
She just went 'wow weird coincidences'
But it kept happening and she just is in adamant denial that it has anything to do with her because 'superstitions' like being cursed are illogical. It's all a statistical improbability that is fascinating.
So as a person she is sharp witted, talkative, and exceedingly stubborn. She's not afraid to do things that others won't. She does care for her family but they've basically made it clear that since something about her Kills People they will only have dealings with her from afar. Fhia is a little hurt by this but hey if her family doesn't appreciate innovation then she can just be superficial and polite with them via letter.
Fhia is the positive side (well less negative) of her families drive for innovation. It's seen negatively in the eldest child who joined the Inquest. It's what burnt out Bhruizz to not give a shit about things or try very hard. It's what made Mhunizz seek shady means of fame/esteem rather than relying on achievement. And it's what makes Mhonde try to perfect his designs of golems and why he's not all that upset about making weapons that are um slightly unethical if used wrongly.
Thanks for reading this far about my Cursed Rat!
#gw2#asura#Fhiaskko#ocs#gw2 asura#My Cursed Rat#Does anyone ever find out she's half way responsible for what she did?#Nope
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In all the ways that matter (w/ Yunjin)
male reader & lesserafim yunjin
smut & angst & fluff (the one where you want more of what’s already yours), 6k words
Let’s be honest: you don’t deserve Huh Yunjin.
She’s an ambitious mishmash of love languages. But from the way she’s always including you in wishlists back to her parents in New York, how she’s always testing new big-stretch-and-yawn-at-the-movies level ways to get her hands on you, or how she’s going on her eighth permutation of pet names and emojis for you on her phone (it’s been POOKIE🧸🦷🤭💙 for the past 2 weeks — your longest running), anyone would guess that she was fluent across the board.
And that’s only while you’re pretending that looks don’t matter.
Because whenever it feels like you have to chalk up a point for Yunjin’s personality, one of her physical features always stops you at the blackboard.
Yunjin looks like she was grandma-knit: finished patiently and smoothed tender. Where skin would normally crease, Yunjin softens. And between the way her eyes sweeten into crescent moons when she laughs, how her lips always find a way to ease back into their permanent pout, or how perfectly her chin nestles in between your fingers, there was nothing about her that didn’t compete to be your favorite.
But all of them have to settle for second best.
Because your favorite thing about Yunjin is her eyebrows.
They waltz between well-learned battle lines on her forehead, stretching emphatically behind boundaries they know other features did not dare cross, because compared to the rest of her face, they’re bold. They explode from sienna to whiskey and hook insultingly fast, threading down to points so sharp that it only feels right to dot them at the end like exclamation marks, putting a megaphone to the stories that her eyes tell. Only on Yunjin’s face does softness ring loudly. Eye contact morphs into reverie, amusement magnitudes up into hilarity, and tenderness becomes love.
You think it’s unfair.
It’s unfair that the reasons you could fall in love with her are endless. It’s unfair that she can simultaneously make the world the two of you share both so tiny, special, and unreplicable and then larger than life, ever-expansive, and infinite. And it’s unfair that she makes doing all of this at the same time look so effortless.
It’s a high bar to clear.
But you try anyway.
If not to at least get close to the standard she sets, for the sex.
-
The two of you are practically asking for it the time you get caught.
Standing at the far end of a HYBE practice room, it’s all so fitting: under the only lit floodlight, her on her knees, your cock at attention inches from her lips, tension teetering above climax — Huh Yunjin was going to give you a performance.
She’s kissing at the bottom of your shaft, lingering half a second longer each time as she slowly makes her way up your length. She mewls, ad libbing your grunts with soft, venom-laced yeah?s.
“You sound so pent up,” she starts, thumbing your cockhead counterclockwise.
You give her bits and pieces of an affirmative response: you let out a forced breath somewhere between a grunt and an exhale, grip your cock tighter, and pinch one of her nipples with your free hand. She translates.
“Mmm?” Yunjin purrs. She runs the flat of her tongue long across your entirety, flicking up as she reaches the tip.
You’re gripping at anything you can to stay alive. Trying to keep the facade up that you can compete. You splay your free hand and grab at her chest, playing dirty; grasping for a reaction. She plays your game and picks up the rhythm on your cock.
“You don’t want to just paint my face right now?”
Your breath is hot on your lips, tight in your chest. You’re parrying, blocking, countering. You look deep into the pools of honey bourbon in her eyes. You’re falling into the abyss.
Who fights fair with a poisoned blade? Yunjin? Not with the tears dotting the corners of her eyes; not with the drool running down her chin. Her cheeks are hollow as she swallows further and further down your cock. Her lips brush the base of your shaft. It feels good. She knows it feels good, the way she’s looking back up at you; the way you’re groaning.
She raises her eyebrows.
You cum.
And despite all of the preposition, conviction building, and white-knuckle–steeling, you think, you don’t really ever lose. Because the moment you ride out your orgasm, it’s great.
You can’t compete. You kick off the cliffhanger and throw yourself into freefall. You see white flashes where there used to be color, and the tightness under your stomach evaporates into a vacuum: hot, and all at once. You can fully exhale and for what has to be a full minute, you die.
And as usual, after she makes peace with killing you, Yunjin brings you back to life.
She kisses the top of your cockhead before sitting back on her heels. Under the spotlight, sweat literally shimmering, she’s glowing, and she’s ethereal. Her tongue darts at the sides of her mouth before retreating, replaced by her bottom lip, equal parts pink and proud; satisfied and smug. She grabs at a small towel sitting next to her before beginning to clean up, dabbing at where you’d made a fucking mess out of her face.
But not before the door to the practice room opens. Your stomach shatters, and everywhere you just felt warm goes cold. A woman takes the empty space in the doorway, starts in your direction, and continues way too fast.
Your brain is instantly numb, and you scramble for something further than a stone’s toss away from the plot of a cheap porno. She slipped on her towel and grabbed my zipper on the way down! What do you mean Yunjin’s in this room with us? My COCK? God no, this is a thermometer that just looks a lot like- You don’t get far.
And before you try at reasoning that would effectively end you on the spot, the woman gets close enough. She yelps, producing a folder from behind her to try and shield you from any further consequences.
“Can you put-” she shakes her hands — folder and all — in your general direction, “everything away?”
Jolted awake, you scramble at your pants at your ankles, pulling anything your fingers brushed against in the direction you thought was closed. In hindsight, the zippers for your pants pockets probably didn’t matter much, but you zip those too, hoping the thought counted. Yunjin reappears next to you, the straps of her newly stretched tank top sitting awkwardly on top of her shoulders, now resembling probably anything else closer than they would elastic.
The woman gingerly peeks an eye over at the two of you and lets out a deep, full exhale. “Good, phew!”
“You would think we’d have that practiced by now,” she tuts, using what was once her plastic barrier to fan herself. She shoots a dirtier glare at Yunjin before turning towards you, and her expression visibly softens. “Oh! Same guy!”
And instantly, anything that would give off that she was disappointed just a moment ago dissipates, and is replaced by genuine admiration.
“I respect that you guys are trying to make the dating thing work!”
There were some things that practice wouldn’t get you used to.
See, when you and Yunjin first started dating, you expected a little bit of onboarding. A little bit of catching up to speed: When were her parents’ birthdays? Was she allergic to anything? What were her favorite movies? For extra credit, you’re even brushing up on the idol industry: How long was a comeback promotion period? What was an aegyo? — the usual.
But you’re still taking notes to this day.
(It’s a Saturday a couple of months ago, and you and Yunjin are snaking through the aisles of a thrift store.
“And Chaewon’s seeing them?"
Okay: Yunjin’s snaking through the aisles of a thrift store. You’re trailing behind her, making sure you connected all the right dots together.
“Nope,” she says, eyes scanning a tattered band tee. Then, equally nonchalantly: “Idols get horny, too. Dating just makes things messier than they need to be.”
There’s an expectant pause, then Yunjin turns to look at you.
“Not that that’s a rule or anything,” she adds, placing a hand on yours as if to close the lid on any implication that tried to escape. “It’s just not most people’s style.”)
‘Given’ was probably the word for it, you think. The idol industry collected teenagers at their most formative periods, and where others their age condensed pre-calculus and high school breakups, they learned choreography and how to introduce themselves across the language spectrum. When other kids’ hormones flared up and made them deal with acne, they were digitally edited, scrubbed clean, and hidden behind locked doors. An industry formed on cherry-picking highlights had to have a gnarly underbelly — what would be taboo had to be a given — and it probably only helped that everyone had to look like sex.
So you try to catch up and blend in. Try to not get hung up on how casually sex, drugs, and secrets are laced in sentences. Try to take what Yunjin says at face value.
Still, as her manager leads you through the lobby towards the revolving doors, and you’re bowing profusely as you try to apologize for what she brushes off as not the first time and very normal, there’s a certain edge about it all. Like no matter how airtight Yunjin’s grip tried to be, that you were fortifying a house of cards with pillars of paper mâché.
And it sure as hell didn’t help that halfway through the lobby, you trade greetings with her fake boyfriend.
There were some things that practice wouldn’t get you used to.
-
So get this: your girlfriend was going to be one half of a manufactured dating scandal.
She stood too close to another idol at a variety show, and online forum sentiment was eating it up (or something like that). There it was: a full page, in bold. All over social media. Yunjin, and the boy with the jawline and swoon-inducing eyes (not that you were jealous), everywhere at once, and on the tips of everyone’s tongue. The buzz brought eyeballs to her group debut, and what better way to snowball that momentum than to confirm it?
Yunjin just didn’t know that you knew yet.
And for your sake, it was probably for the better that she thinks her secret was safe. Firstly, because you don’t know how to feel about how you get the information. You were both at the pinnacle of industry — dating an idol — and at the mercy of it — cobbling together information from vague fan accounts, building a list of social accounts that got leaks right; irony never played fair.
And secondly, because you didn’t know how to bring it up.
Truth be told, you don’t know how to feel about it. You don’t know how you’re supposed to feel about it. You’re equal parts ruptured and reductive. Half of you thinks it borders on trust, and the other half scolds you for thinking that way: that you signed up for this, and don’t know how to compromise. Half of you imagines what they talk about when you’re not around: how far he’ll go to convince the public of a relationship, and the other half thinks you have no self-esteem for stooping that low.
All of you yearns for Yunjin. Because where there were all the things that you had to get used to, there were also the FaceTimes. The phone calls of complete silence when she just wanted someone to listen but was too exhausted to recount what practice was just like. The joy on her face when she told you that was going to debut.
Imposing would be selfish. She deserved everything she worked for, and you don’t even come close to par. Under it all, through the glitz, you see the Huh Yunjin that you fall in love with over again every single day, and she had too tight of a grip on your heart for you to break hers.
So you don’t bring it up, and wait for her to.
-
It’s quite literally pathetic the way notifications on your phone evoke a physical response out of you. Like it fires a neuron, you’re diving hands outstretched every time you hear it chime.
Sure, it hasn’t paid off yet — you’ve dropped literally everything to be greeted by promotional emails, pushes about the weather, and pings on the latest discounts — but you’ll hold your breath.
Though as you pick yourself up off the floor from familiar disappointment at another non-Yunjin notification, you can’t say that you’re less confused. And you’ve caught yourself multiple times today way too deep in somber tangents for some of it not to start sticking.
The loudest of them all stemmed from the fact that it felt like the answer was implied. That if there was nothing to it, it’d be easy to talk about. That if it was anything like the dating mantra, since it didn’t apply to the two of you, Yunjin would address it at face value.
And tautologically, because she didn’t, it wasn’t.
-
It’s the end of the week when Yunjin finally texts you.
have dinner plans tonight mister? :)
You draft two texts. The first makes you sound sixteen: obnoxiously sad about the state of affairs of literally everything. The second makes you sound sociopathic: blunt, deflecting, and not enough emojis. You send a third.
Nope! What do you have in mind?
Before long, you’re sitting on a blanket overlooking the Hangang. The sun’s setting, playing a global game of cat and mouse: light spills through the gaps in willow trees, gazebos, and construction, highlighting pockets of parkground with its blessing of orange-red. You’re where the surface area’s the largest, like the paper bowls of ramen didn’t anchor the blanket down enough, and the sun’s rays are what did the trick.
Or, technically speaking: bowl of ramen.
Because while Yunjin was three-quarters of the way finished with hers, sneaking bites in as she took breaths in between practically spoiling her next comeback, yours was virtually untouched. You made do with spinning the floating egg in your bowl dizzy.
“You know,” Yunjin starts, “you didn’t have to come out if you weren’t hungry.”
You look up at her. Her head’s cocked at an angle, piqued such that it catches sunlight. In the glow, she’s beautiful.
“I’m a big girl now,” she emphasizes. “You can tell me no. I might cry myself to sleep after, but — you know — in a big girl way.”
Her eyes curl up into tiny moons like they always do, and you give her a weak response.
It’s tightrope thin. Yunjin’s prodding, expecting you to riposte, poking at things she knows will get a reaction out of you; you don’t bite. You’re both expecting an answer. Your heart is jackhammering at your chest, and between the punctuation, in the offbeats, you want to yell. You want to find out if your house of cards is built on sand.
-
The both of you are walking back towards HYBE, along the scenic route that you always take, and only someone purposely oblivious would guess that everything was fine.
“Do you,” Yunjin perks up, trailing off, “not like the comeback?”
You don’t say anything.
“Maybe,” she pokes again, “you’re grumpy because I haven’t been texting you?”
You feel her eyes peek at you then retreat. In your peripheral vision you see her purse her lips, nod, and then smirk. You hear a tiny breath.
“Are you,” and she lets out an exaggerated gasp, “seeing someone else?”
“I know about your scandal, Yunjin,” you blurt out, and it's too fast for either of your own goods.
There’s a beat. You both stop walking. You turn her way.
“Your dating scandal — your fake boyfriend — whatever.”
Yunjin isn't great at hiding her emotions — her eyebrows give it away. You see her face gradient across shock, then consideration, before landing on shame. Her eyebrows knit, and she can’t meet your eyes.
There’s another beat. You can hear your heart thump in your ears, and despite the autumn at night, you’re hot. You’re searching her face for a tell, some semblance of an answer; anything.
You’re imposing.
And for the first time in the past week, you’re thinking of her. Of her today and her in the past. Of all the work she put in to get to where she wanted to be. Of what she had to give up to have tonight with you. Of all the nights before this, and the many she had to cancel abruptly because work came up. Of her being here now, and you selfishly making this about yourself.
You’re imposing, and it feels like shit.
“I’m-,” Yunjin starts, voice shaky.
You look at her, and there’s tears pooling in her eyes.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up,” she continues slowly, and then the surface tension breaks. She shuts her eyes tight, and then she’s crying. “It’s in the contract we signed. It helps our comeback.”
You hear the Huh Yunjin that you first fall in love with. Before the glitz, before she had to pretend like she was an adult-
“I don’t know what to say.”
- before she had to hide anything from you.
(The two of you are in front of the HYBE building, and she’s giving you shit for how messily you eat. It’s a late spring, and Yunjin’s hair is shoulder-length and cherry oak. You’re missing a lecture on the pigeonhole principle, and she’s dodging her manager — sea salt ice cream was seasonal, after all.
“How did you get it on your nose?” She chides you, dabbing around your mouth with a scrunched napkin. “They should have you give your I.D. to see if you can handle a cone instead of a cup. Nine-year olds can do this better than you.”
“What if you don’t debut, Yunjin?”
You were always good at telling it like it was, even if you had to disregard social tact. But you had a point. Yunjin was going on her third trainee year, and internally, it didn’t look like it was going to be her last.
There’s a couple of beats before she softens.
“I don’t know.”
It’s a side of her that really only you do. Under the spunk and the character she has to amplify, there is fear: that she’s taking too large a gamble, that she’d be perpetually behind if she didn’t make it, that it’d be safer if she just did what everyone else was doing.
She can’t meet your eyes, and she’s fiddling with the hem of your shirt.
“I just think things tend to happen for a reason,” she says, with more resolve than you expect. “And I don’t think it’s worth it to question it deeper than that.”
“How much of that is because you’re scared of the answer?”
There’s a pause, and the implication is clear.
“Do you always hate to have just a cute, fictional moment?” You look down at her, and she’s expecting it, staring back at you, eyebrows knit, lips in an exaggerated pout. “We can’t just — I don’t know — kiss and end things on the high note?”
You break, and let out the unflattering start to a laugh. She’s deflecting, and you know to let it go. In your heart of hearts, the two of you know that you’re both right. That there’s fear in uncertainty — a lot of it — but also hope. That big payoffs don’t come if you don’t gamble it all.
You lean down and kiss her on the nose.
She’s staring at you as she walks all the way back through the revolving doors, a smirk across her lips, and the unmistakably blue speck of sea salt ice cream on her nose. She’s yelling, letting you know to let the rest of your face have some ice cream, too.)
And you’re staring at her, wishing this time was half as picturesque. She doesn’t have the words; she doesn’t have to. Asking the hard question was your thing. She’s pleading, frantically, and her watery eyes are beckoning. You want to tell her that it’ll all play out, that things happen for a reason; you don’t have to — that was her thing.
Under the soft, streetlamp glow, you see the Yunjin the public doesn’t — the uncertainty, the gamble, the fear. You hear the desperation in the dark days; the resolve, unconvincing yet unabashed, that what was far out was not so; the throughline: that if she pretended to be convinced, maybe you would, too.
You see the Yunjin you love, and you’re so fucking whipped.
You thumb the tear trailing down her cheek. You’re defeated, and it bleeds into your voice, but never going to pass on hitting where it hurts. “What happened to changing the idol industry?”
She chokes back a laugh through tears. “Okay,” she starts, and through the sarcasm she tries for — and how muddy it was between sniffles — she’s glad to hear your voice. “It’s the goddamn industry. What am I supposed to do in the debut video: admit defeat? Who’d watch that?”
“Sorry, it’s just — all of it — so dumb,” she adds for good measure, swiping at her eyes.
Hanging in the night, in the words unsaid, in between the watery sarcasm and the tension quickly evaporating, it’s clear. The two of you resolve a silent conversation. You’re punctuating her apologies with eye rolls, and she wants to hear you say you love her, but she knows that already. You say you don’t deserve her, and she calls you stupid.
Tears hot down your cheeks, you’re both laughing now, bouncing off of each other. And then, into the what’s next of it all: “I can try to get out of it,” Yunjin says.
It’s cathartic and real, and should disarm you.
But you say no.
Down to your cores, you and Yunjin were infinitely kindred. Intertwined forever, etched in the books of fate with permanent marker. You were after each other's hearts, molded from the same cosmic clay. You had each other in all the ways that mattered, and that would never change.
-
The last stop on your train home is when you get the notification.
are you headed home?
And in the moment, you catastrophize. It was in the middle of the weekend of her comeback. What was she thinking? Did something happen? How far were you away from HYBE?
But even if you played the same situation back a hundred times over, there was no way in hell you’d get to the conclusion that Huh Yunjin was in your foyer, behind your door, and wearing what didn’t leave much to imagination.
“Yunjin-” you try and start, before you’re kissed quiet.
Her hands are on top of yours, leading, as you smooth down the creases of her vanilla crop top and run your thumbs down her body. Your fingers are fluid, filling the divots, tracing along the lines, running the valleys of muscle in the flat of her stomach. Between bouts, as her lips linger inches away from yours, for a moment uncaptured, you breathe in air nonvenomous, and try to grapple with it all, scrambling for something to hold on to before your brain short circuits.
You’re sinking, and you don’t know how to wrestle rights from rudimentaries. Yunjin’s eyes, glazed over, zero in on yours, and she kisses you again. Her lips are sweet and have a bite to them, yours smack as you swallow the venom thick on your tongue. She pulls away, you come up for air.
Standing in the soft, orange-yellow glow of light from the room adjacent, you see the Yunjin the public does — the siren, sultry and seductive: her eyes, soft, malleable, and unassuming — how she could convince you that your name was something else entirely if she looked at you head on — her lips, venom-laced and tantalizing — how she’d push the agenda.
Except this time, you’re finally lucid, and you see the parallel. In the muscles — impressive in the light, but meek at the same time, like it split moments in the spotlight with softness — in the eyes — perpetually provocative, but infinitely innocent — in the perfect unattainable. Everything is polished, nudged purposefully in its direction. It’s all artificial, doctored, and done up.
Huh Yunjin is a product of industry, and you were going to fuck it out of her.
Yunjin’s smirk dismantles as you rip your hands from her grip. It completely falls apart as you pull her into you face first, thumbs across her cheeks. And as she tries to pull back, you’re keeping her where you want her, kissing into the poison. Her hands grab at your chest; at your dress shirt, half foregoing permission, pulling buttons apart, and half to steady herself as you move your dance deeper into your living room.
You’re leading this time, and as your knees bump brown velvet, you’re able to rasp: “Yunjin, on the couch.”
“How do you want me?” she whispers, breath hot on your lips.
“Legs apart.” You push her into the middle seat, and her hands are working at her shorts. There’s an audible zip, and they’re on your hardwood.
And as you’re kneeling down into the negative space in between Yunjin’s thighs, in the seconds, sultry and slow-burn, you catch a glimpse of her face. Spread across the finger in her mouth, eyes half-lidded, and eyebrows upturned, you think you see anticipation. Like you were going to rip Yunjin apart, and — straying away from what she was taught, coloring outside the lines — she might let you.
You test the theory: you take her into your mouth.
And you don’t think you’ve heard an exhale more pained.
You’re generous — lapping at her heat through lace, grazing against her clit — and with variety — kissing her inner thighs, nipping at skin. Yunjin’s sensitive and unintelligible.
“Fuck,” she manages to get out, her hips bucking, searching for more of you. One of her hands tries to meet you where you are, to pull her panties to the side, to feel you on her. But you redirect her to where you want her to be: your free hand on her wrist, you lead her up her chest. And though reluctantly, she translates. Together, you’re undoing buttons, palming the fullness of her breast, and flicking at the hard bud of her nipple.
Eventually, you give Yunjin what she wants.
You’re cradling her thighs around your forearms, and at the angle you have her, suspended, supported by the small of her back, you swear she yelps. You draw her underwear to the side, and then Yunjin’s squealing. She’s whining, she’s so wet, she’s raking her nails at your scalp. Your mouth’s on her cunt, drawing long across her folds, tonguing the alphabet over her clit.
There’s this moment. She’s arching, thighs hooked tight at your arms, on her tiptoes. You poke your tongue into her heat, there’s a high note, and then Yunjin’s cumming in your mouth.
And as you coax her through it, tongue flat, letting her ride your mouth, you’re sharing a gaze. Morbid curiosity can’t stop her from peeking at the mess she’s making, and you want to see what it looks like to kill a goddess.
“Fuck,” Yunjin repeats, like it’s the only word she knows, as you lick your lips. Her head’s tucked into her chest, and the orange bask she’s painted in is competing with the blush sauntering across her cheeks.
“You’re so-” she starts, dodging your eyes, kicking out gingerly at you.
“Mm?” you beckon, easing yourself in between her legs, undoing the button at your pants, freeing your cock tenting at the fabric. “I’m so?” you press again, tugging her panties off, soaked beyond belief.
And how you have her under you, top unbuttoned, hanging off her shoulders, how she can’t meet your eyes, it’s apt. Like she’s disarmed. Like under the layers of polish and practice, purposefully put away; under the glitz, the expensive everything: multisyllabic and most likely mispronounced; under the spunk, in her personal space, when she wasn’t allowed to deflect, Huh Yunjin was naked, and like putty in your hands.
All it took was your mouth on her cunt.
And she sure as shit didn’t need to say anything to you to admit it. It’s hard to miss, the way she’s folding her legs behind your waist, the red across her cheeks deepening.
“Think about your answer,” you quip for good measure, and with your cock hovering inches away from her pussy: “I’m going to fuck you now.”
And truthfully, the confidence is more for you than it is for Yunjin. It’s far from your first time, but every time you slide your cock in Yunjin’s cunt, it’s like everything around you takes a collective deep breath. Time becomes measured in fractions of a second, and you’re clairvoyant and hypersensitive. The head of your cock pushes into her pussy, and it’s hot.
You inhale a breath, picking up the sex in the air.
You swear your vision inverts. There’s white where there used to be color.
You catch the entirety of Yunjin’s mewling, as she goes from fuck, please, and your cock into falsetto. She’s mixing your name with untranslatables.
You feel her fucking cunt.
Teeth gritted, you’re pairing hard and soft. You bury your length in her, the front of your thighs slapping the back of hers, and kiss her lips tender. You only taste Yunjin, and you kiss her like she’s lifeblood. It’s sweet: her lipstick, her taste still on your lips, the breaths you’re sharing. And as Yunjin breaks for air, you’re whispering in the negative space, breath hot.
“Yeah?”
And she’s nodding her head, uncontrollably. Agreeing to anything you put forward, before you even asked. Anything that kept your cock in her.
“You’re-” you try again.
Your hands wrap around her midriff, her hands wrap around your wrists.
“You’re such a-”
God, her fucking cunt.
Except you need to hear it. You want to hear her say it, airtight, with no room for implication to escape.
“Yunjin,” you finally manage, and then in whole: “You’re such a good girl for my cock, aren’t you?”
She’s nodding her head, mumbling. But that wasn’t good enough for you. You’re hilting, deep in her cunt, and steadying yourself, curling a hand around her neck. “Yunjin” — a little louder — “answer me.”
Her hands around your wrists tighten, and she lets out this moan. Like she’s trying to give you the answer you want, and frustrated that she can only whine. Finally, through the untranslatables: yes, yes, all for your cock-
But that wasn’t it. Your fingers are pressing into her throat, and you’re pounding into her, wet all over you; imprinting her into the sofa. “Yunjin,” and it’s dark. “This is all you want, isn’t it?”
And she’s doing everything she can to convince you. She’s pushing herself into your length, grabbing at your hands, and through eyes half-lidded, staring deep at you. To show you she can compete, to show you just how good she was — just for you. And through your grip: “Yes, fuck. God, yes — this is all I-”
But it’s not what you want to hear. You’re riding the line. You’re biting your tongue bloody. Yunjin’s cunt is suffocatingly tight against your cock. Your grip’s white-knuckle on her skin. You shut your eyes tight. You know what you wanted to hear.
“Your other boyfriend can’t give it to you like this, can he?”
And you spend all the luck that was supposed to last you this lifetime, because in a moment of lucidity, you pull out. But immediately after that, you’re left to your own devices, and of course, you cum.
It’s hot, and you feel like a rubber band twanged across the middle. Like everything tight is wrenched out of you, and then let go, left to ricochet on your spine, springing back and forth. Your ears are ringing, your toes are curling; you’re letting out an orgasm so deep, you’re only saved by the fact that your eyes are closed for half of it.
And as you stir, blinking vision back into your eyes, your brain coming back to center, you’re thinking back, and you realize what the fuck you just said.
Yunjin’s meeting you where your eyes are at. Your brain’s numb, her jaw’s frozen in this half-scoff, lips untouching. She raises her eyebrows, giving you somewhere between what the fuck and intrigued. It’s expectant. You opened this up, she’s saying, now what?
You’re standing in the sand, and your house of cards is crumbling. You’re toeing where you expect the line to be, can’t find it, and don’t need to look to know it’s long behind you. Your chest is tight, and the implication is still in the air. You’re scrambling for something: something to walk it back, something in between the lines, anything to drive a stake through the premise and kill it entirely.
Yunjin is less patient. She ventures into the unknown, since you won’t. “Has this been about that the entire time?”
“Yunjin,” and you’re honest, preemptively reaching your hands out to her. “I don’t know why I said that.”
You’re looking straight into her eyes, completely wide. Her eyebrows pinch, and there’s a couple of beats. You know you should take them, to fill in the blanks; not to let the implication linger. But before you do: “I thought about my answer,” Yunjin starts, lowering her fingers to where you left yourself on her stomach.
And only after she runs her forefinger across her tongue, only after she cleans it of cum: “You’re so good, and no one can give it to me like you do.”
Spread across the bite in her lip, eyes half-lidded, and how she’s staring at you through her lashes, the implication’s crystal. And you would probably literally short circuit, if not for the second wind that was Yunjin licking you off of her fingers as she doubled down.
It all crescendos. She’s flipped over, and you’re pounding her into the couch, half to punctuate any sentences that implied she wasn’t completely yours, and the other half because her cunt was still so goddamn tight. The upholstery’s harmonizing, the hardwood exhaling on her offbeat.
You’re gripping Yunjin’s hips, bottoming out in her cunt at an angle, pulling her back into you. And she’s writhing, whining, taking your cock deeper and deeper.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she’s saying, and it irks you a little more than it should.
“Yunjin,” you spit, and you’re pressing your thumbs into her skin. “Shut up and take this dick like a good girl.”
And when you’re both pressing the buttons-
“Who else can fuck you like this, Yunjin?”
no one no sorry so sorry all yours this pussy yours you fuck me so- so hot when you’re jealous
“Yeah? You want me to? You’re such a good girl for me, baby,”
yes so good only for you so messy all over your cock fuck cum in me cum in me please i’ve been such a good girl please
- the gray area might as well be a chasm.
Because after you cum inside her, Yunjin drooling over your sofa, breath shuddering, leaking all over your cock, you have a mountain to climb. Physically — how you’re crumpled over her, exhausted, entangled — emotionally — how you’ll both put a cap on this in its entirety — and all of the rest of the above.
You’ll wait for her to bring it up.
-
Yunjin’s wrapped in your dress shirt, two sizes too big, and her head’s on your chest. Nothing short of Herculean, you’re in bed, and under polyester.
“He has a girlfriend, you know,” she says.
“Huh?” you manage intelligibly.
“My scandal.” Yunjin motions under the sheets, like the word needed air quotes. “Cute little thing. Works at an animal hospital. Always the loudest voice in the fanchants.”
You’re stunned, and don’t know what the right line of conversation is. “How are they taking it?”
“Probably makes their sex hotter, too.”
Dating made everything so much messier than it needed to be.
-
Two weeks after their comeback, the scandal breaks.
The official post is tame, but knowing netizens — a look at the comments confirming your suspicions — they’re feral. It’s a collage of three photos that look like they were taken from fifty feet away, but unmistakably of Yunjin an arm’s length away from another figure. They’re on a blanket overlooking the Hangang; she’s cuddled up in one of your hoodies, two sizes too big; and in the third photo, enlarged in post for emphasis, Yunjin’s nestled in his arm, selling the relationship pretty goddamn well.
You open an alt account and leave a hate comment.
LET’S BE HONEST HE DON’T DESERVE HER 💀💀💀😭😭😭
---
:)
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a/n: i’ve written daddy!shota plenty of times, but i’ve never written about how it might have happened. so here’s a hc dump? there’s a lil smutty drabble at the end.
if this isn’t your kind of thing, pls just scroll and ignore.
tw: f!reader, daddy kink (obv), ddlg, mentioned age play, d/s dynamics, pet names: baby, babygirl, sweetheart, good girl
totally blindsided the first time someone whined out a shaky “daddy” underneath him in his early twenties. almost busted instantly. he knew daddy kinks were a thing, but that was something people joked about, wasn’t it?… at least that’s what he knew. he also knew he needed to hear it again, but shoved the thought away as the life of an underground hero took hold.
kayama was the one who called him out on it jokingly when she snickered and threw out an offhand, “okay, daddy,” in response to his being demanding and she earned a nasty glare. she proceeded to do that for the next week, and every time, shota had half a mind to shove her face into any surface he could find and fuck the attitude out of her. but he never did.
got absolutely shitfaced with some friends and drunkenly confided in kamaya as uncomfortable as it was. he wanted answers, wanted to know that he wasn��t some disgusting perv, and if anyone could understand, it would be her. while much more crass than he liked on the matter, she still had compassion.
thanks to kayama, shota soon finds places on the internet where real people are involved in “ddlg,” and a comfort settles in his chest knowing that what’s in his head actually exists.
there’s something that makes his body run hot seeing real people in innocent, frilly clothes, printed, childish panties, maybe an oversized pacifier between their lips, snuggling with the cutest plushies he’s ever seen…. he’s not sure what to make of that, and it takes time for him to figure it out.
by the time you meet shota a few years later, he’s figured out most of his likes and dislikes, he thinks. he’s considered or been in a d/s dynamic once or twice, but most of his “daddy kink” experience falls into “something i like to hear in the bedroom.”
he’s pretty perceptive and picked up that you might be that kind of person long before it came up. it’s in the small things - the way you get flustered with certain nicknames or a particular tone of voice, how much you enjoy it when he’s forceful or takes control, the way he can almost watch your brain short circuit with certain phrases, with how he insists on taking care of you, etc.
he’s probably not gonna tell you until you bring it up or it happens naturally; yeah, he wants it, but until you push him, he’s not the type to demand what he wants out of sex (or in general) in a romantic relationship because that takes work… and because most sex doesn’t involve romantic relationships for him.
when it does come out, there’s plenty of discussion. he’s open with you for the most part because he doesn’t see a reason not to be. no matter how hesitant you might be, he’s unfazed by anything you bring up; he’s been around the internet enough that he’s at least seen the whole spectrum - everything from “daddy is a nickname” to 24/7 dynamics heavy on age play.
the first time you let it slip and call him daddy is probably in bed. he’s just fucking you that good. your head is spinning and fuzzy at the same time. your voice is muffled by pillows or maybe you’re tucked into the crook of his neck, biting into his sweatshirt. it’s soft, hardly intelligible; in fact, you were desperately hoping he hadn’t heard you at all.
but shota’s hearing is sharp, and he knows that what just left your mouth sure as shit was not “baby.”
so he leans in, his lips grazing your ear. “what’s that, sweetheart?”
“huh? n-nothin, jus’ feels go-” you’re cut off as your jaw drops and you moan.
shota angles his hips slightly, pounding harder into the spot that had you trembling and seeing white moments ago.
“c’mon babygirl, what did you call me?”
you whine. heat rushes to your cheeks. “no, sho st-stop, please,” you plead softly.
“if you wanna fucking cum, you’re gonna repeat what you said,” he growls. “you hear me?”
another hesitant whimper as you clench around his thick cock. shota grunts from the sensation and concedes, opting for a bit of encouragement.
his tone is soft and low. “i need it. let daddy hear you, baby.”
a shudder runs over your skin, your voice more akin to a broken sob. “fuck daddy, fuc-nngh, please don’t stop.”
shota’s heavy groan hits your skin as he pants, and you keen in response.
“that’s it. that’s my good girl, shit.” he presses soft, warm kisses into your skin. “say it again.”
if you’d like to join my tag list, let me know. ♡
gremlins: @arlerts-angel @dcsiremc @darkstarlight82 @bookcluberror @neon-gothicc @zazter-den @breadandbutter33 @i-literally-cant-with-this @rinalouu @stvrfir3 @r4td0lll @emmab3mma @aria-chikage @mhadabiandhawks4eva @yazminetrahan @doumadono @dreamcastgirl99 @maddietries @jazzafayesworld @karebear5118 @unofficialmuilover @cherriluvs35 @erensslut @ruu-https @hana-yuri @keiva1000 @katsul0vr @trickster-kat @ayeohoh-blog @dinomeow @flamgosstuff @mistressreaper @angelltheninth @anonymously-ominous @amberexe2 @hisconsistency @nanamisbigassschlong @223princess @honeeslust @naughtygobbo @acenanxious @blumoonwisteria @chaos-gem @levizonlywife @nuttyunknowndetective
#this is way too real i’m so sorry#pls forgive me hori for i have sinned#need him like i need air#im blushing#embarrassed#unable to function#BYE#aizawa shouta#aizawa shota#aizawa x reader#aizawa smut#tw daddy kink#x reader#f!reader#💖#bakubunny
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you can leave (don't go far)
[Steddie; no warnings; ao3]
---
At the one-month mark of dating Steve, Eddie starts a list.
To the One Who Loves Him Next:
— 1. If you hurt him, I will find you and make you regret the day you were born this side of the dimension. Yes, this is a threat; no, you don’t need to understand it beyond: be good to him.
It isn’t a serious, sentimental reason that makes him start writing, is merely something born out of a little too much whiskey, band practice, and contemplation of Steve’s—everything, really.
It grows, though. For reasons that Eddie is aware of but tries not to think too much about, he does not tear the page out of his notebook the next morning, doesn’t cross out the words or burn them in the kitchen sink.
So this is how it starts; a threat of bodily harm because Eddie does not think he could bear ever seeing Steve hurt again. A message to a stranger because Eddie does not entirely trust himself to be the one who will make Steve happy for the rest of their days, no matter how badly he wants to.
---
— 2. He will always love Robin more than you (although in a different way). Accept this; it is a good thing.
The summer of ‘86 is dwindling, fall stretching its spindly fingers across the golden Indiana fields, and if anyone were to ask Eddie, he would say that things between him and Steve are good. Great, even, better than he had dared to hope for, back in summer when he had kissed Steve for the first time, half-certain that whatever Vecna and his bats had failed to accomplish, Steve would finish any second now.
He hadn’t; instead, he had kissed Eddie back as if it was the first breath of fresh air in years, and somehow, Eddie had been allowed to keep him. They don’t go shouting it from the rooftops, but their friends know. Wayne knows. The people who matter know, are happy for them if, perhaps, sometimes a little exasperated with their utter inability to keep their hands to themselves.
So when Robin appears on Eddie’s doorstep on one early September evening, the sky a riot of pink and orange behind her, he isn’t remotely prepared for anything but a friendly visit.
“I need to talk to you,” she says, and waits just about long enough for Eddie to sit down at the rickety kitchen table before she adds, “It’s about Steve. About both of you.”
“Did something happen, is he alright? I thought—“
“He’s fine,” Robin cuts in, an apology flashing in her sharp eyes before it’s all unyielding resolution again. “It’s getting serious between you two, right?”
Even with the reassurance, the dread settles in Eddie’s stomach, his fingers fiddling with his rings.
It is, though, the initial infatuation giving way to something solid. Something a little terrifying, if Eddie is honest, but worth it. So, so worth it.
“Yes,” he says, holds her eyes, still not sure what the purpose of this is. As much as he likes her, he doesn’t have whatever freaky intrinsic understanding she and Steve share. He’s fine with this, most days, but right now it feels like she knows something he does not, and he has never handled that feeling particularly well, so— “I don’t see how that is any of your business, though.”
He knows it’s a stupid thing to say the moment he does, not that it is of any use by then.
She smiles, somehow both mirthless and understanding. “Look, Eddie, I like you. You know that I like you, right?”
She actually waits until he offers her a jerky nod in response. He kind of wants to crawl out of his skin.
Finally sitting down across from him, she leans her elbows on the table; he has the distinct impression of being an insect pinned to a board.
“See, Steve is… He is serious about this, has been from the start. And while I wasn’t around when the entire thing with Nancy blew up, I still picked up a great many of the pieces. It’s taken some considerable time and effort, and as much as I love Steve, as much as I am willing to pick up his pieces, over and over, until the end of our days, I would prefer if he didn’t have to shatter in the first place.”
It isn’t exactly what Eddie expected, but now that the words lie on the table between them, he isn’t actually surprised.
He smiles, can’t help it. “Are you giving me a shovel talk, Buckley?”
Her posture doesn’t change, and neither does her expression. “Yes. I like you, as does everyone else, but I’m not above bribing El into making you disappear, no matter what baby Wheeler or Dusty-bun have to say about it. If you’re not serious about this, now is the time to get out with your pretty face intact. Last chance.”
Eddie thinks of the start of a list, still at the back of his notebook. Thinks of Steve’s tired eyes and the walls he builds, and how Eddie has been taking them down slowly, carefully, brick by brick. How Steve lets him. Thinks of how Steve touches him, fingertips dancing across skin with a gentleness that Eddie still isn’t sure he deserves, and how even among lingering suspicion and Hawkins’ cage and the suffocating need to get out, every single day with Steve is like finding true north.
He thinks of his fear and his uncertainty, of how a part of him still expects Steve to wake up one day and finally realize that Eddie isn’t worth all this, that he still wants the Winnebago and the six kids and the sticky-sweet picket-fence-life more than he wants Eddie’s chaos and Eddie’s music and all of Eddie’s stupid, annoying idiosyncrasies.
Thinks of fear and jumping and outrunning the past, of the fierce protectiveness in his heart that is also shining back at him from Robin’s eyes.
He smiles. “I can’t promise to never hurt him, Buckley, we both know that. But if I ever do it on purpose, you have full permission to get El to snap my neck and dump me in the quarry.”
He means it, too, is the thing. She keeps looking at him, the old kitchen clock ticking in the background, steady. Eventually, she gives him a sharp nod before her features soften back into familiarity.
“Good,” she says, and she’s already getting back up again while rummaging through the pockets of her jacket. “Here, you’ll need these even if Steve is too proud or stubborn or—well. You know.”
Moments later, he is alone again, with a list crammed onto a single sheet of paper in Robin’s looping hand. It is a careful, organized collection of: what triggers Steve’s migraines. What helps against Steve’s migraines. What helps after nightmares. Random things to avoid due to assorted trauma. What to do when he ties himself up in knots over the kids or his parents or any of the things he worries about too much.
It goes on, is, Eddie realizes, a complete run-down of every little piece of knowledge Robin has on how to take care of Steve.
Eddie has no doubt that she herself does not need it written down, that she has accumulated all these little pieces of information naturally because she is the one person that Steve has no hope of fooling.
Whatever misplaced strands of prickling jealousy had still been tangled around Eddie’s heart finally dissolve. He takes the list and adds it to the page in his notebook that has another one already started; just in case Robin ever has to make good on her promise.
---
— 3. He is the most self-sacrificing person you will ever meet, but he is also still a bitch at heart; don’t take it personally (in fact, sometimes it’s fun to encourage him, but don’t tell anyone).
See, the thing is, Eddie has never been particularly great at following instructions—probably would have had fewer troubles finishing school if rules came easily to him.
So when Steve goes down with a bad migraine, Eddie does not, in fact, do as Robin’s list tells him and leaves him alone.
Yes, sure, at this point, he can gracefully take his second place, can easily admit that she would know best, especially after those post-Starcourt days where migraines had been a far more regular occurrence, but—
But. Failure to deal with instructions aside, it also simply feels wrong; to heed the signs, stock up the kitchen, and leave Steve to his silent suffering.
So he pushes. He knows he shouldn’t but he does, asks, “Are you sure you’re alright, I can move the DnD session—“
He should know better even without Robin’s list, really, but then, Eddie has never claimed to be a smart man. Especially not when it comes to Steve.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about it. Just a long shift and—“
“Oh come on, that’s bullshit,” Eddie snaps, stepping closer. He freezes when Steve steps back.
“It’s not bullshit, I’m fine. I don’t need you to hang around here whining that you missed nerd night—“
“—that’s not—“
“Not to mention that it’s not as if there is anything you could do. Last I checked, you had neither superpowers nor sudden mind-reading skills, so how about you let me decide whether I’m fine or not? I’m not one of your made-up damsels in distress, you do know that, right?”
Eddie watches as regret washes across Steve’s face instantly, but it only marginally lessens the sting of it. He grits his teeth and grabs his jacket from the kitchen chair.
“Fine, deal with it on your own then.”
“Fine,” Steve bites back; pain always makes him more bitchy, not that he lacks the skill on the best of days.
Eddie isn’t pissed enough to slam the door when he leaves, but it’s a close thing.
---
The little anger Eddie could muster up has drained away once he drops the kids back home that night. He is itching to check on Steve, to apologize, to convince him to let Eddie take care of him, damn his stubborn pride, but he doesn’t.
It takes almost two days until there is a knock on the door of the trailer, Steve looking washed-out and tired and, most of all, sheepish.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped—“
Eddie pulls him inside, kisses him lightly as soon as the door is closed. “Don’t apologize,” he says. “I should have known better.”
Steve’s brows furrow, even as he keeps leaning into Eddie, as if the mere prospect of stepping out of his space physically pains him. “You couldn’t have known that I turn into an asshole who snaps at his boyfriend when he wants to take care of me.”
Shrugging, Eddie kisses him again, stays close, nose brushing along Steve’s. “Call it an inkling; now come on, you can make it up to me by listening to the retelling of the absolute disaster that the session was.”
There is a moment where Steve keeps looking at him, eyes dark and serious and fingers digging a little more firmly into Eddie’s sides—as if he isn’t entirely sure that it can be this easy.
In the end, though, he nods, smiles a little. Follows Eddie into his room, already asking all the right questions, and Eddie vows right then and there that it will always, always be exactly that easy.
---
— 4. His parents are absent more often than not and his father is a bastard, but he will still miss his mother on her birthday. Don't try to distract him; if he trusts you with this, simply be grateful (muffins help; so does whiskey).
It isn’t on Robin’s list, so when early February rolls around and Eddie wakes to an empty bed, he doesn’t think anything of it, at first. Later, when he finds Steve staring into space in the kitchen, when the smile once Steve notices him is brittle around the edges, when Steve’s coffee goes cold and the house stays silent and the space between them seems to twist and grow, he thinks it’s another migraine.
He runs a careful hand down Steve’s arm, presses his mouth to his temple. “Want me to leave?”
Steve frowns, turning to look at Eddie. He seems as if he is about to say something but clothes his mouth again, fingers tangling in the front pocket of Eddie’s hoodie. “No, I just—stay?”
Perhaps the most devastating part of it is that he sounds uncertain about it, the hesitation in his voice settling like pins and needles beneath Eddie’s skin.
He steps closer, watches Steve’s face for the dismissal that never comes, and loosely wraps his arms around him. “Of course,” he finally says, exhaling carefully when Steve’s forehead comes to rest against his collarbone.
It’s a gamble, to ask, but Eddie’s always been willing to risk too much when it came to Steve. “Want to talk about it?”
For a long time, Steve doesn’t answer, long enough that Eddie accepts that he won’t actually get one.
The light shifts in the kitchen, the February days still short and tentative. Eventually, Steve huffs, though, as if he is annoyed with himself. “It’s my mom’s birthday. She’s… Back when I was a kid, we used to spend the day baking and watching stupid movies and—I mean we haven’t done this in ages, it’s not like it matters but—“
“Of course, it matters,” Eddie says, with more vehemence than he means to. “Sorry but—if it matters to you, it matters. There’s no use in beating yourself up over it.”
Steve grimaces, toying with the loose threads on Eddie’s hoodie. “Yes well, I’d like it to not matter, though.”
Humming, Eddie looks through the dimly lit kitchen, this quiet sanctuary that isn’t really theirs, at the end of the day. “Let’s override it, then.”
“Literally what are you—“
“We’re going to bake something. Or well, you tell me what to do and do most of the work while I look pretty and snack on the dough. We’ll make something simple, and then we’ll watch a bunch of stupid movies you can pick and—“
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know. I want to, though. If you do, anyway—we can do something else if you’d like. Anything but go hiking, that is, you’re not getting me to—“
He’s cut off when Steve kisses him, hard enough that Eddie staggers a little with the force of it.
It’s good, though; they make muffins that Eddie drowns in frosting and sprinkles, watch enough Monty Python to make Eddie’s brain leak out of his ears, and fall asleep on the couch once the sugar high fades, afternoon melting into evening.
If Eddie opens Robin’s list back up the next day to make sure he doesn’t forget to make a tradition out of it, if it ends up on two lists because for all the love threatening to crack his ribcage open, Eddie still does not trust himself regardless, not fully, not enough, well—
Then that is no one’s business but his own, is it?
---
— 5. Always, always put him first; he deserves someone to do that, for once. I am too selfish to give him up and too selfish to not ask for more than everything, so if I do have to let him go one day, you'll better make it worth it.
“Are you really sure about this?”
It is the umpteenth time that Eddie asks this, and Steve merely rolls his eyes. Leans over the open door of the Beemer to kiss him once, still not bothering to answer.
It’s sweet, the way it all has been sweet; the pipe dreams of getting out of Hawkins, the even bigger pipe dreams of large cities and small gigs for the band. Eddie’s future has always been one big pipe dream, and then came Steve Harrington, determined to spin them into something real and solid.
Because of course, he does; he is the most self-sacrificing person Eddie knows, and no matter how often he asks—what about you, your six kids and the Winnebago and all those sugary dreams that should be far more attainable than whatever Eddie dares to hope for—Steve always smiles. Always kisses him, easy, and says that it’s fine. That he’s happy wherever Eddie and Robin go, and isn’t it lucky, how they seem to agree, for once in their lives, that San Francisco is a good choice.
Perhaps the worst thing, Eddie thinks as he drops into the car stuffed with what little they own, is that he believes him, too.
He presses his fingers to the warm skin of Steve’s neck when they drive past Hawkins’ exit sign for the final time, and he prays and prays and prays that one day, he can make it up to him.
---
The plan was never for Steve to come across the list, at any point.
More than once, Eddie had been this close to throwing it away, to scoffing at himself and his sentimentality, his fear, the way he sometimes still looks at Steve, sun-kissed and happy, and cannot believe that he is allowed to keep this. That he won’t fuck this up.
He never does, though, always stares at the points, the few there are, and thinks that if one day he does have to let Steve go, he wants—
Well, it’s complicated. No one will ever see that list, least of all whoever Steve will love that isn’t Eddie.
Eddie will know that it exists, though, that he wrote it and what it says. He’ll remember the time that he wished Steve happiness even if it wasn’t with him. He cannot allow himself to forget this, even if—if—despite his trying and holding on and all this overwhelming, aching, solid love, the most important thing in his life does implode, one day.
Which is, of course, why Steve has to find the list eventually. He has a knack for it, Eddie likes to joke, to always get into the places he should stay far away from, find the things he is not supposed to see, without any fault of his own.
It’s particularly stupid because it’s Eddie who throws him the notebook, meaning to show him some notes for a campaign for when the kids visit.
In his defense, he does have a lot of notebooks. He really should have thought of it anyway, though.
He doesn’t notice that anything is off for at least five minutes either, still thumbing through the Monster Manual and keeping up a steady stream of commentary.
It’s only when Steve fails to laugh at one of those really dumb jokes that he never fails to laugh at that Eddie finally looks up.
There is nothing particularly obvious about the sight; Steve sitting on their couch, brows furrowed, random black notebook lying on the coffee table in front of him. Somehow, Eddie knows, though.
He has the dumbest urge to snatch the notebook away. To claim that it isn’t like that, tear out the page and burn it in the ashtray, pretend it never existed in the first place.
Instead, he keeps very, very still. It is the first time in a long time that he has no idea how Steve is going to react to something, isn’t sure at all whether he will get a stupid joke and teasing for being a sap, or hurt for thinking that they won’t last, or—
He doesn’t know, is the thing, and it makes him itch with the urge to do something. Anything.
In the end, though, Steve merely closes the notebook carefully and looks up. His expression is soft, a little exasperated, and anything Eddie might have wanted to say tangles and sticks and stays in his throat.
“You’re an idiot,” Steve says, voice quiet. He gets up and walks over to where Eddie is sitting at their desk, wrapping his arms around him from behind.
“But you love me?” Eddie can’t help but ask, leaning his head back until he can look at Steve, upside down and still obnoxiously pretty.
Steve huffs, and presses a chaste kiss to Eddie’s mouth, his nose, his forehead. “But I love you and, for what it’s worth, you’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eddie says, and he thinks all the love and the warmth and the tenderness must show on his face because Steve kisses him again, again and again until Eddie’s neck hurts and his lips are bruised.
Which, really, if he had known that this was the reaction he’d get, he would have shoved the list at Steve ages ago.
---
Eddie thinks that is the end of it, the gentle teasing Steve levels at him about his attempt to be threatening notwithstanding.
He isn’t even sure when Steve does it, but one day Eddie opens the godforsaken notebook again and finds a loose scrap of paper tucked between his and Robin’s list.
To the One Who Loves Him Next (Steve ’s Version):
Learn to love his music and the campaigns he writes; you don’t have to become either metalhead or nerd, but if you do not love his enthusiasm, I know someone with a wicked aim.
He gets nightmares, and he will not tell you what they are about. Even if you knew why he had them, it wouldn’t change anything; just be there, make sure there is always a small light on somewhere, and if all else fails, reading from the Lord of the Rings helps.
He is a package deal; even if I have to lose him, he has a family that loves and needs him, and neither you nor I will be the reason that he has to go without them. We also share joint custody of a bunch of really annoying kids; be nice to them or see the point about someone with a mean aim.
Defend him; he will pretend that the vitriol doesn't get to him, but he deserves better, anyway.
If you hurt him—run. I'm probably just waiting for an excuse to try and win a fight against you.
“I think if we asked Robin about it, she would tell us that threatening bodily harm to possible future partners falls into the more concerning areas of codependency,” Steve says from the doorway. “But to be honest, I really don’t care; I think it’s sweet of us, actually.”
Eddie laughs, the sound a little wet. He skims the list again, then a third and a fourth time, before carefully setting it back into the notebook, and the notebook aside.
“Come here?” he asks, watching as Steve walks over to where Eddie is still sitting on the sofa, his heart like a war drum inside his chest.
He pulls Steve down to him as soon as he can reach him, and pours all the things he wants to say but doesn’t have the words for into the following kiss.
“For what it’s worth,” he says when they break apart, just far enough to lean their foreheads together, “I think it’s very sweet, too. Very poetic of us, even.”
Steve laughs, the low sound wrapping around Eddie’s bones. “Right? There's a very simple way to avoid that, after all.”
Eddie smiles, presses the curve of it against Steve’s jaw, and breathes him in. “Is there, now?”
“I simply have to make sure you’re not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
If anyone were to ask Eddie, that is an absolutely perfect solution; he bites his agreement into Steve’s soft mouth, makes a vow out of it, and marvels at the way Steve answers as if he understands it, too.
He’s simply not going to let go; after all, Eddie is exceptionally good at holding on.
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you looked back at me once (but I looked back two times)
summer sleepover masterlist
ted lasso x gn!reader
summary : “talking and realizing they're just nodding to everything you say (because they're busy admiring u dhsdbgfgydesuh)” requested by anon.
an : the anon who requested this was so right when they said it screams ted I acc can’t think of anyone else in the world it’d fit better
“So it’s only feasible to get it done Tuesday, if that’s okay with you guys?” Though you tried your best not to make your way down to the coaches office until lunch time, today you had to go on business, driving you to be down there bright and early at 8am.
Roy, Beard and Ted had been nodding along to everything you said, each taking your words into account and trying to figure out how they could rearrange their plans to fit it in to their schedule. Roy, naturally, was the first to disagree with your change of plans. “Can’t do Tuesday. I need-“
“I can pick Phoebe up from school.” You assured, fingers drumming against the back of your clipboard. “She can come hang out in my office while we wait for you to finish up.”
Roy clearly hadn’t expected a response to that, nodding his head with a half-scowl on his face.
Beard was the next to query the change of plans, his hands raised above his head waiting for your permission to speak. “It won’t interfere with your dentist appointment, Beard. We won’t need you until 2pm at the earliest, so you’ll have plenty of time to get there.” Beards hand went back to his side as quickly as he raised it.
When you turned to the other coach in the office, waiting for a question or query from him, you were met with silence. Ted was staring up at you with the most doe eyed look you’d ever seen. His chin rested against the back of his interlocked fingers and his head was tilted so he could look directly at your face. Not a single thought was running behind those eyes and if you weren’t trying to make sure things would run smoothing you’d have found it ridiculously cute.
“Ted? Any feedback?”
It took him a good second to regain awareness of his surroundings, but when he had, that lovesick smile returned to his face. “Not at all darlin’, it’s absolutely perfect.”
“You’re sure?” Ted’s mind was so filled with you that he couldn’t think of anything else, but judging by the wicked smile that was curled on your lips, you clearly had. “Not even the fact you were meant to be going for dinner with Trent Crimm Tuesday?”
He’d totally forgotten about dinner with Trent, but he was sure the journalist wouldn’t mind the fact he had to reschedule. “I wouldn’t know what I was doing without you sweetheart. Do you mind calling up Trent and rescheduling?”
“You got it coach.” With a salute, you left the coaches office, the three coaches waiting for the clack of your shoes against tile to stop before they spoke.
“You’re in love with them.” Beard immediately accused, pointing his finger at Ted. “And don’t try and deny it, you weren’t even paying attention to the conversation, you were just staring at them.”
Ted turned to Roy, hoping to find reassurance that he’d played it cool when you’d entered the office and not made a total fool of himself. “Looked like a fucking puppy, you did.”
One day Ted would be brave enough to do more then just admire you when you walked into a room. And although today had not been that day, with each time he saw you, he knew that day was getting closer and closer.
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Jeremy shows up to practice fifteen minutes early and finds Jean in the team lounge. "This is for you," he says.
Jean expects those words, like all the other times he's heard them, to be accompanied with a bright smile and flowers, or chocolate, or a plate of whipped cream to the face—don't worry, revenge was had—but instead finds himself staring at...a note.
White flash card, folded twice, one corner bent back down halfway for no good reason at all, and the memories hit Jean like a racquetto the head. How many of those noted had he been given? Shoved into hands without stopping to look and passed on just as quickly.
Jean is a man of instincts. Reflexes. Ingrained responses so deep the brain need not bother, for the body already knows.
And this note is a cue his body knows too well. One, take the note before anyone can think to come near it. Two, shove it into his pocket before anyone can see. Three, storm down the hall to tell Kevin that he is NOT waiting for 45 minutes again while he agonizes over a two fucking sentence response, and—
The door opens again, San Diego sunlight blinding him as two more teammates come in, and Jean remembers Kevin isn't here. Which means. Which means.
He unfolds the paper too quickly—it would've torn if it had been thinner, but the thick flash card just gets stuck. Typical. Holy shit, typical.
Thea's handwriting is the same precise script as ever (except the lowercase g's for some reason). The letters are smaller than the guidelines, like she didn't know how much space she needed to write everything she wanted to say.
Hi Jean. Kevin says you're doing well. Or rather, Kevin says that Jeremy says. Not that I think Jeremy would lie, but there's only one messenger I've every really trusted, and that's you. I'll be in SD sometime next week. Give me a call.
A phone number is scrawled beneath. No signature. Overall, it takes just over half the card; either she miscalculated or she had more to say but instead chose self censure. Both options are unlike her.
The myriad pieces of Jean's mind read the note, over and over, all slightly out of synch from one another so rather than comprehension he only gets nose.
"Jean?" Jeremy's had on his shoulder, concerned. Jeans hand jerks upwards, sharply, and then he brings it back down as he turns to face Jeremy, pretending he hadn't been this close to stuffing the note in his mouth. "You good, man?"
Good question. Great, even. Jean has a better one. "Who gave you the note?"
Jeremy frowns even harder. It doesn't suit him, brow furrowed like that when he isn't trying to run through a backliner like they're made of tissue paper. "Coach Rhemann came back from Texas this morning, told me Muldani gave it to him. With very specific instructions not to open it. I met Coach, he gave it to me."
Of course. Thea doesn't ask for things; it's the first piece of advice she ever gave him. If you want, and you can, then do it. Forget who might stand in your way; they can only try, same as you.
"Jean?" Jeremy asks again. "What did the note say?"
Thea wanted to pass a message to Jean without Jeremy in the way. Well, maybe fuck what Thea wants. Jean hands him the note. Jeremy skims it, raises a brow. "What does she mean, that she only trusts you?"
His concern, born of meeting Jean back at Abby Winfield's house and fed by the steady trickle of Jean's stories of the Nest, seems momentarily absurd. "The Ravens weren't allowed to date," Jean says simply, as he had many times before. When Jeremy seems to catch on, he nods at the note. "I was their favorite messenger. Well. I was the only one who wouldn't sell them out."
"Why didn't you?"
Because Kevin was his friend. Because Thea deserved better than anything the Nest could ope to give her, much less dare to deny. Because every breath Jean took in protest to that tar pit came filled his lungs just a little bit deeper.
"Because then I got to read Kevin's love letters."
Jeremy's eyes go wide. "Shakespeare?"
"Poe."
Some teammates turn at the sound of their captain's laughter. More turn when they hear him hit the floor. Jean gives them all a plain look.
He takes the note back from Jeremy's twitching fingers—it's best to let him wear himself out on such occasions—and stares at the phone number.
Thea does not ask, she acts. If Thea wants to come down here and see him, then nothing stands in her way.
Except Jean. If he doesn't call, if he doesn't show, he's sure she won't push. She will never call or text or write a note to him again and all he has to do is nothing.
The thought rumbles through the dark halls of his mind that still belong to the Nest, like a freight train pushing forward too much air, pushing, pushing until the wall ahead falls apart from the pressure and—
Sunlight. The lounge door is open again. More teammates, almost late, confused by their laughing captain.
Jean takes out his cell.
#aftg#tfc#thea muldani#jean moreau#jeremy knox#do you understand what it means to me that Kevin wasnt Jeans only friend at the nest#i dont think you do
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hi!! i hope you’re doing well :). can i please request either “and you're telling me you wanna kiss me but we shouldn't cause we're just friends." or “when you found me i was a train wreck” with sam obisanya? i’m not picky either way i just thought they’d both be good and couldn’t decide hehe. thanks!!
kissing in swimming pools | sam obisanya
based on the song kissing in swimming pools by holly humberstone: "when you found me i was a train wreck."
description: the first "i love you" f!reader (she/her)
warnings: language-- it's ted lasso, what did ya expect? fluff! sam in loveeee.
word count: 1356 words
ted lasso requests are open | main masterlist
There were only three things that Sam Obisanya was sure of.
The first is that his father will be proud of him no matter what he ends up accomplishing in his life. He was sure that if life didn’t pan out the way that it did and he wasn’t a famous footballer, his father would still be as proud as he is of him. He was lucky in that sense– that he had a father who never once made him doubt whether he loved his son or not. Sam knew that he wouldn’t be half the man that he is if his father wasn’t his father. And in his opinion, he thinks he ended up pretty decent.
The second thing he is sure of is that Ted Lasso was put on this earth to be AFC Richmond’s coach, even if it was just for the short time that he did. Some pretty spectacular people had coached Sam, Roy Kent being one of them, but Ted was something special. Not only did he make Sam a better player on the pitch, he also made him a better man. Whenever he does something wrong, he always repeats the words, “Be a goldfish,” in his head, over and over again. When he’s having a bad day, where everything seems to be going wrong, he closes his eyes and the word “Believe,” on that bright yellow paper is the image in his head.
The third and final thing Sam Obisanya is sure of is that if he was asked who was the love of his life, he would say you with no hesitation.
He watched you dance with Keeley to some random 2000s pop song on the dance floor. Beard and Jane were engaged in some weird dance routine that had people raising their eyebrows, but Sam figured they were able to act however they wanted since it was their wedding night. He couldn’t help but smile as you threw your head back in laughter as Keeley tried to do the shuffle in her heels.
“Oi,” Jamie nudged his arm, “You reckon Y/N will still be your date at Jane and Beard’s 25th wedding anniversary?”
“Absolutely,” Sam replied before Jamie even finished his question, “I love her. There’s no one else for me, Jamie. I don’t think anyone can ever compare.”
Jamie let out a breath, eyes widening as he took a sip from his bottle, “Sheesh, bold claim, man.”
“Honestly, I know she’s the love of my life.”
“This is cute and all,” Colin interrupted, leaning across the table to meddle in Sam and Jamie’s conversation, “But have you told her that?”
Sam shook his head, a goofy smile on his face, “No, not yet. I don’t know how I should tell her or what she’d say. I don’t even know if she feels the same way about me.”
“You won’t know ‘til you tell her,” Jamie said, “And for what it’s worth, I think it’ll be a good response.”
Sam took a sip of his own beer and then placed the bottle on the table. He cleared his throat, dusting off his dress pants. As the song transitioned to a slow song, he walked over to where you stood with Keeley on the dance floor. He tried to ignore the sounds of cheering from the table of footballers he just left, but he couldn’t help but bite his bottom lip to control his smile.
Keeley was facing Sam so she noticed him before you did. She shot him a wink and bid you goodbye by squeezing your arm. As Keeley walked away, you turned around to find Sam with an outstretched hand.
“May I have this dance?” He asked though he was already pulling you into him.
“Always,” you responded, draping your arms around his neck while his hands found their way to your hips. You swayed slowly to the sound of the music, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. You knew that there were others on the dance floor, hell, you knew that the newlyweds were right beside you, but somehow at that moment, you felt like it was just you and Sam. “Y’know, before I met you, I always thought that people were lying when they said that when they’re with their partner the whole world disappears.”
“What do you think now?” he asked, spinning you around elegantly, “Do you feel that way with me?”
“Mhm,” you answered. You let your right-hand cup his face. He nuzzled his cheek against your palm, a sigh of contentment leaving his lips. You rubbed his skin with the pad of your thumb, cherishing the way he melted under your touch. “When I met you, I was a train wreck. I was always working. I never took time to take care of myself and for a while, I really did forget how to take care of myself. Then you came along…”
His smile turned shy as if he couldn’t believe that you were giving him the credit he deserved, “Then I came along…”
“Then you came along and reminded me how beautiful life could be if I just slowed down and took some time to breathe, to experience life, to smile,” you trailed off, not sure how you were going to word the next part. You took a deep breath, halting your movements before saying, “Sam, I lov-”
“No!” He exclaimed, a bit too loudly. He made a face of embarrassment, looking around the dancefloor to see couples staring at him oddly. Keeley, who was dancing with Roy, gave him a questioning look, “Apologies, everyone.”
You chuckled quietly, moving his face to look at you again, “No?”
“No- I mean- yes!” He babbled, “I mean, I don’t want you to say it first. I need to say it first. But I do, too. I do. I do love you.”
You placed a soft kiss on his lips, giggling as you pulled away, “I love you, Sam Obisanya.”
Sam chased your lips, unable to contain the smile on his face, “I like how that sounds.”
“What?” you teased, “You like it when I say I love you?”
“Can’t get enough of it,” he mumbled against your lips, “You’re gonna have to say it at least fifty times a day. Texts don’t count because I don’t get to hear your pretty voice say it. Phone calls are okay and voice memos are the last resort. I would prefer it if you were in front of me when you said it, though. ‘Cause then I will get to kiss you.”
“You don’t ever need an excuse to kiss me, Sam.”
“Thank God for that,” Sam said, spinning you one last time as the music came to a stop.
As you fell back into his arms, he couldn’t help but imagine you at your wedding; how beautiful of a bride you’d be, how the lads would be cheering for Mr. and Mrs. Obisanya when the two of you walk into the reception, how in his vows, he’ll recount the moment he realized that he was going to marry you.
You walked back to the table with Sam, hand in hand, with a glow that all of the boys noticed. Dani and Richard were fawning over something on Isaac’s phone, calling you and Sam over to take a look at it. When you saw the picture, tears pooled in your eyes. In the photo, you were staring up at Sam, laughing a bit as he stumbled over his words. Isaac managed to capture the exact moment Sam told you he loved you for the first time. Sam draped an arm over you, kissing the crown of your head, as he chuckled at how stupid he looked in the picture.
Throughout your relationship, there were many “I love you’s” that followed, many photos that were taken and shared, and many other weddings you attended. But that photo, imperfect, silly, and a bit grainy, was your favorite moment– your favorite “I love you,” your favorite photo of the both of you, but it was taken at your second favorite wedding. Your favorite wedding was your own.
#ted lasso#ted lasso fics#ted lasso imagines#ted lasso imagine#sam obisanya#sam obisanya imagine#sam obisanya x yn#sam obisanya oneshot#sam obisanya fluff#sam obisanya x y/n#sam obisanya x reader#frances writes#frances song fics
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Reader is Medusa
So in the myths Poseidon… forced himself onto a worshipper (or priestess) of Athena inside Athena’s temple and Athena punished Medusa, turning her into a Gorgon whose gaze would turn all to stone
Medusa of course fled and over the years, I think even decades because she was semi immortal where the only way she could die is if someone killed her and she lost her mind
She was killed by Perseus and after that her head was used as a weapon until it was given to Athena who adorned it upon her shield (she had also helped Perseus kill Medusa so yeah Athena was a bit of a bitch to Medusa)
Anyway so I’m thinking she was brought to Valhalla (in some interpretations of the myth Perseus killed Medusa while she slept but in this case it was in a drawn out battle [also Medusa doesn’t turn to stone if she sees her reflection that’s not a thing in the myths]) and while she is still stuck with her curse she does find a nice garden that she tends to and stays out of the way of others
When she has to go out she dons a mask so that no one can accidentally gaze into her eyes and be turned into a statue
Anyway, she can’t get revenge against Athena because the goddess hides behind her father Zeus who doesn’t think she did anything wrong, but when Ragnarok is announced Medusa sees a chance to get revenge on the other god responsible for her fate
She volunteers to face Poseidon
Also in different interpretations Medusa uses a bow, her claws, or a sword as her weapon so if she does a Volundr there’s something for ideas
Also differing in interpretations is her legs, sometimes she has human legs but is just extremely scaly and with snakes for hair, or her lower half is a snakes but her upper body appears more human
My request is what is her relationship with the Valkyries, the Einherjar, and what is her fight with Poseidon like?
Damn, I had forgotten how many people the Greek Gods had screwed over in mythology.
My personal take on this particular legend is that Athena didn’t punish Medusa, but instead gave her that form and the ability to turn others into stone so nobody could ever hurt her again, giving her the ability to fight back. However, when men saw her, seeing her as a monster, they treated her like one and drove her away, seeing her as a threat because she could make them stop with their violence. This is why Medusa is the symbol for women safe houses around the world, as she is seen as a protector of women, as some say that Medusa’s gaze only worked on men, sparing the women. However, for this HC, I’m doing it as a cruel punishment from Athena, rather than a blessing.
-Everyone knew your tale, how you were raped in a temple of Athena by Poseidon for your beauty, and you were in turn, turned into a fearsome snake like beast as punishment.
-Emerald green and black scales grew all over your body, a long matching tail sprouted from your tail bone, and your hair morphing into matching, writing snakes with glowing red eyes, and your eyes morphed into slit eyes like a snake, colored of molten gold.
-Anyone who dared to look you in the eye turned to stone, and you were chased from your temple, your home, chased and outcast, nothing more than a monster in the eyes of your fellow humans.
-You spent so many years, never aging, never dying, forced to live with the curse that had been ‘gifted’ to you, hiding away in deep caves, so you wouldn’t turn anyone else to stone.
-Many came to slay you, wanting to slay the fearsome Medusa to claim glory for themselves, to get honor from the gods.
-You grew angry and resentful at their cruel words, fighting back against them using swords from past warriors, it wasn’t your fault you were like this, it was the gods, they were the ones who caused this, not you.
-Your rage drove you to madness until you were finally released from your curse when you were finally killed by a worthy opponent, Perseus.
-To your horror, it was not the end, after you awoke in Valhalla, now a demigod, still looking as you did when you died, like a monster.
-Your stone gaze no longer worked like it did on Earth, where your victims were permanently stone, now they were only stone for about a day before returning to normal, which you were grateful for, but after years of being treated like a monster, you hid yourself away in a quiet corner of the Greek pantheon.
-You no longer had to hide away, as many in Valhalla knew about your fate, but if you were to venture out of your little garden hideaway, you wore a mask over your eyes, so none would be turned to stone for the next 24 hours.
-Many in Valhalla were kind to you, knowing that you were cursed by the gods to look like that, many humans and a few gods were sympathetic to you.
-Those who were sympathetic towards you were others like you, the Minotaur, Charybdis, various demigods like Hercules, beings who were treated so cruelly by the gods, just because they could.
-Brunnhilde approached you in your little garden, your snakes alerting you to her presences, stretching out to greet her, as they were now long enough to stretch down to your belly.
-You made sure your mask was on so you wouldn’t change her to stone before you turned to greet her.
-You had recently heard about this tournament she had managed to arrange, a chance for the salvation of humanity.
-You were mostly neutral when it came to your opinion on humanity, as humanity turned its back on you, once you changed into a monster; they did you no favors so you felt like you didn’t owe them anything.
-Brunnhilde was understanding of this, before she told you that the gods would be fighting, including Poseidon, the man who caused your life to turn into hell.
-She noticed your snake’s eyes flash brightly in anger and you saw a small smile on her lips.
-You smiled at her, “Very clever of you, dear valkryie. You have what you desire, I will fight for you. However, my opponent is to be Poseidon, and no other.”
-She put her fist over her heart, swearing this to you before thank you for joining the fight.
-When you walked in to the waiting area where the other Einhejar were, eyes went wide and jaws dropped, seeing the legendary gorgon who would be fighting alongside them.
-Qin Shi Huang was almost immediately over to greet you, smiling warmly, not scared at all, he was in fact fascinated by your hair as your babies moved to greet him.
-Okita was the same way, his eyes sparkling up at you, you were surprised but not upset by their questions and curiosity, finding it almost amusing.
-When Brunnhilde entered to inform the remaining fighters, including you, that Poseidon was next, you tail flicked and all of your snakes rose, their eyes flashing, baring their fangs as you smirked, showing off your own fangs, your eyes flashing behind your mask.
-You cracked your knuckles as you headed towards the entrance, your Valkyrie partner, Brunnhilde herself, approaching you from the side.
-She grinned warmly down at you, giving you a firm nod before she took your hand, transforming into a shining, bright metal kopis blade.
-Humanity were hesitant when you first walked out, seeing a monster, but many who knew you, who knew your legend, were quick to start cheering, which soon got the rest of the humans to cheer for you.
-Across from you stood Poseidon, who looked unamused, seeing his opponent was a maiden before his eyes widened, only slightly, as he recognized you as the creature that Athena created.
-Your eyes flashed brightly, pointing your weapon at him, “You gods will finally learn the consequences for your actions.” He didn’t respond, moving into an attack position, and the match began.
-You were a fierce warrior, having trained when you were alive, learning how to fight to survive, and you had learned many things in Valhalla as well.
-You were agile and flexible, and you had some extra backup from your snakes that would lunge out, sinking their fangs into whatever they could reach.
-You stunned everyone when you blocked his blow and swiped up, slicing off his left arm, stunning even him before he swung his broken trident, holding it more like a sword now, slicing three of your snakes off before slicing your arm open.
-You leapt back, hissing softly as two more of your snakes lowered to your injured arm, wrapping around it to bind the wound before you charged again.
-Jaws dropped all around as you charged again with a war cry that seemed to shake everyone in attendance, kicking his trident out of his hand and you swiped, severing his head from his shoulders, Perseus style.
-His body crumpled before disappearing slowly, you watch him vanish, a sense of accomplishment filling you before you turned, looking up at Athena, who was sitting beside Zeus, pointing your sword up at her, eyes narrowed, “You Gods have abused your positions long enough! It’s time for you to learn the consequences of your actions.”
-Athena scowled down at you as Zeus looked over at her, a bit confused, “What does she mean?”
-You scowled and spoke, your voice projecting around the whole arena, “I was once a human priestess in a temple of Athena, where I was raped by Poseidon. Instead of punishing the man who raped her priestess and defiled her temple, Athena turned me into what you see now, as if it was my fault that I was held down and raped by a god.”
-The humans were all quickly jeering Athena, hearing of her treatment of you, and Zeus was shocked to see many gods started to jeer her as well for her actions, finding them both cruel, as Zeus did nothing to reprimand his daughter.
-You knew there were good gods out there, ones who didn’t abuse their powers or positions, those who had sympathy for humanity, but just like humans, with good there is also bad.
-You glared up at Athena as she was now embarrassed by being called out by you publically, having the crowd now against her, “You are the Goddess of War, Athena, honoring the virtues of justice! Where was my justice when I was raped by your uncle, goddess?! Tell me Athena, was Poseidon punished for his crimes against your temple as well?”
-The crowds got even louder, backing you up, screaming out their anger, leaving Athena panicking, staring in horror as most of Valhalla was now against her, including many gods.
-Brunnhilde returned to her true form, giving you a firm nod, proud of you, you smiled softly at her before you looked back up to Athena, who was now seething, “Let this be a warning to all gods who abuse their power! Humanity is going to fight you and keep fighting. We’re not going to take your abuse any longer!!”
-The cheers were almost deafening as you turned, walking to the back with Brunnhilde, where Goll met the two of you, hugging you both, congratulating your victory.
-As you headed towards the medical facilities, you were met by many of the other fighters for humanity, many of them congratulating you, and in return you gave them soft smiles.
-An angry voice then shouted out, “You bitch!!” all eyes turned to see Athena stalking towards you, her sword drawn and you turned to your allies, “Cover your eyes.” They all did as you were told and you removed your mask.
-She smirked, raising her blade, “That doesn’t work on gods you-” your eyes flashed and she was immediately froze, turning into a stone statue.
-Those around looked up as you replaced your mask, a hand coming to your hip as you smirked, “It does work on gods, but it takes more effort to make it work, dear Athena.”
-You then swung, your tail swinging like a club and you took her head clean off, letting it shatter and just like Poseidon, her body crumpled and vanished.
-Goll was gawking, as were many of the others, seeing that you just killed two gods, but you weren’t bothered, you felt like you could finally relax now, your revenge now complete.
-You turned with a grin, flashing your fangs to your other competitors, “Kick their asses!” they all cheered for you, making you grin before you continued to the medical facility to get your wounds dealt with so you could return to the others to watch the remainder of the fights.
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Only Natural
In which Gale’s attempt to come clean is interrupted by a bath, and Gale is not cut out to be a druid. Pre-Weave scene.
AO3 Link: More Than Magic - Chapter 1 - InquisitorLavellan - Baldur's Gate (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]
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“Aster?” Gale called into the trees as he walked away from camp. It was rare to be able to catch one of their band of misfit, reluctant adventurers alone, so Gale was eager to seize the opportunity while the druid was away from camp for a moment.
Well, somewhat eager, somewhat terrified. Part of him hoped he would fail to find her and have an excuse to hold on to his horrible secret just a while longer. His anxiety caused the orb lodged in his chest to thrum, as if that secret were mocking him. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath, gathering his resolve. Even if she turned him away, even if she could never look at him the same way again, she deserved to know. She was the kindest, most generous person he had ever met, going out of her way to help anyone in need despite the imminent danger of ceremorphosis lurking in their skulls. She had given him so much, quite literally saved his life many times over, without question or hesitation, and the very least he owed her was the truth.
As he passed through a thick patch of trees, he emerged to find a small, secluded lake. The clear, still water reflected the vibrant hues of the sky painted by the setting sun. Rocks were scattered across the muddy shoreline, and leaning against one Gale spotted a familiar staff with a neatly folded leather coat beside it. She must be somewhere nearby, likely enjoying the picturesque display of nature’s beauty stretched out before him. He took a second to appreciate it himself before calling out again.
“Aster? I was hoping to talk to you about something, if you have a moment.” His eyes scanned the lake again, still not spotting the druid. As a gnome, her small stature did make it easier to hide, though her striking red hair somewhat negated that stealth advantage. Still, she might not currently be gnome-shaped at all, and if she were one of the many birds and squirrels visible along the lakeshore, he would hardly be able to tell.
He saw something emerging from the lake, which quickly revealed itself to be the top of Aster’s head. As she walked closer to the shoreline, the tips of her pointed ears broke the surface of the water, with the rest of her head and shoulders following quickly behind. Her wet brown skin glistened in the sunlight, freckles smattered across it like stars in the night sky.
“Of course. What do want to talk about?” she asked as she continued toward the shore. She grasped her auburn curls between her hands to wring the water out. It fell from her hair and cascaded over her shoulders like a miniature waterfall, droplets of water leaving curving trails over her ample breasts.
Hold on a moment. Her breasts. Gods, she was completely naked.
Gale felt his face grow hot as blood rushed to his cheeks and, well, . . . elsewhere. The orb in his chest began a familiar thrum as it always did when he experienced a strong emotion or physiological response. He closed his eyes and raised his arm in front of them, half making a show out of not looking and half attempting to obscure his flushed cheeks from view.
“Ahem,” he started, clearing his throat, “my apologies if I caught you by surprise, but you are aware that you’re not wearing any clothes, aren’t you?”
“One generally doesn’t when bathing,” she replied, and he can practically hear a smug smile in the tone of her voice. Alright, not the response he was expecting. It seemed he was the only one to have been caught unawares.
“Fair point,” he responded with a slight nod, arm still covering his eyes, “though I would counter that one generally does whilst having a conversation.”
She laughed, “I forget how . . . weird non-druids can be about nudity. Clothes have their uses, sure, but there is nothing strange or shameful about our naked bodies; they’re only natural.”
He had heard druids had a more casual outlook on such things but had never been confronted with that philosophy head-on. Gale couldn’t imagine being so blasé about seeing someone naked. Especially her. The image of her emerging from the lake, all soft curves and sun-kissed flesh, popped into his head again and threatened to reignite the fire in his body that had only just started to subside. He prayed she would dress quickly so he could open his eyes again and stop his mind’s eye from running wild in the dark.
“Well, some of us are not prepared to embrace your free-spirited druid ways just yet.” There was an awkward pause as he waited for some signal that she had finished getting dressed. Surely it couldn’t take this long. Perhaps she simply enjoyed watching him squirm.
Mercifully, she spoke. “You can stop covering your eyes now.”
He opened his eyes to see a now fully dressed Aster, leaning her shoulders forward slightly as her hands rested on tilted hips. “So,” Aster said with a smile and a quick raise of her brows, “did you enjoy the view?”
Gale froze like a cornered animal, sensing the trap closing in. What response was she looking for? If he answered honestly that he had, would she think him a leering creep? If he lied or refused to answer, would she be insulted? Did she want him to find her attractive? He doubted she shared feelings similar to those he was developing toward her, but that didn’t mean she would not appreciate a compliment.
The right corner of her mouth lifted even higher into a devious smirk and there was a playful twinkle in her eyes, as if she could see the thoughts warring inside his head. Oh, she definitely enjoyed watching him squirm.
“As I am sure you are aware, you are a most attractive woman, though also rest assured that I was not attempting to spy on you,” Gale replied, finally settling on a carefully measured response that would hopefully not offend regardless of the answer she sought.
“Gale!” Aster replied with a tone of sarcastic shock, “I was talking about the lake! Doesn’t it look beautiful at sunset?” She tutted and shook her head in mock disapproval, “And here I thought you were a gentleman.”
Gale rolled his eyes and breathed out sharply through his nose. “Tease me if you wish, but you and I both know you were not talking about the lake.”
She laughed. “Speaking of talking, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
Ah, right, he had come here for a reason that was not to thoroughly embarrass himself. However, now hardly felt like the time to discuss such serious matters. The right moment would come, and Gale prayed, to whom he wasn’t certain anymore, that the truth of his condition would not ruin everything.
“You know,” Gale lied, shaking his head, “I completely forgot.”
#bg3#baldurs gate#baldur's gate#baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3#gale#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#gale x tav#gale x female tav#fluff#flirting#nudity#gale is easily flustered#druid tav#gnome tav#bg3 gale#gale bg3#gale baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3 gale
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Just rewatched "Moment of Truth." What an episode. WILL MY BELOVED. I wish he had shown up for more than an episode, he was such a great character and such a great friend for Merlin.
Loved my little Arwen crumbs in this episode. Got to hear Arthur transition from calling her "Gwen" to "Guinevere" and she called him out for the first time. She showed herself capable of standing up to him both about the food and about having the women fight, and Arthur definitely noticed and apologized on both counts. I understand the fandom's obsession with Merthur but Arthur doesn't listen to Merlin the way he listens to Gwen, and Merlin just doesn't call Arthur out the way Gwen does.
Granted, Merlin would probably be a lot better at calling Arthur out in this instance if he didn't spend half the episode figuring out whether or not to use his magic and arguing with Will about it. The tension is SO good here, the contrast of saving people with his magic and telling the truth in the process vs. continuing to hide himself at others' expense but in hopes for a brighter future. Poor boy just wants to help people with his magic and has since episode one. This early in the series, the choice is an obvious one for Merlin, but later obviously he shifts to the other side, which is so so heartbreaking.
It's no wonder though, Arthur tried to be considerate in his own way but was also a JERK in response to finding out "Will's" secret. They stood in front of Will's FUNERAL PYRE and Arthur tells Merlin he shouldn't have kept Will's secret because magic is DANGEROUS. Will saved his life! What would Arthur have done if a. Will really did have magic and b. Merlin had actually told him about it? Was he going to kill Merlin's best friend? Banish him from his own home when he doesn't even live in Camelot??? Why did Merlin owe him this information??? And after this Will is never mentioned again, which is insane. In all of the (rare) instances where Arthur actually questions magic, he just never brings this up again?? A supposed sorcerer gives his life for him and he just. Blanks it out of his memory? Never mind that this was Merlin's childhood friend, just pretend he never existed and his death never happened and don't ever acknowledge Merlin's grief outside of saying "I know he was a close friend." Merlin learned all of the wrong messages from this episode. Don't tell Arthur your secret because he thinks magic is dangerous with no exceptions, and don't tell Arthur your secret because he's a good man and he likes/needs you but can't be trusted with your secret until "the time is right."
Like actually, what was Hunith's deal in this show?? I love her but we know so little about her? This is a woman that actually ran up to a bandit and tried to steal food back with no plan besides "just grab it real quick while announcing your intentions" (love her for that though, also this is definitely Merlin's mother), represented the village to a foreign king when their own refused to help, raised a magical child but taught him to hide his abilities at all cost, even from the people he loves/trusts the most (people who are willing to risk their lives to help him save his home town? You don't think maybe they could know?). Like, yes, it would have been terrifying to raise your not subtle, blatantly magical son in a world where magic is hated, but she finds out he told his best friend about his secret (which the friend hadn't even told anyone), and her response to this is to send her son to the place most well known for burning/beheading sorcerers? And her response when he expresses a desire to not go back is to tell him to go because the prince (who she absolutely does not think should know Merlin's secret, but also doesn't think he would kill him if he found out, like which side are you on?) needs him? Why is Hunith so obsessed with Arthur here? Like yeah, he risked a lot to come save the village and made a huge difference in the outcome of the fight, but to value him over her own son? I just don't understand Hunith's priorities here. Protect Merlin but send him somewhere extremely dangerous? Merlin tells Will he did not actually want to leave initially but that he did because his mother was worried. Merlin is so lonely and isolated and has such messed up ideas about his purpose and his magic and Hunith doesn't do anything to actually help him sort this out, just pushed him to stay isolated while also being helpful to people she doesn't think he should fully trust.
Anyway, fascinating episode, very compelling. I would have LOVED for this to actually be a magic reveal episode and it's a nice little gut punch to know how far that actually is from happening from this episode. Overall, Will, Gwen, and Morgana were MVPs here. Stay tuned for more random thoughts and analyses on episodes that aired over a decade ago ✌️
#bbc merlin#merlin emrys#arthur pendragon#prince william of ealdor#hunith#guinivere pendragon#arwen#morgana pendragon#moment of truth
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(woe. Fanfic snippet be upon ye)
Fwhip looked at the hallway he'd just been shown, curious at how empty all the bedrooms seemed to be. "Why doesn't anyone stay over there?" He asked, casting a quizzical look at Katherine. The sheep hybrid seemed to shift uncomfortably at the inquiry, but she answered him anyway. Even if she did avert her gaze as she did so.
"Jimmy sleeps on that wing," She explained slowly, an old kind of worry creeping into her tone. "He wants to be alone down there."
"We think he gets night terrors." Shrub adds, quieter than their friend is. "Sometimes there's screaming at night, from around his room.." A little sound comes out of the gnome as she finishes speaking, and Katherine places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Gem makes a noise of her own, and shares a glance with her brother. Fwhip says nothing, just sets his jaw in thought.
They say nothing more of the hallway for the rest of the tour, but it weighs heavy on the dragon hybrids mind for the rest of the day. He ends up picking a room on that hall, making some stupid, crappy joke about separating boys and girls. Like any of them have ever cared for that, and like the whole Wither Rose Alliance hadn't crashed in the same room once.
All he gets in response is troubled murmurs, and Gem's steady gaze on his back as he retreats into his bedroom for the foreseeable future. When Jimmy finds out, he does nothing but blink, frown rather deeply, then seemingly move on with his day.
_______________________
Not even two nights later, Fwhip is jolted awake by the sound of screaming. Jimmy’s screaming. The sound is horrible, tortuous, and sends the half dragon into panic mode as soon as he hears it.
Hurriedly, and without thinking, he's surging out of his bed. He throws the door open, not caring how loud the sound is, and prays Jimmy’s own bedroom door isn't locked.
After nearly running down the hall, and a frantic fight with the knob, the ginger manages to get his way into the cod's room. He thrusts the oak door open, right as the screaming seems to stop. And Fwhip is meet with a sobbing Jimmy, hunched over himself in bed, crying and hyperventilating like he'd never seen before.
Slowly, he takes a few steps further into the room. Even in the darkness, the ginger can see how Jimmy’s fins twitch. And how his head snaps in the general direction of the movement. Which means he should probably be as quiet as possible, and gentle as well. Not that he was planning on being anything but in this situation, even to the man who had once been his enemy.
"Jim?" He asks, staning hesitantly by the bedside. The nickname slips past his lips without a thought about it. "You there?"
"F-fwhip?" The cod’s voice is small, scared, and raw from all the use it just had. The half dragon can't help the pang of sympathy that pierces his heart upon hearing it.
"Yeah, yeah it's me. This is Fwhip." He places a tentative hand on the bed. "Are you okay?"
"I-I don't think so." The blonde chokes out. "Didn't mean to wake you up, sorry."
"No, no it's fine. Genuinely." Fwhip soothes without a second thought, his hand cautiously ghosting over the other's leg. He's uncertain if touch would help or make the situation worse, and he doesn't want to find out. Not unless Jimmy himself grabs for him. "Do you want me to stay?"
Those seem to be the magic words, somehow, as it what sets the cod into proper motion again. Without warning, the cod is grabbing him by the arm, and pulling him down for a hug. The ginger startles at that, but holds him back on instinct.
Before, he wouldn’t have dreamed of ever hugging this guy. But the explosion had done a lot of weird things to their relationship, so here he was, perfectly unbothered by this. Jimmy makes a strangled cry, one muffled by the half dragon's chest, and he holds the other back tighter. He holds him tighter than he thinks he's ever held anyone, even tighter than he had held his sister the day the world had ended.
They stay like that for heavens knows how long. It could've been a mere twenty minutes, or five long hours. All Fwhip knows is that he holds the blonde close to him the whole until, until his crying subsides and his breathing is even once more. He holds him and runs gentle fingers through messy hair, and whispers sweet nothing between sobs.
"Sorry for grabbing you." Jimmy mumbles. He's sat back now, no longer clutched in the half dragon's tight hold. Fwhip watches as he sniffles and rubs his eyes of any remaining wetness, and has to fight the urge to hold him again.
"It's fine. You needed it." The half dragon shrugs after a moment. He was warned about the nightmares the former Codfather gets, he knew what he was getting into when he took the room next door, and he is determined to get to the bottom of this. Especially since all of their other friends seem to be clueless in the matter, despite living with Jimmy for years.
Also, he would be a pretty big dickhead if he did nothing more to help. And he was trying not to be a dickhead anymore. So there was that.
"When did they start?" Fwhip asked it gently, and paid no mind to the other’s hesitation. He had been keeping this a secret for so long after all, like the stupid fool he tended to be.
Jimmy's words are accompanied by one too many shuddering breaths, so much so that the half dragon reaches out to hold his hand. "Those have been happening, since the explosion. " The cod's eyes were fixed on the wall as he spoke, looking like he was properly out of it. "I dream of it happening again, and you're there, and a lot of times your dead. And I have to watch it happen. I have to watch you die, Fwhip. And I can't do anything to stop it."
The blonde's voice cracks on the last words. Fwhip squeezes gus hand tighter, and doesn't stop as he keeps explainin. Though the explanation is more of a panicked rambling at this point. "Then I wake up and remember you're not dead, or that you hadn't died in the explosion."
Fwhip is stunned into silence for a few minutes, the horrfied kind really. But regardless he swallows nervously, and asks yet anoher question. And the answer, no, the shy admission he gets afterwards is nothing short of horrible. "How often do you have them?"
"Every night or so."
"Jimmy." The former Count hisses out the cod's name, but with a lot less venom than he used too. This time it was just filled with worry. Jimmy flinches regardless.
"I know I should've told someone, but I felt like I couldn't.." The cod mumbles, arms being placed out of his chest in what looks like habit. Another pang of sympathy pierces Fwhip's heart at the motion.
"Why?" He asks, poorly holding back a worried little sigh.
Jimmy's gaze flicks from the walls to the blankets, as he twists a part of the fabric in his fingers. Fwhip has to wonder what it feels like for the other, to be so strangely vulnerable, and wonders why the cod is doing it now. To him of all people, his once mortal enemy. "Dunno, some old fears about being weak or somethin'"
"Well, I know now. And I don't think you're weak." He says, the raw honesty leaking into his tone like a rushing river, like it rarely had before with the man in front of him. "I think your rather brave, for dealing with them every night like that."
"T-Thanks. Thank you." Jimmy stammers. He takes another deep breath, one mre futile attempt to regain his composure. It doesn't work, because he's far too shaken up at this point. So the cod is forced to bend and fold, and ask for the one thing he was most scared of. The one thing request he was scared of being declined.
"....Can you stay with me until morning?" He whispered, leaning closer on what seems to be instinct.
Fwhip didn’t think any part of him could possibly say no. "I can." He forced a gentle smile, and the cod’s eyes got all wide. Like a baby cow's.
"Until the sun comes up?" Jimmy asks. Like anyone in their right mind would leave him after such a nightmare.
"At least until the sun comes up." The half dragon confirms, and says nothing when the cod is in his arms again, still shaking and taking shuddering breaths. He says nothing, and holds him till sun comes up.
_______________________
A few nights later, Fwhip is back in Jimmy’s bedroom again. He’s clutching the cod to his chest, running gentle fingers through his messed up hair. Sobs wrack his friends whole body, and Fwhip can do nothing but hold him and mutter sweet nothings until it's over.
His panic is shorter than the previous one it seems. Maybe the nightmares had been slightly kinder that night, maybe it because he's here. He doesn't know the reason, and doesn't really care too. As long as his friend calms down, he is happy.
"Sorry, about that." The cod mumbles once it's over, his voice still raw and ragged from his sobs and earlier screams.
"You gotta stop apologizing for these." Fwhip sighs, and holds the blonde closer. Jimmy just sniffles, and buries himself further into the half dragon's warmth.
"I hate this. I hate having these so much." The cod complains, his arms once again holding the former Count’s waist.
"We could share a bed every night, if that helps?" Fwhio suggests, resting his chin atop the blonde's head. He's usually not very affectionate, not even in the slightest, but he lets himself go for Jimmy. He thinks his sister would be startled if she saw him so much as hold someone, let alone cuddle them. (And maybe it feels nice to let himself go. Maybe he's just a bit touched straved, not that Fwhip'll ever admit to that.
"I don't want to keep you up every night." Jimmy shook slightly his head in protest.
"I don't want to come running in here every night." Fwhip snorted, noticing that the other's breathing had finally calmed down. Good, that was good.
"Oh. Yeah. That's fair." Jimmy said, removing himself a little. He always did this when he'd calmed down enough. The cod would remove himself from Fwhip, like he was forcing the other to comfort him. Like Fwhip wasn’t the one to hug him first nine times out of ten.
"We'll just see how it comes, okay?" He smiled, pushing the blonde downwards. "Now try and sleep. You don't get enough of it."
"You don't either!" Jimmy let out a small huff of amusement, and took the half dragon down with him. Fwhip couldn’t hold back his own giggles as his head hit the soft bedsheets.
_______________________
Some time later, Fwhip wakes up with tear stains marking his cheeks. Great, that was great.
He let out a groan, and turns over in his bed. He presses his face until the coldness of his pillow, feeling his chest heave with left over sadness. The former Count hated crying in his sleep, really he did. It always gave him the worst feeling imaginable when it did happen.
After what feels like an eternity, there is the skund of his door opening. Curious despite his rather messed up state, Fwhip rolls over, and sees a very familiar man now standing in his roo. "Jim?" He asks, watching as the cod slowly approaches his bed. "Why're you in here?"
"I felt like I needed to." Jimmy shrugged, placing a head on the corner of the footboard.
The half dragon just huffed in reponse. "Well you don't. 'M fine." He can hear how his voice shakes, and knows that his words wouldn't have convinced anyone. Let alone this guy infront of him.
"Oh, Fwhip." Jimmy says delicately, and crouches on the bed next to him. Oh how the tables turn.
"What wrong?" The cod asks, and Fwhip decides he should probably sit up for this.
"Had a dream." Is all he mutters at first, a little reluctant to recall it.
"A bad one?" The blonde asks, shifting closer just in case. The half dragon shakes his head in response.
"No..."
'Fwhip, what was it?" Jimmy pushed again, in a tone that sounds like Gem’s serious one. And the ginger knows he cannot weave his way out of answering anymore.
"I....I dreamed I was flying again." He admits, and cannot look ag his friend when he does so. There is something like shame in him, shame for not being able to do that. Old shame, for causing that for himself, shame for causing the world to end.
He can feel the way the cod dimply blinks in repsonse, and wonders why his tone had turned soft so sharply. "Oh."
"Sorry, I just...." Fwhip sighed, and shifted so he could bury his head in his knees. He wasn't going to cry again, he wasn't. Not in front of Jimmy. It's supposed to be the other way around, not like this.
What the cod says next surpises him entirely, though in hindsight, the half dragon doesn't know why he hadn't considered if before. "No, I get it. I miss swimming sometimes."
He shoots his head up in suprise, meeting the others soft brown gaze. "Can you not..?" He tries not to glance at Jimmy’s tail as he speaks. Keyword tries, it doesn't really work. Though the blonde doesn't seem to mind in the slightest, considering his own people have probably given him weirder looks. (Well, what's left of fhem anyways)
"No, I'm missing one tail fin, and half of the other. And the nerves are messed up as well." Jimmy explained. He changed positions, so Fwhip could properly seem the now damaged limb. And well, he'd never really looked at Jimmy’s tail before. He'd known what if had looked like originally, and had caught glimpses of it since he can back, buy never had the ginger really sat there and inspected it.
"Oh, I'm sorry." He reaches out a hesitant hand to touch it, to ghost over the scarred flesh, and Jimmy lets him.
Jimmy just give a shrug in response. "It's fine, I'm getting used to it. What about your wings? If you don't mind me asking?" And well, Fwhip doesn't really want to show them off, but Jimmy’s voice is just so kindly curious. And he had just showed him his tail.....
The half dragon sighs, and decides to just get it over with and show him. He spreads what remains of his limbs, and can't help but move his gaze downward in shame once more. "They're mostly gone. And my tail is messed up as well. I can still move it, but it doesn't do much for balance anymore."
Jimmy nods along as he speaks, and maybe the half dragon reliazes that this feels nice. Maybe it feels nice to finally be vulnerable with someone, when he hasn't let himself for months now. "I see. Mine doesn't help with balance like it used to either." A moment later, he adds something else quietly. "My arm's also permanently damaged."
"Oh?" He cocks his head to the side curious. In response, Jimmy moves his right arm, his dominant one (arguably the worst arm to injure forever), and the movement seems a little slow and delayed.
The cod looks at the scars ligning his skin, a frown working its way onto his face. Fwhip can't even imagine what memories must be going through his head at the moment. "Used it to shield myself from the blast. It has scars, and I can barely feel one part of it."
"I have scars too, everywhere basically. All explosion shaped." He offers, and knows the ones on his arms and face have been on display a decent amount. They make him like wearing his coat even more than he used too.
Despite the earlier frown, Jimmy cracks a smile. "We messed ourselves up real good, didn't we?"
"Heh, yeah." Fwhip can't help but laugh lightly at it.
Slowly, Jimmy reaches a hand to his battered wings. Fwhip is catious about it, but he lets him, because it's only fair to, really. He flinches back a moment later on near instinct, and hates the looks of guilt that flashes across Jimmy's face.
Okay then, he doesn't like people touching his wings. Not yet anyways. A new boundary discovered at the worst time ever.
He doesn't know how to make Jimmy feel not guilty, so he just flops onto his back in defeat. "I hate this. This sucks."
"I know, I know." Jimmy mumbles, and it feels like he's moved farther away. Fwhip wants him closer.
"I want to fly again. I miss flying." He complains, gaze fixed on the white and pink celling of House Blossoms castle. Katherine really liked pink, is what he found himself noting again. He'd stared at this ceiling far too many times than he was comfortable admitting too.
"Why didn't you tell me you had nightmares as well?" Jimmy's asks quietly. Fwhip just shrugs in response.
"Never thought to."
"Idiot." Jimmy says, but not without a hint of affection behind it. "I'm helping you with them from now on."
"Do you have to?" Fwhip groans with a pout, and feels a light flick against his arm. It doesn't hurt much, but he still playfully kicks the other in response. Jimmy holds back a laugh before he speaks again.
"Yes! You help with mine, I help with yours!" The blonde exclaims, and it feels like he's moved closer again. There is a tail somewhere near his legs, one that's not it's own, and it seems to be flicking with some sort of happy emotion.
"Fineee" Fwhip holds back a laugh, and flexes his damaged wings under him. Maybe missing these won't be so bad. Maybe it can be manageable, if this guy keeps trying to cheer him up that is.
_______________________
"Mind if I sleep here tonight?" Fwhip asks, standing in Jimmy’s doorway for what has to be the thousandth time. Be doesn't know what he looks like, but he assumes it's rather pathetic.
The cod shrugs, and moves the covers aside for him. "Nah. Get in."
He walks over quickly, and slides into the bed, the second he's laying down, arms are wrapping around him and holding him close. He must've looked really sad and pathetic, for Jimmy to do that without asking. But it's comforting, and helping his bad state of mind a little, so the former Count doesn't mind much.
It feels a little awkward sharing a bed when no crying has come before it, Fwhip has to admit. In his mind at least. But then Jimmy buries his face into the small of his back, and suddenly it's not very awkward anymore. Fwhip relaxes into it fully, and has to hold back a sigh. God he needed that. He's not sure why he needed to be held and cuddled so much, he just did.
At some point in the quiet, Fwhip turns over in Jimmy’s arms, so he can see the others face. This all feels so.....domestic. so intimate. With a man he used to hate and spit venom at, no less. He wonders when they got so comfortable with each other, to be all domestic like this. He wonders if it means something else, and finds that it doesn't. He wonders what their friends would say if they found out about all this. He wonders what Sausage would say, if he was here and seeing this.
The cod hums, having shifted their postion without the other noticing, and start to trace the scars that run up his arm. The scars he's been told stories about, the scars that they both helped form. Fwhip wonders if the other feels any guilt when he looks at them. Because he know he does whenever he catches a glimpse of Jimmy’s tail, or his own scars, or any of his torn fins and his permanently damaged right arm.
Suddenly, as if the cod can feel himself being stared at, he looks up. Their eyes meet, and the blonde frowns. "Stop thinking." He says, fingers still running over his skin.
"How do you know I'm thinking?" Fwhip asks, slightly amused. He wonders when they could start reading each other so well.
"Because you're looking at me all guilty like. Stop that and go to sleep." Jimmy sounds like such an expastered mother, the half dragon can't help but sigh and try to oblige.
"I'll try." He mumbles, and closes his eyes. Careful hands keep tracing over his scars, and maybe the sensation helps lull him to sleep. Maybe the sensation is becoming comforting, just a tad.
Maybe Jimmy is his comfort.
_______________________
"You two share a bed a lot, don't you?" Gem asked one morning, brewing herself a cup of coffee. She had grabbed a mug for him without even asking, because she just knew that he'd complain if she didn't. Even the way he liked his coffee was gross, or whatever she had been calling it.
"Yeah, and?" He asks, already starting to sound exasperated. His sister must have seen him exit Jimmy's room this morning, his clothes probably decently (and suspiciously) rumpled. And if Gem was asking, she'd probably seen it more than once already.
The wizard clears her throat a little awkwardly, and asks the worst question shes probably ever asked him. "Are you two...um...involved in any way? More than friends I mean-"
"I am not fucking Jimmy." Fwhip groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind before, and thinking about it now made him physically recoil. Not that the cod wasn't attractive or anything, their relationship had just never been like that. And would probably never be, as far as he was concerned.
"Good to know." Gem says over the sound of coffee being poured. Fwhip doesn't even care much about the drink anymore, just leaving this situation as soon as he can really.
"Physical touch helps him with the nightmares." He explains further, carefully leaving out the information that he had them sometimes as well. Though Gem had seen some of them, before they were found and all, but she would worry less if she believed they'd slowly stopped over time.
"Ohhh." A lightblub seems to go off in his sister's head, and she starts preparing his coffee how he likes it. Fwhip almost tells her there's no need too.
"And if I was, it'd be none of your buisness." He grumbles, and stands from the table. He can drink cold coffee later, when he's less annoyed. It was not a good morning to ask him that.
He hears Gem sigh, but she doesn't chase after him. Fwhip only hears the faint clinking of a mug against the table, right as he returns to his own bedroom.
_______________________
Fwhip crawls into Jimmy’s room one night, not even knocking before he opens the door. It's become quite a habit after all these months, a bad one as his twin would call it, but neither of them care much for her opinion on this specific thing anyways. (Because according to Gem, finding a counselor would do many more wonders, even if Fwhip’s pretty sure neither of them can sleep alone now. Night terrors or no night terrors.)
Jimmy is awake as soon as his door clicks shut, and greets him with a groggy hello. Fwhip says nothing, just sits down on the bed, and relaxes near instantly as familiar arms wrap around him. The half dragon melts into his friends warmth, and thinks he could finally fall asleep right then and there.
"What's wrong?" The cod mumbles, sleep stilling coating his voice. Fwhip says nothing for a moment, and buries his head into Jimmy's soft woolen t-shirt.
"Phantoms pains were bad today." He grumbled eventually. "And a bunch of other things, just felt like i was gonna have a nightmare."
"Mmm, I get it." Jimmy hummed. "Wanna lay down?"
"Please." Fwhip sighed, and let himself be pulled down. He laid half ontop of Jimmy, and nuzzling into his warmth had become habit by that point, it had become as natural as breathing.
"You comfortable?" The cod laughed, his breath ghosting over the others face. Fwhip just made a tired noise in response.
"Yes, you're very warm and comforting." He mumbled, and squeezed his eyes shut. The phantom pains from earlier were still there, but focusing on the cod's breathing was helping keep his mind off it.
"Good, that's good." Jimmy said, and his night felt a lot more manageable than it had before. Not good, but more manageable, and that was more than enough for now.
#ron.writing#This is all /p#jimmy solidarity#empires smp#empiresblr#fwhip#the game is over#<-- future fic title yipppeee#they r healing from the end of the world trauma#and also the survivors guilt#empires smp s1#empires s1#suggestive#<--- just in case. Gem does ask if they're fucking at one point.
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I find it interesting how much the RK Jaune basically now occupies the same position as Ironwood and Ozma in a narrative sense, the two people he's always held a notable critical eye and distrust for ever since the fall of Beacon, at least when you consider his situation with Alyx and Lewis.
He basically tried to do what they did; railroad others into the story that he thought it should be, even if out of the best of intentions, and in doing so basically ensured that Alyx wouldn't trust him.
As Salem's heroic foil, I wonder if this'll play a part in any relevations he and the others might have about dealing with Salem herself.
Because I don't think it's a coincidence.
Also think it's interesting how he considers ascension "death"...but given that he's the type of person who literally clings to and wears his trauma on him, maybe in his mind he views the "death" of his memories, the potential loss of his own past mistakes as being just as bad as dying.
OH. ohhh you know what this is, i bet?
“she cursed the world; she cursed the gods. she cursed everything—everything but herself.”
i’ve never believed the insinuation here that salem is incapable of self-reflection—salem herself is far too flexible and far too comfortable reversing course when something isn’t working for me to believe that she’s too arrogant to consider the possibility that she’s done wrong, and the reason she cursed the gods and not herself is that she genuinely did nothing wrong—BUT, that insinuation sure is an apt description of jaune’s reaction to the ever after, isn’t it? oh, he’s marinating in compulsive guilt and when he gets caught up in recounting the past he wonders aloud if it was his fault for not being able to make the story happen the right way, but those feelings are just that—compulsive, arising more from his festering guilt about penny than any actual sense of personal responsibility. something bad happened, and jaune blames the tree—or the cat—or the herbalist—or alyx herself, because she was selfish and cruel and must have sacrificed her brother to escape and then written him out of the story. it doesn’t matter what any of the afterans say, ascension is death and the cat is evil and the world is rotten and he knows the truth, he doesn’t need a guide, he’s got all the right answers and he’s sick and tired of the ever after’s bullshit.
meanwhile anyone with half a brain is now like, unreliable narrator much?
and like becoming jaded, making assumptions and accusations instead of asking questions… he’s salem’s heroic foil after the extinction, and he does what jinn (speaking from ozpin’s perspective!) accuses salem of having done—blaming everyone except himself, refusing to look inwards and question his own choices—and doing that transforms him into ozpin! we’re seeing the other side of the mirror now, demonstrating that the assessment of salem’s flaws provided in the lost fable was just ozpin projecting all along. which lol We Knew, but now it’s being overtly pointed out to us.
(isn’t it funny how ozma devoted lifetimes to destroying history and keeping secrets and lying to people for the sake of controlling the narrative, and now jaune’s old and jaded and flinging accusations around and refusing to listen to the answers he’s given, and curiosity has slunk away in despair? i think that’s funny. the sledgehammer of subtlety was not enough they needed a jackhammer)
the thing about ascension of course is that it is death—it’s reincarnation. the denizens don’t call it death because to them, “death” means specifically the ending of the reincarnation cycle, but for all intents and purposes ascension is just death and spiritual rebirth. what jaune’s not seeing is that this process is a natural and celebrated part of life in the ever after—it’s not something bad. what is bad is the spiritual death that occurs when a denizen is eaten by the jabberwalker and thus cut off from connection to the tree. jaune is taking his own feelings about how death works in his world and applying it incorrectly to a culture and a belief system that doesn’t work that way, and deciding that the whole belief system is evil on that basis. which is both understandable given what he’s been through and an attitude that makes any and all information he provides about the ever after functionally worthless, because he’s not able to see any of it clearly. he’s too deep in his own head, his own preconceived notions—again rather like another paranoid old man we know.
(i’m also finding it really interesting that jaune gives crescent rose back to ruby, in this context—he’s symbolically standing in ozpin’s shoes here as he hands her weapon back as a burden. i’m curious to see how this plays out in conjunction with 1. the cat having left them, and 2. That One Shot from the trailer, and 3. the blacksmith’s second scene.)
at this point and with only four episodes left i’m kinda… like before they get home, they need to 1. find out what really happened to lewis, and 2. either learn ✨something✨ about salem to take with them back to remnant or make the choice to commit to a new course of action (<- leaning toward the former still, because at this point i don’t think there’s ANY way these kids land on “we should try to reason with her” without something knocking them in that direction first, and because i still think “salem wrote it” is the explanation that makes the most sense as far as what the ever after…is.) and those to things are probably connected in some way? i would imagine? but jaune needs to lose his cynicism and the only way to do that is to find out the truth, i think.
i also have some latent thoughts about jaune seeing his younger self in the crossroad mirrors like—hm. hmm hm. jaune was the hatter and now he’s hatta and the rusted knight is also jaune’s reflection—there are some layers to this that i need to Ponder but in the spirit of deranged crwby-watched-my-favorite-musical?! posting i’d say jaune is overdue for a more literal meeting with his younger self in the indeterminate future and also i’ve changed my mind on they’re not gonna de-age him and i am now like. 50/50 jaune gets wound back but keeps his memories (<- that’s how the watch gets used to save the day in post-2011 iterations of musical) and 50/50 ruby uses the watch to give herself a second chance to solve a riddle (<- pre-2011 style). or maybe both i have no idea what is happening anymore i’m just experiencing some emotions for sure
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Not So Shoujo Love Story Hanna Characterisation in Ep 91
it's the explosion episode
spoilers until ep 103. I also gush and compliment @curryukuu 's writing in this. She isn't active on tumblr as much anymore but if she sees this, hi.
Re-reading this episode makes me focus a lot more on Hanna's pov instead of the explosion. Hanna was distancing herself from Rei. There is a canon explanation now in ep 103 where Hanna said that she was jealous and felt inferior and that she wasn't good enough. BUT I HAVE MY OWN INTERPRETATION.
Hanna's dialogue in ep 103
TO ME, she wanted to abandon feelings of Rei. I know it's very unlike Hanna because she loves Rei so so so much, BUT HEAR ME OUT (if there's anyone out there reading this)
She's been chasing Rei for like a season and a half by now. In season 2, Rei's a lot more responsive to Hanna's flirting (it was so much insufferable good lord I felt like a third wheeler read their interaction sometimes).
(weird basketball(?) analogy here) The ball has kinda just stayed in her court since FOREVER. Like I know that Rei said that she cannot return Hanna's romantic feelings. The ball her is Hanna's feelings btw and it's just... been there. Rei doesn't mind that Hanna has been romantically interested in her since ep 1. Heck, she doesn't even mind advances and flirting from Hanna. HOWEVER, as of S2 Rei has only been toying with it. Rei is literally flirting back with Hanna. Both unintentionally and intentionally. I'm sure Hanna's aware of whatever, not platonic tension, both of them have. But Rei not passing the ball back after all of that toying IS a move in of itself.
At this point, Rei is STILL holding on to her comphet version of love. (idk if their sexuality have been canonized, but Rei is so lesbian to me. It really makes sense to me thematically, but if Rei is canon as bi I would respect that. I would keep the idea of Lesbian Rei to myself). Shoujo mangas really was a trauma coping mechanism. That in turned, really made her have internalised comphet. The whole point of her trying to find the perfect guy was because she didn't want to end up like her parents. It's so hard to throw away something that was literally your will to live (I assume) for, like, what a decade of your life?
So after Hanna's visit to her house, she finally gets why Rei's not passing the ball back. At that bridge, I'm pretty sure she's convinced a romantic relationship is never going to come out of it. Ever. For Hanna, it's better to just pack your back, distance yourself, and move on. If I was Hanna, I would have literally done the same. Like, just imagine. Your girl is really REALLY adamant in finding the perfect guy. And you're not a guy. There is no point in any of this flirting and advances anymore. It's better to leave those feelings behind. It's just. Not meant to be. That's how life is in reality.
IF this story is a lot more realistic, Rei would have confronted Hanna about why Hanna's distancing herself from her. Let's just say that MY interpretation of why Hanna is actually canon. Rei would respect Hanna's wishes of wanting to be distant with her. Rei and Hanna would be physically and emotionally apart. This is the period where Rei reflects and realizes that hey, I want Hanna in my life. And in a romantic way. Throw in some angst in there. Then Rei would confess to Hanna. Boom they get together. Idk how this would turn out with the Canon reason, but I think it would be roughly the same?
BUT THIS STORY IS A FEVER DREAM, AND I LOVE NSSLS STORY BECAUSE OF THAT
Did you check nssls tag on webtoon? It's COMEDY. Not romance (even though it's very romcom to me). There shall not be long-lasting angst. Nuh uh. Not in this household. So curryuku does what curryuku does best. Cook up an unhinged plotline.
Alien world domination plot is now REAL and CANON from ep 92 - 102. Rei got Isekai-ed and is thrown into a world that she has been wanting and dreaming for so long. A world where she can chase and pine for the perfect, handsomest guy. A world where she has a perfect family. But she realizes that this isn't what she wanted. She wanted her friend's back. She wanted Taro back. But most importantly
she realizes she wants Hanna.
More than that perfect, handsomest guy that she's been dreaming of. That plotline did exactly just that. It achieves the same thing as my small reality au paragraph does. But in its own unique.
The Rei Isekai-ed episodes really felt like curryuku was holding me by the scruff. THE ABSOLUTE CHOKEHOLD IT HAS ON ME. No plot line in that comic, heck even media, has ever had that effect on me. Life LITERALLY stopped for like 5 min every Tuesday for me. Idc if I have class going on rn I'm going to read it in class (I'm in architecture, and the class is just consultation. The lecturer really isn't teaching anything it's a 1-1 thing). It had me on the edge of my seat. It had me crying and screaming. LIKE LOOK AT THIS PANEL.
That's honestly so much better than a love confession imo. It was so sweet it made me sick. My friends are SO sick of me talking about nssls for like 2 months ish. The only complaint I had was that I just wish the arc had lasted more than 10 episodes. But I really don't mind that much.
Idk how to end this. Curryuku, your brain is so fascinating. Thank you for producing nssls. Seriously. I might get a nssls tattoo.
#not so shoujo love story#nssls#webtoon#if you're a nssls enjoyer follow me maybe?#but I rb a lot of mcyt stuff lol#so I get it if you don't want to follow me#no I'm not making another tumblr account#if youre reading this i love you#would be nice if you rb and like haha#but honestly I'm going to assume this is just me screaming at the void#but I hope the void replies back#as you can see#i am very passionate about this#curryuku ily#not proofread#we die like.... idk no one died in the comic#yet
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Hello, I love your scripts so much, I revel in them every day! 😍
How about a scenario where the reader placed a yandere!adventurer in the friend zone, keeps next to him and considers him a himbo? Will he find out about it, or will he blindly feed off his obsession with the few bits of attention he can get from the object of his adoration? 👀
THE READER ISN'T WRONG, JESSE IS DEFINETLY A HIMBO TO SOME DEGREE NGL.
Jesse is a very well-sought after man, some of his adventures involving flings with other women and men but nothing that really lasted since he was always all over the world. He believed his heart just wasn't able to be tied down to a romance because his true love was adventuring...you proved him wrong, however.
The painful thing about being in love with you is that you didn't seem to love him back the way he wanted. Yes, you'd take care of him when he was sick and would scold him and make him take a break when adventuring took too much out of him, but that's just because you were a good friend and a good person. When he puts his arm over your shoulder during movie nights, you'd just laugh and unwrap it around yourself and tell him you weren't his arm rest. During moments he thought were intimate and romantic, his eyes would go half lidded and he was ready to pucker up his lips and kiss you...AND THEN YOU'D BE ALL: "Oh, WAIT, YEAH, CAN YOU DECODE THESE FOR ME? There like some old language or something but I'm so lost. You're good at them, though!" One time he overheard you and Scarlette talking and she brought up how Jesse seems to flirt with you a lot and you just snorted and cackled, "Jesse's just a goofball, he's like that with everyone." and he just nearly threw his hat to the ground to stomp on if (nearly).
You HAD to be doing this on purpose, you HAD to know that he liked you, right? That's what Jesse thinks at first but then he looks into your eyes and they're so genuine and happy around him. So welcoming and warm that his usual grin drops a little because he's helpless when you look at him like that. It's also painful because he can't see any romantic love in your eyes, no longing that tells him you want him as badly as he wants you. You just saw him as your goofy flirtatious friend who did stupid life-threatening things sometimes.
Basically, he has a mixed response; he KNOWS that you see him as a friend but he's stumped on how to jump over that hoop because usually his good looks and charm are enough but it looks like you're making him work a lil bit harder, hun. So he supposes he doesn't mind being in the friendzone as much, even if it is painful hearing you call him "broski", "buddy", "bestie", or anything like that. It's nice to have all your attention and while he doesn't know how to make you change your view on him, he knows that he can change everyone else's view on the both of you.
He's still his normal affectionate self but he'll also do little things that'll make other people think you're a couple and scare off anyone who might have their eyes on you. He'll wander off randomly which can cause you both to be late to things so you hold his hand and pull him along with you, his pearly whites flashing because he just can't fight back how happy he is. Making you laugh so hard you have to lean on him for support, causing jealous single people to glare at the both of you and shake their heads in distaste. Making it a point to call you nicknames like: "Sweet pea", "Hun", "Darlin'", "Sweetheart", "Sugar", "Sweet peach" and you don't really pay it any mind.
However if you do ever get into a relationship, he is most definetly gonna be instigating stuff so that it barely ever lasts. Like, he'll hang out with your partner and just be all: "It must be hard when (Y/n) has to work all 'em hours, ya know?" and your s/o is all: "I mean...I never thought about it before but yeah, you're right, it kinda does suck." and whenever you get into an argument with your s/o and call Jesse to rant, he's all: "Me personally? I wouldn't let that slide." and he's internally smug, watching as you two become more and more passive aggressive with each other, telling you guys that you both look super tense. Couples therapy will not help, this man is a middle child who pitted his brothers against each other for the hell of it, and he's very good at making sure you two are focused on being angry at each other.
When you finally break up, your good friend Jesse will always brighten your day but even after all of that, you still smile at him and say: "Thanks for being with me, Jesse. I'm super lucky to have a best friend like you."
and there's a weird pain in his heart, one that makes him want to just grab you and kiss you and yell about how you keep him up at night. How he never stops thinking about you, how on nights when he's off somewhere else that he sleeps with your letters under his pillow, and how he has dreams where he's got you in his arms as you decorate his face with kisses and he whispers about how much he adores you.
Instead, he rubs your back and says: "M'always gonna be there for ya, hun!"
#Yandere Adventurer#Oc: Jesse Reeves#yandere x gender neutral reader#yandere male x reader#yandere x darling#yandere x you#yandere x reader#yandere male#yandere imagines#yandere scenarios#tw yandere#male yandere oc#yandere oc#yandere oc x reader
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Lone Blue Egg (Pt. 5)
Header and lines by the talented @awrkives
Summary: Jungkook is a simple man. He goes to work, he hangs out with friends, he worries about finding a mate to take home for his hometown breeding season. Maybe he spends a little more money on cam girls than is fiscally responsible but he has niche tastes. Maybe he feels a bit adrift, but he’s a young penguin hybrid, supposedly in his prime, far from his crèche. At least he’s good at one thing: taking care of his precious egg. A comfort egg, not a real egg, he’s not a real penguin, just a man with penguin DNA and behavioral tendencies. Just like Yoongi isn’t actually an owl, even if he does stay up all night and sometimes hoot to fuck with their roommates. But this is a real love story, even if a slightly odd one.
Penguin Hybrid Jungkook x Bird Female OC
Book 1 in the Birdtan Series
CW/TAGS: humor, drama, angst, cringe, explicit sex, toy play/toy uh obsession?, ice cubes, porn, cam girls and masturbation, oviposition, oral (both), edging, semi-public shenanigans, mammoth condoms, specism, language, theft
Read on AO3 or below
PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT
Jungkook sat on his bed, arms around his knees, and stared at the wavering lights and shadows on his walls. He’d even turned on an audio of ocean waves crashing, completely submerging himself in this faux-ocean state. It was supposed to be comforting. It was supposed to soothe. It was supposed to quiet that roaring in his ears that had started when Rana fled the office lobby, leaving him standing there like the fucking asshole he was.
I found it at the pond when I was ice skating.
I never stole anything from you.
I just liked you.
That tear. That fucking tear because he’d hurt Rana who until that moment he had kind of believed to be invincible. He realized that now. It had really never occurred to him he could hurt her because she just seemed so bold and bright and above it all. She stole shit! She made art! She didn’t care what anyone thought about her, she was just unapologetically herself, and that was just confusing to Jungkook because how could you live like that? Just really not give a shit about rules or what other people thought when they stared at you or how you ought to be to fit in or–
Jungkook stretched back on the bed and lifted his phone again out of habit. His phone was the new egg. For three and a half days it had been constantly in his hand. For three and a half days it had been silent. Well, Marisol had messaged him. The group chat with the guys was active and he forced himself to read it –because it was about him– but the words didn’t make sense and neither did the ones he sent in return so he stopped bothering.
He just needed to talk to Rana. He wasn’t wallowing, he just needed to talk to her. That was a terrible way to leave things and he had done some things he ought to apologize for, he knew that. There had been misunderstandings and even if he hadn’t ever intended to hurt her… apparently he had. Which didn’t make sense to him! He couldn’t make it make sense. But she was hurt. She yelled at him. She cried. He’d felt shoved from her huddle already after the awkward run-in with Marisol but now she’d kicked him off the ice shelf too. He didn’t expect Rana to be like that but he didn’t expect her to be hurt either and… and just everything he knew was wrong. That’s what he understood after a day skipping work, and a day phoning it in at work, and three nights just lying in bed, staring at the wiggling blue lines on the walls and wishing he could just float off on a little island of ice and not have to try to make sense of any of this.
I just liked you. She meant as a friend. She had to. Girls didn’t like him like him, they never did. Even if Rana just meant that in friendship, it was more than he’d really expected. Did she like him as a friend? He’d insisted until the end that they weren’t even friends not to be cruel but because he didn’t think they really were! Right? He was just another trinket Rana had collected and she was just…
He shook his head, once again unable to finish that sentence. He didn’t know how to finish that sentence! He and Rana were just… friendly! Acquaintances! She worked in his building and they ate lunch together and… she just had sort of attached herself to him, right? Or had he attached himself to her? He honestly wasn’t sure anymore because the more he thought about it –and all he’d been doing these last few days was thinking about it– and the more messages he sent to her asking to talk that went unanswered, the more he began to feel like the ice had shifted under him without him realizing.
He’d told Marisol he was just being nice to Rana because she seemed lonely. It wasn’t the truth though, he’d even known it at the time. He wanted it to be the truth because it made him look good and kind and because, in some way, it meant Rana needed him. She didn’t have anyone else. She was just a lone weird girl and he didn’t mind eating lunch with her so it was fine.
But the truth was that she didn’t seem particularly bothered being alone. She wasn’t lonely. He was lonely. He was tired of being alone. Rana was infuriating and interesting and counter to everything he was trying to build in his life. She was unpredictable and cool and kind and patient and a loose fucking canon. She made him laugh because she was just so damn peculiar. She terrified him because she didn’t play by the rules and didn’t seem to care about the consequences and he didn’t understand how anyone was going to make it through life by just flagrantly flouting the rules like that. It couldn’t work out for her. She put herself in harm’s way, standing out like that! It was a disaster waiting to happen.
But he’d been the disaster. He was the one who’d made her cry the tears he didn’t think she would. He’d enjoyed feeling like he could offer her a stable branch, like maybe he could point out the things she shouldn’t do (like stealing) and nudge her towards a safer way of being (like the owner of a working computer), only to realize too late that he wasn’t a stable branch. But maybe she actually believed him and maybe she did alight.
I just liked you.
At the surface, it didn’t really matter whether she meant like like or just like. Because he wasn’t a weight-bearing branch and he’d dropped her. He’d disappointed her. He’d hurt her. No one had ever landed on him before.
He looked at his phone again. He opened the messenger app just to make sure he hadn’t received but accidentally dismissed a response from her.
[Jungkook]: we need to talk more
[Jungkook]: hey we need to talk
[Jungkook]: Rana can you talk to me?
[Jungkook]: I need to talk to you this didn’t go the way I planned I just want to tlak to you
[Jungkook]: stop ignoring me I know you’re getting my messages
[Jungkook]: ok i know you’re mad at me but can we talk?
[Jungkook]: when can we talk? It’s been two days and you weren’t at work today
[Jungkook]: I’m sorry about Thursday can we talk so I can explain?
[Jungkook]: do you want me to just send you messages and then you can read them and decide if you want me to apologize?
[Jungkook]: just talk to me
[Jungkook]: please? I know you’re busy with your art on the weekends but you weren’t at work and we need to talk it can’t wait until Monday
[Jungkook]: it’s really important can we talk?
[Jungkook]: I feel like shit about all this I just want to talk
Nothing. No responses. The later messages weren’t even read, although he wasn’t blocked. The things he sent were just tossed out into the sea and drifted down to the depths undisturbed, unacknowledged.
Not that he knew what to actually say. It was confusing because he felt justified being angry about some of this stuff. Like… like she did steal things! And his egg went missing after she was in his room so of course he’d suspect her, because he’d probably made her angry about the symphony when she got to his room and realized he’d said he was sick but wasn’t actually there! She reached too far and took too much: he hadn’t invited her to the symphony so it wasn’t fair that he felt like an asshole for her thinking she had; he had told her not to come by his place so it wasn’t fair that he felt like an asshole because she brought him soup; he had made it clear the sex was just a fun thing, not a relationship, so it wasn’t fair that he felt like an asshole to go on a date with Marisol. But at the end of the day, he’d hurt her. And he didn’t want her to be angry at him. And he didn’t want to never see her again.
Anyway, she was pissed at him now too. Would that make Rana feel better? Because for two days he’d ignored the messages Marisol sent him asking if he was ok and what was going on. Not on purpose! He’d read them, but they weren’t from Rana so his brain didn’t form an immediate response and he just set his phone down and forgot about them until she’d message him again and he’d do the same thing. Struggle, look away, forget.
Was that what Rana was doing to him now?
[Jungkook]: you don’t want to say things to me? I’ll listen. You can yell if you want
Would that lure her out?
It didn’t.
He tried calling her phone a few times, even though the thought of a phone call was sickening and it was almost but not quite a relief when she didn’t pick up. They rolled to voicemail but he couldn’t figure out what to say so he just told her to call him back and hung up.
She didn’t.
For a while he could get mad about it. How dare she not answer! How dare she yell at him too and stomp off and then just cut him off! How dare she not give him the chance to… to explain or to apologize or… But he didn’t want to apologize for the things he was right about… But if he was right about them, why did he feel like such fucking garbage? If he was right, why was he the one lying in bed still, staring at the wall and feeling miserable? Did it even matter if he was right, if the feeling was so bad like this? Even when he fought with Taehyung, it didn’t feel like this after, like his skin was brittle and his bones were soft and nothing could reach him, not even the music he kept putting on to try and soothe himself. He and Taehyung hadn’t actually made up after that fight, they’d just sort of moved on, and it had sucked to fight with Taehyung but his friend hadn’t just dropped off the face of the planet. That wasn’t what friends did! If she wanted to be friends, she couldn’t just do that!
It had to matter that he wasn’t wrong about everything. He couldn’t think like that, that it didn’t matter if he was right. He didn’t want to be like her, just doing whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. It was important to him that he do the right thing and behave properly and maybe sometimes he got it a little sideways –like ok, maybe he should have just apologized when she texted him at the symphony because there was a misunderstanding and he was there with a date… but that hadn’t been his misunderstanding! Why should he feel bad about it! She made an assumption that turned out to be incorrect and inconvenienced herself! That wasn’t his fault!
But then why did he feel so shitty about everything? He couldn’t get past that. It mattered who was right and who was wrong. He couldn’t just throw in the towel because she was sad. That would just make him a doormat. It would mean she could do whatever she wanted and take anything she wanted and expect him to just go along with it and apologize and he was tired of doing that in life. He didn’t want to be that kind of person! He’d left home to never be that kind of weakling again and now he was the sort of man who could own up to his mistakes and expected the people around him to do the same.
He rolled into his stomach and pressed his face into the blankets so that his own hot breath burned his face. All of the things he was thinking were true! Objectively true! And yet. And yet! He pulled the blankets over him, burying himself, but there was no body warmth in them and the fabric just felt cold against his arms in an unpleasant way for once and he shivered.
It wasn’t fair for her to make him feel this way but he did. It wasn’t fair for her to ignore him but she was. It had been three and a half days and she wouldn’t even answer his texts. She might never talk to him again. No. No, he couldn’t even think about that possibility yet because the roaring in his ears would get louder than the white noise machine and drown out everything in a final way, in the kind of drowning way you couldn’t come back from– In the face of that it didn’t matter if he was wrong or right anymore. He needed to talk to her. He needed to figure out how to make it right and if he needed to just take the blame for everything, he would.
No. NO! He had promised himself he wouldn’t think like that anymore! Everything wasn’t always his fault!
His phone rang. It rang a couple times actually before he even registered it was ringing because he never had his phone actually make noise. It sounded like an actual ringing telephone and for an embarrassingly long time he just thought why do I hear a telephone ringing?
Then he vaulted from the blanket pouch he’d made and began flinging covers everywhere to find where his phone had sunk. It might as well have been lost at sea! How could he hear it so clearly and not be able to find it? Rana was slipping away. Fucking Titanic moment. She’d finally reached out and he was grabbing at water, unable to touch her–
Found! He hit his cheekbone with it in his rapid attempt to answer, “Rana?”
“Jungkook,” came the response, but not from Rana. From his mother. “Who’s Rana?”
“No one. Why are you– Is something wrong?”
“Jungkook?”
“Why are you calling me?”
“What sort of question is that? Who says something like that to their mother?”
Jungkook slumped on the edge of his bed and didn’t respond.
“I’m calling because I just saw your RSVP for the holiday this year…”
He still didn’t say anything. This wasn’t what he’d been thinking about before she called and his brain was slow to redirect.
“You’re bringing someone?” she asked in the silence. “You didn’t tell us you’d met someone.”
“Oh.” Of course this was about the holiday. A deep breath rushed from his chest, deflating him like an old floatie. “Right, I–”
“You know I want to know these things,” she interrupted. “You’ve really met someone? Where did you meet her? What’s her family name? Do I know her?”
“No, you– it’s someone who works in the same building–”
“Oh, a penguin there? She must not be emperor then, is she king? Please tell me she’s not blue, that blood doesn’t mix well with ours.”
Jungkook froze, disoriented by his own thoughts, because actually he’d been thinking of Rana. Rana worked in his same office building. Rana who wasn’t a penguin at all! But he wasn’t planning on taking her to the penguin mating holiday. Not going to the holiday the last few years had already been an unintentional fuck you to his family, but taking someone who wasn’t even a penguin was tantamount to throwing a bomb into the middle of a huddle.
But fuck, Rana would be so funny. She wouldn’t give a shit about any of those people. She didn’t even like penguins! She’d be wearing that bright blue dress in a sea of tuxedo and black dresses, probably telling outrageous jokes and offering some of her art to liven the place up for the next party. It would end his life. It would cut the final gossamer ties with his family. But it was funny as shit to think about.
His mother was still talking, sounding less patient by the second, “You have to tell me these things, you didn’t even tell me directly. I’ll have the help clean out your old room but I really don’t think it’s appropriate to let your mate room there. We’ll never get that teen boy smell out and we’ve left it untouched for you, you know, so there are still all those very inappropriate posters on the walls–”
“Eomma,” he interrupted her this time. She was getting him all confused because in a way he’d always dreamed of having this conversation with her but this wasn’t the time. “I don’t have a mate,” he clarified.
“Yes, you certainly won’t get that far with her in that old bedroom. We’ll clean the east wing out and you can have it to yourselves. Show her where you come from. What’s her favorite flower?”
“The holiday isn’t for four months,” he pointed out.
“Putting preparations off until the last minute is how you’re as old as you are without a mate!” she scolded. Jungkook chose not to press her on it: how old am I, Eomma? Do you remember how old I am? How many birthdays have I had?
“We’re staying in a hotel,” he argued, hoping to end the line of questions.
“Jungkook…”
“I’m busy right now, Eomma. I have to go–”
“There isn’t anyone at all, is there.” It was a statement, not a question, all the enthusiasm gone from her voice. She knew. She always knew. Twice he had mentioned women to her he was seeing, and both times she had predicted the breakup only for it to be true within a week. One of the girls had even had the misfortune of meeting his parents. He didn’t blame her for breaking it off days later. His parents' disappointment in her had been difficult for him to swallow too, and he had envied her the ability to run away. She was a rock hopper. She didn’t come from money. Her family were blue collar workers. She hadn’t gone to college. Everything was wrong. Jungkook had known at the same time that girl had that this was not going to be a happy future, even though she really was sweet. In retrospect, pretty bland too, but sweet.
“There is,” he defended, prickling unhappily. A lifetime of disappointing his parents bubbled up in his belly, but the saddest thing was, sometimes he felt like at least the disappointment was something. The disappointment was better than the yawning silence that blanketed most of his childhood. At least his mother used to put her hand on his shoulder as she told him he was never going to meet a woman if he kept doing that weird tongue-clicking thing.
So he didn’t do the weird tongue-clicking thing anymore. He didn’t line his walls with video game and anime posters anymore. He’d left his collection of figurines at home and at some point his mother had the help throw them away. He didn’t go into a career in video games and he traded the hoodies for sweaters and he started going to the gym to bulk up. He did everything she’d always said and it hadn’t made a difference, girls still didn’t like him and he wasn’t going to–
But he did meet someone.
“Her name is Marisol,” he blurted out. “She’s a King.”
“Oh!” The shock in his mother’s voice pierced through the phone. “What’s her family–”
“I’m not telling you her name,” he insisted, feeling strong about it. “You don’t need to look her up. You’ll meet her when I bring her home for the holiday.” The pieces slid into place, and he suddenly pictured himself strolling onto the party grounds– except it was Rana on his arm, in her blue dress, low cut, bare shoulders, smiling in the face of so many furrowed brows and pursed lips.
No. No, Rana couldn’t go to the penguin holiday and never would. He would never do that to her, even if they were– but they weren’t!
Marisol. He was talking about Marisol. The penguin woman who was actually giving him the time of day. The penguin woman who stood a chance of impressing his parents. The penguin woman who was serious about finding a mate too, just like him, someone who she could bring home to meet the family. They could alternate years, go to his family this year, hers next year. He’d wear a button up and a tie to meet her parents. She’d wear something elegant to meet his.
“Are you serious? You’ve really met someone? How long have you been together? What’s she like?”
“Why all the questions?”
“You know why,” she said. “I’m… stunned. You didn’t tell me you met anyone! I was beginning to think that maybe you’re… you know.”
“Weird?”
“It’s just the only people you ever mention are… men.”
“I’m not gay,” he said. “But if I was–”
“We would love and accept you! You know we don’t care about something like that. If Marisol is a penguin man, we will welcome him with open arms–”
“Marisol is a woman,” Jungkook clarified. “I thought that’s what you were saying…”
“There’s nothing wrong with a gay penguin, Jungkook. It’s a lone penguin that’s the problem. We don’t function alone. So when all you mention are male friends who are all going to find their mates and not–”
“They’re all single too!”
“Then they aren’t capable of helping you. Taehyung is still single? He’s so charming, that surprises me…”
“Eomma.”
“How long have you been with this Marisol? Oh my goodness, is that why you’re bringing her home for– Jungkook! You’re serious about this?”
“Eomma,” he groaned, knowing where her thoughts were taking her. It was his own fault. If he was bringing home someone for holiday, it was because things were serious and holiday was where young penguins all proposed to their mates and/or knocked them up. He’d always sworn he wouldn’t do that because his mother would definitely run away with it, while secretly wondering if that would be ok, for his mom to be so excited and focused on him for a while.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” she said, ignoring his plea. “Oh, my son, I’ve been waiting for this for years. I know exactly what we can do to make your proposal extra–”
“I’m not proposing at holiday.”
“You are or you shouldn’t even bother coming home! Time and time again you are in your own way, Jungkook. Do you want to be alone forever? Do you think that’s what I want for you? Can you not understand how important it is that you have someone? No penguin can go through life still a lone egg–”
“I’m not a lone egg anymore, Eomma,” he insisted. He’d heard this lecture too many times. He heard it when he closed his eyes at night. He heard it woke up in the morning. He’d come all this way from home to try and escape it but it was always there, jeering on his shoulder when date after date failed. “I met someone and I’ll handle it myself.”
“This is too important for you to bungle it with some weird idea of what women want–”
“I’ll already have asked her before we come to holiday.”
“Don’t, Jungkook!”
“I’ll do it whatever weird way I want and she’ll say yes and everything will be fine. By the time we get to the holiday, we’ll just be planning the wedding and thinking of children,” he said, angrily reciting his mother’s dreams– no, his dreams! They were his dreams too! But saying them out loud made him angry, even if he could almost picture these things coming true with Marisol. Sure, they’d only been on a couple of dates… for a week… but they both wanted the same things, and–
Shit, it was very much not Marisol his mental image of himself had just scooped into his arms after she said yes.
“I have to go,” he snapped.
“Don’t you take a tone with me, Jungkook. You’re the one barreling forward without a thought in that rock skull of yours, just like you always do! You’re just like your–”
“I have to go,” he interrupted as her words pinched a painful old wound in his belly. “You have my RSVP. I’ll let you know if I need anything else. But please don’t expect to include us in any big ceremony or–’
“How could I not? You want to propose to her before you come home? All right, that’s fine, less likely there will be some rejection or misunderstanding at the holiday. But my own son finally bringing home a mate, after all these years of everyone wondering…”
“I have to go, Mom. Bye.” He hung up before she could try to keep him on the line. She didn’t have to try hard. He sucked at saying no to her. He knew that. Taehyung told him all the time. Just cut her loose. But of course Taehyung could say that. He was close with his family. He’d never been truly alone. Hawks hunted alone, that’s all. He didn’t know what it was like to be a penguin alone forever.
Jungkook closed his eyes. It sucked and he couldn’t escape it. It sucked so much. It sucked being seen and watched and talked about. It sucked being overlooked and ignored and forgotten. It sucked that he already predicted anything with Marisol probably couldn’t stand up to the pressures of his hometown. It sucked that for a moment, he could almost see what his mother saw right now: Jungkook welcomed to the center of the party, guiding his mate along, introducing her, bragging about her, showing her all his childhood haunts, joking with his old friends yeah, I hit a home run, huh? No one expected me to meet someone like this!
It was a very, very old dream. He’d dreamed that dream so many times. He knew the speech his mother gave to the community about how proud she was of her son. He always wore the same thing, she always wore the same thing, he knew the sound of the community clapping politely and secretly envying his success. No one would have expected Jungkook Jeon to turn out so successful but he’d proven them all wrong! It didn’t matter about that business with his real dad. He was the shiniest rock of them all.
But the dream felt gossamer thin this time. He could see Marisol standing next to him. He could hear his mother saying the words. But for the first time, it didn’t feel real. He couldn’t feel the bright joy the dream usually brought him. He was watching the whole thing through a haze. He really did feel like he was on the broken ice now, floating away from his own dream. Was his brain unable to see his dreams as even slightly obtainable anymore? He couldn’t even lie to his own brain anymore? He couldn’t even cling to dreams to keep him going?
He was giving up on himself. Was that it?
But he had Marisol! It had only been a week but that hadn’t ended yet.
But why was it so hard to connect with that dream now that he could put an actual woman into it? This might be the closest he’d ever come to that dream! He might finally actually be able to take the steps towards it, but then why did it feel like he was drifting the opposite direction?
The answer was Rana. Not that it was her fault or anything, he just knew that the haze was this whole shitty feeling with her. The thought of responding to Marisol –who was exactly what he had been looking for his whole life– was repulsive to him right now. He couldn’t text her back. He didn’t want to. He felt like he couldn’t talk to her again until he had this whole thing with Rana cleared up because… it just… for reasons. Just for reasons. There was an order to things and this was it. Rana came first. Even his brain kept shoving her into the forefront of his imagined scenarios, not subtle at all with its message: fix your shit.
But how was he going to convince Rana to talk to him?
Yoongi knocked on Jungkook’s door and called through, “Hey, you ok in there?”
“Yeah,” he called back, but did not get up from his bed.
“You need to talk about anything?”
“No, why?”
“Haven’t seen you in a few days. Have you just been in your room?”
Jungkook didn’t like this conversation being shouted through the door in case the other roommates were listening. Taehyung had done a similar thing yesterday. He hadn’t told anyone anything that had happened beyond what they already knew about the symphony, and he wasn’t ready to talk about it, and he didn’t want their advice right now. He just needed to talk to Rana first.
“I just came down with something,” he lied.
“Ok well I made you soup. Do you want it?”
Jungkook hesitated but he did. He’d just been basically living off whatever he could quickly grab from the kitchen, mainly fruit and protein bars, but he was running out of both. He’d go by the grocery on his way home from work tomorrow. Hopefully by then he’d have intercepted Rana in the building and worked through all of this.
Because he’d come to a conclusion, which he mused on after he’d cracked his door open to accept and thank Yoongi for the soup. Maybe it didn’t matter, just this once, whether he was right sometimes, or about some of the things that seemed to be tangled up in all of this. Rana was clearly really, really hurt by everything and he’d lost steam trying to defend his own behavior. So what if he hadn’t meant to hurt her? He was the one who’d complicated things by asking her for sex. He was the one who’d mentioned the symphony and it was clear she was interested but he hadn’t suggested making actual plans or taking her a different night or something which would have been the nice thing to do anyway with a friend. He’d had two tickets before Marisol was even in the picture, he could have already made plans with Rana but he’d been stupid trying to draw a line between them and he was having a hard time remembering why he’d wanted to do that. Taking her to the symphony would have been such an easy Christmas present! He was the one who’d lied instead of just telling her the truth when she showed up unexpectedly that night. He was the one who’d wrongly assumed she’d stolen from him and gone in eyes wild instead of asking her first if she’d seen it. Or even just responded to her fucking text. Or just… not done that, dive-bombing her in the lobby.
And, after all of that, and even in the absence of the things he could recognize he’d done poorly… she was angry and hurt. That’s not what he wanted for her. He hadn’t ever wanted to hurt her. He didn’t realize he could. She just seemed so impervious but he hadn’t been as careful as he should have been. He hadn’t realized he was huddled so close with her but now that she’d pushed him out, he definitely felt that. He hadn’t realized how fucking awful it would feel to be cut loose by her. He hadn’t realized that missing her would feel like all the color drained from the world.
He had not slept well. Lying in bed had reminded him of Rana sleeping in that bed with him. He didn’t want to think about that and tossed and turned.
She’d told him she hadn’t taken anything but maybe she had left something. Since he couldn’t sleep, he looked everywhere for anything she had left in his room. She’d hinted that she had, but he didn’t think she meant the couple of tightly-curled hairs he found in his pillowcases. He couldn’t find anything else from her. There was nothing. She hadn’t actually left him anything, and she hadn’t taken anything, and she said she didn’t want anything else from him. He looked at the strings taped in his window and felt… cold. Cold in a bad way.
Monday morning he showered early, opening the bathroom window to enjoy the cold air combined with the warm steam of the water until Chad yelled at him through the door to stop letting the warm air out.
He left the apartment way ahead of schedule to stake out the bus route but she didn’t show; he waited for enough buses all around her commute time and she wasn’t there. He was late to work. She must have taken an even earlier bus specifically to avoid him.
He spent the whole morning debating whether he should just go to her floor. This was an emergency at this point. She was still not answering any of his texts or voicemails and frankly, he didn’t appreciate that. If she was mad at him, ok. That was fine! She could yell at him. She was great at yelling! He wouldn’t even yell back like that kiosk owner, he’d just let her say her peace and apologize, but this wasn’t ok, this just disappearing on him. Didn’t she get that? It wasn’t fair! It was cruel. She was taking it too far. This was cruel and he thought she was better than that. She couldn’t just leave him��
The panic propelled him out of his chair. He couldn’t sit still and just think things like that. That was not what was happening here. Rana wasn’t like that. Something was wrong, he was suddenly sure of it. Rana made noise in the world, she wouldn’t just slip away because she was angry. She couldn’t have already forgotten him. He needed to mean more than that to her or he’d just… just… something.
He left his desk early for lunch and took the stairs down to her floor, which was a mistake because it meant he was flushed and sweaty when he reached the key-card glass doors that granted access to her company from the elevator bay. Of course he had no key-card, but there was a buzzer, which he pressed as he tapped his feet impatiently, alternating a little tappy rhythm with his toes.
“Yes, hello, how can I help you?”
“I need to talk to Rana Banana– Rana Bennani,” he coughed, embarrassed by his mistake. He was just worked up and her name flowed so easily– whatever.
A pause, and then, “Jungkook?” For a second he got confused because it wasn’t Rana’s voice, this person recognizing him. “She’s not here,” the voice said. “Are you headed to lunch?”
“Uh… oh!” It was Marisol. Which confused him because he wasn’t sure why she was the person to answer the door buzzer, but he figured their company must do things differently.
“She’s not here but I’ll eat with you,” Marisol said and then the audio cut out. Before he could even get his bearings, she stepped through the fogged glass door with her lunchbox. “Hey!”
“Oh, uh. Hi,” he said. Awkwardly, as if he was surprised by her despite talking to her seven seconds ago. But she wasn’t who he was looking for. “Rana’s not here?”
Marisol grabbed his arm and glanced over her shoulder and told him quietly, “Let’s go to the lunchroom, I’ll tell you down there.”
Jungkook didn’t really want to eat with Marisol but he had brought a big lunch to share with Rana, hoping to lure her with food. It was about all he could focus on doing last night, making lunch to bring. But now Marisol made it sound like she knew something important and that was better than nothing, so he let her drag him down to a different floor of the building full of tables –not the atrium.
“What is this place?” he asked with confusion.
“It’s a lunch room… you didn’t know about this?”
“No.”
“It’s much nicer than the atrium. Do you need to microwave anything?” she asked, pointing to a wall of microwaves, coffee makers, and vending machines, even fancy refrigerated ones. He had literally never seen this place in the entire time he’d worked in the building.
Jungkook had packed everything to stay warm until lunch and didn’t need any of that, though. He let her choose the table in the far corner against the windows. It was a great view. And it was much easier to have a conversation among the low hum here than in the echo-y atrium with people ordering food and speed-walking past and tossing things into the trash can with unnecessary force. He wondered if Rana knew about this place and just preferred the atrium though. The quiet here seemed like something she might want to shatter. He thought it was a little claustrophobic too.
He unpacked his food out of habit but had no appetite. Instead he waited eagerly for whatever she could tell him, but she took her time pulling tupperware from her big zippered bag, arranging it neatly in a line, talking all the while about some New Years’ Eve party her coworker was throwing on Wednesday.
“What’s going on with Rana?” he asked impatiently at exactly the same moment she asked, “Do you want to go with me?”
“To what?” he asked.
“To the New Years’ Eve party I was just telling you about. Do you already have plans?”
“Oh. Uh… no, I don’t have plans, I guess.” He did, because every year he and Taehyung hit up the same bar, but it wasn’t like Taehyung would begrudge him going to something else with a girl. “Can I bring my friend?” he asked impulsively, just in case.
“As long as it’s not Rana.”
“It’s… Taehyung but uh, what’s wrong with Rana?”
Marisol shook her head, “Look, I told you she’s weird, right? So I just don’t think she’d fit in great at my friends’ party. I thought you were just acquaintances anyway so it shouldn’t matter– but Taehyung? I liked him, he could come. I’m not so sure about that girl he was with though, are they close? Naia?”
“Why do you say it like that?” Jungkook asked. He leaned back against his chair and gave her a curious look. She had said that about Rana, and that she was about to get fired for stealing lunches. He had just let it float past him at the time because he hadn’t really cared what Marisol had to say about Rana; yeah, she was weird, he knew that, and he knew she didn’t get along with her coworkers, so he hadn’t expected Marisol and Rana to be friendly or anything.
“What, about Naia? No, she’s fine!”
“No, about Rana.”
Marisol looked at him closely, as if sizing up whether he could handle what she was about to say. Then she leaned in closer over the table and admitted,
“She got fired. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you?”
“I… what? She got fired?”
“I told you she was about to be! She’s been stealing people’s food and office supplies too I think. You know how she is. Or maybe you don’t… I never could tell how close you are,” she said, and perched her chin on her hand as if she’d asked a question.
Jungkook didn’t answer. He tried to reconcile this with his version of events: he and Rana got into a big fight in the lobby, she stormed off away from the building, and then never talked to him again even if it meant commuting at 7am.
“Was it my fault?” he asked. “We had a big fight downstairs…”
“Oh that was you?” Marisol gasped. “I heard she got into a screaming match with a guard and a director! They had to drag her out–”
“No,” Jungkook said, scowling, shaking his head. “That’s not at all what happened.”
“Then what did happen?”
“We just had a fight… I thought she stole something of mine.”
“Figures,” Marisol laughed and leaned back to lift her spoon. “She probably did.”
“She didn’t. And where did you hear that about a security guard and a director– it was just me and she didn’t get dragged out, she just left because she was mad at me.”
“It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong,” Marisol pointed out. Jungkook watched her hands flit between the containers. For a moment he struggled to anchor himself. That roar had started again. He felt like he was missing something here. Rana had been fired? Marisol had known it was coming. Had Rana? So was she ignoring him just because she had that going on? But even if she got fired, she could tell him that!
“Anyway,” Marisol continued. “It’s not a big deal to you, is it? You said you weren’t really friends. I can be your lunch buddy now.” She winked at him as she slid the spoon into her mouth. Jungkook thought she was trying to be flirty but in that moment he couldn’t remember a single moment of thinking she was cute. She just seemed kind of… annoying. “Do you want some? You’re staring,” she giggled, and pushed a container of fishcakes towards him. He didn’t but it was habit, food was offered, so he thanked her and spooned out a bite, and set it on the edge of his bento box.
“I made it myself,” she said, motioning to the bite of food he’d taken. “I love to cook. I took some classes. It’s one thing I liked from your profile. You said you’re really into cooking. Did you make all that food?”
“Yeah….”
“You’re really quiet today, aren’t you?” she laughed. “Can I have some? I’d love to try your cooking.”
Well, he’d made it for Rana. But Rana wasn’t here and as he opened his mouth to protest, he realized he would sound crazy telling her no, especially after he’d just taken a piece of her food, even if he didn’t want it.
“Yeah, ok…” He nudged one of the boxes forward. Before he could explain anything in it, she scooped a bite into her mouth.
Her reaction was instant. She leaned forward like she was going to hurl and began fanning her eyes as her face turned a red hue.
“Oh!” she gasped. He just stared, not sure what was happening as she coughed and waved him away even though he hadn’t moved. She choked as she quickly swallowed. “Oh!” she said again, grabbing her bottled sweet tea and chugging. “Oh that’s so spicy!”
“Oh… I’m sorry,” he said, looking down. “Rana likes spicy food so–”
“You made this for Rana?” Marisol said, looking at him wide-eyed.
“We share food,” he answered. It made him prickle defensively, actually. “I didn’t know I was going to eat lunch with you today, I usually eat with her.”
“Ok but don’t you think if you and I are dating you should ask me to lunch?” she said. She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “And make food for me, not for someone who– I don’t know, are you sure you two are just friends? Because this is feeling like… a lot…”
“A lot of what?”
“I don’t know. Drama. You aren’t friends enough that she told you she got fired but you came to our floor looking for her with food you made for you– are you hung up on her? I thought it must be the other way round but…”
The way she said it and the way she looked at him made him straighten his shoulders. He didn’t like being accused of things, especially when he was already overwhelmed and confused and stressed. He hadn’t asked Marisol to come to lunch with him. Usually her mention of dating with him would have sent him spiraling but right now he was already dealing with one crisis and he couldn’t pile on anything else.
“I am not,” he said carefully. “You said she got fired, so now I know…” He didn’t know what else to say to make her stop looking at him like that, so he scooped up the fishcake he’d taken from her to see if eating her food would diffuse the situation. Rana was fired. Marisol was acting upset about him caring about that. Shouldn’t she admire that he worried when a friend suddenly disappeared?
Oh god, the fishcake was terrible! Overly fishy tasting –said by a penguin!-- and bland and dry. Thank fuck Jungkook had mastered keeping his face neutral when he tasted terrible things. Taehyung had always been a terrible cook. So had his own mother, and her attempts on days the cook had off were always lessons in feigned appreciation. His stepfather was better but not by much.
“It’s good, right?” Marisol asked. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. I really think she’ll like you… She likes the silent, strong type.”
Why did this comment repel him so badly? The suggestion of meeting Marisol’s family should have been a cause for celebration. He’d only gone on a few dates with this woman and she could make a suggestion like that?! Incredible! He was nailing this! He had genuinely never thought the day would come that a penguin woman could stomach the thought of taking him home to meet her family!
And yet it felt like a weight dragging him down just now. He felt like he was trying so hard to reach a peak of clarity and Marisol kept swiping at his feet to distract him. He was not managing this lunch well. He did not understand what was happening. A hum of discomfort began in his ears, sending unpleasant prickles down his neck. He found himself palpating the egg in his pocket, trying to figure out what to say that would make her stop looking at him like that, like she was waiting for some magical answer. He didn’t know the answer! She hadn’t even asked a fucking question!
What came out was definitely not the answer, “What’s your problem with Rana?”
“Um, what?”
“You just really hate her.”
“I don’t… hate her…”
“You seem kind of happy she got fired,” he said, realizing this was true. “You seemed happy about it when you told me she might be going to get fired. You acted like you wanted to warn me about her before so… what about?”
“Well just because she’s a thief,” Marisol stammered. She looked wildly uncomfortable suddenly to get called out like this. Jungkook felt kind of bad but not actually bad enough to stop. Marisol seemed so smooth and in control at their previous dates but now it looked like she was the one flailing on slippery ice. “Look everyone works really hard and she can’t just steal clients and lunches and stuff, that’s it. I don’t have a vendetta against her or anything. I wish her all the best. Somewhere else.”
“Did she steal from you?” Jungkook asked, looking down at the rest of the bland fishcake and the tupperware. He looked at the spicy food he’d made for her, because Rana loved spices. He recalled thinking Rana was a terrible cook because she’d shared homemade food that tasted so bad. But why would Rana make bland food for herself? She wouldn’t. “She stole your food?”
“Well yes but–”
“Did you get her fired?”
“I didn’t,” Marisol said, giving him a pointed look. She looked very unattractive when she was angry, her features sharp and cold. “Do I think she deserved to get fired? Yes. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear but it’s the truth. There are consequences to stealing things. I can’t believe you’re acting like this. Why are you defending her?”
He sighed because that was a good question and admitted, “I’m not defending stealing but…”
In a shocking gesture, she reached forward to take his hand and said, “Sometimes you have to take a good look at someone and see them for who they really are, not who you want them to be.” Her hand was unpleasantly moist with too much lotion. Slippery.
He just stared at her for a moment. The gears in his head were sluggish in the cold today. He heard her words and couldn’t believe for a moment she had been the one to speak them. He looked at her and felt stunned by how distant he felt from this woman right now. He wasn’t in the right headspace. He trusted his reasons for liking her before but right now… he hated her right now. He didn’t like the things she was saying about him or Rana or how she was saying them. He didn’t like her cooking. He didn’t want her company right now. He didn’t want to be here and didn’t know why he had agreed to this. He felt bullied into this lunch and he hated feeling bullied. He had promised never–
“I have to get back to work,” he said. He shuffled his boxes back together.
“Wait, right now? We’re in the middle of lunch!”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just can’t be here anymore. I’m really sorry,” he said as finally loud music roared to life in his mind, shattering the oppressive silence he’d been squirming under for days now. The music was a comfort in the awkwardly quiet lunch room. His chair scraped loudly as he stood and he knew people looked over. “It’s a busy day and I was only planning a short lunch anyway… I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait, but Jungkook–!”
He fled the table and the posh cafeteria and anyone staring after him, probably wondering why he’d rushed away from a beautiful penguin woman. He didn’t know! He shouldn’t! There was every opportunity with her that he had started to accept was impossible! But he just got this hot, unhappy feeling that if she said Rana’s name one more time he was going to fucking lose it on her.
Jungkook had the afternoon to think of his next steps with a brain that kept slipping this way and that when he looked at any problem for too long. It made him useless for work. It made him useless for understanding his own feelings about anything –Rana, Marisol, Rana’s job, the sudden departure of his lunch buddy, his mother’s expectations for the holiday he had signed himself up for.
[Jungkook]: I heard you got fired what’s going on?? Are you ok? What’s going on?
[Jungkook]: do you need help?
Of course there was no response. He thought about texting the group chat for advice, even opened it, but stopped short. It would mean telling them how he’d made things worse, and how Rana was avoiding him, and how she’d even lost her job, possibly over rumors about the fight they’d had in the lobby. He didn’t think he could handle the likely response from the guys right now: told you so; you really fucked this up; you were a fucking moron to think you could have it all; one more stupid thing problem like this and we’re done, we can’t keep carrying your sorry ass; just give it up already, you’re going to die alone just like Tae said; you did this to yourself and now you expect other people to fix it?; you really are a fraud, just like your dad.
So instead he set out on his own, without talking to anybody, as soon as he could leave work without ruffling feathers. The bus was emptier than usual during this between-holidays time, so he had a seat. It was overly warm inside but he refused to take his coat off and just reached for the rush of cold air every time the doors opened to let people on and off. It felt like a long ride, longer than usual. He rolled his egg between his hands, sometimes pressing it to his lips, all just to keep him from bouncing his leg and annoying the person next to him. When he noticed a small child staring at the egg though, he tucked it into the sleeve of his coat to squeeze.
He practically burst from the bus doors at the stop right by her shop, deciding to just run across the park and down the couple of blocks to her place instead of waiting for a connecting bus. But just as he started to jog, he thought he should actually check her shop. She might be there setting up new inventory or something now that she didn’t have a day job anymore. So he jogged a circle so as not to break pace, waved at the person he accidentally cut off, and instead went straight to the shop that carried her stuff.
At first he thought he must have the wrong place. There were so many artisanal shops along this block and maybe he’d just gone into the wrong one without thinking. He rushed back out the door but immediately confirmed no, he was right, this was the right shop. It was supposed to be the right shop. But there were none of Rana’s strings in the window, or anywhere else that he could find. He looked everywhere, striding through the aisles once, twice, gaze scanning for anything that looked remotely like her art.
“Can I help you find something?”
“Rana Banana– Rana Benani’s art, did it all sell out?” he asked the older woman who’d stepped into his path.
“Oh. Just about! The artist removed the last few pieces.”
“What? Why?”
The woman looked startled and he realized he ought to dial it back a notch. She looked flustered as she answered, “Well I don’t know, we don’t demand explanation. It’s after Christmas. January is always a slow time.”
That made sense but it didn’t feel true to him. He felt like Rana had removed her stuff for far more sinister reasons. He barely remembered to thank the woman as he left the story and set off at a jog again. Might as well get this workout while on this wild goose chase. Wild jackdaw chase. Why the fuck wouldn’t she just answer his calls?
She wasn’t in the park. Not that he expected her to be, but he kept a lookout anyway, but saw no sign of Rana. He continued his jog down the sidewalk as the Rooks Roost apartment building loomed into view, filling him with an even worse sense of dread. The cloud of smokers on the corner had him holding his breath all the way until he was in the courtyard. Even packed like a sardine in the shuffle of 9-5 commuters returning home, he felt suspicious gazes fixate on him the second he walked inside. He stuck out. They all knew he stuck out. Supposedly corvids were better than just about anyone at figuring out what you were. Maybe that was why he always felt like Rana could understand more than he was saying.
He ignored them. They couldn’t tell him not to be here. It was possible someone said something to him but he missed it, intensely focused on making his way to the elevator. While everyone else pushed and waited for the elevator to take them up, he pushed ‘down.’ More glares, especially when he held the button in case it would prioritize his call. The first elevator decided to go up like everyone wanted it to, but the second one chose to go down just for him. He broke away from the crowd, swam upstream through the people exiting, and stood alone as the doors closed to take him down.
The basement hallway was as creepy and moist as ever, and he couldn’t keep his mind from running through multiple scenarios of trouble she could have run into down here. What if losing her job was only one of many things she was dealing with right now? He’d offered to help with whatever she needed!
He paused at her door as if it would fly open without him even knocking, but of course it didn’t. So he knocked. And waited. And when it didn’t immediately open, he knocked again, because if she wasn’t at work or at the shop or in the park, where could she possibly be? She had to be inside.
“Rana, it’s me!” he called, knocking harder. “Hey, it’s Jungkook, open up. I just want to check on you and uh… And talk about the other day!” He paused and waited, ear against the door for any movement inside. It was a thick door though and he wasn’t sure if he could hear anything. “Hey, are you ok? That’s all I want to know!” He knocked harder, hard enough to feel the heavy thumps up his wrist from the side of his palm striking the door.
It occurred to him, sure, that she might not want to answer the door for him. It might not be about getting fired, she might just be angry, and he understood that, because he couldn’t apologize or anything unless she opened the door!
“Hey!” he pounded harder. “Open up so I can– I want to apologize about the misunderstanding…” He trailed off, not eager for any lurking corvids to hear the juicy details of his life. Who knew how many other people might be peeking out of their doors further down the dark hall. Maybe people could hear him up the elevator shaft!
But there was still no answer from the only who did matter. Maybe calling it a misunderstanding just wasn’t good enough for Rana.
“Look, I fucked up, ok? Can we talk about it?” Thump thump thump.
Still no response.
“Rana! Come talk to me!” he cried, feeling despair growing. Gone. Maybe she didn’t even live here anymore. She’d lost her job and packed up and left in the night and he didn’t even have anything to remember her by except three strings. Now she’d be nothing but another jagged hole in his heart of someone lost. How many of those could you have before you disintegrated completely?
A throat cleared behind him made him spin and lean back against the door. Yannick towered over him, dressed head to toe in black, long black hair pulled back in a low ponytail.
“You make very much noise,” Yannick said slowly, eying Jungkook down a long nose. Jungkook had literally never seen a more raven-looking man in his life. If this man told him he wasn’t a raven, he’d lose his fucking mind.
“I’m looking for Rana,” he said.
“This was obvious,” Yannick told him. He spoke so slowly, with this air of loftiness, like he could barely be bothered to make noise. “It appears she is not available to you.”
“She should be home. I’ve checked everywhere else.”
“Who are we to say where the free bird roams? Rana is a person of action.”
“Right.” Jungkook did not know what the fuck he meant. “Um… I’m just worried about her. She’s not answering my texts.” Shouldn’t have said that part. “Have you seen her recently? I just want to know if she’s ok.”
“It seems to me she is well. She lives. You may leave with your question answered.”
“Well I have more questions for her… if she’s home–”
“She is not. Maybe she is with her friend with the glasses. I do not watch her for you. Make less noise please.” With the glasses…
“Fulton? Er, Kim Seokjin?”
“I do not know.”
The thought that Kim Seokjin came here at all, much less often enough that Yannick knew of him confirmed something unpleasant in Jungkook’s stomach. Yeah, he could read the hint. Fulton didn’t accuse her of things. He gave her a nice bag and bought her hot cocoa and he wasn’t here pounding on her door, because she would probably answer for him.
Yannick opened his own door, shuffling along like a sleepwalker, before Jungkook called, “Wait, are you a raven?”
“I am a treepie,” Yannick sighed. “You are unoriginal. Perhaps it is not so easy to know someone by their appearance.” He turned, pulling his door closed slowly as he added, “Perhaps sometimes it is.”
Immediately his comment made Jungkook look down at himself, as if there was something on his coat. What the fuck had that meant?! Did he mean something by it? Something about Jungkook being a penguin? That he looked like a penguin? Or was it a taunt about being mixed blood? That was bullshit, Yannick couldn’t tell that just by looking at him. Right? He couldn’t tell that, it was just a rumor about corvids…
Fuck, could Rana tell? Did she know he lied about that too?
And anyway what the fuck was a treepie?! Jungkook didn’t know anything about treepies but… but that didn’t matter because Yannick wasn’t actually a treepie, whatever the fuck that was, he was just a human! He didn’t have extra abilities! Even the people who had some sort of chimera resulting from their extra strong strand weren’t less human, in any moral sense! A micro decimal, negligible, barely anything. Jungkook actually knew exactly the science behind it. He’d memorized every word of it when he’d had to type it for the fucking website he’d built for his company! Genetics were just weird and siblings could lean more towards one parent or the other, and some people showed some physical characteristics as a side effect, but most didn’t, and trends existed partially because people genetically sought out those trends and bred them into commonality, and he was no more or less penguin than anyone else! That was the fucking truth!
Upset now about many things, Jungkook stormed off. Sorry to wake that asshole up in the middle of the day, but it was an emergency. The guy couldn’t even kindly confirm Rana was ok, he just waved his hands and quoted Edgar Allen Poe and acted like Rana was some unpredictable loose canon and that being alive was enough for someone like Rana. She actually wasn’t that unpredictable! Right? She commuted at the same time each day, she ate lunch at the same time each day, she responded to texts with alarming speed, and made art to sell in the shop window that she was really proud of.
Fulton. Er, Kim Seokjin. He was the unpredictable piece here.
Jungkook once again ignored everyone, barreling through the corvids blocking his path like they were pins in a bowling lane. He didn’t care about their indignant shrieks, he doubted a single one of them cared that Rana had lost her job or might be in trouble because of Kim Seokjin or might never speak to Jungkook again.
“Watch where you’re going, pengo,” one shouted at him.
“Stop clogging up the walkways,” he shouted back and squared his chest and didn’t stop walking. No one chased him. Not worth a fight, not worth a text response, not worth a damn.
He didn’t slow until he’d reached his familiar cafe, and ordered a familiar drink, and slumped down into his favorite sheltered table with his messenger bag flung across the table for good anti-social measure. Then he whipped out his phone and immediately searched for–
Well his first thought had been to see if he could find a phone number for Kim Seokjin and call and demand to know what he’d done with Rana. But in the soothing noise of the cafe, Jungkook caught his breath and thought this through.
What if she and Kim Seokjin were fucking? No, dating? He’d never gotten a straight answer about that. Why else would a guy give a girl a gift like that bag? He’d crashed that date and she said he had saved her but he’d never quite understood that whole arrangement and wasn’t sure he believed Rana about it, that it was some unwanted date. Kim Seokjin had not seemed as surprised or upset as he would be –had been– when a girl dove away mid-date. He’d even given Rana a bag afterwards.
So he just searched for Kim Seokjin, to see what he could find to either fuel or soothe his fears.
So much. Way more than should be easy to find on the internet, the guy clearly didn’t have a brain about privacy. He had multiple public social media profiles including a YouTube channel where he just ate shit and it had an obscene number of subscribers. Probably because he was handsome, which was stupid but Jungkook understood that’s how the world worked. It made sense that Kim Seokjin was handsome, because he came from money. Who knew that fucking shoe parts could pay so well? But there were multiple articles early in the search results about the family business, an eccentric grandfather, very stern looking parents, and bespectacled, scrawny Kim Seokjin standing in between two brothers, of which he was the shortest. It was an old photo, he definitely looked younger than the man Jungkook had seen in the park with Rana. There were newer articles but he didn’t actually give a shit about the family business, he just wanted to know if Rana was dating a serial killer or something. Like, a pigeon? He didn’t want to be specist but like, a pigeon– fuck, Rana liked food so much. That was something they must have in common.
On a whim, he jumped back to the YouTube channel and actually scrolled down this time. Kim Seokjin tried food from all over the world, apparently. Lots of Korean food of course, the family business had started in Korea and then internationally, Jungkook unfortunately knew from the articles he’d pretended not to read.
“There!” he shouted, jostling his latte so that some spilled into the little saucer it rested on. He didn’t bother to see if anyone looked at him, he didn’t care. Seeing Rana in the thumbnail of a video was like finding a critical clue, even though the video was months old. He debated scrolling back further but decided to plug in headphones and watch this one instead.
“Annyeong. Welcome to a new episode of Eat Jin. Today we have my very good friend Rana with us. You know her if you have seen my videos before–” Jungkook felt like the latte wasn’t sitting right in his stomach and shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair. “Today Rana is going to walk us through making some traditional Moroccan food. Are you Moroccan, Rana?” he said this like it was an inside joke, and she gave him a playful glare.
“Yes, I’m Moroccan. I grew up between there and New York City, as you know.”
Jungkook hadn’t known that. Well, he’d known she was Moroccan, but not that she’d actually partly grown up there, nor that New York was another place she’d lived. She didn’t talk about her childhood and he didn’t ask. Apparently she’d tell the internet though! He flushed with a mixture of jealousy and discomfort, because he wanted to know these things but maybe it was intentional Rana hadn’t told him. It felt weird to learn them from a YouTube video. How would he cover himself when he inevitably let slip someday that he already knew this about her?!
Anyway, the video was thirty minutes! That was too long. He shouldn’t watch this any more than he had to, especially with an upset stomach. He kept scrubbing ahead, pausing to watch when the thumbnail showed primarily Rana in the camera. She had on a bright yellow apron and her hair tied back with a pretty blue scarf, long earrings swaying as she worked. Cooking! He had thought she couldn’t cook at all but had to admit she looked pretty comfortable doing what she was doing as she chopped and simmered and dumped copious amounts of spices into a big clay pot.
He jumped ahead towards the end, where the two of them sat at a natural wood table by a window with low lights and ate the things they had made. It looked like a date. He had literally uploaded a video of them on a date! He started playing again just as Seokjin was making incredibly inappropriate moaning noises as Rana giggled and explained,
“We didn’t have time to make the bread from scratch to eat with the zalouk but that’s really the best way to eat it, with maybe khobz.”
“And this couscous, this is the second time we’ve made something with this.”
“Yeah, there’s so much you can do, couscous is a big deal. It’s usually for a special occasion but you can also just eat it whenever. Food rules are stupid.” It looked so fucking good. Jungkook stared at their table with envy. He’d never had Moroccan food and now that he knew apparently Rana was some bigtime YouTube cook, it pissed him off. Why hadn’t she offered to cook Moroccan food for him or something in exchange for deporning his computer?? She hadn’t ever brought Moroccan food for lunch. He didn’t even know if any of the good things she brought from home were things she made or things she stole. Though, granted, he couldn’t envision her doing much in that little shity basement kitchen…
“Rana, why don’t you tell them what you suggested we make today? We didn’t–”
“Ok, no, hey–”
“No I think we need to air this–”
“It wasn’t about you!” she cried.
“But did you think to yourself that I’m a pigeon? Was that the joke?”
“Ok, ok,” she sighed, and gave the camera a look. She was a natural! They were so at ease with each other, and Jungkook felt like she was looking right through the camera to give him that playfully annoyed look. And he ached.
“I suggested we make bastilla, which is pigeon pie,” she told the camera while Jin threw his hands up.
“You could have suggested it with chicken!” Seokjin said. “That’s what’s more common now!” What? What the fuck did he know about Moroccan food?
Rana giggled, “Yeah, I wanted to piss you off, it’s funny. We can make spicy sardines next time instead.”
Jungkook hated this. He closed the video, desperate but incapable of watching more. Not only was he not Rana’s only friend, she was clearly very close with Kim Seokjin. He had wanted to find proof that this rich spoiled guy was way too straight-laced for her or an outright threat he could go to the police over, and instead he was clearly the perfect fucking match for her. Probably she’d gone running to him when Jungkook was an asshole and when she lost her job. Probably he was buying her a nice fancy apartment, some penthouse suite where she could have all the light and windows and a big fancy kitchen and live her best life and never have to answer a phone about an insurance claim again.
He was worrying over nothing. Rana hated him and was avoiding him and she had someone else to take care of her anyway. He was wasting his time. She didn’t need or want him. He threw out the rest of his latte and went straight to the gym.
No, panic mode activated again. Because during his time at the gym, Jungkook’s phone had lit up and he’d made a dive for it to see not a message from Rana but an alert for Kim Seokjin’s channel. He’d uploaded another video. Maybe Jungkook had subscribed, just to see if Rana would appear again. If they were living together, she would, right? She’d at least be off camera! Granted, he didn’t know when this video was recorded, and it was some Icelandic food, so he wasn’t interested. Well, a little interested because there was mackerel in it but really he just wanted to taste Rana’s spicy sardines.
What else did Moroccans eat? He couldn’t stand to google it right now because he realized Moroccan food was just always going to make him think of Rana now and his failed friendship. He’d been so glad when a Korean food kiosk opened in the atrium, he hadn’t even thought about how Rana would have liked a Moroccan food one. They could have shared her cultural food too. He’d probably like it!
What if Rana wasn’t with Seokjin? Or what if she was, but she wasn’t happy? Or what if she was happy but she still deserved to hear Jungkook say he was sorry about lying and accusing her of stealing his egg?
He knew that last one to be true, and pondered it as he dragged himself home after his workout. He had to get a message to her. A final message. Even if she didn’t engage, at least he could know that she knew he regretted this and he’d live with that. He didn’t want to live with that but lots of things happened that Jungkook didn’t want and you would think by now he’d know just to go with the current because he just wasn’t the fucking strongest swimmer even though he tried.
“Hey man, you ok?” Taehyung asked when he walked through the door, gaze fixated on the toe of his boots.
“Yeah.”
“Awww, chickie had a bad day,” Chad snickered.
“I know what will cheer you up,” Steven announced. “I’ll make sure to thank you this time when you cook for me.”
“Fuck off,” Jungkook simply answered and trudged past them. He wasn’t surprised Taehyung followed him, and he had a brief moment in which he thought about asking his friend for help.
But then he remembered the fight they’d had, and Taehyung insisting that Rana was his mate, and how certain he was that it wasn't true. And hopefully it wasn’t fucking true! Because she was never going to talk to him again. Maybe if Taehyung hadn’t said that, he wouldn’t have been so stressed and nervous and defensive and–
No, no, what was he almost admitting right now? Nothing! There was nothing to admit! Yes, he had regrets if his friendship with Rana was over because she was kind of the best thing that had happened in his life in… a long time…
“Hey. You want to talk or–”
“No,” Jungkook said, slumping down in his chair. He threw his phone on the desk, only for it to suddenly chirp. He dove forward, heart leaping like it kept doing despite knowing it wouldn’t be Rana. It wasn’t. It was an alert for PattyPussy25. “Cam girl time,” he said, gesturing to his phone. “Can you close the door?”
Taehyung gave him a long look, then shook his head and did so. It was unusual for Taehyung not to speak his mind. Jungkook was grateful for it this time.
So grateful in fact that he really did pull her profile up on his desktop, listening to her opening chatter as he put his egg away and shed his gym clothes, and debated whether to shower before or after. After. He’d feel better after he came, right?
He realized he hadn’t been listening to Patty at all. He flopped down in his desk chair, ass naked, and pulled the tissues and lube out of his drawer. There was no excitement to the action though, just resignation. This was a thing he did, he jacked off to cam girls because he sucked with real women. He jacked off to cam girls because for a few minutes he could step outside himself and just let his mind drift away from everything except friction and the pursuit of private pleasure. He jacked off to cam girls because it was about the only thing in his life that felt good.
The lube was cold in his hand but he didn’t bother warming it up since he was still soft anyway. He rubbed and tugged and palmed as he watched Patty show off her lingerie and wriggle her ass and rub her own nipples. He couldn’t remember the color of the lingerie, he realized every few seconds. He wasn’t getting any harder. He knew what could get him hard right now, but thinking about– no, that time with Rana was protected behind a very important wall of ice right now. He could not chip at that, not even to get off, because that pleasure right now was connected to the painful reality that it was a once in a lifetime thing. Well, with Rana. But probably overall because he wasn’t sure sex was actually that good for anyone ever. Porn stars were faking it. The women he’d been with were fine and he’d thought they were good, but the way Rana had rolled together with him while they kissed–
Now he was hard and angry about it. He turned Patty’s obnoxious voice off and closed the browser window and blinked at his reflection on the black background of his desktop. He kept it organized, but one icon was out of place, and he fixated on it as he wiped his hands off and ignored his throbbing dick. It could shut the fuck up right now, he had said not to think about Rana– even though Rana seemed to be all he could think about right now. Which, combined with noticing this recently installed app on his computer gave him an idea.
The odds of this working were slim. The way the fates would have to align was something that didn’t happen in Jungkook’s life. Rana would have to be sitting at her computer, with it on and connected to the internet, and overcome her aversion to talking to him.
‘Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please’ would like Remote Desktop Control of ‘rana-pc’. Allow remote desktop access?
Jungkook grabbed his egg and clutched it against his mouth as a tiny wheel spun: “Trying to connect…”
*Blip*
Remote Desktop Control Access granted.
Rana’s desktop opened in a window on his screen, along with a chat bar on the side. For a moment his heart stuttered, certain this meant someone had gained illegal access to her apartment, because that made more sense to him that she would just grant him remote access control of the personal computer she’d been antsy about him looking at while she was right there beside him. Before she hated him.
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: rana?
Rana-pc: why are you remoting into my computer
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: i need to talk to you and you’re ignoring my texts and calls
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I’ve left you a lot of voicemails
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I know I fucked up with the symphony date and thinking you took my egg and I want to apologize and talk to you
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: and now I know you got fired! Are you ok? I am worried about you lately
He froze, fingers on the keys as he read back his own rapid messages. Was that right? Should he be more grovely from the start? Frankly he didn’t even care anymore about defending himself or anything. He’d apologize for fucking anything at this point, if she wanted more apology than that.
Rana-pc: how told you I got fired?
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: marisol
Rana-pc: if I tell you I didn’t get fired who will you believe?
Rana-pc: Marisol
Rana-pc: it’s fine, she’s your girlfriend you should believe her
Rana-pc: but I don’t know why you want to talk to me then
His brow lowered and his hands rested on the keys. Huh?
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: you didn’t get fired??
Rana-pc: my phone got stolen by someone in my building I think
Rana-pc: yes I can see the irony but I’m still pissed about it. it was kind of new and expensive
Oh! Her phone got stolen! Thank fuck! Relief crashed over Jungkook. So she wasn’t ignoring or avoiding him! He’d never been so grateful for theft in his life.
Rana-pc: but even if I still had it I would have ignored your calls
Well fuck.
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: then why did you let me remote in?
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: please don’t boot me
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I know you’re mad at me and I’ve been an asshole but I can’t apologize if you don’t talk to me!
Rana-pc: you want to apologize for the wrong reasons
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: what’s the wrong reason??
Rana-pc: whatever has you being such a pain in the ass just because you couldn’t talk to me for a couple days
Rana-pc: are you just not used to people being mad at you? You won’t die from it
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I’m used to people being mad at me or hating me or whatever I’m just not used to caring
It was a lie. He always cared so much. Just because he’d come to view it as inevitable didn’t mean it didn’t always kill him.
Rana-pc: is Marisol mad at you and that’s why you want to talk to me?
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: this has nothing to do with marisol! I don’t want to talk to her right now
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: she lied to me about you getting fired?
Rana-pc: oh no
Rana-pc: doubt?
Rana-pc: you can’t doubt your girlfriend, pingu!
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: she’s not my girlfriend
She didn’t say anything to that. He stared at the chat box against her background. He hadn’t looked at it before, buried behind a million files. But now with the click of a button he could make the icons temporarily disappear to reveal the full image: a pair of jackdaws perched on a branch, preening each other. Weirdly dark-colored and simple and literal for what he would have expected Rana’s background to be and because of that it felt weirdly personal.
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I’m sorry that I lied about the symphony date and I’m sorry I accused you of stealing my egg and I’m sorry I can be kind of an asshole
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: if you really don’t want to ever talk to me again I get it and I won’t keep bothering you
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I just wanted to make sure you’re ok and you’re not going to lose your apartment or something because you aren’t working. I can spot you the money if you need until you find a new job
Rana-pc: it really doesn’t matter
Rana-pc: I’m glad you found what you’re looking for. Told you I’m good at helping people find things!
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: what do yo umean it doesn’t matter? You have to pay bills and eat food and have someplace to sleep!
Rana-pc: you found what you’re looking for and now I want to go find what I’m looking for too
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I can help
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: and thank you for finding my egg I didn’t say thank you yet. tHANK YOU! I mean it!!
Rana-pc: no you really can’t
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I can help you find a job
Rana-pc: that’s not what I meant and I wasn’t talking about your egg either!
Rana-pc: how can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?
Rana-pc: I’ve never met anyone like you! You’re infuriating!!!!
Jungkook’s eyes went wide. He could feel the emotion coming through her messages and was stunned. It made him really think about her on the other end of this chat, really upset. For some reason he pictured her just cool and casual, sitting in her desk chair, eating a bowl of noodles or something. But what if she wasn’t like that at all and she was really upset right now?
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: you can yell at me in person if you want
Rana-pc: tempting but it would go in one ear, rattle the eggs in your skull, and out the other
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I want to tell you about my egg
Fuck. He didn’t know why he’d typed that. He felt like he had no control over this conversation and at any second she was going to reject his access to her, and he’d be right back where he started. The thought of her cutting him off right now had him sweating, it made him want to cry, it made pain bloom in his skull.
For an excruciatingly long time there was no response.
Rana-pc: tell marisol I’m sure she wants to hear
Its-jk-please-talk-to-me-please: I don’t want to
Another long pause. He watched the minute change on the clock in the lower corner of Rana’s computer. Her clock was ahead of his by a few seconds. A moment later his clock changed.
Rana-pc: fine meet me at the fountain in the park in 20 minutes
‘Rana-pc’ has ended Remote Desktop Control Access.
Jungkook pushed back from his desk and then had the startling realization he was still absolutely naked, sticky with lube. And he had twenty minutes to meet her at the fountain.
***
He was late. Only five minutes late, but he didn’t know how strict Rana would be about the time, so he sprinted from the bus stop through the park, cutting across the lawn and up the hill because it was faster than sticking on the path.
She waited for him at the top of the hill, standing on a bench. It was clear she’d just watched his rapid dash. She had a bright red beanie on, and her coat zipped up, and a pink scarf wrapped around her chin, disappearing under the blanket of her hair. Her hands were in her pockets. All he could see were her eyes and the bridge of her nose and her curls.
He saw her. He recognized her. Literally, yes, this was Rana and she was standing there. But he slid on the gravel as he stopped running and stared at her and felt… warmth blossom out to the tips of his fingers and toes. Comfort. Peace. It was exactly like when he’d found his egg except times a hundred. He felt the urge to throw his arms around her because she was right there and he wanted to have the right to do that. He needed to do it, just wrap himself around her and feel certain she was there and safe and solid and close to him again.
But he didn’t.
“Well?” she said finally, when a weirdly long time had passed and he didn’t know what the fuck to say because his brain was scrambled eggs right now and he wasn’t sure he could form words.
“Why did you quit your job?” was what tumbled out.
Condensation rushed from her mouth in warm huff and he felt the terrifying urge to swallow it, to just lean forward and pull that breath into his own lungs and give her his, and bundle her up in whatever warmth he could give her.
“Don’t you mean ‘why was I fired’?”
“No.”
“Well it doesn’t matter. I quit. I’ll go get my stuff later this week or whatever–”
“I can bring it to you,” he offered, because it was a connection, a promise of another point of contact, a guarantee that this wasn’t the last chance he had to… to what? To impress her? To apologize? To feel this warmth that for the first time in his life felt better than the cold?
“I thought you wanted to tell me about your egg, not grill me on my career.”
“Uh yeah, if you actually want to know,” he said, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. “Um… Do you want me to say I’m sorry again first or–” He broke off when she turned away, but she just moved back to sit on the bench and pulled her feet up. She wasn’t wearing boots, which seemed stupid.
“No, just tell me. Can I hold it?”
He hesitated and she saw it and frowned. He couldn’t even see her mouth but he could tell by the way her head lowered and her eyes flickered.
“It’s not about the egg, Rana.”
“Fine, I figured you were just using that as a trick to lure me out here– is Marisol going to come running up here in a minute too? Have a good gloat?”
“No, I mean, I am going to tell you about my egg, it’s just… it is and isn’t about the egg.”
He sat beside her on the bench and pulled it from the warm pouch of his coat and set it in her outstretched hand. She wasn’t wearing gloves either so unlikely to drop it. Still, he appreciated that she pulled her other hand out too and rolled the egg carefully around, studying it from all sides as if she hadn’t seen it closely before. Her nail scratched against the embossed letters and design, just like his always did. Her nails weren’t painted but they were shiny and clean, the kind of nails that looked good curved around your hand when you held hands or kissed her knuckles. Not that Jungkook had ever done those kinds of things but he could see it.
“My mom is the mayor of the town I grew up in,” he said. “She’s in her second term right now. She was always in politics. My town is basically all penguins. Everyone. It’s the biggest single concentration of penguins anywhere in the world –I mean of human penguins, not actual penguins.”
“Never would have guessed you grew up completely surrounded by penguins…” she mumbled.
He ignored the barb and continued, “I never fit in.” He waited, but no second barb came. “I don’t look like a penguin. I don’t act like a penguin. I’m… awkward and weird and–”
“I don’t like when you talk about yourself like that,” she interrupted. At his startled look, she added, “Even when I’m mad at you. You say ‘weird’ like it’s a bad word.”
“Uh, well…” Fuck, that made him feel warm and gooey and that wasn’t welcome right now because he just wanted to get through this. “I just mean, I didn’t really have any friends or anything, which was extra bad because my parents were politicians and we were supposed to be this like perfect penguin family so my mom could get elected.”
“Your parents weren’t kind to you?”
“My dad was,” he said. “My mom wasn’t… uh… I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to be objective about it. I wasn’t the kind of son she wanted, you know? Is that her fault or my–”
“It’s her fault. Children shouldn’t have to earn being loved and wanted.”
“Ok well… but I mean she always wanted the best for me and for a penguin that’s…”
“A penguin mate.”
“Blending in,” he corrected. “Belonging. A lone penguin doesn’t last long.”
“You aren’t really a penguin though, Jungkook.”
“People don’t last long when they’re alone either.” He expected her to argue and point out she was alone and doing fine. But then again, she wasn’t alone. She had Kim Seokjin and Yannick and who knew how many other people Jungkook didn’t even know about. “So,” he continued. “I tried to fit in and do everything but I was just… weird. But it’s not my fault.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being weird. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault–”
“It’s my dad’s fault,” he interrupted because he couldn’t stand for her to comfort or defend him right now. He rushed on, “My parents were busy a lot and they’d travel for stuff, like they got invited to things at the White House a lot.”
“So not just local politicians. Your parents are real politicians.”
“Yeah, exactly. When they got back from the White House Easter dinner one year, my dad gave me this egg and told me ‘see ya around’ and left.”
“Left left?”
“Yeah,” Jungkook said, looking at the egg in her hand. “It wasn’t even 2004. It wasn’t even the egg from that year. It was 2008. I thought it was just some old thing he had in his briefcase or something that he gave me so he wouldn’t have to admit they didn’t get me a souvenir in the airport like they usually did. So I went to school but when I got home, all of his stuff was gone. I never saw him after that which –I mean, I thought he was a good dad before that, so I thought he loved me even if he worked a lot. You’d think he would at least call sometimes or reach out when I grew up or something, right? I’ve never heard from him again since then.”
“I’m sorry, Jungkook.”
He shook his head, “Nah, that’s not– it took a couple years before I knew why he left. I thought maybe I was just too embarrassing of a son and my mom never wanted to say anything about it. She remarried really fast, this really obnoxious guy who worked in her office. One day she got really pissed at me though, I don’t even remember what I was doing wrong, but she told me– ah.” Rana was going to get a kick out of this, he knew it. He hadn’t even told Taehyung this part yet. He flushed with the same of something he hadn’t even admitted yet. Only knowing that Rana was probably not going to give a shit other than to tease him about it made him feel like he could say it now.
Rana handed him the egg, “Do you want to hold it again?” Wordlessly he took it, but he really wanted to hold her hand. Instead he clenched the egg in his lap and admitted, “My dad wasn’t a full penguin. He lied to my mom and to everyone.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m not pure penguin,” he reiterated. “My dad always said his dad was dead and that was it. My grandma never said anything. But actually, she’d married a song sparrow.”
“A song sparrow,” Rana repeated quietly.
“They’re really common,” he reiterated. “Just these little brown and white birds–”
“They’re song birds.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you sing?”
He frowned, “Not in front of people.” Her smile reached her eyes and left him frozen for a heartbeat.
“Ok, I’m not people, sing me a song.”
“That’s specist.”
“No it’s not! You said there’s often music playing in your head, so sing along to whatever is in there right now–”
“There’s no music in my head right now,” he admitted. “It’s been mostly quiet in there since…” Since the symphony. Quickly he continued, “Anyway, the point is, I realized my dad didn’t just leave, my mom made him. I don’t know how she suddenly found out but she definitely didn’t know and once I knew…”
“She swore you to secrecy?”
“She didn’t have to,” he clarified. “Everyone already thought I was weird. If they knew I wasn’t even a full penguin…”
“They’re really that shitty, huh?”
“I’m that shitty too,” he pointed out.
“Yeah.” At his immediate pout, she shrugged, “So what, you think that if you find a penguin mate, suddenly you’ll fit in with all those people?”
“I could see it in the way my mom looked at me. Every time I did anything wrong, she’d say I got that from my dad. Every time I didn’t fit in, just like my dad. I was just this constant disappointment to her no matter how hard I tried to be a penguin. I left so she could get elected without me looking stupid next to her and it worked. So I haven’t been back since. I told her I’d bring home a good penguin mate–”
“And then she’ll finally think you’re good enough? You’re already good enough, Jungkook. Literally everyone in that town sucks and your mom is the mayor of sucking. You shouldn’t need a mate to help you fit in, and that’s shitty on your mate too! Marisol has to help you blend in somewhere the people don’t even like you? That sucks for everyone! I can’t believe you want to suck even more!”
“It’s not just about them,” he insisted. “I mean yeah, I’d like my mom to be proud. But it’s about… about having the thing no one thinks I’m capable of. Birds of a feather flock together for a reason. The happiest possible life for me is with a penguin woman so I can finally feel like I belong with my own kind and our kids will be even more penguin than I am and never know what it was like to not belong and–”
“You have it all planned out,” she said, as if she didn’t already know that. “But what if penguins aren’t your bird to flock with? What if your kids didn’t want to fit in with penguins? What if you should be looking for a song bird mate, huh? Or a mate who just likes the same things you do? A mate who already thinks you’re good enough? A mate who…” She broke off and leaned forward, pressing her hands to her face. Jungkook felt hypothermic after telling her all of this, his big dark secret, and so his response was delayed.
“Rana?” He set his hand on her back, not sure if he would crowd her by doing more than that. Penguins liked crowding; jackdaws didn’t. He didn’t think so at least…
She pushed up from the bench and let out a sigh of fog into the cold air. Her eyes were glassy but she didn’t look like she was crying so he couldn’t tell if it was emotion or just the cold.
“It’s a really sad story,” she said. “So you carry your egg around to…”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“To be a good penguin taking care of the egg your dad entrusted you with? Or as a reminder of eyes on the prize, that your dream is to make some pure penguin babies with whatever penguin woman is radical enough to love you?”
Her words hurt, but he deserved it, he felt like. He looked down at the egg, admitting again, “I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like the egg is the only thing proving I’m a penguin. Sometimes it’s just that it’s the only thing I have left from my dad. Sometimes it’s because… I don’t know. It’s like this paperweight from the White House. No one wanted this. What happens to if I don’t have it? It’s pretty until you get to the ugly etching of the White House. Someone else would just throw it in the trash.” He shrugged and tucked it away again. She was standing so she was about to leave. This was the end, now she knew the great big mystery of why Jungkook Jeon was an asshole who only wanted a penguin mate, because he was hung up on this stupid idea that if he did the things he was raised to believe were right, he would finally be happy.
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Lots of people can tell you aren’t trash,” she continued. “If you’d stop treating non-penguins like we aren’t worth your time.”
“You aren’t a good judge of trash. You make art out of–”
“I see the beauty and the potential in things other people are too busy to actually fucking look at. People treat each other that way all the time, it’s not just you. You saw those bells dangling in a tree and even though your friends said it was trash, you climbed to get them down, you told me that.”
“Yeah but… but because I knew you could use them–”
“Yeah, so maybe I’m not the problem, maybe it’s everyone else,” she interrupted, voice raised. “Did you ever think about that? Maybe people are too quick to make decisions like that and decide that just because something isn’t useful or appealing to them, that it belongs in the trash. Isn’t that what you’re saying too? You aren’t trash, Jungkook, but a penguin mate is probably not going to fix the part of you that doesn’t feel good enough for fucking shitbag people. You should stop trying to fix a broken egg, Jungkook. Let it hatch, even if it’s not a perfect penguin inside.”
Her metaphor overwhelmed him and so all he could do was stare. Let it hatch. What the fuck! It was the best fucking metaphor he’d ever heard for what she was trying to tell him and she’d just said it like that, she’d just pulled that out of her ass. She really was an artist, huh? To take this stupid sob story he’d told her and his tacky souvenir egg and twist it into some life metaphor like that.
He swallowed and tried to compose himself to explain, “Penguin chicks have to stay in their creche–”
“You have a creche,” she interrupted. “All those dudes you go to bars and parties and the symphony with. Yoongi and Taehyung.”
“And you?”
She actually laughed, but it was that distant laugh again. She turned and a breeze tugged at her hair.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, Jungkook. I know I fucked up too.”
“Huh?”
She crossed her arms and looked anywhere but him as she said, “I got carried away. I see that now. I just– it felt like you were returning the little– the gestures and moments and I just got wrapped up in my head that it all meant something. That when you invited me over to fuck, it meant more than that and you were just doing that grumpy shy thing about admitting it. And the symphony… I thought we had talked about it but we were having different conversations. I saw what I wanted to see.”
“If this is about Marisol–”
“I can’t talk to you about Marisol,” she said and looked briefly angry. “Because she’s your shot at happiness, right? You still believe that. You don’t want to hear what I’m going to say about her anymore than you want to accept that your mom is a piece of shit so.” She threw her hands up. “I wish you all the best. I really, really do. Sorry I made things weird but hey, you won’t run into me again–”
“But that’s not what I want,” he insisted, standing because it was cold and he felt too vulnerable sitting and because he felt like he might have to chase after her if she flew off mid-sentence.
“Well I have to look out for myself,” she argued. “This has all been so fucking embarrassing and– and it just has sucked so–”
“What’s embarrassing?” he asked. He suspected her answer but also found himself not sure he could predict. “I’m the one embarrassed. I lied and got caught. I fucked over my friend because a penguin woman gave me the time of day. I–”
“Was I ever even your friend?”
“Well… yeah. What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, sighing, shaking her head. “I don’t know how I was so fucking stupid. I mean, I misread the signs so bad– and I’m all wrong for you. Typical Rana. I see something I want and I go for it and I just pretend I can’t read the warning signs and–”
“But I like that about you.”
“You don’t know anything about me. You assign people roles, and I was assigned the role of lunch buddy. You let me out of that for a little bit because I was willing to do the egg sex thing and then you wanted me to go neatly back into my little box but I don’t live in a box. I couldn’t be any of the things my parents wanted of me either, so I understand that’s disappointing for you, but unlike you, I refuse to be anyone but myself.”
“That’s good!”
“But not good enough for you,” she snapped. “So just… whatever. But I’m tired of that job, and I’m tired of your girlfriend, and– and it’s not like I could have been literally any of the things you were looking for, so you don’t need to feel bad, I guess. It’s not your fault. You made clear what you were looking for from the beginning. You were never subtle about that. I guess I really was a magpie just flying stupidly at something shiny after all… right into a fucking window…”
“What shiny thing?” he asked, a hand impulsively lifting to the earrings in his ear.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not a penguin, I don’t have a family to give you because I quit mine. You don’t think of me in any special way. And shit, you know what? I can’t even have children. I couldn’t make literally any part of your dreams come true–”
“You can’t?” The information shocked him, not because he wasn’t used to seeing and hearing people who couldn’t but because he hadn’t really thought of Rana in that context.
“I had a hysterectomy for a medical thing so yeah, that whole thing is closed off to me–”
“Do you still have your ovaries?”
“What?”
At her sharp look, he quickly waved his hands and clarified, “I just mean if you want kids and you still have your ovaries, you could harvest the eggs and use a surrogate. Or you could adopt! Or–”
“What are you even saying right now?! You’re that obsessed with eggs–”
“What?!”
“Why do you even know that–”
“Ah!” In her look of horror, he realized how fucking weird he sounded right now. “I work for a fertility clinic!” he cried. “You don’t know what company I work for? My company does egg freezing and stuff like that– I didn’t work there because of the eggs! It’s just the place that was hiring…” And, because he couldn’t help it, he added, “How dare you accuse me of taking that job like I have some weird egg fetish…” He trailed off. Ok. Ok that wasn’t really funny, he kinda had been an asshole to assume that just because he lost his egg, she’d stolen it…
“Oh.” She looked at him a moment longer, then dropped her gaze. “I didn’t actually know what company you worked for. You never said.”
“I guess I thought you knew. You knew my name before we met.”
“I just thought you were hot,” she shrugged.
“Oh.”
They stood there a moment. That had been weird to say, he realized that now. To try and fix it, he clarified,
“I’m not like obsessed with having kids or anything. It’s just… what you’re supposed to do, right? Go to college, get a job, get a mate, buy a house, have kids.”
“I don’t think I want kids,” she said. “I want a dog.”
“You should get a dog then.”
“I can’t afford it, I don’t have a job. And I live in a basement,” she pointed out. “A dog deserves better than that.”
“So do you.”
She shrugged, “It’s whatever. Maybe I’ll move. You aren’t the only one with species expectations. I thought it would be more progressive here, but people still shit on you if you’re an unmated jackdaw too. I don’t care but I wouldn’t want people harassing my dog.”
“Yeah corvids are shitty. Almost as bad as penguins”
“They are,” she snorted, nodding, curls bouncing. She sniffled and he felt that panic again because he couldn’t tell if she was crying or just cold. They’d been outside for a long time now and it was very cold.
“But not you,” he clarified. “Maybe you aren’t a pure corvid.”
“Unfortunately I am as purebred as they come,” she sighed.
“Oh yeah?”
“You never googled me, huh?” Her head tilted, then she closed her eyes. “Guess that should have been a clue you didn’t really care either.”
“It’s not that I don’t care,” he said. “Do you mean there’s something to find if I google you?”
“Nah, it’s not important, just about my family.”
“I didn’t think about that,” he admitted. “I mean, looking into you or anything. You just seem so…” Her eyebrows lifted, mouth open in a sad smile. She was misunderstanding, he could see that. In the worst way this time though. “Honest. Or um, complete.”
“An honest thief, huh?”
“I think you’re always honest with me.” He hadn’t really thought that until just that moment, but he could see it now. He felt like that was true. Was it? Or was he a naive idiot? She didn’t steal from him, he didn’t think she lied to him either though she might not tell him where the lunch she was sharing came from, and Rana was exactly what she showed to the world. None of this hair-dying, dieting, bulky sweater wearing that he did trying to be someone he just wasn’t.
“I thought I was.” Her voice sounded so soft. He missed the volume. The softness scared him right now because she sounded small and he didn’t want her to feel small.
“It’s not that I don’t want to know more about you, I just want to hear it from you. Not the internet or… other people.”
“All you had to do was ask. You just never asked me very much,” she shrugged. And sniffled. “But not tonight. I’m cold and I need to go home. I didn’t mean to stay out this long.”
“Sorry. I know it’s cold, we should have met somewhere inside–”
“No, I thought it was good if the cold kept this… short,” she admitted. “No reason to drag it out.”
“To drag what out?” he frowned.
“Goodbye, Jungkook.”
The physical gut punch of it was awful, almost as awful as her smile and little finger wave. She turned and began to walk away before he’d recovered from the ice water she’d plunged him into with that abrupt line. He’d told her about his family and she’d accepted all of that. She wasn’t at all bothered he was part common sparrow and the truth was he hadn’t expected her to be. She was walking away and the glow that was Rana was leaving his life and he would have been even stupider than he already knew he was if he didn’t understand what he was about to lose.
And for what? A dream that, even when he could almost imagine it with Marisol, didn’t make him nearly as happy as lunch in the atrium with Rana.
“Rana!” he called after her, beginning to move. “Is Kim Seokjin your boyfriend?”
“NO, you birdbrain. Don’t ask me stupid questions.”
It was a stupid question. He knew that. In the face of everything, he knew it sounded stupid and juvenile but he needed to know because if that was a thing Rana was pursuing then he needed to know. He didn’t want to misunderstand. He didn’t want to fuck things up with her again. He didn’t want to have to wonder again if she was crying and if it was his fault.
“Rana!”
“What?” He reached her just as she turned to him; he took her arms, crashing perfectly against her.
“Rana.”
“What.”
He lifted his hands to her jaw, tucking them under her scarf. She didn’t pull away and her eyes were dark in the moonlight and he was going to kiss her. He needed to kiss her. He needed to keep her from walking out of his life like this because happiness looked like Rana
He needed to kiss her but he chickened out just as his nose touched hers. She hadn’t pulled away, which was more than he had expected, and so he just hovered there, frozen noses brushing against each other.
“Jungkook,” she whispered.
“I want to hatch, Rana. It’s just scary.”
Her hand circled his wrist but didn’t pull it away.
“I know. And penguins aren’t exactly known for bravery–”
“Ok I’m not entirely penguin though,” he scoffed and pressed his mouth to hers because he was not about to lose Rana because he was afraid. He couldn’t. Taehyung was right, Yoongi was right, Rana was right, his own heart pounding in his chest was right. Her nose was cold but her lips and mouth were warm, shielded by the scarf his fingers pushed out of the way. Soft. A spicy sweetness on her tongue. Jungkook’s soul sang at the embrace, like he couldn’t draw her close enough. He kissed her and clung to her, feeling at peace for the moment with an unknown but Rana-filled future.
“I know more than I have ever possibly wanted to know about penguins,” she murmured against his chin, voice low and quiet but not sad sounding at all, a side of Rana not often seen. Even though she was ruffling him, which was beautifully familiar.
“I’d never even heard of a jackdaw.”
“Do all non-penguins look the same to you?”
“Not this one,” he admitted, and kissed her forehead impulsively, because she hadn’t pulled away, and she’d kissed him back, and she was teasing him again. She smelled so good. He kissed the end of her nose. He thought of the food she’d cooked and thought of more questions but also he didn’t want to think of anything right now except this. He kissed her chin then nudged it higher, burying his face in the warm pocket between her neck and hair, and kissed there too.
The sound Rana made sent a shiver straight down his back. Somewhere between a whine and a moan and a chirp. She immediately leapt back and covered her mouth with her hands and laughed.
“Oh my god!”
“That…. Um…”
“No, wait, tell me–”
“I look forward to learning more about whatever just caused that noise,” he laughed. Hadn’t he kissed her neck during sex? Had he not? She’d made so many wonderful noises but not that one. Was Rana a treasure trove of noises that would just instantly connect his heart and his dick like that?
She waved her hands frantically at him, like little angry wings, and said, “No! Enough about that. You tell me what the fuck that meant.”
“The noise–”
“NO! The– the kiss. Why did you kiss me? And be direct because I’ve been confused by you before–”
“Yeah you weren’t the confused one,” he said, taking her arms because she was too far away again. He got shy though and looked to the side, pursing his lips. Fuck, vulnerability was scary. He could only do that with Rana. He realized that now. “Sorry… I also… I guess I made it kind of confusing…” He felt like he ought to apologize for the things he’d said to her and about her and thought about her, seeing in them now a blind, reckless defensiveness. He’d thrashed at what he didn’t understand. “I owe you a lot of apologies…”
“But what does it mean, Jungkook?”
“It means I just want you.”
She smiled and just looked at a moment, the smile radiating all the way up through that starry gaze of hers.
She leaned in, brushed her cold nose against his jaw, and answered “Ok. You can pay your debt in kisses. Better get started.” Ah, shit, was Rana going to be a really bold, soft sort of girlfriend? Probably, huh? Open with her feelings and needs. Physically affectionate. He didn’t remember ever seeing his parents hug, not even his mom and stepdad. Definitely not kissing. Seemed kind of scary and foreign and weird but also like it could be nice. Really nice.
He kissed her again and it felt just as good as the first one had. And then pulled his own scarf higher because his ears were getting cold. And then slid his arm around her again to pull her close because letting go of her to pull his scarf higher felt wrong. And then scowled at her giggles.
“So are you asking me out or what?” she teased.
“Yeah,” he admitted, nodding, swaying a little because it was cold and because he could hear music. Just classical music, just in his head. “Wait but…”
“Yes?” she prodded, literally nudging him through his coat when he didn’t continue.
He felt stupid saying it, but also like it would be stupider not to say it, so he said it, “Yeah but also you’re my girlfriend now so… no dating anyone else.”
“What!”
“Yeah.”
“Jungkook!” she laughed, her face as radiant as the sun. “Did you just say that? I get to leap right to girlfriend? Ooh are you going to be a really bossy boyfriend?”
“Ah… I don’t think so,” he laughed, because he couldn’t even keep the charade up right now. It was so fucking cold now that relief ran through his veins and he couldn’t stop clenching every muscle in his body. Maybe it wasn’t just the cold sending the shivers through his bones though. “You can be the bossy one,” he offered.
“Is all this because you got jealous of Seokjin? Is that who you’re telling me I can’t date?”
“He’s just Seokjin now?!”
“He’s a very old friend of mine.”
“Ok but I’m your boyfriend now.”
“Is that really what you want?” she asked and pulled away and gave him a serious look. He stared back, not sure how to reassure her. Didn’t she feel it? “You aren’t going to get home and decide Marisol really is your dream and then I’m the fool to trust you again because of a kiss–”
“All I think about all the time is you. I’ve been going crazy…” He trailed off. Oops. Too much! He’d said too much in an effort to reassure her. It just felt like an ice dam had broken and the warm rush of words weren’t slowing down for his oh shit should I really say this checkpoint. “I know I haven’t done much to earn your trust but uh, I swear to you I’ll take this seriously and be good to you and–”
“Oh.” She looked at him more seriously, then broke off into giggles. “You really like me, huh?”
“Rana…”
“You missed me so much just because you couldn’t talk to me for a few days?”
“Be nice to me, I’m freshly hatched,” he pouted away from her as she wrapped around his arm. He felt very happy to have her there.
“I know, baby, I’ll take good care of you, as long as you take good care of me too.”
Instantly he thought she meant sexually, though rationally she probably meant other things too. He slid his hand over hers and dragged her closer under his arm and promised,
“Yeah, I will. See what good care I took of my egg?”
“Yeah but I’m not a glass egg.”
“No, you’re even more important, so um….” Ok he really was starting to sound pathetic.
“Oh my god, are you going to melt down every time you say something sweet?” she laughed.
“...newly hatched…” he mumbled.
“All right little chick, you can walk me home,” she said and nudged him in the direction. “It’s cold out here and I’m just a wee lass. Walk me to my building?”
“I’m not a chick,” he grumbled.
“Yeah we’ll talk about your cock another time!”
“Rana…” Gah, she was going to tease him all the time, he could see that so clearly. She was going to challenge and push him and listen to all the stupid things he thought just like she already did. She was going to ride along on whatever weird thing he felt like he needed and never make him actually feel weird about it. In the place of penguin purist dreams, he began to see a free future with Rana take shape, and it looked good even in his vagueness. He would be good to her, he decided, the clearest detail of all. He might not totally know what that meant, and he had a lot more to learn about her, but he knew having her tucked under his arm as they walked was the greatest feeling in the world.
“I heard you cook Moroccan food,” he said. “I want to make Korean food for you and you can make Moroccan food for me.”
“In my little kitchen? I used to cook at home but my former roommates said it was stinky and my basement kitchen is…” She made a face.
“You can cook at my place with me. Ah, someday we’ll need a better kitchen…” Another clearer detail: he and Rana, cozy in a nice kitchen, feeding each other from the cooking bowls to taste if things were done. She’d be sitting on the counter in leggings, legs pulled up as she giggled and teased him. He’d try not to rip the seams when he pulled them down… afterwards, he’d carry her to bed and she’d sleep on his chest again and this time she’d be there for breakfast. Every day.
“What’s that look?” she asked, face upturned as they waited for the crossing light.
He just squeezed her tighter and said, “Yeah, Rana, I’ve never been more sure this is what I want.”
“Noot noot you’re cute.”
“OK, we are now in an interspecies relationship but that doesn’t mean you can say things like that–”
Her laughter echoed beautifully off the buildings as he walked his girlfriend home.
“What are you looking so happy about?” Taehyung asked as Jungkook strolled through the door.
“Huh?”
“And where were you last night?” Yoongi asked through narrow, sleepy eyes. It was after noon and both of them had clearly just rolled out of bed. He had too actually, but he’d been awake for hours already…
“Quack quack, earth to Jungkook.”
“Don’t quack at me,” Jungkook rolled his eyes and feigned a punch to Taehyung’s side that he didn’t move quickly enough to block. “Damn, both of you go a little too hard last night?”
“Yeah, the bar was crazy.”
“You didn’t go home with someone?”
Taehyung grinned and jerked his head towards the closed door of his bedroom. Jungkook’s curiosity turned to Yoongi, who waved his hand and admitted,
“I don’t really want to talk about it. Namjoon went home with someone, you can bother him about it.”
“Where did you wind up going?” Taehyung asked Jungkook as he slid around them to start the coffee maker that both clearly were in need of but had not actually turned on. He motioned for them to sit as Taehyung scowled, “You aren’t even hung over?”
“Nah we didn’t really drink much, just–”
“Who’s we?” Both Taehyung and Yoongi gave him skeptical looks.
“Ah, um… me and Rana.”
“Ohhhhh,” Taehyung grinned, raising his eyebrows. “Finally got a hold of her, huh? Didn’t realize you’d made up and uh, you spent New Years’ Eve with her, huh?”
“I’m making you coffee.”
Taehyung laughed, “To distract me! So what does this mean for our poor penguin friend, what was her name? Parasol? Aerosol?” It was the first friendly laugh he’d heard from Taehyung in a while. Yoongi winced and dropped his head to his arms on the table.
“Hyung, why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll make some rice and eggs.”
“Yeah… but what’s up with Rana?” Yoongi asked, standing but staying.
“Ah, when is your next symphony, hyung? I need to take her… I get a re-do.” She’d even promised to wear the blue dress again, and Jungkook felt like maybe that would help him not live crushed under the weight of regret for the rest of his life.
“That’s… generous…”
“Yeah, she’s very generous– no, that’s not what I meant! We didn’t even fuck last night!” he cried as they both laughed, Yoongi covering his face with his hands.
“Then what did you do? You stayed in her basement?”
Jungkook made a face and admitted, “I’ve got to get her out of there. She doesn’t belong in a basement. It’s cozy but uh… too cozy. And you can hear the furnaces for the building really loud. But it was still nice.”
“You just talked or something?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we did…” They’d talked. He had taken his Switch and she’d badly played some games. They’d eaten Chinese takeout and watched a movie and talked about… what had they even talked about?
They’d talked about Rana’s family, old money and capitalism and exploitation and a lifestyle she wanted nothing to do with, except for her remaining friendship with Kim Seokjin.
They’d talked about Rana’s art proposal, and the projects she was going to try to really focus on for a few months while she could live off her tiny nest egg.
They’d talked about dream vacations and favorite TV shows and ideal breeds of dogs and whether birds and lizards were cooler pets and which of them would have better luck keeping a plant alive.
Their feet had tangled together under the sheets and she’d stroked his hair and he’d traced her fingernails with the pads of his fingers as they compared embarrassing adolescent stories and argued about the best desserts and kissed. They kissed a lot, curled up in that tangle of blankets Rana called her bed. And Jungkook had found it easier and easier to let go of those things he’d clung so tightly to before because here was something better and real. Here was the most interesting woman he had ever met and she had let him into her life one shared lunch at a time and her laugh was the most joyful noise Jungkook had ever heard, even when she was laughing at him. He didn’t mind. Especially now that he knew how limp she went as soon as you started kissing her neck, especially right up beneath her ear. You had to burrow under her hair or comb it out of the way and–
Well, he hadn’t been able to do that long or they’d have sex. And fuck, did he want to have nonstop sex with her… but last night was just being close together and talking, and it had been perfect. He’d never imagined it could be so comfortable to be so close to someone. He’d watched her drift off to sleep, faces close together on the pillow. He’d watched her wake up. He’d done a poor job keeping his hands off the yellow leggings curved over her ass as she made eggs and toast.
And then they’d had sex, wrapped up in each other first on her desk and then in her bed, and he’d been privileged to learn what she sounded like when fucked her and nibbled her neck at the same time. Maybe the sex had been simple and straight-forward, no eggs or ice cubes involved, but it had felt anything but boring. They could explore those folders on her computer another day. He knew one thing she liked but there was more to learn. And he had some ideas of his own–
“We’ve lost him,” Yoongi snickered and Jungkook realized he’d been lost in his thoughts a long time.
“Huh?”
“Whatever it was, it was clearly good,” Taehyung agreed.
“We ended the year good and started the new year good,” Jungkook confirmed.
“She your girlfriend yet?” It was obvious from Taehyung’s face that he was teasing and expecting a squawk of protest and an argument and maybe another punch in the ribs.
Instead Jungkook nodded, “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend.”
“What? A… a jackdaw?”
“Turns out penguins don’t really like me,” Jungkook said, cracking an egg into the pan. “And I don’t really like them either.”
“Listen to this guy!” Taehyung laughed.
“Marisol was ok but Rana is–” Yoongi began, but Jungkook interrupted, “Sorry, hyung, but I have to correct you. Marisol sucks.”
“Oh ho,” Taehyung laughed.
“Did something happen? And that’s why you went after Rana?” Yoongi pressed.
Jungkook shook his head but didn’t take his attention away from cooking. This was another thing he had learned last night. He had learned that despite her acceptance of confrontation, Rana strangely stayed out of other peoples’ affairs, which had included not actually telling Jungkook the truth about why she quit until he dragged it out of her.
“No come on, tell us the gossip!” Taehyung pleaded. “Best cure for a hangover.”
“It’s not gossip. Rana told me,” he insisted.
“Ok, told you what?”
“Marisol isn’t an agent at the company, she’s an admin,” Jungkook said. “There’s nothing wrong with being an admin, but she lied to me about what her job is. The company let her fill in as an agent while someone else was on leave for a couple weeks but she kept fucking up and had Rana help her fix things. Then she complained to management that Rana was stealing her accounts.”
“Ooh, that’s bitchy,” Yoongi snorted.
Jungkook nodded, “Mm-hm. Management looked into it and couldn’t find that Rana did anything wrong. To save face, Marisol said maybe Rana just misunderstood the help she was wanting because ‘she seems easily confused,’” he said with air quotes, “and Rana just said,” he couldn’t help his fond grin, “That ‘maybe Marisol should stop giving all the company’s money away on clearly fraudulent claims.’” He sliced up banana for each bowl.
“Ok… so then why did Rana quit? Sounds like she came out on top.”
Jungkook slid the eggs into bowls and popped open the rice maker, still warm and only a night old, according to the clock. He spooned it out as he continued,
“Marisol started rumors that Rana was stealing lunches and office supplies, so Rana did start stealing lunches –Marisol’s and anyone’s who was saying the same things. I guess she didn’t get along well with a few people in the office…”
“Look at him saying all this with that look on his face,” Yoongi laughed as Jungkook set the bowl in front of him.
“I don’t think she should have made the rumors true but… she’s bold, you know? And Marisol is a shitty cook so it was really a sacrifice to steal that food, no wonder she was always stealing my food too,” he admitted. “She said a good jackdaw knows how to gather food for and from their mate.” He’d blushed like a housefinch when she said that, even though he didn’t think she was actually calling him her mate yet. “But there’s something else I was thinking about…”
“Uh oh, he’s been thinking,” Taehyung teased. Jungkook pretended to pull the bowl of food away and Taehyung gave him big eyes and a pout and a whine. “I’m sorry, please give me the food.”
Jungkook set it down and continued without further interruption, “I always thought it was kind of weird that Marisol suddenly reached out to me. I mean, I messaged her months ago and she never answered, but then she saw me eating with Rana and suddenly messaged me?”
“Ohh…. shit,” Taehyung laughed, instantly seeing it too.
“I didn’t know all this was going on. I didn’t know they had a workplace beef and Rana didn’t tell me. I think Marisol only talked to me because she was hoping she was stealing Rana’s boyfriend.”
“Fuck. What did Rana say about it?”
“She didn’t say that. She said she was sick of working there anyway and she wants to work on her art, but she also admitted she didn’t want to watch me and Marisol get serious.”
“Why didn’t she tell you all this was going on with Marisol though?”
“She didn’t think I’d believe her,” Jungkook admitted. “I can’t blame her for thinking that. Maybe I wouldn’t have… but I do believe her. And now I need to decide what to do about this woman who maybe used me to try and hurt my girlfriend…”
“What do you mean, what to do about it?” Taehyung asked, eyes instantly narrowing, but cheeks puffed full of healthy hangover carbs. Jungkook leaned against the counter, watching them both eat, and felt good about it. About feeding them. About a night spent with Rana. About full-body satisfying sex with her that morning. And about the need now to make some grand gesture to reassure Rana that he was not a fickle man. Letting go of his hopes and dreams from childhood was still unsettling, but he was going to ride that rocky wave with her, and he didn’t think he’d ever regret it.
“Marisol needs to know what she did was wrong. Using me was shitty if that’s all this was, and hurting Rana was even worse.”
“Careful you don’t do something that’ll cost you your own job,” Yoongi warned.
Jungkook nodded, “I know. I have to think it through.”
“Yeah don’t go crazy and wild now that you have a bold girlfriend!”
“I know I know, I told you I’m thinking!”
“Let us think with you,” Taehyung suggested. “Later. When my head doesn’t feel like this.”
“What are you both so afraid of?”
“It’s not that we’re afraid. It’s that we don’t know what this new Jungkook is capable of.”
“Yeah, Jungkook who’s dating a jackdaw? You could do anything! Totally unpredictable now.”
Jungkook grinned. He felt kind of unpredictable, but in a good way. He felt freer by the minute of so much weight he had been shuffling around all these years. A rock egg weighing his feet down rather than a real egg that could hatch into a happy future. It wasn’t quite gone yet, but he could see it slipping. It wasn’t even just about Rana, even though she was obviously the great big reward he got for shedding the old and embracing the free. He felt free to define himself now. Free to embrace what he wanted, regardless of how his mom or other penguins would feel about it. They would never like him! So what? Rana did and his friends did and he wanted to like himself too. Cutting free was going to be uncomfortable, but he already had a new creche to cushion the fall.
He nodded, “Ok, let’s think together. I’ll message Namjoon and we can hang out this evening.”
“You aren’t going back to your girlfriend’s place?”
“Ah, she’s working on her art submission, it’s due next week. She said I was too distracting,” he beamed. “She’s cute,” he mumbled as he quit the kitchen and went to get his phone to text Namjoon. He’d tossed it on his desk earlier, bumping against the empty egg crate. He’d forgotten to put his egg there when he got home, oops.
It wasn’t in his pocket though, and when he checked his coat and his bag it wasn’t there either. He must have left it at Rana’s.
But that was ok. It was safe there.
Jungkook had planned much more dramatic things in his head. He’d thought of a banner in the lobby at work. He’d thought of an announcement over the building PA. He’d thought of reaching out to their company’s IT and asking for a favor, which maybe the guy would even have gone along for.
But in the end, after much deliberation with Namjoon, Taehyung, and Yoongi’s guidance, he’d settled on this.
[Jungkook]: hey can you meet me in the atrium this morning?
[Marisol]: I hope it’s an apology for ghosting me on New Year’s Eve!
[Jungkook]: we didn’t actually make plans
[Marisol]: I told you about the party! It’s ok, I forgive easily 😘
Jungkook could barely contain the eyeroll. She shouldn’t forgive ghosting like that. It felt to him like further evidence of his theory, that Marisol didn’t like him at all. It stung. He couldn’t deny it stung, but the blow was softened by… well, Rana. Hard to be bummed about the loss of a lying Marisol when you had a date with Rana planned for tonight. When, in fact, you knew Rana would be showing up soon to collect her things from the office, and you knew this because you’d been texting with her because she was your girlfriend. And she’d teased that you weren’t a very good texter and now you felt challenged to prove her wrong.
“Hey!” Marisol greeted from afar with a wave. When she reached him, she put her hands on her hips and tried to look annoyed for a moment, just to be playful, but dropped it quickly. “Did you want to get coffee? I have some time.”
“No, this can be quick.”
The flicker of confusion across her face was instant.
“I’m sorry, Marisol. I just don’t think we have something between us.”
“Um…” She tilted her head and leaned forward and then took a step closer. “Wait, what? But… but how can you say that?”
He recalled his plan to lay it on thick, make her feel rejected, really drive in because she’d used him, but her surprise caught him off guard and, when faced with a real woman –even a lying one– he found his anger wavered.
“You can’t be that surprised or broken up about it,” he insisted. “We barely dated.”
“Yeah but… I thought it was going really well. Didn’t you?”
“Ah, well, to be honest…” Fuck. He’d never ended things with a girl before and this suddenly felt way more awkward than he had anticipated. “To be honest, no,” he said. “I don’t think you actually like me much and I don’t think we have much in common, except for being penguins.”
“I like you.”
“Thanks.”
She looked like threw a glass of ice water in her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just confused… did something happen? Um…” She crossed her arms, but looked more sad than angry. “You just stormed off from lunch the other day and then you didn’t talk to me and now this.”
“I don’t think we’re good life companions.”
“You can already tell that?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, I could tell it because of the way you talk about Rana.” He found himself buffered and continued, “The way you talk about her is shitty. I can’t respect that, even before I knew you were lying about some of the things you told me.”
“Did Rana tell you something?” she asked, eyes narrowing now.
“She did, but this has nothing to do with anything she told me.”
“She’s been out to make me look bad–”
“I think if I go ask in your company right now, they’ll confirm she didn’t get fired, she quit,” he slid over her words. “Why did you lie to me? And you made yourself sound like a big agent hotshot but you’re an admin and there’s nothing wrong with that but again, you lied–”
“I was just trying to impress you,” she insisted. “You have this crazy high view of Rana–”
“I think you only talked to me because Rana liked me.”
“Well— well maybe, but that doesn’t mean– I do like you, Jungkook. I thought she’d have terrible taste in men but you’re actually really great.”
The thing was, Jungkook could not actually tell if Marisol was lying or not right now. She had lied to him before. Was she lying now? Did she mean these things? His ego wanted to believe it. Maybe he just actually sucked at telling if people were telling him the truth.
“I can’t trust anything you say,” he admitted. “So what’s the point?”
“Of us? I mean, we want the same things, Jungkook. And we liked each other –you liked me! We can get to know each other more and– we could even start over–”
“What are you doing right now?” he sighed. “You don’t actually like me this much.”
“Why are you so sure about that?” she demanded.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s a new year and I’m shedding a lot of dead weight. You’re part of that.” Namjoon had come up with that line and he’d liked it; he was glad to incorporate it now.
“Tell me what she said about me. I bet she’s lying–”
“She’s not a liar,” he argued. “And it’s not about her. Trust me, if this was about her and how shitty you treated her in the workplace, and all the ways in which you tried to get her fired and make her look bad– I would not be this calm.”
“You’re dating her now, aren’t you?”
He couldn’t help the smile as he admitted, “Yeah.”
“And you really think she’s– that she is what you want? You can’t take a jackdaw home for the holiday. No penguin parents are going to accept that– what about all the things we talked about? We have the same dreams–”
“I have new dreams,” he interrupted. “They’re better dreams, I think. For me. I’m going to be a lot happier. I’m sure you’ll find someone to be happy with because you’re generic enough to fit a lot of penguin dreams, but if you’re going to be really happy with someone, you should stop lying so much. It’s a bad look. Professionally and romantically. You can be enough for someone all on your own, Marisol.”
“What the fuck? How dare you lecture me. As if penguin women have been flocking to you–”
“You know what? It doesn’t really bother me anymore to not be what penguin women want,” Jungkook admitted. “Best of luck!” He knew it sounded condescending. Yoongi had suggested that one.
He had to admit, it did feel pretty good to walk away from a fuming Marisol, even if being that honest and directly confrontational with a woman left him feeling brittle and detached. His phone buzzed in his pocket, the message he’d asked Rana to send him that she had her things and was heading down now.
“Jungkook! This is bullshit. I can’t believe you’re taking her word and just throwing this away when…” He left the atrium, left Marisol in it, left her with impotent rage that he, an undesirable penguin, would throw her over at all, much less for a jackdaw. Part of him wished he’d managed to keep Rana out of it. Now she would just convince herself Rana had tricked him. He thought it stung more if she thought an undesirable penguin just didn’t like her. But uh well, this was still pretty good.
He reached the lobby just as Rana stepped off the elevator. He waved her over, but it was also a signal to his dumb colleague who could at least manage this and had agreed to it as a favor for all the work Jungkook had done bailing him out recently. Rana’s smile as she walked towards him was radiant; he met it with an awkward one of his own as he pointed to the flat wall above the doors into the building where a projected video began to play.
“This is a video to celebrate Rana B the baddest b to ever work in insurance fraud claim”
“What the fuck is that?” Rana gasped as Jungkook took the box out of her arms and set it by his feet.
Several photos of Rana flashed across the screen, along with more text: “but she does more than sniff out liars, save her company money, and handle customers with grace! In 77 seconds I’m going to convince you she is the greatest. Is it possible, you are wondering? By the time the elevator gets here, you will know.
“Let’s go:
What else is Rana good at?
Ice skating.
Fashion.
Cooking.
Eating.”
Pictures from her art portfolio website he’d found online zoomed and swirled and flickered across the wall. The video editing was amateur, he knew that. It was cheesy. It was all pretty fucking cringe, even though he’d worked on it for hours last night, basically the whole night.
“She’s so cool but even cooler than working hard and playing hard, she ARTS HARD.”
Rana cackled and covered her mouth with her hands.
Now the images flipped to pictures from her portfolio of work. Her strings were there, but so were older projects, a mural she had painted in a former apartment; statues she had made out of soggy, dirty clothing; a giant tree she had crafted from ribbon and plywood and old photographs that the description had explained she bought from antique shops, faces of people uncherished by even their descendents, a family tree for the forgotten.
Rana’s art was incredible. That’s what he had learned looking through her website. He looked forward to hearing her talk about each thing she had done. He looked forward to supporting her enthusiasm for new ideas to come. And right now, he loved watching her fae of bemused surprise as she watched these things flash across the lobby wall of the office building she was leaving for the last time.
“Rana’s art is inspired, incredible, and powerful. Sometimes you can be blessed enough to buy it at the Art Coven by Magdon Park” rolled over a photo of the shop.
“You’re still hawking my wares!” she laughed. “I haven’t put new inventory up yet…”
“Better get on it. All these people will be going now,” he warned, sliding his arm around her shoulder to pull her closer because there was a traffic jam starting as the late commuters slowed down to watch this disruption to their usual routine.
“And hopefully soon you’ll see more of her because her art touches and teaches and sings for those of us who are used to being ignored.
“I’m almost out of time. This was harder than I thought, not because there aren’t enough nice things to say about Rana, but because I still have so much to learn about her. So let me wrap this up. I can’t wait to learn everything there is to know about this chick and support her the way she has been patient with me. Isn’t it sad you all walked past her every day in this building and didn’t notice? Shame on you. You missed out! Open your eyes and pay more attention to the people around you even when they aren’t your same species. Don’t be stupid like I was. Ok but enough about me, here’s one last cheer for Rana’s last flight from the building.”
A series of short flattery flickered across the screen –”beautiful” “talented” “clever” “compassionate” and so on-- and then the video landed on a still image of Rana, her office badge photo.
“I’m sorry this video was kind of dumb weird cheesy and awkward. I worked really hard on it. I know it’s weird but I’m weird too and you make me feel like that’s ok. Please go out with me for the rest of your life, yeah? Ok I'll wrap up, get out of this building, you’re too cool to be caged in an office.”
The video went dark. Jungkook felt like he was going to regurgitate everything he’d nervously eaten for breakfast. The video had seemed like a good idea yesterday when he was planning and making this whole thing, even though his friends had said it sounded embarrassingly over the top. It was. That was the point. He was embracing the weird and awkward! But he had underestimated that he’d feel like an asshole telling Marisol off, and now Rana was just standing there, not saying anything.
“Uh…” he eloquently began. “Maybe…” Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe I moved too fast. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I’m way weirder than you thought and you’re having regrets now.
“That was the best and worst thing anyone has ever done for me,” she laughed, and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed, I love it! That– I didn’t know you had that in you!”
“I just, um… wanted to make a statement about uh… you know, make a big deal about you leaving your job…” he mumbled as she kissed his cheek and his jaw. People were staring or trying not to stare. “Rana,” he complained, but when she kissed him, he didn’t resist for even a moment.
She kept her arms around his neck as she pulled away and praised, “You must have worked so hard on that! You even got photos from my website… so you did finally google me?”
“Your website sucks.”
“Yeah well I didn’t know what I was doing…”
“Yeah I can help you make it better.”
“I thought you weren’t a website guy?”
“I’m not but I can make it better than that. I’m better at websites than I am at video editing, I swear.”
“Jungkook, it’s so good… will you send me the video? I want to watch it again. It’s so cute! You said so many nice things about me! And video editing is so hard. I did a big A/V project once –oh, yeah, a lot of those porn files were for that–”
“Sorry, what?” he interrupted.
“The ones on my computer? I did a big A/V project once with porn clips to demonstrate human connectedness and the experience of intimate touch…”
He blinked at her.
“What?”
“Uh… that one wasn’t on your website…”
“No, it’s a little explicit.”
“Can I uh… can I see it?”
She winked and suggested, “Let’s see how the date goes tonight. Maybe after…”
He felt himself start to relax after the exposure of the video. Rana was happy with his ridiculous, embarrassing, over the top demonstration. So happy she kissed him again and then sighed loudly about how she wished they could go home and “do things” if he didn’t have to work…
“Rana,” he scolded, “I still work here.”
“I know. Sigh. Ok, I need to get going. I should go put new inventory up in the shop today, just in case.”
“Yeah, and I’ll see you tonight, ok? Still? You don’t want to call it off after my stupid video?”
“Are you kidding? I adore loud, unashamed, freshly hatched Jungkook just as much as I adore cranky, quiet, shy Jungkook. I like them all. I’ll see you tonight, handsome. Maybe I’ll give you the fourth string as a reward?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Then it’s done, right?” He swallowed. “I don’t want anything to be finished between us, you know?”
“Damn, you’re cute,” she giggled. “Ok. But you know I could just keep adding strings, right? There’s not some rule that says four is complete.”
“Oh.”
“It’s ok, baby. You just hatched. We’ll keep working on this rule thing. It’s going to blow your mind when you realize even laws are just rules people paid a lot of money to make real.”
“Wait, Rana, that’s not–”
“Noot noot, see you to-noot! Maybe I’ll give you some fun rules…” She winked at him and kissed him on the tip of the nose, hauled up her box, and strolled out.
For a moment, Jungkook just let himself blush. Ok. Ok the gesture had gone well and, just as importantly, he felt like he had done something big to make clear to Rana he was going to be open and honest and close with her, that she mattered to him, that he was serious about her. He hoped she understood how mortified he was by the video and the drawing of attention and the singling himself out like that. He thought she did. Rana always understood him.
He started to walk but felt a weight in his pocket. Reaching in, he found his egg, safely returned to him without a word after he had apparently left it at her place, just like he’d thought. He grinned.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Marisol said as he reached the elevator bay. “You’re… you’re crazy. She’s crazy. You’re pathetic!”
“For a penguin? Maybe. Bye, Marisol.” He stepped into the elevator and gave her a bright smile and wave as other people closed in around him, leaving her to catch the next one.
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You Azula stans seem to think Azula does not need to take responsibility for anything or apologize and just be magically forgiven and accepted by everyone post war . What do you realistically think Azula should do post war as part of her redemption or everyone should just instantly like her just because she was a victim?
First, I want to make it clear that I don't think anyone is obligated to forgive Azula, since forgiveness is never an obligation. I have commented before that I think there are certain characters who would fairly easily forgive Azula or not bear much of a grudge against her in the first place, but that doesn't mean I hold anyone as being obligated to forgive her.
However, Azula is a badly abused child soldier, and I think she deserves to be treated with compassion and humanity. That is the obligation I believe is owed to her.
I also find the emphasis on Azula taking responsibility to be odd, because of what other characters do not do. Zuko never takes responsibility for at least half of the bad things he does, while Iroh only ever takes real responsibility for Lu Ten's death and never really for anything else. Mai and Ty Lee are never shown "taking responsibility" for the bad things they do, and like Zuko their role in conquering Ba Sing Se remains unmarked on. I think the narrative treated Jet poorly, but I don't think he ever clearly takes responsibility for the bad things he did, like manipulating Katara. Singling Azula out seems very odd.
I do think it would be good for Azula to take some responsibility for her actions in the war, but she was an abused child soldier fighting a war that began 85 years before her birth. Thus, ultimately, I don't place that much responsibility on her for the actions she took during the war, so I don't think it would be the end of the world if she didn't clearly take responsibility for what she did but ended up in a position where she wasn't actively doing harm to others. The last bit is probably the most important. She isn't supposed to be the saintlike savior of the Fire Nation whose purpose is to cleanse it of its sins, Zuko is.
Most actions of the actions Azula took which negatively affected named characters(who I know people focus the most on) were normal actions in war. People are rarely expected to apologize for those, even in cases when soldiers from different sides recoincile after the war, and some things would honestly be weird to appologize for.
That being said, if Azula wants personal relationships with certain people, she would probably have to apologize to them.
In any case, the most substantative way that she could "take responsibility" for her role in the war is helping to build a better world after the war. But I think a lot of that is predicate on and tied up with her role as Princess of the Fire Naton, and if she cuts herself off from her old status and position or is forciably cut off from it, her responsibility becomes less clear, as does the degree to which her actions affect the world.
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