#I'm so tired I'm sorry about any and all typos

[endless-summer-soldier]

dr. feelgood - chapter twelve

pairing: Surgeon!Bucky x SurgicalIntern!Reader

summary: Y/N has a one night stand with a handsome stranger the night before starting her new job as a surgical intern. Little does she know, the handsome stranger also happens to be her new boss

warnings: must be 18+, drinking, some surgery descriptions, smut, self-pleasure, praise kink, oral sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, PTSD, choking, angst

word count: 3.7k

a/n: ask and you shall receive! I started doing my final proofing and got tired and decided to post so apologies for any typos, I'll fix them later lol. please enjoy this one and thanks for your patience!

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It took exactly three seconds for Bucky to come to his senses. The gentle click of the door shutting brought him back to reality and he realized he couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t pretend like his heart didn't skip a beat every time she came into the room. That every time she smiled at him, he completely lost his focus. She was all he thought about, day in and day out, even when he was avoiding her. He wanted a future with her. In fact, she was the first woman he'd ever met that he could see a future with. And he had messed it all up. 

What hit him suddenly, as she walked out of the house, was that if he let her go, he was just bringing on more trauma. He would never emotionally recover from losing her. He would be stuck with his PTSD night terrors and would always live life wondering what if things were different. One of the lessons he learned in combat is that life is short and precious, and it shouldn’t be wasted.

“I’m such an idiot,” he mumbled to himself. He flew out the front door, hoping he could still catch her before she took off. It was a monsoon outside, with water pouring down in buckets. He caught the headlights of her car flooding the driveway and he darted toward the vehicle without another thought. He didn’t waste time putting shoes on, running outside in just socks. While wet socks were one of his pet peeves in life, at this moment he didn’t care.

He knocked feverishly on her window before she could put the car in reverse. She was initially startled before she rolled down the window. 

“What are you-” before she could finish her question, his hand was around her jaw and his lips were caressing hers. This was the last thing she expected, but she didn’t stop him, wondering if this was the last time she’d feel his lips on hers. He was dripping cold rainwater all over her and the seat of her car but she didn’t even care. She leaned into him, savoring the taste of his gin-coated lips.

He pulled away, leaning his forehead against hers, stealing the breath from her lips. “I’m not giving up on us,” was all he said. 

That gave her the confidence she needed. This time she took the lead, placing both hands around his jaw and pulling him closer to her, smiling in between every delicate kiss. 

“I’m so in love with you,” he whispered in between kisses and she reacted by holding him tighter and running her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight for us. I just wanted to protect you.”

She pulled away and nuzzled into his neck, “I know, I know Buck. It’s okay.” Their blissful moment was interrupted by the cheerful barking of a golden retriever. Bucky turned around to find Liberty running around in circles in the pouring down rain, sloshing through the mud. 

“Well shit,” he chuckled.

“You leave the front door open?” 

“Apparently,” he turned back to Y/N and gave her one more quick peck on the lips. “I better wrangle her up, Will you stay? I’ll meet you inside and we can talk?” 

She nodded and laughed while he ran off after Liberty, sliding shoeless in the mud as he attempted to usher the dog back inside. Y/N was already half soaked from Bucky’s drippage so she easily made the decision to cut the engine and run inside. She captured Liberty’s attention as she ran to the front door and the dog darted after her. Once Liberty had followed her inside, she knelt down to give the dog some attention and to keep her inside. Bucky ran inside and shut the front door behind him, sliding ever so slightly on the hardwood floor. Y/N smiled up at him as she stood up and he returned her grin. As if on cue, Liberty shook off the moisture from her fur, completely coating Y/N and Bucky in more rain water and mud. They both started cracking up, laughing at both their disheveled states as the dog simply walked off to her dog bed. 

Bucky stepped closer to her and placed his hands on her hips. 

“You know, this look is kind of working for me…” he said, narrowing the space between them.

“Oh yeah? You into the swamp monster look?” she bantered.

“More like queen of the swamp,” he said, inching closer to envelope her lips in his. Her arms effortlessly wrapped around his neck and he pulled her in even closer, so her body was flush against his. They were cold and wet and muddy, yet there was no place they’d rather be. Bucky couldn’t believe he almost let this amazing woman slip beneath his fingers. He was savoring everything about her now: her smell, her taste, her touch. But what surprised him the most was how at ease he finally felt. The past few weeks, he’d been so tense. He was worried about Y/N, he wasn’t sleeping, barely eating, and just getting by an hour at a time. Now it was like he could finally breathe again. He didn’t realize what he was missing until he had her back. And now he never wanted to let go.

She started to pull back for a breath, but he wouldn’t let her, verbally expressing his dismay with a hummed “uh-uh.” She smiled and he kept her close, kissing her again and then moving from her lips to her cheek to her neck.

“Bucky,” she giggled. He loved hearing that sound and it just encouraged him more. “We should wash the dog before she spreads more mud around the house.”

“I don’t care about that,” he replied.

“But it’s Steve’ house and-”

“I will deal with Steve’s house later. Right now, I’m not letting go of you.” He moved in close again, seeking the soft touch of her lips. And she had no working defense mechanisms. She sighed into his mouth, loving the feeling of being back together with the man she’d been longing for over the past few weeks. But the logical side of her won over in the end.

She pulled away and Bucky shifted his attention to her jaw, planting kisses up toward her ear. 

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal…” she offered.

“Mhm,” he replied, opting not to part from her skin.

“If we take a pause to wash up the dog, then we can pick this up later. In the shower.” Bucky froze considering his options. They’d never shared a shower together and it was something he’d always wanted to do but they’d never had the opportunity.

He let out a deep sigh into her neck, “You’re killing me doll.” She gently scratched the back of his neck and kissed his ear, signaling that their make out session was over for the time being. Bucky walked over toward Liberty and effortlessly picked her up in his strong arms. As he walked toward the bathroom he called out, “You better be helping me with this!” Y/N smiled to herself and eagerly ran after him.

It took all four hands to wrestle Liberty into the tub and that was only the first step. It was fortunate that Bucky and I were already soaking wet from the rain because Liberty showered us in bathwater as she splashed around in the tub. It took us a minute to find a rhythm, with one of us rinsing while the other shampooed. After about thirty minutes, I pulled the drain plug and we pried Liberty out of the tub, wrapping her in a towel. Once she was mostly dried off, we gave her a bone which she happily curled up with in her dog bed. 

I leaned against the kitchen counter, taking a quick moment to catch my breath, which didn’t last very long. Bucky approached with a smirk on his face and, without a word, swept me up into his arms. 

“Bucky!” I called in surprise.

“Pretty girl,” he countered, awfully pleased with himself.

“What are you doing?” I protested, as he started ascending the staircase.

“We’re getting you cleaned up.” Bucky strode into what I assumed was Steve’s bedroom, and before I could argue, he opened the door to the master bathroom and I was speechless. It was spacious to the point where it could’ve passed for a health spa. There was a giant soaking tub next to a window, with tealight candles lined up on the windowsill. Accompanying the tub was an upholstered ottoman holding a tray of bath salts, luxury oils, scrubbing brushes, and any other things you might need during a soak. In the corner was a beautifully tiled walk-in shower, complete with a rain shower head and a built in ledge that could double as a bench. Along the wall was a long countertop, with two sinks placed in front of the giant framed mirror. Before I could take in anymore, Bucky sat me on the countertop next to the sink, like I was a child and he was tending to a scrape on my knee. He walked over to the closet and pulled out two, lush looking, sage green bath towels, and hung them on the silver towel rack that was placed by the entrance of the shower. 

“This is…” I said, looking around the room with wonder.

“I know. Steve takes his self care very seriously,” Bucky joked. He turned the handle in the shower and the water started flowing through onto the beautifully laid tiles, mimicking the sound of the rainforest. 

Bucky made his way back over to me and I wondered what his next move would be. I was happy to sit back and enjoy the ride of whatever he had in mind. His face hovered in front of mine, as he placed his hands on the counter, his thumbs so nearly grazing my thighs. I studied his face, waiting for him to lean in and kiss me again, so that we could pick up where we left off. Instead, he planted a chaste kiss on my cheek and exited my personal space. His right hand found its way to my thigh and he slowly slid it all the way down my leg, until he was gripping my ankle. He extended my leg and brought my foot up towards his mouth, using his teeth to nip the top of my sock and carefully pull it off my foot. He planted a sweet kiss on my big toe and then repeated the process with my other foot. 

Then he moved to my hands, removing the rings and bracelets I had on and placing them carefully in a small bowl on the counter. His slow, calculated movements were turning me on more than I thought they would. As much as I needed to have him, I wasn’t going to rush through this. He removed my earrings, giving one of my earlobes a playful nip, before he pulled off my blouse, planting kisses from my collarbone down to my navel. He came back up to my eye level, but his fingers were already working on the button of my jeans. 

“I might need your help with this one,” he said, as he pulled down my zipper. I leaned back onto the counter and lifted my hips, allowing Bucky to pull at the waistband and slide the jeans off my legs. I sat back upright while Bucky kissed his way up my legs, taking a little extra time when he reached my inner thighs. I could see the hunger in his eyes and I knew that this teasing must be killing him, but it would all be worth it. His mouth found my bra strap and took it in his teeth as he lifted up slowly and released it so it snapped back onto my skin. His hands worked their way up my love handles and met at the clasp of my bra. 

“Ah ah ah…” I chided, shaking my head before he could continue. He gave me a confused look and I merely pulled at the hem of his shirt, “You are fairly overdressed.” He let me pull the shirt up and over his head and I tossed it across the room. He leaned back in, continuing where I stopped him but I simply shook my head again. I pulled the drawstring of his sweatpants loose and tucked my fingers into the waistband and he effortlessly wiggled out of the material, leaving him stripped down to my level, clad only in his boxer briefs.

“Happy now?” he asked, with a tilt of his head.

“Almost,” I smiled mischievously. He slowly closed his eyes and sent me a toothless smile, knowing what I was getting at. When he opened his eyes back up they locked onto mine like a wolf stalking its prey. It sent a chill down my spine and all I wanted was to feel his hands on me again. He placed two thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and easily pulled them down, stepping out of them and closer towards me. 

“You have some catching up to do,” he growled.  I smiled as he kissed me, this time with urgency. His hands were behind my back unclasping my bra with ease and it fell to the floor. He started kissing my neck as his hands ventured south and rested on my hips. It didn’t take him long to pull at my thong, and I raised my right hip up to aid him, and he happily accepted the help. 

I felt a bit of a breeze and shivered briefly, as my nipples hardened slightly due to the cool air and Bucky’s fingertips. He noticed my momentary shudder and grinned into the kiss. 

“Why don’t I warm you up a little,” he suggested, sweetly kissing my jaw before shifting his attention to my pert nipples. He took each one carefully into his mouth, giving them just enough attention and then continued on his journey, eventually kneeling on the ground. I hadn’t realized that’s what he meant, but I wasn’t going to complain. He gently pulled on my legs as a signal for me to come closer which I did. He ran his tongue up my sopping wet pussy to my clit and ran circles around the sensitive bud. My head fell back instinctively, missing the feel of his touch. He dove right into my folds, exploring with his tongue and forcing labored breaths out of me. 

“Bucky…” I called, running my fingers through his hair in an attempt to pull him back towards me. He took that as encouragement and increased his efforts, shooting his eyes up to watch my reaction. I let out a soft moan and pulled on his hair harder, which he seemed to enjoy. 

“Bucky, stop,” I softly commanded. He immediately stopped and pulled back, looking up to see if everything was okay. “I can’t wait anymore. I need you inside of me.”

He acted quickly, standing and collecting me off the counter with ease, and carrying me into the immaculate shower. The minute we stepped under the water, his lips were back on mine and I tightened my grip on his neck, pulling him as close to me as possible. My legs were wrapped around his torso and his strong hands were cradling my lower back. 

“God, I missed you so much,” he whispered into my neck. 

“Show me,” I challenged, feeling bolder. Bucky reacted immediately, pressing me into the cold tiles of the shower. I let out an exhale and he took that as encouragement. He expertly shifted my position so that he had a better angle to my entrance, all while keeping me secure. And then he thrusted into me and I almost came on the spot. A moan escaped my lips and Bucky picked up his pace, grunting into my neck. 

“Fuck baby,” I let out, knowing I wouldn’t last much longer. 

“This one might be quick, but I’ll make it up to you.”

“I don’t care, you feel so good inside of me.” He gave me a quick love bite on my shoulder and then gently returned me to the ground.

“Turn around,” he commanded, caressing my hips with his fingertips. I placed my hands on the shower tiles and bent forward as he pulled my hips toward him.

“You know me too well,” I smiled.

“Of course I know how my girl likes it.” He didn’t give me a warning when he entered me and I let out a squeal of pleasure. He gave my ass a smack before clutching my hips tighter and increasing his rhythm.

“You’re so wet for me, pretty girl. I’ve missed your tight little cunt.” He thrust in deeply and paused, wrapping his hand around my front to play with my clit. 

“Ohhhhh…” He was pushing my every button and I was nearing my climax.

“Those noises are driving me wild…” He picked up his pace again and I let out another moan. “Now be a good girl and cum for me.” That was all it took to trigger my orgasm. My back arched and I leaned further into the tile to stabilize myself while Bucky’s hands kept his strong hold on me. It all seemed to happen so quickly, as I panted and tried to bring myself back down to earth. 

“Wow…” I breathed through my satisfied smile. 

“I second that.” He slowly retracted and took my hand. “C’mere.” He pulled me towards him and wrapped his arms around my waist. I locked my arms around his neck and smiled up at him as he planted a few sweet kisses on my lips. 

“That was amazing,” he said, connecting his forehead to mine.

“I know, we’re pretty good at that.”

“And we keep getting better.”

“You think it’s because we’re in love now?” I suggested.

“It has to be that,” he said, kissing my nose. “Also, I didn’t pull out. I’m sorry. I got caught up in the moment.”

“It’s okay, I’m on the pill so we should be fine.”

“I won’t do that without checking with you ever again.” 

I placed a hand on his cheek and said, “I said it’s fine.”

“I know, but I still should’ve asked your permission.”

“Well, I appreciate that. Now can we get clean and spend the rest of the night cuddling?”

“We can do whatever you would like my dear.”

Once we finished up in the shower and dried off, Bucky lent me the T-shirt he packed and he put on a pair of sweatpants. We curled up together on the couch and turned on a rerun of Bar Rescue. 

I rested my head on his shoulder and he put his arm around me and kissed my temple.

“How are you feeling, pretty girl?”

I tilted my head so that I was looking at him, “Happy.”

“That’s what I love to hear.”

“All because of you,” I smiled.

“Ah, can I bring something up at the risk of ruining the moment.”

“I don’t think anything could ruin this night for me. Unless you break up with me.”

“Well I’m never doing that. But I do think we should talk about that night.” 

“Oh. Okay,” I shifted so that I was facing him, giving him my undivided attention. He collected my hands and held them tight in his.

“I know you said you pulled me out of the nightmare, but I don’t want to put you in that position again. It might not work next time. So I’m going to start up therapy again. It did help me a lot before and I only stopped going when I thought I had things under control. But I think it might be more of a lifelong thing.”

I nodded, “I think that’ll be really good for you.”

“It’s really hard for me to ask for help, but I do think it’ll make things better.”

“And I’m happy to go slow as we figure everything out. I want to make sure you feel comfortable with things.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to go slow. I’ve finally got you where I want you. But I can’t let that happen again.”

“We’ll ease back in. No sleepovers for a few weeks.”

“Well I’m not agreeing to that,” he smirked.

“What!?”

“I want to fall asleep next to you every night.”

“Yeah but-” I started to protest.

“I think we can start with staying at your house. It’s not my space and I don’t think I sleep as deeply because it's a different environment than I’m used to. Plus I’ve stayed over your place a handful of times and never had any issues.”

“Are you sure?’

“Positive,” he stated.

“Okay, we can start there and see how it goes.”

“I still want to have a back-up plan for you though. Maybe stash an air horn or something by the bed just in case. I’ll come up with something.”

I chuckled lightly, “I don’t think an air horn is going to work.”

“Why not?”

“Do you want to know what I did the first time?” 

“I am curious actually.” 

“First, I placed my hand on your cheek,” I announced as I demonstrated. “Then I slowly pulled you in closer,” He moved with my hand until his forehead was pressed against mine. “And then I did this,” I gently brushed my lips against his and he sat there stunned.

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he commented with a small smile on his face.

“I thought if I fought back you would only push harder but that affection might confuse you.”

“And it worked.”

“It didn’t really confuse you, though. It sort of…calmed you. You curled into me and fell back asleep.”

 Bucky looked a little stunned as he considered this, “Smart. That was very quick thinking.”

“That’s why I’m in trauma.”

“I’ll give you that. But I still want some sort of back up plan in place.”

“Well I will let you think on that and come up with a plan because you probably know better than I do on this matter.”

“I can do that. So until we have a back up plan, no more sleepovers.”

“That’s fair.”

“Tonight I’ll let you sleep in Steve’s room with Liberty and I’ll take the guest bedroom.”

She wanted to protest, badly, because she couldn’t imagine leaving his vicinity. But she chose to respect his wishes. For now, she nuzzled into Bucky’s shoulder and entangled her legs with his, enjoying every second of being in his presence.

#bucky barns x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x y/n

[revenantghost]

Tristamp Wolfwood is a bit different than his counterparts, yeah? And I don’t mean that in a bad way, Orange is going somewhere with it, but it’s very different from what they’ve done with Vash and Meryl imo. With them, I feel like we got a glimpse of pre-canon. With Wolfwood... Orange is up to something, and it goddamn terrifies me. I love him dearly, he has some many moments that make me smile and go, “Yeah, that’s Wolfwood, my beloved asshole.” But it’s different. Oh so very different.

I’m just gonna point out a few examples of things I think are different enough to note here (drawing comparisons from Trimax since that was the source for Tristamp, but I’ll try not to spoil much--just don’t Google names you don’t recognize), and then go a little off the rails with a couple theories (spoilers there, click the read more at your own peril). This is DEFINITELY not everything, and maybe my takes are a bit off, idk. If there’s something you’ve picked up on, definitely feel free to add it!

Well, here goes:

My dude is a mess. Wolfwood is typically put together and some would call him smooth (he’s a mess inside always, though) in his other incarnations. Orange pointed out at Sakuracon that the characters are supposed to look younger and more immature in Tristamp, and Wolfwood specifically is supposed to look like he can’t dress himself (lmao). They said they have their reasons but just didn’t have time to explore them in canon. So, I can make assumptions, but I’ll wait to see what comes in the future.

Another one that staff talked about in a recent interview is that Wolfwood is technically a priest according to his contract, but he calls himself an undertaker. Yeah, yeah, edgelord Tristamp Wolfwood and all that, but I’ve seen people call back to how, in the manga, it’s Vash that always takes the time to bury the dead. Wolfwood even chews him out a bit for this. But it’s literally in our introduction to him in this version. He carries the weight of the dead with him enough to make it part of his title, and that’s different for him.

I could be misremembering with this one. But I distinctly remember being surprised when I read Trimax because Wolfwood going into the Eye of Michael seemed more of his own choice than it is in Tristamp (not that a literal child could consent to, you know, torture and abuse)? But either way Wolfwood loathes the Eye of Michael from the get-go here, he doesn’t stay by choice and actively tries to escape. Just like all these choices he makes in Tristamp (which is MASSIVELY different in general), he does it for someone else. He can’t try to escape again, because they have Livio.

Speaking of! Livio!!! This was another thing that caught me by surprise going from Tristamp to Trimax, their relationship is so much different here, so much softer and it hurts in a beautiful way. I feel like less is more here to avoid spoilers, but this introduction pre-Trimax-canon and any future conflict with this backstory... is very different.

Holy hell, a moment like this happening so early?! Vash and Wolfwood having ideological differences and not understanding each other takes up so much time in Trimax. But over the course of three episodes, we go from Wolfwood killing someone that Vash wanted to save (props to Tristamp for making that gutpunch even more personal, ouch--though points deducted for not having the, “Shoot,” moment there), to Vash seeing how very similar they are and getting a grasp of why Wolfwood is the way he is. Wolfwood is so much softer in Tristamp. He’s way more emotional, he cares so deeply for things outside of himself, and he doesn’t have that apathetic bitterness. Staff have said that our main characters will be a lot more recognizable post-timeskip, so some shit is gonna happen to this man, but this is a fundamental shift in the early days of their relationship.

AGAIN!!! Wolfwood is doing this whole mission, betraying Vash, to save the orphanage. He didn’t have to listen to Vash trying to save the sandsteamer. It doesn’t matter if Vash is pissy if Wolfwood blew up the ship to save the orphanage, because that’s his end goal. He has a giant laser that just blew through an entire giant worm, this ship is nothing. Wolfwood’s trying to cling to the monster that he sees himself as, trying to stay the Punisher, but he’s not. He already has enough faith in Vash to trust him with everything he cares about. This takes a lot of development time for Wolfwood to trust Vash like this in Trimax--and even in the very end, he still doesn’t trust Vash with this. (If you know, you know.)

AGAIN!!!!! Wolfwood cares!!! He does not need to question if Vash is sure, if he thinks he can make up with or convince Knives or whatever, in fact he shouldn’t. He should give Vash no reason to question getting to July. But Wolfwood, be careful, your feelings are showing. Wolfwood’s getting worried about Vash. Even though all he needs to do is keep his head down and get this dork to July.

This was never Trimax Wolfwood’s motivation. Whatever drove him left him hollow and empty, he did not care. Even when he saw things starting to go south and he wanted out, Vash ended up being right: he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. (If you know, you know.) I had wondered, after Legato tried to bulldoze everything he loved, why the hell didn’t Wolfwood just desert the mission and team up with the gang. He already has such a deep connection with them. But this would be why.

WOLFWOOD IS NO LONGER CONTRACTED BY THE EYE OF MICHAEL AT THE END OF THE SEASON??? Some people say that Wolfwood still works for them, but tbh for what reason? They’re about to end the world. And then what about this line? He wouldn’t exactly have a choice, would he? I do think we’re gonna meet Chapel (right before Livio shoots himself, you’ll hear a voice and see a silhouette (not Razlo, though he’s there too) that seems to be a “new” character), and Wolfwood might end up working under him for some fucked up reason... But if not, this changes everything. It already changes everything considering how big Wolfwood escorting Vash to Knives is. But that’s done now. And because Vash saw right through him the first time, if Wolfwood comes back to do the same thing again, it might feel cheap and a little silly.

MERYL!!! Trimax is basically the Vash and Wolfwood show, right? The girls are around, but mainly their interactions are with Vash. But he and Meryl interact so much just over the course of twelve episodes. They even have that adorable group shot. She matters enough that he came back to rescue her, and the two of them worry about Vash together in the finale. Who knows what happened post-finale, but Wolfwood’s self isolation is already shot to hell. He’s more big brother Nico than he’d had the chance to be in awhile, he has so many people to care for.

So the danger has passed, Vash’s roots are back inside of him, the orphanage should be fine. But Wolfwood comes back for them. Yeah, yeah, the stupid cigarette excuse, but this is Wolfwood, not Vash. He didn’t come back because of the cigarette debt and we all know it. (Also kinda hoping that him saying what he does about fighting Knives being crazy is foreshadowing for some ridiculous 1v1 fight between them, had to throw that in there)

Now, theories Trimax spoiler time bby (I’ll also post any corrections under the cut):

EDIT 1: I was bonkers wrong on the Tristamp timeline (it takes place from May 25th to July 21st, not including the epilogue), so I just deleted that bit from the og post. I cannot remember where I got that number in my brain.

They are doing something with this man and I hate it as much as I love it. Every other character can go off and follow similar paths but they just nuked the entirety of Wolfwood’s storyline by having him be finished getting Vash to Knives and him choosing to trust Vash so goddamn early. And in less than a week of canon time!!! ORANGE WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!

They’ve knocked everything out of the park so far, I had so many concerns about what they were doing while watching, and they squashed most of them. So I choose to have faith that Orange has a brilliant plan that will crush my emotions in mind. It will probably eviscerate us just like Trimax did. But I have two theories as to how this could go:

First: And by far the most likely: all roads lead to that goddamned couch. They changed a ton of things, but just to make it all hurt in a new and exciting way. Don’t get me wrong, this was the final straw in making Trimax one of my favorite manga ever--Wolfwood’s character arc is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read. I’m a bit nervous because we’ve already shifted that arc so much, but there’s a lot of room to fuck us all up in this one. I imagine the final confrontation will still be between the two brothers, but I imagine the context will be different.

Wolfwood’s already chosen to spare Livio, so that won’t be the clincher, but there are so many things that Wolfwood wants to fight for now to use against him. Something in the timeskip will probably firm up his ideals to be the opposite of Vash’s in a different way than before, but I imagine we’ll get at least a season of them being goofy and learning how to live and regain their humanity together before they’re couched. :’) And now the girls are going to be a bigger part of it to make the grief all that greater :’))) Thanks in advance, Orange :’))))))

Second: No couch??? I know, then what would be the point? He’s doomed in every universe, how will it be as powerful if they don’t do that here??? And I agree, I think this is way less likely. But Wolfwood has already accepted the power of anime Jesus friendship into his life, and that’s a huge part of what lead to his death. Not that I don’t think it’s still likely for Tristamp Wolfwood to think it’s too much to ask Vash to step away from the conflict with Knives for whatever his personal struggles are, but... man that sandsteamer incident is foreshadowing something and I’m afraid. It shifted so much in a way that is so significant, I feel like I’m not doing it justice with my words.

Speaking of possible foreshadowing: Wolfwood isn’t the product of random experimenting like he was in Trimax, he’s the product of plant experimentation. And Vash can heal plants. Again, that’s a big ol’ stretch, as I think that they made the Gung Ho Guns a product of plant experimentation to try and explain the magic powers they all have, and it’s a very smooth idea imo. But it haunts me. Also, given that Conrad has probably been kept alive through fucked up plant methods and how long Rollo remained the same, and Conrad said the only flaw in his experiments were that they had to eat and drink... does Wolfwood and Gung Ho Gun friends have an extended lifespan??? Okay, getting off topic, sorry :’D

Basically, Wolfwood has already made huge leaps and bounds in trusting Vash, even listening to Meryl, and growing a heart for humanity. To the point I was half-afraid this guy was going to die in the finale, because we’ve already seen so much of his character arc. (It would have been a poor choice and I’m happy it didn’t happen EVEN IF I’M STILL AFRAID). And he’s based off of Trimax Wolfwood quite heavily! You can see it in the core of his personality still!!! WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH HIM???

I doubt either of these ideas are going to be quite right, watch as Orange works in a secret, third thing that I can’t even imagine lmao. But this has been driving me absolutely bonkers and I had to share. This is still Wolfwood, and I have a feeling he’s only going to be more and more of the lovable asshole from here on out. But I have no idea where we’re going with it.

Holy hell, this was a long post. If you made it to the end of my insane ramblings well, uh... congrats??? I hope it was somewhat worth the read???? I’m so sorry?????? Thank you??????????

#Trigun #Trigun Stampede #Tristamp #Trimax #Trigun Maximum #Trigun Meta #I'm so tired I'm sorry about any and all typos #And also if this is stupid #It's just been GNAWING AT ME #WOLFWOOD I LOVE YOU BUT YOU SCARE ME #Long Post #My Trigun Meta

[theyellowotter]

This may be a controversial opinion, but I think people should just be able to... enjoy things.

They should be able to like something without making it part of some competition and comparing it to something someone else (or they themselves) deem "better" or "more worthy of attention" or whatever winners circle they've created in their mind.

Maybe they WANT to watch that cookie-cutter Marvel film because they don't want to experience a lot of emotional turbulence or critical thinking. Maybe they WANT to deep dive into comic history and lore and see it play out on screen and do some critical thinking that involves something they enjoy thinking about.

Or maybe they DON'T.

No one looks at a painting and sees the same brushstroke. And if they hate it? Well, they've got a lot of other paintings to see.

People can enjoy things several ways, guys. Neither is more meaningful than the other.

Just don't be an asshole about it. That goes for everyone.

#sorry I'm just so very tired of seeing people hate each other for STUPID reasons #I'm not defening any marvel fan or artsy film fan who are jerks #but people shouldnt think theyre better juat because they have differing tastes #seems like everyone is on their own high horse about it #but guess what? #youre still on a frickin high horse #get over yourselves and leave people alone #I dont like most films my sister likes #but I just dont watch them #novel. isnt it. #rant #discourse #film #movies #negativity #I'm not defending anyone who are jerks #I'm also not typing all of that just to fix a typo lol #mcu

[someonesomewheredown]

If you think I'm noisy and annoying just wait until you see my thoughts! (they are also equally noisy and annoying)

#i don't need quiet i need the outside sounds to match the inside ones. do you understand. #i don't actually mind it most of the time i'm just paranoid that people find me annoying because i'm constantly humming and shit #i don't want to be the person that people complain about but it's not even something i'm fully aware of when i'm doing it #it's like breathing. it just feels natural #sorry for the random rant in the tags lol. i've just been tired this week and all of the little scary things are just more scary as a result #also oh my god i'm making so many typos writing this out. i correct them so you shouldn't see any but oh my god i should probably sleep #rant

[ldrfanatic]

Hi! I'm not sure if you're taking requests but if you are can you do a Slytherin boy(preferably Mattheo, Theo, or Enzo but you can choose) x reader. So the reader was walking down the hall and they heard chanting and cheering so they went to check it out and they saw the Slytherin boy in a might. Their face was really bloody and already starting to bruise so the reader tries to break up the fight, but ends up accidentally getting hit. Before the Slytherin boy can do anything the reader punches the other person in the face and then drags the boy back to his dorm to clean him up. And the boy is just kinda awestruck by what he just witnessed, and he just admires the reader as she cleans and patches him up. Sorry that this turned out to be so long 😭 have a lovely day!

The Knockout Chronicles

Theodore Nott x Reader Mattheo Riddle x Reader Enzo Berkshire x Reader

warnings - cursing, blood, fighting

a.n. i am taking requests esp for the slytherins :)

sooo... I couldn't decide who to write this for so I just did all three I hope that's okay. also this is my first time writing for Mattheo and Enzo so please let me know if there's something off regarding their characters I tried to do as much research as possible.

i was so freaking excited to get a slytherin request that i literally wrote this all in one sitting so i apologize for any typos or anything. please feel free to send more slytherin requests!!

wc 1.9k (each piece is about 500-600 words)

nav slytherin boys

---

You yanked exhaustedly at the tie, finally undoing the loop and pulling the damned thing off your neck. After a long day of O.W.L's all you wanted was to find your boyfriend and collapse into his arms. Whether it was your dorm or his made no difference to you so long as you didn't have to do anything more for the remainder of the evening.

As you walked the corridor in search of your now missing little snake, you heard the distinct hollering and shouting of what was likely a fight taking place. Typically, you'd be there either watching or taking bets, but today was different. There was a tired in you that settled into your bones.

The gentle glow of the setting sun lit up the castle walls with beautiful hues of pinks and oranges as you debated the merits of actually going to get involved in this affair when suddenly, you heard a student call out a familiar name.

THEODORE

"YEAH! Go on Theo, kick his ass!"

You closed your eyes, leaned your head back, and took deep breaths as you attempted to suppress the rage currently building within you.

All you wanted was a peaceful, quiet evening in Theo's arms.

Nonetheless, you quickly advanced toward the noise. Despite having heard students cheering and chanting for him, you were still rather surprised to see your boyfriend on top of some poor Ravenclaw boy, beating the absolute snot out of him.

Theo's fist came down punch after punch. Unlike the loud atmosphere of the students who'd gathered, Theo fought in complete silence. Still, though he seemed calm and controlled, you knew that you had to put an end to it.

It wasn't often that Theodore Nott got into fights. He didn't like to let his emotions get the better of him. In fact, emotion was something his father had tried to beat out of him at a rather early age. But when he did get into fights, Theo was ruthless. He could beat someone to death and never change expression. In fact, most people avoided conflict with Theo entirely due to the boys ability to deliver blow after blow for hours on end.

This Ravenclaw boy didn't seem to get the message. You approached the pair of them and placed a gentle hand on Theo's shoulder. His fist froze mid-swing.

"That's enough, Theodore."

Your appearance gave the Ravenclaw the momentary distraction he needed to wriggle out from underneath. The boy immediately lunged at Theo as soon as his feet touched the ground. However, in his reckless abandon, his elbow found it's way to your cheek and hit you on the side of the face with an audible thud, effectively whipping your head sideways.

The courtyard fell silent.

For the first time since their fight began, Theo's emotionless front cracked. He was seething with pure rage.

"Listen, man, I-- I didn't mean--"

Even those that weren't deterred by Theo's reputation and had decided to fight him anyways knew that there was only one person in this world that Theodore Nott cared for. You. And if anyone ever messed with you, Theo was more than happy to provide them with a brutal trip to the afterlife.

But the punch that broke the boy's jaw wasn't delivered by Theo.

You shook your hand out, not expecting your knuckles to pop in the way that they did when your fist met his face. The force of your punch had knocked the Ravenclaw to the floor. Two of his friends suddenly pushed through from the crowd and picked him up as quickly as possible before the three of them took off down the hall.

You didn't say anything as you grabbed the arm of Theodore's shirt. You plucked his robes off of the floor and stormed out of the courtyard, towards the Slytherin Common Room. Theo was silent the entire walk there. It wasn't until you were perched on his lap, cleaning the cuts on his face and hands that he spoke.

"Merlin, all this time you've been able to throw a punch like that?"

"Keep fucking playing with me Theodore, and you'll find out just how mean of a punch I can throw."

MATTHEO

"C'mon Riddle!"

"Goddamnit." You huffed out as you barged through the doors that led to the one-eyed witch courtyard. Mattheo, whom you were unfortunately in a relationship with, was rather engaged in a surprisingly brutal fight with Stewart Ackerley, a Gryffindor in your year.

His shirt and hands were covered in deep red splotches which you could only assume were Stewart's blood. Mattheo had probably the roughest upbringing of anyone you'd ever known. He'd always been hotheaded and he was always getting into fights. The number of entanglements he'd been in had died down considerably since the two of you began dating but it wasn't hard to get Mattheo riled up if you knew what button to push.

And Stewart Ackerley had damn near broken that button when Mattheo overheard him scheming with his disgusting friends about trying to get you into his bed.

Something that you noticed really early on into dating Mattheo is that he's not like other students. His troubled childhood and his unfortunate parentage meant that he had a darkness in him. He'd joked on more than one occasion that the real him was a monster that he kept chained up in the back of his mind.

Most importantly, when Mattheo fights, he lets the monster loose. He's complete, uncontrolled chaos as soon as that adrenaline hits his blood. It's like getting into a fistfight with a hurricane.

You carefully approached the pair of them, careful not to get too close.

"Mattheo stop it."

Mattheo's body flew around to face the source of whoever had been brave enough to scold him. It was likely this person would be the next target of his rage. That is, until his eyes met yours. He took a deep breath that did nothing to stop the way his body shook with rage.

Once you'd decided it was safe enough to draw near to him, you wiped away a bit of Ackerley's blood that had splattered onto his cheek.

It seemed, however, that the beating he'd received wasn't enough to deter the stupid Gryffindor. Moments later, he was blindly throwing his fists towards Mattheo. His vision was too impaired by blood and sweat to notice the figure standing next to him and in a moment of sheer ignorance, he'd mistakenly punched you in the face instead.

The taste of iron filled your mouth as blood started to pool. His blow had caused you to bite down on your tongue quite hard.

Mattheo instantly grabbed Ackerley by his collar but before he could punch the boy, he'd doubled over in pain from a swift kick that you'd delivered to his groin. While he was bent over, you swiftly pulled your knee up, satisfied with the crunch noise his nose made as it came in contact with your knee.

Ackerley let out a rather unbecoming shriek as he fell to the ground.

Mattheo stood off to the side with a proud look on his face. He smirked and flipped Ackerley off as you yanked him from the scene.

When you made it back to the Slytherin Common Room, Mattheo pulled you into a rather intense kiss. You pushed him onto the expensive leather couch and began dabbing at his busted knuckles with a cotton pad soaked with alcohol. Mattheo's other hand snaked around the back of your neck, pulling your head up so your eyes met his.

"As incredibly hot as that was Princess, do me a favor. Next time you're going to try and help me, don't."

"Get in there Berkshire!"

Confusion contorted your face as you approached the bell towers.

Why in the hell, would your sweet, loving Enzo be in a fight? Though you were convinced that it was really just some other slytherin who might've held a close resemblance to Enzo, you still allowed your feet to carry you towards the source of all the racket.

It came as quite a shock when you'd approached and saw your dark haired Slytherin on top of some poor student. You recognized the boy from the halls but you'd never actually met him. And here your sweet Enzo was, very thoroughly pummeling him to your surprise.

Not that you thought Enzo couldn't fight. In fact, you knew that Enzo had quite a bit of experience in that realm after the training his father had given him. What was shocking was that Enzo was fighting at all.

Despite his cousin Draco's attempts to goad him into fights on numerous different occasions, Enzo really did despise fighting. He was always a little bit afraid that if he allowed himself to lose control like he'd seen Mattheo do so often, he'd accidentally kill the bloke. No, it wasn't fair to engage in fights with people so much less trained than he.

So to see him now, face set in a hard and angry stare while he obliterated the boy below him was startling.

Though the student on the ground was just about destroyed, Enzo didn't have a scratch on him. He had a little blood that had splattered onto his coat and you suspected his knuckles had split, but aside from that, he was untouched.

You knew that if you didn't put an end to this, Enzo was going to regret it.

"Enzo." Your voice rang out softly into the air but he didn't hear you as he continued to beat his opponent. "Lorenzo, lay off of him."

This time, Enzo registered the sound of your dulcet tones. He stood from his place on top of the boy. You'd expected him to walk over to you and laugh it off, but instead he delivered a brutal kick to the boy's ribs, still angry beyond reason.

You marched up to the two of them, frustrated. "I said, stop."

Enzo turned to stare at you with a blank look in his eyes. It was like he'd completely died inside.

Whoever the little shit was that he'd just beat the life out of saw a unique opportunity (to die). You let out an involuntary yelp as he kicked your legs out from under you. Thankfully, you landed on your bum on the soft grass, but his actions did nothing to help Enzo's rage.

Before your boyfriend could get the chance to kill the kid, you'd jumped to your feet and stepped directly on his hand, applying probably more pressure than necessary. You secretly enjoyed the hoarse scream he let out. You only wanted to wound him enough to send a message, not enough to send him to the hospital wing, or worse, crying to the teachers like a little bitch.

After a thinly veiled threat, you took Enzo's bloody hand in yours and jerked him back towards the castle. Thankfully, most of the students were either on their way to dinner to already there so the halls were fairly empty.

"What was that?"

You growled out the moment the door to the Common Room shut behind you.

"Look I'm sorry, Y/n. But I'm not just going to stand by and let Cormac McClaggen of all people insult you."

Your eyes softened and you reached to the first aid kit kept in one of the large oak cabinets near the fireplace. You spoke gently to Enzo as you cleaned and bandaged his hands.

"Thank you, but I don't need you to protect me Enzo."

"Yeah, clearly."

4.18.2024

-- taglist -- (this is my theo taglist but to join any taglist for any specific boy just comment on any of my posts specifying which taglist you'd like to join)

@moonlightreader649 @svt-dk97 @thatdammchickennugget

#slytherin boys #slytherin #theodore nott #theo nott x reader #theodore nott x reader #theo nott #slytherin boys x reader #enzo berkshire #lorenzo berkshire #enzo berkshire x reader #lorenzo berkshire x reader #theo nott x you #theodore nott x you #lorenzo berkshire x you #enzo berkshire x you #mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle imagine #theo nott imagine #theodore nott imagine #enzo berkshire imagine #lorenzo berkshire imagine #requests open

[btdemaru]

hiiiyaaa! just found your blog, and im already obsessed 🤭 the theme is so cute too like wtf 🔛🔝 anyways i was wondering how the obey me brothers would react to an mc who’s very very good at giving massages! idk what it is but im very good at giving them so i wonder how they’d react to that 😭 again, super obsessed with ur blog and ur work <3

Obey me! Mc giving good massages to the brother's

note : thank u omg i just love pink tbh and i couldn't find any soft pink theme but im so glad you love my theme now 💕. AND THANK U AGAIN for suggesting this cause i need more idea juices for them [lipbite].... Gn!mc.

Warning : oiled up (not all), Might be ooc, if there's a misspelling/typo's I'm sorry, but mostly fluff cause idk if u wanted smut or not so enjoy

Lucifer

He will definitely resist it at first- the avatar if pride? The eldest?? A massage??? Do you think he's tired and overworked ?? [Yes]

But eventually gives in and lays down on the bed, i think he'd prefers clothes on or maybe just a t-shirt so that when you're done giving him the massage he can get back to work again

He's wrong 💀. Five minutes into the massage Lucifer's eye was starting to get droopy and heavy but he tried not to sleep

I think his back has alot of knots especially around his shoulder

If you knead/massage that part he'd probably slip out some groans or at least a satisfied noises

"i have no time for that, it'll only waste my time and i need to finish a few more-" before Lucifer could finish you tug his arm trying to drag him to the bed. He looks at you before sighing "fine, but i don't need this." Proceeds to lay down on his chest while he buried his face into the pillow.

You gently pressed your palms against his juicy broad shoulders before putting pressure on the tight knots "haaah.." he accidentally let out a satisfied sigh "oh? Seems like you're enjoying this after all!" Hearing you say that Lucifer went silent but still enjoys it, slowly drifting to sleep.

When you're done he's already too relaxed and knocked out at this point "hello? Earth to Lucifer! Were done here.. much better right?". No response at all from the mighty prideful demon below you, slowly with struggle you move him so he's laying on his back to find a peaceful look on his face as it was evident that he's definitely tired.

Mammon

Probs after you massage him once he'd want more some other time

Barges into your room after a 'tiring' day of having complaints and being chased for his debt just to ask for a massage

If you say no he'd look at you with puppy eyes while whining and pestering you about how shitty his day was

You (ofcourse) give in and he starts to take his jacket off leaving him in his white shirt smiling sheepishly at you before his back faces you

Mammon sighs in content as he immediately melts and relax into your touch, leaning more and more as he's starting to get a little too greedy for your touch. You pulled away only for him to gasp and turn over dramatically "hey why'd you do that? I thought the massage was-" you quickly cut him off "oh hush and let me do it properly and stop leaning all your weight towards me or lay down!" You spoke as he pouted and lay down on your bed.

He talks and talk about his day while you apply pressure on his muscles

Slowly he yawns and at the end of the session he sits up and thanked you before his eyes closes... now you have a sleepy eepy mammon

Leviathan

You cant tell me that he's not playing his video games most of the times or watching stuff to the point where his posture is BAD

And him sleeping in a bathtub doesn't help at all

He secretly has been wanting to ask for a massage from your for quite awhile but never really got the courage to ask even if you're close!

If you suggested it tho he wouldn't decline at all and just let you do your thing

You should probably tease him to take his hoodie off and just go shirtless to see how red he can be

"are you sure about the.. shirtless part?" He's still unsure but does it anyway since you're more experienced. What he didn't expect was a massage oil dripped onto his back from his shoulders all the way to his hip as you softly rubs it, making him jolts out of shock. "Wait wait wait w-what even was that?!" He looks at you "it's just an oil, relax."

He struggled to relax as he kept moving and wriggling slightly made you a little bit annoyed before gripping his waist and sits on his ass area so he doesn't move.

Levi's eye fluttered as your hand works magic on him, from his neck slowly moving down his shoulders and so on.

After you're done his face was less flushed as he thanked you and asked if he could ask for more in the future

Satan

He would probably droop himself over your shoulder fully dropping his whole weight onto your back

Nuzzling Into your neck before finally asking if you can massage him as his back was hurting from reading

If you accepted he'd happily lay down next to his cats (the one where he totally didn't sneak in)

He dimmed the light in the room and lays back down while he impatiently waits for you to begin

"just for a couple of minutes.. my back is killing me already" he said as he lays on his chest while slowly stroking the sleeping cat next to him "fine fine" after you spoke, you started to do your massage.

Satan couldn't help but melts and groans at the pleasure as the pressure on his back was slightly going away from your delicate but precise hands

Let's say 20 minutes has passed and you pull away thinking that satan is asleep and that you can stop, but as you do that his arms pulled you in again wanting for more "just ten more minutes- it feels so good.." well ten more minutes it is! (I cant say no to him)

Asmodeus

He's the one who sets up all these heart candles with flowery smell and assorted massage oil for you to choose

Asmo lured asked nicely for you to give him your perfect and heavenly massages

He'll even ask to give you a massage in return (it'll turn into more)

Loves the way your hand roams around and all over his body

Oh and asmo probably will go butt naked only with a towel to cover his ass

You gave in to him since he made the efforts of already setting the mood with pretty scented heart candles and bought the massage oil

When you start to carefully massage his neck, he's going to be loud and wouldn't mind if anyone outside his room hear him, slowly working down to his back Asmo is amazed of how good you are "where did you learn this? It feels so good~" he nuzzle back to his pillow after talking.

After you're finish, he'll insist to give you a massage in return so if you accept that then don't be suprised if his hands roam around places on your body slightly squeezing it (he'll ask tho) and perhaps more than just a massage

Beelzebub

You'd give him massages a few hours after his workout sessions

Loves the way your hands move all over his muscular body and would be a happy boy if you provided small snacks after

This is just a guess of mine but i think it'll be kinda hard? Like you'd need to put more pressure on him than the other's cause his muscles are hard

Aside from the back side, feel free to give him arm massage as well

Beel will stare at you when you're kneading his sore arm muscle, a small smile was shown on the corner of his lips and he leans back.

"you brought snacks..right?" He looked around the room and on the bed to find anything he van chew on "I'll give it to you after the massage so be patient." Beel actually did what you said and waited til the end of the massage

Gently rub his arms with a warm towel after pls he likes it.

After that he'd probably embrace you while he's eating the snacks and just enjoy how fuzzy n relaxed he feels and glad that you accepted his cuddles

Belphegor

He wouldn't ask for it in words, belphie would just tug your shirt and pat his back signaling he wants you to start massaging him

Loves LOVES when you give him scalp massages and gives his face kisses afterwards

Eventually will fall asleep but who's suprised atp lmfao

You better give him snuggles and cuddles when you're done cause i like to think he's abit clingy

Belphie pats his back as you guys were watching a movie "you want a massage like- right now?" You said while only getting a nod from the demon next to you, quickly gets in between your body and lays on your stomach as he waits for you to start "...hurry" belphie kept nuzzling his head on your hands as you sigh and starts to gently massage his head

Working your way across his scalp to cover all areas. Trying to massage his scalp using your fingertips for at least 5 minutes before small snores are starting to come out of belphie's lips, he would say it from time to time about how good of a massage you give and how much he enjoys it.

#obey me x mc #obey me headcanons #obey me imagines #obey me shall we date #shall we date obey me #obey me #obey me fluff #obey me drabble #obey me dateables #obey me brothers #obey me x gn!mc #leviathan headcanons #leviathan x mc #lucifer x mc #mammon headcanon #mammon x mc #lucifer headcanons #lucifer fluff #fluff #leviathan fluff #mammon fluff #satan x mc #om! satan #om! mammon #om! lucifer #om! leviathan #satan fluff #satan headcanons #asmo x reader #asmo obey me

[cinnajun]

༻¨*:·. atlas cried | ljn

summary | they say your soulmate is your perfect other half—whatever you lack, they have, and whatever they lack, you have. when lee jeno, your academy’s golden boy, approaches you and says you’re his soulmate, you can’t begin to understand how he—rich, gorgeous, never had to work a day in his life—could be the perfect match for you—poor, exhausted, and barely hanging onto the scholarship covering what would be a 65 million won tuition.

genre | high school au (rich boarding school style), soulmate!au, prep!jeno x fem!reader, prep! jaemin & reader (platonic), angst, slow burn, enemies-ish to lovers, kind of academic rivals but in a way that the rivalry is created by other people, im ngl y/n and jeno just don’t like each other, fake dating? au

warnings | did someone say violent academic pressure, heavy isolation, abusive parenting, malicious rumors, everybody is so unhappy, a lot of miscommunication, internalized misogyny, suicide mention (in passing), arson

wc | 24.7k

a/n: hello and welcome to my first long piece ! i hope it's up to your standards :') i'm not sure how i feel about it, as i've never written anything this long so i'm scared there's continuity issues and whatnot. nonetheless, please send me your feedback !! p.s. here is a short playlist comprised of 10 songs i listened to while i wrote this :) p.p.s im sorry for any egregious typos/poorly worded sentences in the last ~9k words, i proofread all of them while i was really tired lol

ft. a few people i made up

i. during the titan war, atlas sided with his fellow titans in battle to defeat the olympians.

THE WIND HOWLED OUTSIDE YOUR DORM BUILDING, rattling the windows of your dorm room and nearly obscuring the study music coming from your speakers. The sky and the wind told of an incoming storm, which made you want to hurry to the cafeteria and get dinner before you were trapped inside. Your homework, however, drowned out the hunger pangs in your stomach and told you that the endless bags of chips hidden under your bed would make a fine dinner.

“You know, they say your soulmate shoulders the weight of the world with you,” your roommate, Suhyeon, sighed, capturing your attention and effectively destroying the deep focus you had on your homework.

“Ok. And?”

She turned over onto her side, a bored expression taking over her face. “Doesn’t that seem scary?”

“I guess?”

“Would you want to share all your problems with someone else? Like, every single one?”

You resisted the urge to strangle her, as well as the urge to remind her that she does not have to keep a top five spot in her class in order to continue going to school. Instead, you spun your desk chair to face her bed, where she lay, staring at your plain white ceiling.

“Want to go get dinner?”

“With this wind? That sounds dreadful,” she replied, looking at you with a bored face. Then, with a sigh, she pushed herself up from the bed and swung her legs over the edge. “I’m not in the mood for another three bags of honey chips.”

To that, you’d have to agree. For the past three-and-a-half days, you and Suhyeon had eaten three bags of chips for dinner, as you were trapped with your head in your textbooks and Suhyeon refused to go to the dining hall without you (according to her, it would look weird to eat alone, and you were her only friend on campus).

“If I had to guess, we’ll be getting a day off tomorrow,” Suhyeon said, swiping her set of keys off her mostly unused desk. You stood up, cringing at the sound of your back cracking as you stretched. Your legs ached from how long you’d been sitting, as well as your back, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the cramps you felt in your knees. Suhyeon grabbed her coat off the coat hook bolted to your door, slipping it over her uniform and zipping it up promptly.

You shuffled over and did the same, preemptively sliding the hood up so you could begin situating your hair under it. Suhyeon swung the door open and you obediently followed, emerging into the monotonous corridors of the dormitory.

“Are we due for blizzarding?”

“Yes ma’am.” Suhyeon nodded, swinging her arms back and forth as she half-skipped down the hall. “It’s not cold enough today, but, if it storms tonight, I bet we’ll wake up to a classes-have-been-canceled email.”

You sighed, wondering what that would mean for your math exam that you’d been slaving over for the past week and a half. It was the final midterm until you were granted a week off, which you and Suhyeon had excitedly planned to be spent entirely in your bedroom. If there was a snow day, you hoped your teacher would simply postpone it for Friday, rather than move it after the break altogether.

You opened the door to the stairwell, allowing Suhyeon to pass by you and get a head start on the stairs. You quickly followed, wishing you’d done your usual study-stretch schedule today. Your legs nearly gave out as you tried to stay caught up with your roommate, and you were shocked that you managed to make it to the first floor without falling down a flight of stairs.

Another strong gust of wind rattled the building, and you wondered if it was exactly a good idea to make a break for the dining hall.

Suhyeon let out a loud groan, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I hate the second year-dormitory,” she announced, slowing to a stop in front of the first pair of doors to the outside. “Why do the first years have the indoor path to the dining hall? If anything, they should be the ones in the old, rickety dorms.”

“There’s nothing happy about second year, though. If they put all the depressing stuff halfway in, it won’t be as easy to drop out,” you said, taking the chance to run outside the moment the wind let up a bit. Suhyeon followed close behind you, catching up enough to lace an arm around yours as you ran through the school courtyard.

You practically bulldozed into the dining hall as another burst of wind began, which ended up with you and Suhyeon having to push the door closed as if you were trying to move a broken-down car. The door shut with a satisfying lock, leaving you in the entryway room that consisted of four doors and absolutely nothing else.

Suhyeon sighed, pushing through the second set of doors. The moment they opened, you were hit with the strong smell of spaghetti, which made the hunger pangs worsen substantially. Despite the time, the dining hall was mostly empty, save for a few groups who’d opted to spend their after-school time in there and any third years or first years who’d decided they were hungry.

They didn’t have to make a mad dash across campus to arrive without being blown away. In fact, none of them were even wearing any sort of rain gear.

“Oh god,” Suhyeon mumbled as you approached the serving counter, picking up two trays from the stack they had at the edge.

“What?”

“Golden boys are here.”

You looked up from your tray, turning your head to scan the cafeteria. Sure enough, all six of the golden boys—as they were called—sat at a table in the corner of the room, books littered across the table alongside bowls of spaghetti and an enormous amount of garlic bread. They seemed to be having a good time, laughing and making up essentially all the noise that rattled the room. Suhyeon always told you that there were seven of them, but one had the misfortune of taking a transfer year to some “partner school” off in Shanghai this year, and last year he was still a middle schooler.

You thought the seventh boy might’ve been a ghost that you couldn’t see, though.

One of the cafeteria ladies put a hefty bowl of spaghetti on your plate, along with an oddly gourmet-looking piece of garlic bread. There was a self-serve salad bar and dessert bar further down, but you weren’t too interested in having any of it for right now.

“Awe, they’re sitting a few tables down from our usual spot,” Suhyeon mumbled, stopping to grab a bowl of salad. You waited behind her, staring at the distance between their table of madness and your quaint corner. They were sitting adjacent to the window, likely to survey the weather, and your two-person table was situated in a corner between a false wall that separated the eating area from the first-year entrance. There were about six tables, give or take, between you and them.

“We’ll be fine. It’s not like we’re right next to them,” you said, turning towards her. She was finishing up her salad, placing the bowl on her unbalanced tray, and attempting to get it stable with her now-free other hand. You took that as your chance to begin your stroll to the table, with Suhyeon nervously following behind.

For some reason, she did not like the oh-so-famous golden boys. Any time they entered the conversation, she went silent, and always ended up throwing off the momentum of the conversation with her anxiety; when you tried to ask her about it, she always got defensive, saying she has “nothing to do with them” and “doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

You allowed her to take the corner spot, frowning as she shoved herself into the corner and began picking at her food with her fork. You wondered if it was mean to do this when she so obviously had an issue with it, even if she insisted she didn’t.

“We can sit somewhere else…”

“No, you’re right,” Suhyeon cleared her throat, shaking her head. “It’s not like we’re right next to them. I’ll be fine.”

You took another look at her hidden in the corner, recognizing that she was not going to be fine, but you didn’t push any further. If you had to guess, the last thing she wanted to do was have you make a big deal about her discomfort.

You both ate quietly and quickly, hoping to finish before the oncoming storm hit. Due to the lack of conversation between you two, courtesy of the golden boys being twenty-ish feet away, it wasn’t hard to get through nearly the entire meal within a few seconds.

Your silence also made it quite easy to hear what the golden boys were talking about at their table, added to how easy it was to see them from the corner of your eye.

“I heard Nayeong say we’re getting tomorrow and Friday off,” Zhong Chenle reported, taking a long drink of his water. “They’re just waiting to make it look like it was a last-minute decision.”

“Wow, student council president certified? Must be true, then,” Na Jaemin replied, turning to Lee Donghyuck, who was dejectedly scrolling through his phone. If you had to guess, he’d struggled with the English exam that had taken place earlier that day, seeing as he was notoriously good at Japanese and nothing else. “What's gonna happen with the big math midterm tomorrow, then? I don’t want it to be after break, I’d seriously rather die.”

Donghyuck barely glanced up from his phone before answering. “Rumor has it they’re gonna proctor it in the dorm study rooms. Separate everyone into time slots and stuff. They’re doing it for the third and first years, too.”

Chenle groaned, letting his head dangle on the edge of his chair. Mark Lee, student council vice president and perhaps the second most adored student in the school, didn’t comment on their rumor-spreading. You expected him to be the one they relied on most for information, but 

You raised your head slowly, looking over at their table. Mark Lee didn’t comment because he was staring straight at you.

Suhyeon noticed your staring, following your eyesight towards Mark, who was now staring lasers through your head. She dropped her chopsticks into the mostly empty bowl, standing up from her chair suddenly. The movement, along with the clattering of metal, scared you, causing you to snap your head back towards her.

“I don’t feel good.”

Her face was turning pale and her eyes began to water, which was considerably uncharacteristic for her. You looked up at her, glancing down at your half-finished spaghetti and garlic bread. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Can we go back to the dorms, now?” she asked, placing a hand on her chest. “I feel really nauseous.”

“Yeah, of course,” you said, standing up. “We can just leave the plates. Let’s go.”

You glanced over at the golden boys’ table, which had gone quiet. Mark was whispering something to Lee Jeno, who was also staring at you now, arms crossed over his chest and blonde hair (when he showed up blonde at the beginning of the year, everybody lost it) wisped over his forehead.

Gently, you wrapped a hand around her shoulder, hugging her to your side as you made a swift departure from the cafeteria. You got odd looks from other students, but, for the most part, nobody got in the way of your exit. You emerged straight into the dangerous wind, not stopping despite how much it threatened to blow you away.

Being out of sight of the golden boys took a huge weight off your shoulders, one you didn’t know was there. Sometimes you garnered looks given your well-known scholarship student title, but that was mostly from first years who were shocked that could even happen. As far as you were aware, you had nothing to do with the golden boys—not even something as simple as a group project or anything.

Had you done something wrong? Were your grades slipping? Was there something going on concerning your scholarship? The wave of questions washing out your mind was causing you to feel nauseous; you didn’t want Mark Lee looking at you like that. You didn’t want any one of them looking at you like that.

You practically threw the dormitory’s doors open, dodging past anyone who might’ve been in your way. You couldn’t get Mark Lee’s stare out of your mind, because it was unexplainable, because it was unprompted, because it could mean you’d be kicked out of the academy and sent back to your terrible parents who would berate you for forever, telling you that you’re worthless and no better than your freeloading, addict siblings.

You skid to a stop in front of the dorm’s nursing office, knocking three times and not waiting for a response. You pushed Suhyeon inside, grabbing the dorm keys from her jacket pocket and giving the resident nurse an unnerved look.

“She’s not feeling well,” you explained, giving Suhyeon no time to protest you dropping her off in the nurse’s office. Instead, you practically slammed the door shut, staring at the monotonous wood for a moment more.

Your heart was pounding. Your mind was spinning. You could barely breathe.

Quietly, you turned towards the end of the hall, where the stairwell waited for you to climb it. Suddenly, it occurred to you that there was a slim chance you could be climbing it for the last few times beginning today.

As you approached, you wondered what your siblings would do if you lost the scholarship. They’d laugh at you, sneer, and say “I thought you were supposed to be the perfect child?” They’d watch as your parents struck you, yelled at you for being worthless and nothing better than the rest of them. They’d force you to kneel on rice while they “mourned” the loss of their shot at wealth, asking you why you didn’t sleep around with the student body to try and ensure a husband.

“You’ll never be this pretty again,” they would say. “Who cares about your soulmate? Will a soulmate bring you money? Comfort? Look at what happened to your father and I when we chose each other over wealth. Do you want to be like us?”

You slammed the door of your dorm shut behind you, falling onto your knees. You realized that you’d never turned your study music off, or your lights, or anything before you’d left for the dining hall.

You looked down at your arms, letting yourself hold up your right hand. There, in the very center of your palm, was a code that you’d memorized the moment you began to comprehend it: LJN.

You picked yourself off the floor, suppressing the panic tears that threatened to spill over. Instead, you approached your desk, dropping down onto the chair and shoving your math textbook out of the way. You instead chose to focus on the human biology book, long and heavy, that sat underneath it. Weakly, you flipped through the pages, stopping on the first page of a chapter entitled “Soulmates: Biology’s Biggest Mystery.”

The first paragraph read, “the concept of soulmates has long been a pillar of human society. The existence of a ‘soulmate marking’ has purportedly been around since the beginning of time, but the earliest recordings of it come from ancient Mesopotamian tomes depicting a ‘perfect other half’ that ‘completes the human body.’"

You must’ve tattooed these words on your brain when you were studying, but, even then, you couldn’t help but feel mystified every time you read through it. You never cared too much about the whole soulmate craze, considering you were still a teenager and didn’t need to care about “forever” yet, but there was always a sort of comfort that you found in it. The existence of your soulmate confirmed that you would not be chained to your parents for the rest of your life, and, one day, you’d be able to leave them behind for a better, happier life.

You read on, tracing the words of the chapter with your index finger.

“Around 97% of the population have a set of initials written somewhere on their body, one that they’re born with. Their soulmate will have a marking on the same part of their body with the coinciding set of initials. There have been no instances of these initials changing, even upon the death of one’s soulmate, meaning the connection is entirely permanent.”

There was someone out there who would pull you out of this. You were sure of it.

And, when that happened, your life would truly begin anew.

ii. the titans lost the war, and the olympians banished the titans to tartarus.

From beginning to end, your math midterm was a mess.

Sure enough, classes were canceled, but they proceeded with finishing things up before your week-long break began and all information previously learned left your mind. You’d been placed in a 3:30 time slot to take your exam, along with about 15 of your classmates, in the dormitory study room that you’d never once step foot into.

Upon arrival at 3:10, you were faced with the sad truth that both Huang Renjun and Lee Jeno were also in your time slot. Initially, you avoided their gaze, shrinking into the corner of the lounge and hiding behind your phone and wired earbuds. But, you were learning the world would never be kind to you because, the moment Lee Donghyuck emerged from the 1:30 time slot, he had a perfect view of you.

You subconsciously tried to hide once more, hunching down and allowing for your hair to fall over your face. You increased the volume of your music, a random, synthy song you’d fallen in love with some time last week, and tried to ignore how Lee Donghyuck’s gaze made you feel like an internationally wanted criminal.

Once they took note of you, the staring did not cease. Lee Donghyuck left for his dorm while you waited for your proctor to announce things were ready (which happened about a minute and a half after Donghyuck left).

You ripped your earbud out when you saw her appear out of the corner of your eye, jerking up to look at her and wishing your heart would stop beating so fast. “There’s assigned seating, which I will call out now. When you hear your name, please sit behind the person last called. If that person is sitting in the very back, please begin the next row in the front.”

Huang Renjun was called third, which took a small weight off your shoulders. That didn’t stop Jeno from looking at you, stealing glances and sometimes blatantly staring with those terrifyingly cold eyes of his.

“[First] [Last].”

You nearly tripped over your feet getting up, leaving your small bag along with your cell phone and earbuds on the chair you sat waiting on. You held your pen and pencil so tightly in your hand that your knuckles were pale, and you must’ve looked sick to the proctor, given the look she offered you as you passed beside her.

Your eyes narrowed in on the empty seat behind the last girl that was called—the student council secretary, Yeji—and you swiftly approached, half-returning the smile Yeji gave as you walked past.

Huang Renjun was one seat behind you and two rows over, meaning he would barely be able to see you. If you were lucky, Jeno would be the first to start his row, meaning he would be in front of you and therefore it would be impossible for him to look at you.

You weren’t sure why you still relied on luck when pretty much all of it was wasted when you got into this godforsaken school on a scholarship.

The proctor called an Osaki Shotaro, who came and took the seat behind you. Then, a Kim Juyeon who began the next row. Then, a Liu Yangyang who sat next to you.

“Lee Jeno.”

You could’ve shot yourself right then and there, especially as he sauntered over to the seat, dropping into it and immediately beginning to spin his pencil around his fingers. You could practically feel his stare like lasers being shot through the back of your head, unending and unwavering as the proctor called the final girl and shut the door behind her.

“Thank you for arriving smoothly and on time.”

You wished you would have skipped. Skipping might’ve cost you your scholarship and your future, but, if you got Suhyeon on your side and claimed you’d woken up severely ill but couldn’t make it to the nurse because Suhyeon had the 10:30 time slot and you woke up at 11, you might’ve been able to make it to the makeup date.

If only God had been kind enough to warn you about this one.

The proctor began to hand out your answer sheets and tests while droning on and on about rules, her words going in and out of your ears like the pointless documentaries your history teacher enjoyed showing. As if you hadn’t taken five of these exams already, she regurgitated these rules, causing your mind to spin more and your leg to bounce harder.

“You may begin.”

You barely began at all. For the entire test, your mind wasn’t focused on derivatives or any sort of equation you’d spent weeks memorizing—no, your mind was focused on Lee Jeno, Mark Lee, all the golden boys, and why they were suddenly so focused on you. You wrote down numbers and letters, plus signs and square roots, all while thinking about what they could want from you.

With every page flip, with every boxed answer and filled-in bubble, your mind fell deeper and deeper into your panicked trance. At some point, you began writing on autopilot with no mental capacity to tell whether or not what you wrote was correct. A part of you wondered why you cared so much when you were obviously about to become the first-ever scholarship student at the academy to lose their scholarship, to be the first investment that brought a net loss instead of a net gain.

Before you knew it, the test was over, and it was 5:15 pm on the dot. You felt like throwing up, a million spiders crawling up your stomach and throat as you stared at what you wholeheartedly believed to be a failed math test. Your mind spun—math had always been your worst subject, and you’d always teetered on the edge with it. As long as you excelled in other subjects, you’d be fine, but there was an absolute need to ensure you did not fall below rank five.

As long as you were never below five, you would be fine.

The proctor snatched your test up from your desk, taking a once over with a smile. “Congratulations on finishing, Ms. [Last],” she said, a formality she’d repeated to everyone but carried a special weight when she spoke to you.

You wanted to reach for it, take it back and run away with the paper. You couldn’t remember a single question you’d answered, let alone whether or not the answers were right. This would be the first (and last) time you’d drop below rank five in your exams, and you’d be packing up your bags when the grades dropped next week. This was the end of your paradise, all thanks to a few awry looks from the academy’s beloved golden boys.

“All papers have been collected. You are free to return to your dorms,” the proctor announced, placing the stack on her desk. You lingered on for a moment, staring at your hands and focusing on the pressure that weighed your shoulders down every waking moment of the day.

Once, Suhyeon was trying to get you to go shopping with her while you were studying. You refused vehemently, citing your grades as the reason why you couldn’t watch her spend thousands upon thousands on clothes she’d never wear while you cringed at every price tag you saw.

With one of her usual, airy sighs, she collapsed onto her bed, mumbling a hollow statement that stuck in your mind: “[First] [Last], forever crushed by the weight of the world.”

Your self wallowing was cut off by Lee Jeno stopping in front of your desk, looking down at you with his terrible cold stare. You returned his focus, fighting off the urge to curl into yourself and tell him to never speak to you again.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, shoving his hands into his blazer pockets. “I’ll meet you in the library at 8.”

You gave him a look that could only be described as confusion, tilting your head at the notion.

“The library closes at 5 tonight.”

“Does that matter to me?”

He scoffed a bit, not paying you another second. Instead, he sauntered off with Huang Renjun, who gave him a steady slap on the shoulder as he walked out. Renjun followed behind, saying, “You’ve got guts now, huh?” while continuing to hammer on his shoulder and laugh at his “guts.” All you could do was slowly lift yourself from your desk chair, thinking about what you would do upon your return to Jinhae-gu. What your ex-classmates, who’d screamed and cried with you when you received your scholarship notice in the middle of the school day, would say when you walked in, a husk of your former self.

What you’d do when you saw your parents and siblings again.

“Ms. [Last], now that exams are over for second years, I suggest you stop by Miss Choi’s office as soon as possible. I know how much pressure you’re under to retain such perfect grades,” the proctor said, causing you to be torn away from your mind once again.

You smiled weakly at her, nodding. “I will, ma’am. Thank you for your concern.”

“It’s no issue, sweetheart,” she said, dropping a hand onto your shoulder. “We all want to see you succeed.”

You bowed at her as a way to get her to stop touching you, rushing out of the classroom. You’d rather die than go see Miss Choi, who picked you apart too easily in your opinion. You didn’t like the way she seemed to know how you were feeling, how she tried to teach you how to carry the world, because Miss Choi—an alma mater of the academy by paid tuition and not by scholarship—would never know what this felt like, even if she followed you around for three months straight.

With your bag retrieved, you began your march up the stairwell, a new anger brewing in your heart. When you were gone, when there was a lack of honor student to bring up in the interviews and magazine features, when you worked up the nerve to post a forum piece on how the academy destroyed any bit of happiness you had, they’d understand that this wasn’t just academic pressure.

Suhyeon was right—you were forever crushed by the weight of the world because nobody else here wanted to carry their weight and believed there was no one better suited to pick it up other than you.

iii. tartarus was a deep abyss used as a prison for the titan gods,

“You can’t go out right now, the weather is too awful,” Suhyeon insisted, scrambling to reach for your keys. You grabbed them before her, dropping them in the pocket of the jacket you’d draped over your lounge clothes. “It’s dark and the snow is barreling down, [First]. Where could you possibly go right now?”

You bit your lip, staring down at her. She was dressed in her pajamas, practically ready for bed by this point, with a matching Hello Kitty pajama set and a headband pulling her hair away from her face. A pair of glasses sat low on the bridge of her nose, sliding down further the more she tried to discourage you from leaving.

“I just want to take a walk. It stopped snowing a while ago, so there’s no barreling down happening, and I have my snow boots on. Everything should be fine,” you insisted, slipping your gloves on. Suhyeon went to stand in front of the door, blocking your exit to the outside and further delaying your meet-up with Mr. Perfect.

“Promise you’ll be back before room checks.”

You sighed. If whatever Lee Jeno needed to speak to you about was important, he must’ve put something in place to ensure you wouldn’t get in trouble for missing room checks, but you couldn’t be sure. You nodded, waving her out of the way.

“I’ll be back before room checks. Swear on it.”

Uncomfortably, Suhyeon stepped away from the door, allowing you to pass without a word. You slipped out of your room, giving her one last glance before you shut the door behind you and isolated yourself in the dorm corridor. It was cold—everything was cold—and dark, with dim LEDs illuminating the hall floors and nothing else providing any sort of light. It was akin to that of a movie theater's stairs—just lit up enough that you could make it down the stairs without plunging to your doom.

You made your way to the stairwell, cringing as your shoes clicked against the wood of the stairs. You hoped that Jeno had done anything to protect you from the wrath of the late night staff, but you wondered if getting caught meant anything when you’d be gone in a week.

The dorm’s common area (or, more simply, the first floor) was completely devoid of everyone, as aligned with the school rules, which said no students should be out of their rooms past 7:30 on a weekday to avoid issues with student health or student safety. Room checks began at 9, which essentially meant you could be out and about until then, but nobody wanted their parents finding out they were screwing around instead of studying.

You took no time in crossing the common room, weaving through tables and couches in hopes that a teacher didn’t appear and tell you to get back to your room before this “hurt your future,” as they liked to tell you. When the doors to the dorm opened, you could’ve sworn you felt your heart drop into your feet—but, the doors opening did not yield a teacher or any staff member.

It yielded Na Jaemin.

Upon seeing you, he gave you a cordial smile and a nod. Jaemin was Lee Jeno’s second-in-command, his beginning and his end. From what you’d heard from classmates, they’d grown up together, being neighbors from the day they were born and being friends from the day they could speak. You barely saw one without the other, and you couldn’t lie when you said part of you was expecting Jaemin would be in the library along with Jeno tonight.

“Good evening, [First],” he greeted. You offered him an uncomfortable nod back, accompanied by an unsure smile and your shaking hands. “Library’s unlocked.”

You blinked a couple of times, suddenly clueless as to what he was talking about. Na Jaemin was blinding, from the way he smiled at you to the way he even looked at you.

“Ah, um, thanks,” you said, coming to your senses. “Sleep well, or something.”

Jaemin chuckled, nodding. “You too. Good luck!”

He passed by you without another glance, another word, disappearing into the men’s side of the second-year dorms. You watched his figure retreat for a moment, wondering if you’d run into any other golden boys on your way to the library. You hoped Jaemin was the only one.

As you emerged into the cold, night air, stepping onto the snow and sinking in almost immediately, you now found yourself focused on your brief interaction with Na Jaemin.

A while back, you’d heard that he didn’t have a soulmate.

You were just starting out, and, given the nature of your enrollment at the school, you’d had a slight amount of popularity. People hung around you with the idea that you’d somehow trick them into good study habits and unrivaled intelligence (to be honest, people still do), and that inevitably came with you hearing whatever gossip traveled around your class at the time.

“You know Na Jaemin? The boy who started this year and immediately made it in with Mark Lee’s crowd?” a girl asked you, sliding into your study table at the library. Instantly, she’d caught the attention of the other three students who asked to study with you, drawing them away from the math worksheet you were all working on. “Ah, [First], Mark Lee and his crew have been attending the academy since elementary school, so they kinda own the place. They never let anybody in with them until Na Jaemin.”

Upon hearing that, you’d mostly been impressed that somebody could afford that many years of tuition here, let alone send their child into academic hell from the moment they’d learned to read. Suhyeon hadn’t told you that she’d also lived the same life, yet, so this was your first exposure to what most students called the “originals” of the academy.

“He doesn’t have a soulmate.”

A sort of surprise settled in around the table, given how rare it was to be born soulmate-less. There was a “no way” thrown out, along with a couple of gasps of disbelief. You’d felt bad for him, wondering what it was like to live in a world where (mostly) everybody but you had a universally-fated life partner.

Your tablemates didn’t seem to think similarly to you.

“God, my mother would be overjoyed if I was soulmateless,” one of your classmates, Chaeyeon, hummed, leaning back on her chair and resting her elbow on the back of it. You turned to her, shocked that was her first reaction upon hearing about Na Jaemin’s soulmateless-ness. “He must be the golden child of his family.”

“He’s the youngest, too, so he was inevitably going to be the kid they married off. That’s one less person they’ll need to pay off.”

Na Jaemin, whether the rumor was true or not, was your way of finding out that rich people often trapped their younger children in loveless marriages, and paid off their soulmates to keep them from ever forming a relationship. They’d even had a saying for it: “An accomplished father’s best child is the child who can marry for money with no regrets.”

It horrified you because that was how your parents thought. You couldn’t imagine a life where everybody, not just your parents, thought that way.

As quietly as you could, you pushed the door to the library open, finding yourself in the sprawling lobby you were so acquainted with. Despite the academy being a lower grade school, the library was the kind that you’d find articles on and the kind where people would travel just to see it.

Usually, it was locked to the high heavens when it was closed due to its extensive collection of books no high schooler needed to read, but tonight was different. You wondered if Mark stole the keys from Nayeong and gave them to Jeno.

You shuffled towards the stairs, wondering if Lee Jeno was going to make you search for him. Your heart began pounding in your chest once again, thoughts of expulsion (losing your scholarship wasn’t technical expulsion, but it might as well have been) and disappointing everyone you know with a simple 89 on a math test.

The second floor was completely dark, which was creepier than you wanted it to be. Assuming Jeno wasn’t waiting for you in a pitch-black room, you continued up the stairwell, telling yourself Jeno wasn’t going to inform you of your impending doom despite the fact that he was a student, and that he wasn’t even on the student council.

You couldn’t imagine whatever else he wanted to talk to you about, though. You weren’t in the same sphere, hell, even in the same universe as each other—he hung around the golden boys and nobody else, breaking every rule the school had to offer and using his father’s name as an excuse. You hung out with the kids who lived closer to the bottom (whatever bottom meant at this god-forsaken school), the kids whose grades had a real impact on them rather than the ones who went to school to say they did.

The third floor was also completely dark but gave way to the dim lighting that lit up the fourth floor. For some reason, Lee Jeno had decided to taint your preferred study floor with whatever he had to tell you, but you supposed he had no clue that it was your usual study spot. After all, you were in different universes.

Taking the final few steps up to the fourth floor, you noticed that, while it was illuminated, there was no sign of Jeno anywhere. The lights were on and it was dead silent, with not a single movement or noise to even hint at another person being inside; but, from the way one of the tables had its chairs sprawled about and from the light smell of coffee, you could tell people had been in here recently.

If you had to guess who, it was the rest of the golden boys, given your run-in with Jaemin in the lobby of your dorm. You wondered where the rest of them went, particularly Donghyuck and Renjun, who hadn’t ventured through the lounge of the second-year dorm—hopefully, they weren’t still here, as the emptiness was somewhat calming.

You decided to venture further into the fourth floor, walking past the proof-of-life table and entering the rows upon rows of shelves. The fourth floor was the most academic, being the quietest at any given time. Nobody liked scaling four flights of stairs with the sole purpose of studying, so the only people who did were the ones who wanted to avoid the quiet yet prominent chatter on the lower floors.

And the golden boys apparently, but only past closing.

The silence of the room made your heart slow down to a calmer rate, as well as making any panic you were previously feeling dissipate. You were sure that, the moment you found Jeno, it would resume where it left off, but you were grateful for these few moments of calm before the storm you were about to step into.

You continued walking through the shelves, scanning the book’s spines and their titles as if you hadn’t seen them nearly every day for the past two years. You allowed the tips of your fingers to brush along the many different textures and indents of the well-loved books before you. If you were truly at the end of your time here, you ought to write a love letter to this library, thanking it for the countless hours you spent reading and learning in hopes that you, one day, would be a peer of the people around you and not just a spectacle.

At the edge of the shelves, there was another small clearing of desks and then a couple of couches that most students used to take naps during finals season, and that's where Lee Jeno waited for you. The moment you appeared from the woodwork, he noticed you, staring at you from the corner of his eye.

“I was thinking you weren’t going to come,” he said offhandedly. You furrowed your brows, pulling your phone out of your pocket—it was 8:17.  You hadn’t even noticed how slowly you were traveling, seeing as you left your dorm at 8:03.

As you’d expected, your heart had begun beating out of its chest, and you, once again, began to prepare for the worst. You slowly approached the couch adjacent to him, sitting down as slowly as you could. You sat like a board, stiff and nervous, waiting for him to explain himself even in the slightest.

Instead, he leaned over to the coffee table in front of you, pushing a small coffee cup towards you. You stared at it for a second, confused and a bit freaked out, but you picked it up nonetheless, thankful he’d thought to get you something warm. He continued to sit in silence, leaving you with a couple of moments to study him thoroughly.

Before today, you’d never really looked at him. Sure, you’d given him a couple of nervous glances, but there was something about Lee Jeno that made you feel inferior. He was the son of a major CEO, one of the biggest conglomerates in all of Korea (and maybe even Asia), somebody you would’ve never even dreamed of meeting three years ago. He was above the rules of the school, above the rules everywhere, dangling his parents’ name and a wad of cash above anyone who tried to tell him no.

His hair was bleached blonde, but it seemed so healthy that you could’ve mistaken it for his natural hair color if you hadn’t known any better. He’d shed all his snow-protectant layers, which were sprawled out along the remainder of the couch next to him. Despite the lack of need for it today, he was dressed in his usual uniform—a black blazer, white turtleneck, and black and green plaid pants—which was a blatant violation of the dress code due to the lack of a polo shirt, but you’d never see him get in trouble for it. He sat with an aura of regality that you could only try and imitate, with his leg lazily crossed over the other and his arm resting on the back of the couch. In his other hand was a cup of coffee like yours, but his was so hot that it was steaming from the lid’s opening.

“I didn’t know your last name until Mark told me,” he finally said, taking a sip of his burning hot coffee. You mimicked his movements, taking a sip from your own, trying to fight off any physical reaction to the bitterness of it.

“What do you mean?”

Jeno sighed, holding up his hand. You stared for a moment, narrowing your eyes in an attempt to make out the small letters on his palm. Then, all too quickly, the truth flooded your mind—the initials on your hand, LJN, and the initials on his, your very own set.

It shocked you so bad that you nearly dropped the cup of coffee. The reveal did nothing to soothe your nerves and, instead, amped up the panic a lot more. Your head spun at the thought, and, while you hated to say it, all you could think about was the negatives.

What would your parents say when they found out your soulmate was Lee Jeno, of all people? The son of a CEO-and-politician, the son of a man who drowned in money, a person who was born rich and would die rich? They’d never leave you alone once finding out, demanding check after check to ensure they never said a word about their relation to the Lees. They’d torment you for the rest of your life, and you’d forever be stuck under their reign of terror, forever their child, forever their moneybag.

On top of that, you’d never have an accomplishment that was fully tied to you again. People would see you as a connection, and they’d give you opportunities based upon that connection rather than based on your natural ability. You’d be respected because of who your soulmate was, not because of who you were, and you’d end up like the women you saw on TV—lifeless dolls with the title of “wife” and nothing else.

You thought meeting your soulmate was supposed to be this fateful encounter under the stars, the moment where you met the one person who would love you most. You expected to be mystified, sent to a world of love and comfort, sent to a world where your problems were nonexistent and the sun was shining and the birds sang tales of love and togetherness. You wanted to feel as though you were being embraced by constellations, struck by Cupid’s arrow as you stared at the person the universe decided was your fateful match.

Instead, you stared at Lee Jeno, and all you could feel was an overwhelming sense of disappointment.

“Well,” you mumbled, unsure of what you should do now. “What now?”

He didn’t seem to have a direct answer, either, simply taking another sip of his coffee. You mentally questioned how he was able to consume something that hot without burning the hell out of his tongue, but that wasn’t something you needed to dwell on.

When he didn’t respond, you took it upon yourself to ask another question and drill until you got all the answers you wanted.

“How long have you known?”

This was something he seemed to know the answer to. Without skipping a beat, he replied, “Mark told me about eight months ago after he saw your name on the award listings.”

To that, you felt your heart dry out a little bit more than it already was. Eight months was a long time to wait after knowing who your soulmate might be, especially considering that, eight months ago, he could’ve easily contacted you before the break between school years began. Wanting more out of him, you stayed silent, still trying to figure out what exactly you were feeling at that moment.

“I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure of it, but Suhyeon told me your initials about three months ago. That’s when my friends found out and started hounding me to tell you.”

Suhyeon? Last you checked, she was horrified by the thought of even being near the golden boys, let alone speaking to them. In what situation would she have been around them without you, especially given that she was talking to them? It seemed Lee Jeno was the sort of person who answered a question by creating more, which was something you didn’t appreciate in the slightest.

“So why now, then? You obviously weren’t in a hurry.”

He took another slow, awkward sip of his coffee, and, if you weren’t insane, it seemed like he was nervous to you. That ignited a sense of pride in you, and you wanted to assume most people would never stress Lee Jeno out in their lives. At the same time, you wanted to hurry things up and leave so that you wouldn’t have to think about him until you needed to.

“I have a family dinner next week, and my dad…my dad wants me to start talking to Lim Nayeong because he thinks I should marry her. No offense to Nayeong, but I’d rather die than marry her right out of high school, and you’re…the only way I can convince him otherwise.”

The room went dead silent. You were unsure how to respond to a declaration like that without being mean, and, with the quirk of your lips, you couldn’t help but allow the flood gates to open.

“I’m sorry, but how in the world am I supposed to help? In what world is marriage to me more advantageous? I'm a random hick from the countryside who got lucky and struck it big. If anything, I’d make your father more inclined to marry you off.” You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing at how ridiculous this was, a hand hovering over your mouth and your eyes filling with laughter-born tears. Jeno stared at you incredulously, not even reacting to your sudden outburst in the slightest.

“I’m sorry man, but you might be better off taking literally anybody else with the same initials as me. I’m not the help you need.”

“So you wouldn't care if your soulmate married someone else?”

The undertone of anger in his voice washed away your laughter in an instant, nearly making you jump. You dropped your hand to your lap, sighing—you wondered if you’d end up pouring out your whole life story to him tonight. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet my soulmate in hopes that they’d be some knight in shining armor. After these midterms, though, I’m thinking my scholarship is going to be revoked and I’ll be back to the land in the poor and underprivileged. Sorry, Jeno, but, once again, you’d be better off picking somebody else to bring along. I'm not going to let myself fall in love with something painfully unrealistic, even if that something is my universal other-half.”

Jeno seemed to be exasperated at every word that left your mouth, and you weren’t sure how you were meant to handle the increasing hostility that was starting to emanate from your supposed soulmate. The more things went south, the more you wanted to laugh and scream at yourself for thinking your soulmate would be some prince from a foreign land. You were so childish, thinking you’d get anything out of the whole ‘soulmate’ ruse—at least you’d be paid off after Nayeong got married to Jeno. Then, you might be able to emancipate yourself with a good lawyer and blackmail the Lees into more money for a nice, Seoul apartment to rent.

“Okay. Let’s make a bet, then. If you score over me in four out of the six subjects, you’ll be in my car on the way to my parents’ house next Friday. Deal?”

Even with your continued top-five status on the class leaderboards, you don’t think you’d ever managed to score above Lee Jeno in four subjects. The only things you consistently dominated in were English, Literature, and History—you’d achieved first place in all three during every single exam season you’d had at the academy—and the rest—sciences, math, anything STEM—you barely achieved the top five rankings that were required of you.

For some reason, you were antsy to receive your test scores, now. You’d never made a bet on whether or not you’d do worse than somebody, ever. It was nearly exhilarating, and you now felt there was a reward to the end of your scholarship: at the very, very least, you wouldn’t have to attend a Lee family dinner with Lee Jeno, who you were finding to be very unpleasant.

“Yeah, sure,” you scoffed, standing up from the couch and looking down at him. “Deal.”

With that, you approached the rows of books, leaving Jeno to consider what he thought he'd accomplish by bringing you along to anything.

iv. and most of the titans would spend eternity there.

Three days into break, and you haven’t done much of anything. Suhyeon was out with her other rich friends, her “very own posse” as she liked to call it, and had spent the past couple of days staying off campus—it left you with a lot of time to think.

For the most part, you wondered what would happen in the unlikely case Jeno won your bet. You’d never had to speak to someone like that, someone who wasn’t a wealthy teacher or classmate—his parents were the real, unbridled deal. People who spent thousands every day, not blinking an eye at four-digit totals or the state of their bank account.

It scared you. A lot.

You could dish out a big word now and then, offer a cordial smile, or impress with your general knowledge of the world, but there was nothing about you that would impress a multi-billionaire. Not even a party trick or a joke you’d spent a million years formulating.

That fear, rivaling the fear of expulsion, was what brought you to your current position in the corner of the campus on a rarely-cleaned picnic table, your head in your arms and your eyes trained towards a rose bush. According to the clock on your phone, class rankings had been posted eleven minutes ago, and you had no intention of checking any time soon.

Win or lose, there was no positive for you, and you didn't like that. In any other circumstance, retaining the ability to attend classes here and gaining letters of recommendation was the best possibility for you, as it would be for anyone else. However, the world had to curse you with an old-money, top-elite soulmate rather than an honest, just-rich-enough-to-afford-tuition soulmate—you seriously had run out of luck when you procured the scholarship.

“Oh? What are you doing out here, Miss Honor Student?” Na Jaemin asked, scaring you at the suddenness of his appearance. You jerked up, looking towards him flustered and a bit embarrassed. He looked at you questioningly, his hands cupped and held near his chest.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I suppose you asking makes more sense,” he laughed, approaching one of the rose bushes you’d been staring at. “I found a bee crawling on the ground. Poor thing has a broken wing,” he hummed, reaching his hands out to a flower. You didn’t try and second guess his words, believing his alibi without needing any proof. Instead, you looked away, your stomach crawling at the thought of carrying a bee across campus like that. “Although, haven’t rankings been posted? Anyone would expect you to be first in line.”

“I’m not worked up over it or anything,” you mumbled, resisting the urge to put your head back down and block him out of your world. “Going now would just yield a bunch of crowding around a tiny bulletin board. It’s too difficult.”

“If you started walking now, I’d bet the crowd’s mostly dissipated,” he suggested, coming back around to where he could be in your line of sight. “Want to walk together?”

Feeling cornered, you stood up, brushing the dust and dirt off the bottom of your bag. Jaemin smiled satisfyingly, offering an arm for you to take. In the most non-discreet way possible, you pretended to not see the offer, brushing past him quickly. He didn’t let the act bruise his ego, though, following behind you in earnest. You wondered if, due to your relationship with his best friend, he felt the need to ensure that you had no ill feelings towards him; or, maybe, he resonated with you, as both of you started at the academy much later than most of your classmates.

“I heard the big reveal didn’t go as nicely as it could have,” he began, keeping pace with you almost perfectly. Your steps were completely in sync, and you couldn’t help but notice how he’d done it on purpose rather than coincidentally. Another thing you’d heard about Na Jaemin was that he was a robot, but most people were joking when they said that—maybe, they could’ve been right.

“Well, we’re not exactly the most chemical pair.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Jaemin said, lightly elbowing you in the arm. “He just doesn’t know how romance works. He’s all antsy right now because he told his dad to not invite Nayeong and her family to their very rare family dinners and used you as the excuse. I told him—I said, ‘Jeno, you can’t use your soulmate to get out of marriage unless you actually know your soulmate.’ And he got all pissy at me. I tried to make him make it the least bit romantic, but it sounds like he didn’t try at all.”

“He got me coffee.”

“Coffee is bitter and unromantic, though. I’d know.” Jaemin giggled, putting his arms behind his head. You approached the entrance to a corridor, which would effectively put you on the path to the bulletin. But, Jaemin took a sharp turn, leading you through the long way to get you there.

“Are you a ladies’ man? Romance-expert, or something?” you asked jokingly, not expecting any sort of genuine response. The closer you got to the truth made you start to get nervous again, words getting stuck at the top of your throat, impossible to speak yet impossible to swallow back down.

“Maybe I am.”

Jaemin looked towards you, giving you a look that you were half sure was him reading your mind and learning everything he possibly could about you. He was incredibly good at blending into you, even if you hadn’t talked much; everything he said coaxed more out of you, and every movement created a new line of conversation.

Every rumor you’d heard about him—so good at befriending people that it’s scary, a perfect speaker, the most eloquent student at the school—was proving to be true. He was monstrous, somebody you surely wouldn’t want to have on your bad side.

“You and I are similar, you know,” he said, tearing his away from you to look towards the door to the main school building. He opened it for you, waiting for you to enter before he did himself.

“How so?”

“My family’s new to this whole ‘rich and famous’ thing,” he began. You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, watching as he looked up to the ceiling. His eyes glittered like stars, reflecting everything they saw to a T. “We’re, like, the ultimate definition of new money. My dad hit it big with Jeno’s dad, got on his good side, and became the chair of a subsidiary…so I’m in a limbo of sorts.”

“God, I wish my dad hit it big with Jeno’s,” you snorted, picking at the nail polish coating your fingers. “Is that why you came in at the beginning of high school rather than earlier?”

“My dad wanted me to experience a little bit of what he did, at the very least. Both my mom and dad thought it’d be too much if they moved me from here to a normal high school, though…thus, the order.”

You nodded, feeling a pang of fear as you turned a corner and a crowd of whispering teenagers came into view. Your conversation with Jaemin ended the moment they did, instead making way for what, no matter what, would be the worst moments of your life so far.

The moment you reached the crowd, people began to stare at you, whispering under their breaths as they passed. It was like being the center exhibit at an expensive art show, being a piece made entirely for public reaction. The more you walked, the more the red sea parted, giving you a clear path to the bulletin board. Within seconds, you’d reached it, scanning from the bottom up.

Number two was Jeno, to no one’s surprise. In order, his rankings had been second for English, second for history, second for literature, first for math, second for science, and second in his elective.

One above him was you.

First in English. First in history. First in literature. Second for math. First for science. First for your elective.

At that moment, you could’ve passed out. You stared at the line of ones (and a single two) in front of you, wondering how in the world you achieve something like that. For the past two years, you’d battled against private tutors and possible instances of cheating, always barely being able to hit the mark for every single subject. You never struggled in any of the humanities, but…second in math after your catastrophe of a test and first in science—physics specifically—felt like an absolute lie to you.

It felt unreal. It felt like you’d become the kids whose parents paid for their grades, who spent hours with private tutors that cost hundreds of thousands of won per hour. It felt like, somehow, you’d hit a peak even though you were only seventeen.

Your ears seemed to open, hearing everything the students around you said. “She’s never let Lee Jeno pass her once,” someone said, whispering to their friend.

“Do you think she gave him math as a pity grade? I heard they were in the same time slot last Thursday.”

You blinked rapidly, trying to figure things out amongst the chatter. Every word that came out of your peers' mouths was a word that clouded your mind, creating new ideas that you’d never once considered.

“She’s a commoner and she’s beating Lee Jeno. That ought to hurt the Lee name, right?”

Since when have you become Jeno’s rival? For a simple stroke of luck on a few tests? You felt like you were going insane, your feet cemented to the floor and your hands shaking from the rush of adrenaline, mixed with an intense and sudden wave of relief, that came with reading your scholarship was intact.

“Protip,” Jaemin said, grabbing your attention with ease. He seemed to drag you back down to Earth, returning you to the pedestal on which you were expected to carry the world. “There’s only one thing that’ll put you above the title of student council president and daughter of a filthy rich tech couple, and that’s this.”

“Nayeong ranks first every year, too. This’ll barely help.”

“I don’t think so,” Jaemin chuckled. You looked at him, raising an accusatory brow; he mirrored your expression, looking down at you with eyes that sparkled with mischief and utter madness. “Miss Nayeong ranked seventh this time around.”

v. unlike his fellow titans, atlas had a different punishment.

There wasn’t a single word to be shared between you and Jeno, and you couldn’t ever see yourself getting to a point where there was.

After he’d sent you a text—where he got your number, you’re unsure—asking for your general clothing measurements, then dropping off a dress with a price tag you never, ever wanted to face again, you hadn’t spoken a word to each other.

Even as you climbed into the sleek, black car that waited for you about a couple of blocks away from campus, he didn’t so much as greet you, deciding that telling the driver to get going was a much better use of his time. For the man who got so upset when you showed little to no care about your soulmate status, you were quite surprised at his unwillingness to speak to you.

A part of you wanted to keep up the silence, to ignore the slight tug in your heart and the fact that you needed to know at least something about him so his parents didn’t get suspicious, but you weren’t going to embarrass yourself with him. Especially not in front of the moneybags that he called parents.

So, when you reached about ten minutes before your estimated time of arrival at a fancy hotel (rather than his house, which was the former location of this family dinner), you began to fiddle with your handbag, pulling out a small, folded piece of paper.

“This is my transcript thus far,” you said, breaking the silence between you two. He looked away from the window, staring down at the hand that carried the paper. “Someone told me your dad was big on grades. Thought it’d be useful for your argument.”

He pulled it from your fingertips, much gentler than you’d assume from Lee Jeno, and his eyes lingered on your hands. You’d painted your nails for the occasion, wiping off the half-chipped coat you previously had on in favor of a nicer, more sophisticated color. It matched the dress well, along with the makeup you’d begged Suhyeon to help you put on without telling her the occasion for it.

“Nice job on the nails,” he commented, looking away from them and putting the folded piece of paper in his pocket. “You look expensive.”

“Is that not the goal?”

“That’s precisely the goal. I need you to look like I dote on you,” Jeno mumbled, dropping his hands into his lap. “Sorry, but I’m going to really play up the scholarship student thing.”

“No worries. I understand not wanting to marry someone you don’t know.”

The more you thought about it, the more you began to pity him. Worrying about a money-based arranged marriage was a very first-world-problems-esque issue to be having, you could respect that it was something he didn’t want. You just wished he was asking you to be his scapegoat as a lie rather than as a reality—you’d feel much better if you were pretending to be his soulmate.

“I don’t think my father will be too interested in the details of our relationship, he’ll just want proof you’ll be able to measure up to Nayeong,” Jeno said, ignoring your earlier comment. “Activities, grades, I don’t care what, play up everything about yourself. He doesn’t care about in-laws, he cares about the money you can bring in.”

“Wow, sounds like a lovely man.”

Jeno cleared his throat, made uncomfortable by your short quip. “He is when he’s not talking about his paycheck.”

To you, it sounded like Jeno was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince you, but you weren’t in the mood to pry. Instead, you looked out the window once again, cringing at how snowy and cold it looked outside. You were going to freeze in this dress, even when you were wearing insulated tights underneath, even when it was long-sleeved and pretty thick.

When the hotel came into view, you embarrassingly recognized it as a place many social media celebrities enjoyed coming to. In your few moments of off time, you were sure you’d seen the outside in a few lifestyle vlogs or food review videos. It was fairly trendy; you had to give Jeno’s parents props for that.

Opposite to your reaction, Jeno scoffed at the sight of the luxury inn, evidently unsatisfied with it. “Of course she’d pick here,” he murmured to himself. You wondered if his siblings—who were going to be attending as you’d learned this morning—had been in charge of picking the restaurant, which would make more sense given its online reputation. He shared that he had two younger sisters and a younger brother, all of whom weren’t in high school yet, so you’d never met them or seen them before.

The driver pulled up to the extravagant porte-cochere—the fancy driveway outside of a hotel, which Suhyeon had taught you the name of—and slowed to a stop, but neither you nor Jeno moved.

“Remember,” he said, putting on the coaching voice he used to relay this to you earlier. “My mom will be the weak spot, so focus on her more than my dad. We both need to fight when my father grows argumentative, but you need to be more tactical and logical. My siblings will be on our side so don’t try to make a case to them.”

“What are their names again?”

“In order, Yeojin, Soeun, and Sunwoo.”

You recited their names, wondering why Jeno had received such an odd name compared to the rest of them. Nevertheless, you made the first move to exit the stationary car, regretting it the moment the night air hit your skin. A deep chill cemented itself in your stomach, and you began to wonder how it managed to be so unimaginably cold at all. Jeno followed behind you, mumbling something else as he joined you outside.

You briefly considered how this was going to go, given you’d never tried to act like you were in love with someone before. You were sure Jeno was a pro at fabricating things, plastering on disingenuous smiles and acting interested in the monetary, arrogant talk of wealthy adults. The most you’d done was work at your local convenience store for a summer.

The moment he joined up next to you, he linked his arm with yours, and you were off. You were thankful for the warmth you received from him, even if it was slightly uncomfortable given your situation. You preferred being warm over being comfortable in most situations.

The doors slid open automatically, leading you into a world entirely separate from your own. You tried to suppress the urge to ogle at everything, to approach the plants that lined the lobby and check if they were real, to run for the sole purpose of hearing your heels clack against the marble floor. You kept your jaw screwed shut and your eyes forward, even if all you wanted to do was “ooh” at the chandeliers on the ceiling.

You’d never forget this moment. Being a customer at a place you’d exclusively seen through rich influencers’ and celebrities’ social media felt ridiculous.

One glance up was all you allowed yourself—a simple, lingering stare—but it put you in last place anyway. When you looked back down, there was a girl, no older than 15, sprinting towards you, a big smile on her face. Jeno dropped your arm and pulled the girl into a hug, a smile blooming on his face as he did. You’d never seen him smile so genuinely in your life.

Another girl came forward as well, but she came slower, more timidly. She was certainly younger than the other girl, maybe around 11 or 12, with her hair done much simpler and her clothes much more juvenile. She passed by Jeno and (who you assumed to be) his sister, stopping in front of you. “Um, hello,” she said. You smiled, assuming this was when your grand performance was to begin.

“Hello there,” you replied, feeling a surge of confidence run through you. “Soeun, right?”

Her eyes practically doubled in size for a moment, and you hoped that meant your leap-in-the-dark guess had been correct. “Um, yeah. You’re [First], right?”

“That would be me, yes.”

Soeun opened her mouth to speak, but Yeojin quickly cut her off by dragging you into a highly unwelcome hug. You ignored the discomfort, reaching your arms around her and giving her a few awkward pats. “It’s so fun to meet you!” Yeojin squealed, and you briefly wondered how long Jeno had been telling his family about you before he directly told you.

“Yeojin,” Jeno said, a warning-esque tone in his voice. “Lay off a bit.”

You felt her freeze and then she immediately let go of you, practically pushing her off. A hand covered her mouth—her nails were perfectly manicured, done much better than your self-painted ones—and she gasped, and now you felt a bit overwhelmed by her. Soeun, to Yeojin’s side, looked away, her eyes shiny and a bit saddened; while she certainly wasn’t living a life anything similar to yours, you could see yourself in her, a bit.

“Sorry, I forget we’ve never met. You’re, like, big news on the lower grade campus,” Yeojin said. “Among the second years, you’re like a superhero or something. First place without a tutor! Rare, one-in-a-million scholarship student! I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity.”

Well, that was certainly something you didn’t want to hear. Yeojin was already the type of person you couldn’t handle well, if the past few minutes were anything to go off of, and she’d shared mildly upsetting information with you already. You didn’t want to be popular among middle schoolers at all.

“That’s nice, I suppose. Maybe a bit worrying,” you joked, and Yeojin seemed to think you were a comedian by the way she laughed. Jeno looked at you both, obviously sensing your lack of social capability. and chose that moment to switch the attention to Soeun.

“Do you want to lead us to our table, Soeun?” he asked, taking your arm into his once again. Now that you were in the warm, heated hotel, the gesture only made you feel uncomfortable rather than warmed. If you were eating outside, maybe you’d be able to handle any skinship he initiated to make your relationship seem more believable—you supposed that either way, you signed up for this.

Yeojin squealed at you two, though, which made everything about this so much less worth it. After being surrounded by high schoolers and adults for two entire years, you’d forgotten how insufferable 14-year-olds were, and, somehow, Yeojin had managed to assume the worst form of 14-year-old possible. You felt bad for her older self, who would, inevitably, look back on this period of her life with misery rather than fondness.

Soeun took the lead as she was asked to do, shuffling her feet across the marble flooring. It didn’t take long for Yeojin to take the lead, beginning to chatter on about something you managed to tune out pretty quickly. You took the time to gaze at the beauty around you, from intricate flower pots to huge pieces of art that lined the walls. This felt fake, almost, and you wondered how you’d managed to get this lucky with the game of fate. If only a future between you and Jeno felt plausible.

Soeun (more so Yeojin) led you up a set of marble stairs, and then, into a long, dimly lit corridor. It was filled with paintings and lined with the most beautifully-installed marble you’d ever seen. Then, you reached the door at the end, which was made of glass and had insanely intricate carvings on it. Along with that, it had the words “The Aviary” engraved onto the one empty spot among the carvings.

You felt faint. For a moment, you wondered how much Jeno’s parents’ bill would be for this meal, and then you decided to mentally scold yourself for even wondering that in the first place. Yeojin pushed the door open, letting both you and Soeun pass.

The Aviary was, quite possibly, the fanciest restaurant you’d ever been in. It had chandeliers everywhere and thin, walkable carpet on the floors, along with more art that lined every inch of the wall it possibly could. Every table had a pure white table cloth and velvet chairs, each one already perfectly set with a million different utensils and candles that lined the span of it. Soeun continued to lead you deeper into the restaurant. past waiters and tables and windows that showed a more elevated view of Seoul than you were expecting.

You must’ve missed scaling such a massive hill when you were on your way here, mostly due to the internal panic you were fighting off the entire time. You tried to suppress your ogling again, looking towards the floor and hoping you didn’t look like an absolute idiot.

Soeun then led you through a door and into another hallway, this one lined with several doors. She approached the one at the edge once again, and Yeojin beat her to the door again, opening it and waiting for you to enter.

You were instantly hit with the view of Lee Jeno’s father, who looked like your biggest fear. Next to him was his wife, Jeno’s mother, and a few chairs down was a boy who seemed to be about 15 as well, absorbed in his phone and dead to the world.

It kind of felt like you were about to undergo the reckoning, and your final opponents were every relevant religious figure. Every breath that escaped Jeno’s parents’ lips was revered and every blink was well documented, every lost eyelash and every slight movement was taken note of. It’d be accurate to say that Jeno’s parents were more important than the prime minister—they brought in the money and held up the economy, while all the prime minister did was sit and twiddle his fingers.

“You must be [First],” Jeno’s mother said, standing. A small smile graced her features, one that looked and felt apologetic. One glance at the man next to her told you all you needed to know about why she might’ve been apologetic.

“Yes,” you nodded, smiling back. You pulled your arm from Jeno’s, giving her a deep bow; most of the time, you’d learned those wealthier (and older) than you enjoyed the robotic, hardly-genuine signs of respect that most other adults in your life had abandoned. When you stood up straight again, you were pleased to see the impressed glint in her eyes.

“I’m Jeno’s mother,” she introduced, although you found it to be a bit redundant.

“It’s lovely to meet you, ma’am. I’ve heard much about you.”

You hoped she didn’t inquire about any knowledge of their family, as, other than basic facts and events, you knew next to nothing about their personal lives. Jeno’s mother took a seat, motioning to the chairs in front of her and her husband. You allowed Jeno to pull your chair out, internally questioning whether or not anyone had ever pulled your chair out for you.

The velvet seats were more comfortable than any seat you’d ever owned, from your desk chair at school to the lousy, old couch back at your parents' house. You couldn’t imagine how much they’d cost the restaurant, given that every single table had a set of at least four. Even if Jeno’s dad stared at you like you were the grossest, most disgusting thing you’d ever seen, at least you’d get to sit in this chair and eat the restaurant’s food.

“It’s lovely to see you again too, dear,” Mrs. Lee said, giving Jeno a new type of smile. This one was much different than the one she’d offered you—everything about this one carried a mother’s warmth, a mother’s love, drenched in such intense care that nothing could shake it. Jeno could’ve entered this restaurant in his unwashed gym clothes and she would’ve offered the same smile, unchanged and unshaken.

“Mother,” Jeno greeted with a nod. Then, he turned to his father and extended a steady glare. His father glared back, and, as Yeojin and Soeun took their seats next to Sunwoo, a subtle air of war settled over the table. There would be nothing pleasant about this dinner, even if the food was perfect and the view was delightful.

You took the moment of silence to remind yourself that this was not much of a dinner, rather, it was a challenge. A test to see if you were worthy to wed to Jeno one day, and a challenge to see if you could keep up the perfect-soulmate act to void any sort of marriage contract to Nayeong.

“Mr. Lee,” you said, taking the initiative to speak to your strongest opponent. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, as well. Jeno speaks of you very highly.”

When he looked toward you, your blood ran cold. His stare, now protruding into your eyes rather than the side of your head, was icy and unwelcoming like you’d just beat him in a lawsuit or nothing. He was an unbreakable wall, and you told yourself that you only needed to find the single crack that was caused by love for his eldest son as if it would be easy.

“You’re the academy’s charity case for Jeno’s year, correct?”

Ouch. What an obvious insult, among the many he could’ve thrown at you—you were almost impressed that he didn’t even try to hide his hostility. You’d thought that, at the very least, he’d try to maintain his usual TV persona, but maybe you overestimated your worthiness of receiving that sort of respect. Before you could smile and tell him, yes, you are the charity case, Jeno flared up, ready to spit false fire at his father.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn't call my girlfriend a charity case, Father,” Jeno spat, eyes narrowed. You instinctively put a hand on his shoulder, figuring this would be a good, caring gesture given the situation. Being called somebody’s girlfriend felt foreign, but you supposed it wouldn’t be the best idea to disclose that. After all, this would likely be your one chance to impress him, if you had to guess. You were well acquainted with the idea of being a charity case, hell, you agreed.

“No, he’s right. If they didn’t have to maintain their image, they wouldn’t have the scholarship exams at all,” you said, keeping your eyes on Jeno’s father. Slowly, you dropped your hand from his shoulder, leaning back on the chair and ignoring the pounding of your heart. “Nevertheless, I am fully confident in my abilities. I deserve to be at a school like the academy. Even if I must endure a title like ‘charity case.’”

Jeno’s father turned his eyes towards Jeno and then back at you, the glare never faltering. You wondered how a single man harbored so much malice, and how Jeno saw his father in a good light. He seemed bitter and controlling, angry that his son—his next-of-kin, the boy who would one day be the king of his corporate kingdom—refused to marry a woman he did not know, right out of high school.

He did not say anything in return to your response, rather, picking up his delicately folded, fabric napkin and unraveling it to place on his lap. You mimicked his actions, remembering how Suhyeon once mentioned that you shouldn’t do something until the lead of the table has (among many other things she decided to recite to you one late night, so you could’ve been completely off the mark with that one). However, judging by the way everyone else seemed to do the same shortly after you, you assumed you guessed right.

“Jeno shared that you’re quite the prodigy, though, [First]. I mean, to be able to hold your own amongst children who have top-notch private tutors and spend all their time studying…I couldn’t imagine doing something like that,” Jeno’s mom said, trying to salvage what her husband destroyed. “If you weren’t so busy with your own schoolwork, I’d hire you to tutor the girls.”

“I’m honored you’d entrust me with furthering your children’s education,” you smiled, picking up the glass of water that was filled before you came in. You attempted to hold it as daintily as possible, taking the shortest, most sophisticated sip you could muster.

“Is that not what’s expected of her, though?” Jeno’s father was apparently determined to ruin your day, likely to destroy what little confidence you had and remove you from the academy (and Jeno’s life) completely. “It’s not impressive when she is merely fulfilling what is asked of her.”

You pondered what might’ve put his father on edge so quickly. You’d barely spoken to this man at all, let alone been in the same room as him, and he was already determined to get rid of you. Perhaps that was why he moved the dinner location from his home to here—he didn’t want this to be an official “meet-the-parents” event. He wanted it to be a family dinner without your presence at all.

You figured he would be thrilled to hear that you and his son likely had no future together.

“Is she not going above and beyond? If she was just meeting the scholarship requirements, why is she first place instead of fifth?” Jeno questioned, leaning back in his chair. You looked over, and, from the expression on his face, Jeno seemed actually upset. His ears were tinged red and his face was tight, and, with a quick once over, you could see that his fists were clenched and his shoulders were fairly tight.

To be honest, you couldn’t blame him. If you had to listen to your father reject your soulmate in favor of a random girl you barely knew, you’d be pretty pissed off too, no matter your relationship with your soulmate.

“Because she spends every second of the day with her head in a book, Jeno. Not because she has natural talent, or because she’s the prodigy your school claims she is,” he fired back. If you held any respect for Jeno’s father, you’d be utterly destroyed; luckily, you had no respect for any man that ran a company that was hinged on the work of underpaid laypeople, so you were unscathed by his words. “Nayeong is student council president, holds herself in the top five, does service whenever she can…and your little soulmate is relying on her connection to you to make anything of herself.”

You audibly snorted at that, raising an eyebrow. “I am?” you questioned, crossing your legs. A sick sense of amusement filled your chest, along with a burst of confidence. “With all due respect, sir, I did not aim for my scholarship with the intent of striking gold with my soulmate or significant other. I aimed for it because the only way I can make anything of myself is with my grades, because my mother didn’t give birth to me on a bed of cash.”

Jeno began to speak right after you, not granting any time for his father to reply to you. “Besides,” he said, slamming two pieces of paper—unfolded and crinkled—onto the table. “Nayeong got seventh this year.”

His father scanned over the papers, which you realized were both yours and Lim Nayeong’s transcripts. Yours, from where you sat, had nothing but ones, twos, and the occasional three or four, while hers had fours, fives, and even nines, without a single one in sight. Nayeong’s grades were nothing to be ashamed of given how busy she was with everything else, but next to yours, they didn’t measure up in the slightest.

It made you feel embarrassed. It made you want to say, “there is still not much of a difference between Nayeong and me, I just scored a few points more.”

“So compared to a girl with sevens, a student council position, and a respectable family,” Jeno’s father said slowly, returning to his complete ignorance of you. “You’d rather spend the rest of your life with a poor, unsightly girl who has slightly impressive grades, alcoholic parents, and a drug-addicted brother in prison?”

Your blood ran cold. Jeno’s jaw clenched, and his mother gasped, turning towards her husband and slapping his shoulder. “You promised me you wouldn’t bring that up—” she began but was quickly cut off by Jeno standing so suddenly that his chair fell over, banging against the ground and causing everybody to flinch. You looked up at him, an emptiness spreading through your chest.

“Talk to my girlfriend like that again,” he began, clenching his fists so hard that his hands began to shake. “And I will end you.”

He didn’t waste a moment turning towards the door, throwing it open, and marching out. You stood up quickly, albeit much more gracefully, draping the fabric napkin over the back of your chair and racing out of the room without another word. You didn’t look back, keeping your eyes on Jeno’s shrinking figure and walking as fast as you could without speeding up to a run. You sped through the restaurant, out into the lobby and past all the glitz and glamor of the hotel. By the time you caught up to him, Jeno was standing outside in the empty entry area, typing furiously on his phone.

“You—you didn’t have to blow up like that. I mean, we were just acting, and I can’t say I wasn’t expecting him to know.”

Jeno turned towards you, scoffing. “I just don’t get it.”

“Huh?” You tilted your head, wondering why he sounded so…mean. Angry, even.

“You’re perfect,” he said, looking up at the darkened sky. The lighting from the hotel entrance lit up his face, every feature and every imperfection (although scarce) perfectly on display, but you could’ve sworn the stars were what lit up his eyes. They sparkled like fireworks, the kind that was loud and Earth-shaking. “Everything about you. You’re pretty, you’re perfectly intelligent, you know how to speak to people and you know how to get your point across. You know when to smile and when to not. You know how to meet new people and try new things.”

You were confused. He launched compliment after compliment at you, but he sounded almost…bitter about it. Like he was unhappy you were all those things.

‘Um…” you mumbled, but couldn’t find the words to respond. You just stared, waiting for him to say anything, feeling the cold dive deeper into your skin—under your skin—and each shiver become more intense.

“There’s not a single thing you don’t beat me in but money. So what if you have terrible parents and an awful family, because you’re the picture-perfect poster girl—hell, you’re more than that. You have the perfect underdog story too, and he still hates you. He still prefers that—that witch,” he rambled, looking down and kicking a pebble that was next to his feet. “What does that mean for me? If you’re so terrible, so average despite your grades and your reputation, does that not mean I’m a failure of a son?”

“What? Jeno, I think you’re overreacting—”

“Oh, am I?” he turned, shoving his hands into his blazer pockets. “You’ve been ahead of me from the moment you stepped onto that god-forsaken campus, and you’ve given me, what, math as reparations? Every year, I have to use the excuse that I have the scholarship student to compete with, and that’s why I’m not the perfect top of the class, but he views you as obsolete. Doesn’t that mean I’m worse than obsolete? Huh?”

“Well, other than the fact that you’re agreeing with him,” you said, crossing your arms. “What does it matter what he thinks? Even if he gives his business to one of your siblings, you’ll still be drowning in cash. So what if you get married to Nayeong? Just cheat on her, or something, because, if she’s such a witch,” you paused, emphasizing your distaste with his nickname for her, “won’t she do the same?”

“How are you so okay with this?” he asked, raising his voice in the slightest. “You found out I was your soulmate and you didn’t even try to make a connection. You were okay with me using you to sidestep my father’s plans for me, you were okay with him relentlessly insulting you until it had something to do with your private life—why?”

“Why? Would you like it if a man you’d never met brought up your terrible at-home life and decided to equate it to you being terrible? I know my strengths, I know who I am, but it’s not very nice to be compared to 4 siblings who didn’t even attempt university and parents who barely work,” you replied, wondering why he was getting so upset. Minutes ago, he was spewing lines straight out of a drama, but now he was mobilizing against you, too. The worst part was that you couldn’t match his energy at all—maybe it was reactionary to the fact that you no longer had to sit through a dinner with his parents, but you couldn’t bring yourself to feel angry.

You were realizing that Jeno viewed you as a rival, while you never had. Before the past week, he was just another golden boy, one of the boys Suhyeon hated, one of the fancy popular boys you’d never talk to. It seemed as though he’d viewed you as an opponent from your first round of exams.

You felt bad, for some reason—guilty even. As if this was something you were meant to feel guilty for. You couldn’t imagine Jeno had been exactly thrilled when he found out you were his soulmate—judging by how long it took him to tell you, he wasn’t thrilled at all—and yet he was acting like you’d ruined his life.

You didn’t get it.

“You’re ridiculous.” Jeno laughed breathily, pacing around a bit. All you could do was watch, even when a car pulled up in front of you, likely for him to make his grand escape. “Jaemin was wrong. This was never going to work.”

“Did you ever think it was?” you rose a brow, suppressing a shiver that was beginning to creep down your back. “Sorry, Jeno, but we were destined for destruction. Even if we tried to foster something, that wouldn’t stop my parents from approaching the tabloids, and it wouldn’t stop the tabloids from painting me as a money-grabbing asshole. Count your blessings, okay? You’ll have everything and more. A loveless marriage is the least you need to deal with.”

He spun towards you, narrowing his eyes. “Just because I have money or a fancy house does not mean my life will be easy.”

You widened your eyes, nodding slowly. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say.”

“Just—just get in the car. Leave, please.”

You turned towards the sleek, black car that was parked beside you. Without another word, you walked towards it, throwing the door open and basking in the heat that emanated out of it. You got in, slamming the door behind you, and watched Jeno get smaller and smaller as the driver drove you farther and farther away.

vi. instead of being banished to tartarus,

Suhyeon knows.

You can tell by the way she interacts with you, by the way she avoids you in the halls and stays out of the dorm until she absolutely can’t anymore. You can tell by the way she doesn’t interrupt your incessant studying, reignited by the end of break and the beginning of a new term, with mindless hypotheticals and useless facts. You can tell by the way she slips into her fight-or-flight persona when she speaks to you, the same person when she’s near the golden boys.

Reasonably, you’ve also begun to believe she’s not telling you something. Maybe you’ve always believed that, but it’s to a much larger extent now; there’s something important she’s not telling you. You’ve also concluded she was aware Jeno was your soulmate, but, for whatever reason, she chose not to tell you.

You can’t bring yourself to feel angry, no matter what you do, no matter how much you think about it. It stresses you out, how numb you feel in regards to your situation, how numb you’ve felt for the past two years or so. All your energy, and, by extension, all your emotions, have been poured into your grades and your social standing among professors and academic greats. There’s nothing left over to feel something for your own misgivings, unless it’s about school or your future.

It’s miserable here. Everything is miserable. But, if you give up, if you stop going, you’ll be trapped under the thumb of your parents forever, and you cannot live like that. No matter what, you cannot live like that.

“I see what you’re saying, [First],” Dr. Choi hummed, writing a few things down on her clipboard. “If you want me to be entirely honest with you, there’s not a single student on this campus that’s gone through anything as tough as you’re going through. Even if they’re being forced into an arranged marriage, even if they’re underestimated and outcasted by their parents. At the end of the day, unless they’re kicked out—which they won’t be—nobody here will ever know ‘struggle’ like you do.”

You want to feel vindicated by Dr. Choi’s words, but you simply can’t. You feel tired, overworked and underappreciated, and want nothing more than to return to your dorm room and go to bed.

“But, this ‘numbness’ you’re feeling…you say you’ve felt like this for a while?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not one to deny things—it’s not my job to deny things—but I can safely say that’s likely not the case. Before last week, you had a good work-life balance…mostly…and you were happy. You never came to my office because you didn’t need to,” Dr. Choi said, causing you to look up at her from the coffee table between you. Her gaze was distressing, halfway implying she knew something you didn’t.

“What do you mean?”

“It feels similar, sure, because the only thing stressing you out then was school. Now, there’s two things, but only one is stressing you out…and you say you can’t feel anything else. It’s because you’re rejecting your soulmate.”

“Excuse me?”

“As far-fetched as it sounds, it’s true. Biologists like to say the concept of soulmates is nigh useless, and that the only thing denoting it is the little marking on your body, but…cognitive science says otherwise. Think of Jeno as half of your brain—the feeling part of your brain—and you’re the functioning part. He’s feeling too many emotions right now, and you’re feeling none, while he’s likely having trouble finding the motivation to do much of anything,” she explained. “It’s certainly not impossible to live without your soulmate, but rejecting them is a bit different. You’ll get over it one day, or you won’t, but for now it’ll be awful.”

You stayed silent, looking back down at the coffee table. You supposed it made sense, and she was right, you hadn’t worried about much other than your grades for the past two years. Your parents and family were always buzzing in the background, heightening your school stress by proxy, especially right now.

You didn’t like seeing Dr. Choi because it felt like she could never understand you, but perhaps she was making a solid point right now.

“So I just have to wait?”

“Yes. But, if you want my honest opinion, I don’t think anyone should attempt to reject their soulmate at 17,” she sighed, writing something else down on her clipboard. “You don’t know what love is, or what this is supposed to feel like. You feel like the world is ending because you’re not having the ‘love at first sight’ situation the TV tells you about. Try to form a relationship with him, even if it’s just a friendship, and don’t cut him out entirely. You’ll probably regret it later on.”

You doubted that, but you nodded like you were agreeing with her. She put her clipboard down on the table, allowing you to see your printed name and then tons of incomprehensible scribbles that only Dr. Choi could read. “Time’s up for today, unfortunately, as I have another student coming in. Don’t tell her I said she doesn’t know what struggle is, okay?”

You smiled hollowly, nodding. You stood up from the couch, picking up a hard candy from the bowl she kept on the table, considering that to be your reward for coming into the counselor’s office in the first place.

It was too bad you’d disregard all of her advice. At the end of the day, you were a teenager, and anything an adult said felt like an utter lie. You approached the office door, sliding it open and emerging into the hall. You wished the counselor’s office hadn’t been so far across campus, because now you had a far walk through the cold courtyard back to the dorm.

If they’d just put it in one of the class buildings rather than in the faculty building, your life would be much easier.

“Oh, [First]?”

You froze, turning your head to see the one-and-only Na Jaemin behind you. He sped up a bit, stopping as he reached your side. “Long time no see, genius. How are you?”

“Fine.”

You proceeded walking, as did he, keeping himself in step next to you. “Out of the counselor’s office? I heard once that they require you to go at least once a month for, y’know, academic stress. Rumor has it a scholarship student once offed himself because everything got too difficult.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the rumor. It’s not required but every teacher encourages it more than I’d like them to,” you explained, unwrapping the pink hard candy and popping it in your mouth. Behind you, you heard the telling squeak of the counselor’s office door, and, out of curiosity, you turned to see who was going in after you.

Lim Nayeong. The coincidence could’ve made you laugh.

“It’s required for the student council, though. I guess being the quasi-leaders of the school is a bit harder than being the public reputation,” you joked, feeling the slightest bit relieved hearing Jaemin laugh in response.

“I guess so,” he replied, stopping you both at the elevator rather than the stairs. You sighed, suppressing the urge to say the stairs were always faster as he’d already pressed the shiny ‘down’ button. You could’ve walked off without him, but you weren’t an asshole, and if he wanted to walk with you, he could. The doors opened quickly, letting off a monotonous ‘ding’ as a result. Jaemin held his arm out, waiting for you to step inside before he did.

He was very gentlemanly, and you briefly considered that he was showing you his TV persona as an apology for not getting to receive Jeno’s father’s. Or, maybe, he was extending an apology from his own father, who somehow heard about how terribly you were treated.

“Look, Jeno didn’t mean it. He’s stressed about the thought of being tied down the moment he graduates, and he’s looking for every single way out. He thought you were a fool-proof plan, but he underestimated how far his father could go, and…well…”

It was more reasonable for Jaemin to be apologizing for Jeno. You weren’t very surprised that this was his main reason for talking to you, but you’d wished it would’ve been something more fulfilling than a secondary apology from Jeno.

“I don’t care. He can do what he wants, I’m not going to tell him how he can and can’t feel.”

“Okay, I’m gonna cut straight to the point,” Jaemin said, turning so that his whole body could face you. You gave him a judgmental look, wholly uninterested in whatever he was going to say to you. “Don’t reject Jeno now, all right? Wait until summer or something. For you, you just feel a little off, or, rather, you feel nothing at all, but this is practically overhauling everything in Jeno’s life. He nearly unfriended Donghyuck earlier because of a simple quip, and he can barely do anything without getting upset over it.”

“Do you think I can just…stop? I don’t feel any connection to him,” you said, hoping the elevator would hurry up. You cursed it for being so slow and old. “I don’t know what to tell you. I…I just don’t know.”

The lights on the elevator went off, and it jerked to a stop. You looked up, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re kidding me. Holy shit. You’re kidding me.”

You pressed your back to the wall of the elevator, sliding down to the floor. Jaemin didn’t say anything, but he pulled his phone out pretty quickly, typing frantically. You slid yours out as well, shocked to see a couple of texts from Suhyeon.

“hey where are you rn? we were just called down into the lounge,” read the first text. “god are you at the counselor’s office still? they’re not telling us what’s going on.”

You typed a quick response, saying you were still in the faculty building but the power went out as you were in the elevator. You hoped she didn’t question your elevator usage, putting your phone back into your pocket and ignoring the buzzing that ensued.

Jaemin was typing furiously from what you could see, the light from his phone being the only thing illuminating the elevator. He furrowed his brows, turning to look down at you. “Have you heard anything about what’s happening from anyone? None of my friends know, but they’ve all been gathered together for a while.”

“All I heard was that nobody was saying what’s happening.”

The moment you stopped talking, the lights flicked on, and the elevator began moving. You stood up, furrowing your brows as the floor counter turned from a “2” to a “1.”

When the doors opened, you were hit with a wave of heat and pure, black smoke. You began choking on the air, but Jaemin was fast acting and began to jam the “close door” button, along with the third floor button—where you’d just come from. The doors didn’t close fast enough, and the smoke began to spread into the elevator, making your eyes water and your lungs hurt. By the time the doors finally closed, there was enough smoke to keep you coughing, even if your shirt was haphazardly thrown over your mouth and nose.

The elevator began moving up, and a wave of panic blew through you. It broke through whatever invisible filter that had been causing you to feel numb for the past week or so, and a self-composed prayer fell past your lips, between coughs, over and over again: “please, go up, please, go up.”

The elevator seemed to move at a snail’s pace, but, as long as it was moving, you didn't care. Given how you’d just been up on the third floor, there was absolutely no way the fire had spread that far—the only issue was that there wasn’t exactly a staircase leading from the third floor down to the ground of the snowy outdoors.

“Someone’s setting the school on fire,” Jaemin said between coughs. “Some guy. Most everybody’s evacuated, but they apparently forgot us.”

“Maybe because they couldn’t get inside?” you shot back, feeling a wave of relief—not nearly strong enough to overpower the panic—when the “4” appeared on the screen. “Why the fuck didn’t the fire alarm go off?”

“Because this building is ancient and they’ve never thought to replace it,” Jaemin half-hissed. The doors opened to reveal a smokeless third floor, but, upon walking out, you learned the heat had reached the floor along with the scent of smoke.

“The counselor’s door is still closed,” you pointed out, not wasting a moment to begin walking that way. “They’re either still in there, or they found a way out.”

You refused to consider that they’d left and closed the door behind them, not wanting to believe you were stuck in a burning building with no way out. Suddenly, Jaemin slipped in a way that he slid, falling straight onto his back. You looked down at the floor, realizing it had been completely doused in what you could only assume was oil.

“No time to wait!” you exclaimed, bending down and grabbing Jaemin’s arm. You practically yanked him up from the floor, dragging him along with you while he stumbled trying to keep his footing. You made it to the counselor room’s door, throwing it open and rejoicing to the heavens that there was an open window.

You rushed towards it, letting go of Jaemin, who went back and slammed the door shut. You looked out of it, noticing Dr. Choi on the roof below it, helping Lim Nayeong get down to the ground. “Doctor!” you screeched, grabbing her attention. She looked up the moment Nayeong had made it to the ground, standing and turning towards you.

“Come on!” she yelled, waving her hands at you. Jaemin came up behind you, beginning to help you shove yourself through the small window in front of you. You mentally thanked him for lifting you up, allowing for you to go feet first rather than head first. You let yourself fall down to the rooftop, cringing at the pain in your ankle as you landed. You 

Dr. Choi rushed towards you, looking up at Jaemin, who began to extract himself from the building as well.

“What’s going on?” you asked, coughing out more of the smoke you inhaled earlier.

“Someone’s trying to burn down the school and they started with the faculty building first,” she said, a little too calm for the situation at hand. Jaemin landed in front of her, also wincing at the pressure it put on his legs. “We need to keep going. Come on.”

Nayeong was waiting at the bottom, standing next to a teacher you’d never seen before. The ground seemed far, too far for you to be happy about it, but you were assuming the way Nayeong made it down was thanks to the bushes that would’ve cushioned her fall. 

“You’re just coming down from the second story!” Nayeong yelled, reaching up at you. Dr. Choi gave you a slight push on the shoulder, to which you looked back at her like she was crazy. Jaemin didn’t wait, lowering himself to the roof. You watched as he, facing towards you, slid himself off, hanging onto the edge for a second. Nayeong rushed over, reaching up to help him safely get down to the ground.

“Kill me,” you mumbled, walking over to the edge. Slowly, you repeated Jaemin’s steps, feeling like you could barely move.

“You can do it, [First]!” Nayeong yelled, and you hoped she was holding her hands up like she had been before. You pushed yourself off, feeling the edge of the roof dig into your fingers as you began to hang off the edge. As fast as you’d begun hanging, though, two hands were on your calves, beckoning for you to let go.

So, you did. You hit the ground with a quiet crunch thanks to the snow, but an unexpected shooting pain traveled up your ankle and calf, causing you to nearly fall over into the snow. Jaemin caught you, but Nayeong looked at you, furrowing her brows.

“Are you okay?”

“I think my ankle is sprained,” you mumbled hoarsely, steadying yourself and pushing yourself away from Jaemin. You took your phone out of your pocket, staring at a wave of texts you’d received from Suhyeon, begging you to tell her you were okay and that you’d made it out. You shakily typed a short “I’m fine” before shoving your phone back into your coat.

Dr. Choi made it down from the roof, and both her and the teacher began walking in the direction of the parking lot. “Come on!” Dr. Choi yelled, leading you all away from the building that was still going up in flames. Your legs shook as the panic began to subside, and a mere glance back held an aura of complete death. The first two floors of the faculty building were covered in flames, likely not an ounce left of what once was in there.

The three students—you, Nayeong, and Jaemin—were led into Dr. Choi’s car, while the other teacher went and found his own. Jaemin sat in the front while you awkwardly sat next to Nayeong, trying to process what you had just gone through.

“I cannot believe,” Dr. Choi began, starting her car and wasting no time in flooring it out of the parking lot. As you drove out onto the street next to the school, you caught sight of a fire truck in the distance, speeding towards the school. “They didn’t even try to tell us. I thought you were gone for good, [First]. Oh my god.”

Nayeong didn’t say anything, keeping her hands in her lap and her eyes out the window. You wondered what would happen to your belongings, but you weren’t nervous about it reaching the second year building when it was on the farthest edge of campus.

Dr. Choi asked Jaemin to dial a number on her phone, to which he politely obliged. You took your phone out again, which yielded several texts from Suhyeon once again and a single text from someone else.

The moment the recipient of Dr. Choi’s call picked up, she began to scream at them, but you were easily able to drown out the yelling with your focus on the text on your phone.

“Are you okay?”

You wondered, briefly, where Jeno got your number.

“I’m fine.”

vii. zeus enslaved atlas

It took a total of two hours to arrive at the hotel in which the school evacuated all the students too, and you wondered why they had to pick a fancy hotel rather than one of the respectable ones that were actually near campus. You were met with a personal greeting from the principal, who was trying to save his ass after essentially leaving the four of you (and more, most likely) for dead.

Dr. Choi didn’t waste a second to begin screaming at him some more, but you blew past her with Nayeong, who still hadn’t spoken to you but was sticking to your side practically. There was a sort of trauma-bonding between you two now, apparently, which was a bit ironic given both of your situations.

You’d been placed in a hotel room with Suhyeon, as according to your current rooming arrangements, and were told to wait in your rooms until there was more information to be distributed amongst the students. Nayeong parted from you when this happened, taking her key and disappearing off into a corridor. You chose to take the other one, walking past several students who had disregarded the plea to stay in the rooms and were now gossiping in the halls.

“I heard they might have to close the school down for a year,” somebody whispered, causing you to pause and nearly stop walking. Instead of stopping in the middle of the hall, you slipped your phone from your pocket, leaning against a wall and scrolling through random apps.

“Seriously? I guess that won’t be an issue, most of us can just transfer to another private school, but what about international and scholarship students?”

“I’m sure international students will be fine, but rumor has it the school might drop scholarship students—partial and entire. They’re scrambling to make sure their library is still intact, and, if it isn’t, they’ll need hundreds of thousands of won to restore it. They’ll never keep some upper middle class loser if it means they can keep their pride and joy safe and sound.”

There was a certain ache in your heart at that, but you were tired, and you felt like collapsing. It was funny how, just a couple weeks ago, you were panicking over your finals and doing anything to hang onto your 65-million scholarship, but, now, you didn’t feel anything. At least if you got dropped, it wouldn’t be a quasi-expulsion. You’d still have kept your pride, and your parents could complain to the school about how they had to actually pay for you, now.

You continued through the corridor, skipping the elevator for the stairs. You’d halfway forgotten what floor you were on—you’d either been told room 314 or room 414—but you weren’t too opposed to simply checking both. Holding your key up to the scanner would be enough to know, and it was unlikely the occupants of the other room would even know you tried.

Upon your ascent up the stairs, you were forced to remember the slight pain in your ankle, which had subsided greatly over the past few hours, and part of you wished you had used the elevator. The other part of you said you’d never take an elevator again, even if a gun was to your head. Each step was a testament to what you’d experienced over the past couple of years, culminating in these fleeting moments in which you had nothing left.

In a week, you supposed your dorm would be cleaned out, and you’d be hugging Suhyeon goodbye for the last time. Maybe a reporter would approach you, ask why the closing seemed so sudden, and you would tell them you almost burnt to death because they were too lazy to fix their smoke alarms. You’d tell them that the conditions to meet your scholarship were ridiculous, not because their students were too smart, but because their student’s parents had a million personal tutors at their beck and call.

You emerged onto the third floor, hit in the face with a strong scent of detergent and cleaning supplies, and began trudging through the halls. Given the couple of familiar faces—classmates you’d never spoken to before—standing next to a decorative table, you hoped the 300s were the second year floor and you didn’t have to walk up another flight.

The space between rooms was insane, and you couldn’t imagine what might be inside. A kitchen, a couch, and an entire fireplace, anything that a rich person required in their hotel room. They were much bigger than the dorms that people paid millions to live in, and this was all paid for by the school. For a brief moment, you considered your fancy, rich-person academy to be a scam—it was, you always knew it was—and wondered why they couldn’t build dorms like this. As you walked through the corridor, you realized how you barely had made it past five rooms, and wished they had picked a normal hotel for you to temporarily live in as they figured out how to break the news of your removal from the school.

You turned a corner, admiring a pretty bouquet in a terrible intricate vase that brought a smile to your face. You stopped, reaching your hands out to feel whether or not they were real and letting out a gasp of surprise when they actually were. The flowers were vibrant, yellows and purples and pinks all tied together with a wisp of baby’s breath, and perfectly taken care of; they couldn’t have been cut more than a day ago. The hotel must’ve had some sort of private gardens, as there was no way these were bought from a random flower shop down the street.

“[First]?”

The flowers lost their color, all at once. You stood up straight, looking towards Lee Jeno, who’d just so happened to find you right now.

“Jeno.”

He stared at you for a moment, his hair messy and his roots just beginning to show. He was dressed in lounge clothes, a t-shirt and black, baggy pants that looked about three sizes too big. If he didn’t say anything soon, you’d continue your trek to room 314, brushing past him and leaving him to stare at the blank wall behind you.

“Can we talk?”

“Okay.”

You turned towards him completely, crossing your arms over your chest. He cleared his throat, looking down at the floor for a moment. “Like, not in the hallway. My room…is just down the hall.”

“All right then.”

He stared at you for a moment more, halfway shocked you agreed. Maybe it was a side effect of the events of today—for a brief moment, you realized you didn’t know what time it was—from your counseling to the hours-long car ride you endured after what was likely the most traumatic moment of your life. You wanted to disappear, fall into a rabbit hole and wake up in Wonderland, where nobody would know who you were.

When he began to walk down the hall, turning his back to you, you followed, bidding your pretty bouquet goodbye. You walked deeper into the corridor, stopping at a room labeled “309.” It was at the edge of the corridor, with another hall connecting to it. You assumed 314 was down there, so it would at least be a short trip to your assumed hotel room.

Jeno tapped his keycard on the lock, a loud click accompanied by a green light resounding through your ears. He pushed the door open, heading inside and holding it open for you. As you walked in, you noticed an unfamiliar presence on the couch—Lee Donghyuck, the only golden boy you’d met before. During your first year, you’d done a group project together, you’d let him off for not doing any of his work, and you ended up vouching for him in front of the teacher; as a result, he’d gifted you a couple of candy bars and a swift thank you. “I’ll return the favor at some point,” he’d said, walking off without another word.

“Out,” Jeno said, keeping eye contact with Donghyuck. He stared up at his friend, eyebrow raised, before glancing at you.

“‘Sup, fire girl,” he said, standing from the couch. Donghyuck turned his attention to Jeno, giving him a stern, very-unlike-him glare. “You promised me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“Do you?”

With that, Donghyuck brushed past Jeno and you, emerging out into the corridor. The door slammed behind him, causing you to flinch somewhat. Jeno took a seat on the couch, right where Donghyuck was sitting, and motioned to the seat next to him. You obliged, sitting as far away from him as you possibly could and staring at him until he spoke.

“Are you doing okay?”

“No.”

“I’m…sorry you got left behind. I won’t lie, Suhyeon started crying so hard she needed to take her own car, and that worried me. A lot. I thought about things.”

“And?”

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, looking down at his hands. “I wasn’t nice. I overreacted and was overly jealous. It’s my fault, so I apologize.”

“I understand,” you nodded. “If it’s any consolation, I’m jealous of you too.”

You leaned back into the couch, sighing. “Your family is so…picture perfect,” you began, trying to find the words to articulate your thoughts. “Sure, you have altercations, peculiar ones at that, but I could tell you were close. From the way you hugged Yeojin, to the way your mother looked at you…you’re living a dream I could only hope to have one day.”

He stayed silent, letting you talk. You figured you deserved as much, given how your day has been. “My parents are awful. I was the kid they didn’t want, and all my siblings are a lot older than me. As your dad said, one of them ended up in jail. I depend on this school to keep me away from them, so I can have a better life now rather than when I move out. Even then, I know they’ll harass me forever if I end up with a nice job with good money. You’ll never experience that.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, but you shook your head, rejecting it.

“No reason to be. I can’t change who my family is, but I can change the direction my life goes. That’s all that matters.”

You felt Jeno’s eyes on you, and, when you looked over, you found him looking at you. He was pretty, as he’d always been, even when he was dressed for bed. His hair fell into his eyes, and you mentally visualized him with black hair—he looked nice no matter what.

“You’re a very beautiful person, [First].” The comment brought heat to your cheeks and caused your heart to skip a beat, and you contemplated whether or not this was what Dr. Choi meant by not rejecting him. “If…if there’s any way, I’d like to make this work. I’d like to make us work.”

You sighed, biting the inside of your cheek. “I suppose that would be nice. I was unreasonable before, mostly because I don’t want people lessening my achievements because of who my soulmate is. Sorry.”

“I get it. My mom always told me that would happen if my soulmate ended up to be somebody ‘fiery,’ but I guess you aren’t really that,” he hummed. “You’re nice. Warm. I see why people speak so kindly about you.”

“Well…thanks. I guess.”

You looked forward, and a thought crossed your mind. Your heart dropped slightly as you deliberated whether or not it would be smart to tell him what you heard in the halls. Realizing that you’d likely be very far away from him if it ended up to be true, you knew that you absolutely had to if you wanted to create a relationship with your soulmate.

“Rumor has it the school’s gonna be canceling scholarships to bring more money in for repairs and reconstruction.”

“What? They wouldn’t cancel yours, right? I mean, you’re the only full-scholarship on campus—they can’t just kick you, can they?” he asked, scooting a bit closer to you unconsciously.

“Rumor says they’re going to cancel everybody’s scholarships,” you whispered, suddenly realizing the weight of that statement. “I’ll probably try to move in with my aunt in Seoul, go to fancy-yet-free prep school…if they do cancel it. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around.”

Jeno went quiet, and you desperately held back the tears that were now pooling in your eyes. “I worked so hard for this, and it’ll all go to waste. Every bit of it.”

You hated how choked up you got at the thought of it, how pathetic you felt. But, Jeno didn’t seem to mind, as he hesitantly pulled you into a hug. For a moment, you both stayed there, basking in the fulfillment that came with being with your soulmate. You wondered if this is how your parents were before they grew into the monsters they were today—a couple of teenagers in love, happy with just being with one another.

“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing your back softly. “We’ll get through it together. I’ll spend any amount of money to see you frequently, I’ll get out of class, whatever we need to build. I’d pay for your tuition, but…I don’t think you’d like that.”

“Not really, no,” you mumbled, shoving your head into the crook of his neck. “I just want to feel stable, for once in my life.”

“And you will, one day. I promise you will.”

You pulled away from him, staring at him for a moment. With a heavy sigh, you stood up, with him following close behind you. “I need to go see Suhyeon,” you said. The moment you said that, there was a sudden change in the air of the room—Jeno looked nervous, almost, as if you’d caught him in the act of something. “Go do that. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you.”

You walked towards the door, giving Jeno one last look before emerging into the hall. You made sure to stop the door from slamming behind you, cushioning it with your hands. As you did, though, Lee Donghyuck appeared back in the hall, stopping when he saw you. The door clicked closed, and you both stared at each other, waiting for someone to speak.

He was wearing his uniform, but it was half taken apart, with a couple of his buttons unbuttoned and his tie loosened around his neck. His shirt was untucked and his blazer was nowhere to be found, and you assumed he’d done it pretty recently, given the lack of wrinkling. He held a bag of M&Ms that he likely got from a vending machine somewhere in the hotel.

“Did he tell you?”

“You mean apologize? Yeah.”

Donghyuck sighed, popping a couple M&Ms in his mouth. “Okay, don’t get mad at me for being the bearer of bad news. Jaemin was convinced Jeno shouldn’t tell you, but this might be the one time Jaemin is in the wrong. I know you’ve had the worst day of all worst days, but you cannot go any farther without knowing this. ‘Kay?”

You furrowed your brows, a sudden feeling of anxiety overtaking you. “What? What are you talking about?”

Even Donghyuck looked nervous, from how he fiddled with the hem of his shirt with his open hand to the way he shifted his weight between his feet.

“Until about six months ago, Suhyeon and Jeno were a thing.”

All the air was sucked out of your lungs at once, and your brain shut down immediately.

“She found out you two were soulmates about a year ago, but didn’t back down until Jeno’s dad shut it down because of his new deal with Nayeong’s family.”

You didn’t say anything. You just stared at him, wide-eyed and shocked. “They still talked until a month-and-a-half ago, when Jeno decided to shut it down himself. Chenle knocked some sense into him, and Suhyeon was essentially taken out of our circle. She did everything in her power to not let you know about her friendship with us, and avoided the shit out of us whenever you were around. When pale in the face and all that shit.”

You stayed quiet. A feeling of betrayal began to bubble in your stomach.

“Don’t…blame her or anything, though. Even if she was being an asshole, even if what she did was the worst possible thing she could’ve done, she and Jeno had been fostering it for nearly three years. Love—if you could even call it that—makes people stupid. She wasn’t thinking, and neither was Jeno, until Chenle snapped at him.”

Were you a rebound, or a way for him to stay close to Suhyeon without his dad knowing? Were you his way of getting over what you had stolen from him? How could Suhyeon do this to you, after forcing her fixation with soulmates on you for so long?

You turned away from the corner that you assume led to yours and Suhyeon’s room, walking past Donghyuck with a newfound speed. You wracked your mind for her room number, assuming that she must’ve been in 414 given the likely year-separation of the floors.

You heard Donghyuck’s voice echo through the halls, a quiet “what the fuck is wrong with you, man?” and the loud slamming of his hotel door. You followed it up by yanking the door to the stairs open, letting it fly shut behind you as you began a rapid ascent. You ignored the pain in your ankle, the way your legs wanted to shut down, and practically burst onto the fourth floor.

You followed the same path you had before, and, sure enough, the corridors followed the same pattern. You took turn after turn, saw identical-bouquet after identical-bouquet, before stopping in front of room 414.

Three swift knocks, and a step back.

The door opened.

“[First]?” Nayeong said, furrowing her brows. Traces of crying were left on her face, from mascara-lined tear stains to red cheeks and puffy eyes. Seeing her ignited something in you, an intense sort of emotion that you hadn’t felt in so, so long.

And, as you burst out into tears, Nayeong dragged you into a hug and began sobbing with you.

viii. to hold up the earth on his shoulders for all eternity. 

The dress you were wearing was absolutely, irrevocably uncomfortable.

Several hidden wires dug into your torso, a product of the bodice of the thing, and you swore you were bleeding in an area where the fabric rubbed against you wrong. Nevertheless, you wore it proudly, hair done up and makeup perfectly complimenting your features. After all, it wasn’t every day you got to attend the wedding of your soulmate—to someone other than you, that is.

Lee Donghyuck sat next to you, dressed in a matching suit to your dress and his leg crossed over the other. A toothpick hung out of his mouth, and he anxiously chewed on it, tapping his fingers against his knee as he waited. You’d both come in support of the couple and to try and masquerade as a couple to Jeno’s father, who was apparently very displeased when he saw your name on the invite list.

“Nayeong told me she’s considering eloping with her girlfriend,” you hummed, once again adjusting your sitting position so that your dress stopped trying to kill you. “Disappearing into a small, European country. Changing her name and getting married. Apparently, her girlfriend has the tickets bought and everything.”

“And why doesn’t she?”

“She doesn’t want to force the marriage-of-convenience role onto her sister,” you sighed, shaking your head. “What a superhero she is.”

“You know, if you’d had another year at the academy, you probably would be the bride here,” Donghyuck suggested, turning towards you. You received a glare from the woman sitting a couple seats to your left, who then whispered something to her husband.

“Not so loud. We’re gonna get kicked out.”

“I’m not lying, though. Since Jaemin nearly beat me up, I’ve never been yelled at more in my life—I had to help Jeno with his comeback plan. We got it done and then we went to Suhyeon’s room and you weren’t there and she looked at Jeno like he was satan’s incarnate.”

“Suhyeon and I weren’t going to last as friends anyway. Too different. We clung to each other too much, too. Recipe for disaster.”

“Right? Anyway, if the school hadn’t been so quick to decide to cut you off, you’d be the bride. Hundred percent.”

“Where is Jaemin, anyway?” you asked, cutting the conversation topic short. According to Nayeong’s perfectly curated seating chart, he was meant to be sitting next to you right now, blabbing away about how Donghyuck ruined Jeno’s one chance at happiness by telling you about Suhyeon rather than letting Jeno do it.

“Jaemin is right here,” he said, taking the seat next to you. You and Donghyuck looked over at him, instantly picking up on the panickedness he seemed to be exuding. “And nobody can find the bride and groom. Jeno’s dad is on a warpath right now, along with Nayeong’s mother.”

“Ooh, Europe worked out,” you joked, holding up your fist. Donghyuck bumped yours against his, chuckling as well.

“Made me call him a million times, and he didn’t pick up. I suggested getting you to call Nayeong, but they looked so appalled at the suggestion that I could’ve told them I was in love with Jeno and we got married in Vegas last night.”

“That was descriptive. Did you?”

Jaemin scoffed, not getting a straight answer. Instead, he tucked his phone in his blazer pocket, focusing on you. “Nayeong’s probably on the plane by now, but we don’t know where Jeno is.”

“Okay. And?”

“He’s suggesting you should go find him, dumbshit,” Donghyuck clarified, flicking your shoulder. You put your hand on it, pretending like he’d just stabbed you in the arm, but Jaemin quickly slapped your shoulder to avoid you causing a bit of a scene.

“I don’t even know his number. Deleted it from my phone about twenty minutes after Donghyuck broke the Jesu news to me.”

Donghyuck snorted, leaning back into his chair. In passing, he said, “No way you gave them a ship name,” but Jaemin ignored his comment pretty readily.

“Good news! I have it memorized. Give me your phone.”

Jaemin didn’t wait for you to hand it to him, simply snatching it up off your lap and unlocking it (you weren’t sure where he got the password, but you wouldn’t question it). He began typing what you assumed to be his phone number without even thinking about it.

“You sure you didn’t get married in Vegas?”

“Positive,” Jaemin said, handing the phone back to you. He scooped up your purse from the ground, shoving it into your arms and proceeding to point towards a set of doors off to the side of the banquet hall. “Go out there and down the hall. Door at the end goes to the back parking lot, where Jeno parked earlier. He’s either out there or waiting for someone worth it to call him, and someone worth it would be you.”

“And what am I gonna say?”

“I don’t know,” Jaemin said, acting like you’d asked him the most insane question in the world. “Figure it out yourself. Update me. Hyuck and I will hold down the fort until we hear from you.”

You closed your eyes, allowing yourself to focus on you for a moment. A part of you wished you’d faded into oblivion after high school; being who you were, your merit reached about every end of the world. You lived in an academic spotlight, gaining the attention of universities both near and far. Jeno never came to visit you at your aunt’s house like he had shallowly promised, right before he missed his one chance to tell you the truth.

You stood up, and began your power walk to the door. Now that his fiancé was on her way to a small, European country and likely had all the assets she needed to become untraceable, Jeno would have to deal with the wrath of his father, who would feed him the same “I’m not mad, just disappointed” spiel.

You pushed the door open, hanging your bag off your shoulder and wishing your dress wasn’t so uncomfortable. Sure enough, a text came in from Nayeong—a selfie of her and her girlfriend, whom you had never met, in a plane. She was still fully prepared for marriage, only missing the wedding dress; her hair was perfectly done, the tiara was still there, and her makeup was untouched. Her girlfriend looked much more relaxed, makeupless and hair spread about.

They looked happy. So, as a result, you were happy, and could only hope she would tell you which small, European country she was living in so you could visit. Another text came in, this one from your mother, but you ignored it and continued out into the parking lot.

There was only one car that was running, and it was parked in a corner. It was black and the windows were tinted to high heaven, and you could only assume that would be where the missing groom was. You marched through the parking lot, repeating a mantra of self-support in your mind. This was one of those situations where you should’ve been anxious, but you couldn’t feel a thing; you’d grown used to not feeling anything over the years, but, in situations like these, it always felt uncomfortable.

You stopped a little bit before the car, making sure you were out of sight. You stared for a moment, blinking a couple of times and trying to muster up any sort of anxiety, but you could only manage a small kick in the bottom of your stomach. With a sigh, you approached.

You opened the car door, which was shockingly unlocked, and got into the passenger’s seat. Jeno didn’t turn to look at you, just drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and staring forward. “Can you take me to my apartment? If the wedding isn’t happening, I don’t want to sit in this dress any longer.”

He didn’t waste a moment to put the car in reverse, backing out of the spot with ease. He put a hand on the back of your seat, turning his whole body to look out of the back window even though he had one of those backup cameras. You wondered if he was trying to impress you, but found it unlikely given how unhappy he seemed.

When he managed to back out completely and was forced to turn his focus to the road, you took the chance to give him a once-over. You hadn’t seen Jeno since a banquet two years ago, where you’d been invited after one of your professors insisted you had to share your paper. You’d mingled with people in much higher places than you, smiling and discussing things you didn't care about, barely speaking about your academic ventures. Jeno had been there, too, hanging off Nayeong’s arm like he’d once done to you. They spent the whole night gossiping, sitting together and whispering about things you couldn’t imagine. Back then, when he was 20 years old, his hair had still been blonde and he had still carried that gold boy demeanor he loved so much. Now, his hair was pitch black, and he gave off the energy of someone who was completely and utterly in control of his life.

Judging by the way he blatantly ignored the people who’d begun running after his car, you assumed the energy mirrored the truth. He turned out onto the street, speeding away from the banquet hall that had a million cars around it. “Lots of presents oughta be returned tonight, huh,” you mused, adjusting your sit once again. “I bet it’s annoying and relieving all at once.”

“My dad’s gonna blame this all on me,” he sighed, continuing to drum his fingers on the steering wheel. “Where do you live?”

“Trimage Towers. Anyway, he can’t blame it all on you if Nayeong’s a lesbian. I mean, it’s not like you had any jurisdiction over that.”

Jeno hesitated for a moment, slowing down for a red light. Thanks to the location of the fancy banquet hall, the towers were already in sight, and you could practically feel the relief of taking this awful dress off.

“You really can’t feel anything, huh.”

“I can feel things, just not a lot. I’d be able to feel things if you would’ve gotten over me,” you hummed, looking out the passenger window. “I’m serious, Jeno. Find a new girl. Pick her over me. We will both be happier that way.”

“So you’re rejecting me over a relationship that started when I was in middle school?” he asked, and, at that moment, you understood it was a bit ridiculous. You were sure you’d see it in a more intuitive way had you retained your emotions, but such was the price of rejecting one’s other half.

“I don’t know. I haven’t felt anything since then. I’m content with it now, so I don’t really feel like I can love anyone. Make a decision based on love. Who knows,” you replied, feeling your phone buzz. You picked it up—another text from your mom. This time, though, she called you a couple of names for ignoring her texts and not sending her any money.

Jeno suddenly took a sharp turn, pulling into an empty parking lot next to an office building, which you assumed to be empty because it was Saturday. He pulled around to the back, parking in a spot next to a few trees. It was well hidden, likely a tactic for avoiding anyone chasing him.

“What can I do to fix it?” he asked, a hint of desperation in his voice. “I’m serious. I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”

The slightest bit of sympathy graced your heart, but not enough to change anything. You sighed, looking up at the ceiling of the car. “Not sure.”

“What, should I confess my love to you?” he asked, which caught your attention. You looked over, biting the edge of your lip. “I barely know you, [First], yet I am deeply in love with you. Every time I hear something about you from Nayeong, or from Donghyuck, or from Jaemin, I feel the most intense regret that I decided to ignore Donghyuck’s advice and trust Jaemin more. All I could tell you about yourself are things everyone else knows and whatever my friends have told me, yet I’d still pick you over anybody else.”

Your heart sped up, but you still felt numb to the world. Maybe Dr. Choi had been right—maybe it wasn’t worth it to lose all feeling when you were 17. Maybe, if things had gone better, you would have been the bride today.

“Okay.”

“Is there any way? Any way at all that we could try? I know I’ve asked before, and I was disingenuous then, but I’m not a kid anymore. Neither are you. Things could be different.”

“Could they?” you finally bit into the conversation, letting out a disbelieving laugh. “I just—I can’t comprehend it. I’m a work machine. I walk into the office and stay for hours, reviewing my coworker’s pieces and writing my own based on what I’m given. I’m told that one day, I’ll be one of the greats of journalism thanks to my ability to work until I give out. Will that go away if I let this happen? Will I lose opportunity if I let myself love? I’m not really sure.”

“What makes you think that?” Jeno shot back. “What makes you think a little emotion would destroy your career?”

“Most, if not all of my superiors are soulmate-less or have purposefully gone out of their way to reject their soulmates. It’s standard.”

“You can break the standard, then.”

A bit of anger began to bubble in your stomach. “Could I? I already have it worse by having absolutely no nepotism to back me up, and I’ve got a world of expectation on me based on how I graduated at the top of everything, in every year of schooling I’ve ever had. I have a bad family to keep under wraps, and I have to pay them off to keep them quiet. I can’t afford to be pushing any stereotypes when I’ve got a million other things to work through.”

“I can be your credible, important connection, then. How easy is that?”

“I’d rather die than be a nepotism baby.”

“Then what are you looking for?” “Nothing, Jeno! I’m looking for nothing!” you finally exclaimed, the anger bubbling over the top. “I’m looking to leave this behind us and separate ourselves from each other! I’d rather die than keep living a life that orbits around you! I just—I just want to be myself.”

“Then I’ll orbit around you. I’ll stay out of it and I’ll treat your every beck and call—”

“Shut up, Jeno.”

“I’ll be the one who’s connected to you. I won’t be Lee Jeno, son of that one guy who got to live easy because of his grandfather’s work—”

“Jeno, please.”

“And I’ll dedicate my everything to you, master journalist, the most goddamn successful person in the world, all thanks to herself—”

You’re unsure what came over you at that moment. In your fit of anger, wanting Jeno to just shut up, you grabbed the sides of his face, and you kissed him. There was a moment where you couldn’t believe yourself, where you truly thought you’d open your eyes and be back in the banquet hall, discussing where Jaemin was with Donghyuck. In that moment, Jeno would walk out, make his way to the altar, and Nayeong would follow.

They would look miserable. You would know they were miserable. You would know you could’ve prevented their misery. You’d feel nothing. You’d go home, Donghyuck driving you, and you’d go to bed, ready to go into work the next day.

One opening of your eyes revealed to you that you were, in fact, kissing Lee Jeno. He didn’t seem to mind the suddenness of it—obviously—reaching over the center console to lace his fingers into your perfectly wavy hair. He smiled into the kiss, as if he was the most satisfied man in the world, as if he was the only man in the world.

You closed them again, and felt fireworks burst within you. Although they hadn’t returned like you thought they would, you felt a mixture of very mellow emotions pooling in your stomach, and you realized maybe Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck had a plot.

You pulled away from him, dropping your hands from his face. He did not try to separate himself from you, though, waiting for you to recite the words he’d be wanting you to recite. “An academic article by psychologist Kim Sowol. The best way to incite emotion in someone who’s rejected their soulmate is to anger them.”

He dropped his hands now, too, laying them on top of yours. “Nayeong sent it to me.”

You stayed quiet, narrowing your eyes at him. “I hate you. Never speak to me again.”

Jeno put his hands back on the wheel, reversing the car once more and taking you back out onto the road. “Yeah, okay. Next stop, your apartment. Text Jaemin that it worked for me, would you?”

You scoffed. “No. Shut up.”

“Your wish is my command, my dear.”

thank you for reading!

tags:

@dziewoja07 @pewpewpwe00 @mings-cafe @yutensoul @iioyous @shepeelsoranges @loeycity @misakiise @000rpheus @eunbi4eva @jenonoon @travelleratheart101 @hesbambi @minchoco @swagzombiefart @eunbi4eva @wonluvrbot

#cinna.nct #nct dream x reader #nct dream au #nct dream imagines #nct dream oneshots #jeno x reader #lee jeno x reader #jeno x you #jeno x y/n #nct dream angst #soulmate au #jeno imagines #jeno angst #jeno scenarios #nct x reader #nct x you #nct x y/n #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct dream fluff #nct fluff

[heartingw]

If you're too shy (let me know) - Ellie Williams

Warning: adult content even if not explicit; pining!ellie and pining!reader; ellie being lowkey a tease; kind of invasion of privacy; praising; making out; dina being a good friend; jesse is reader's brother, but reader's physical characteristics is not implied (safe space for all women); ellie being so damn in love with reader; heavy petting; joel is not dead here; a little bit perverted, but mostly romantic; maybe typos and bad writing since i'm not an english speaker; both pov's, but you'll know; also me being fucking cheesy, so if you don't like it, don't read the final 'letter'. I'm a romantic, sorry.

Words: almost 3k.

A/N: I hope it's not bad and too rushed. If you see anything weird in the writing, please let me know and I'll fix it immediately. I don't have a beta reader, so…

♥ To be Ellie's patrol partner you had to know that she often went on patrol looking extremely tired from spending hours of the night strumming her guitar, drawing, or writing songs.

Jesse and Dina were already used to trying to hold some kind of conversation with her - or gossip, Ellie loved a good gossip - to keep her awake and alert all the way back to Jackson in those days. But it was a little hard to do that all the time, since most of the time they didn't have much knowledge about her personal hobbies. And neither of them were particularly good at drawing or creative enough to write song lyrics.

That's why Ellie ended up, somehow, getting close to you.

Since you're Jesse's sister, she's known you pretty much since when she arrived in Jackson years ago. A shy girl who only answered when you were spoken to or when Jesse forced it out of you. Ellie never minded. In fact, she hadn't even paid much attention to you at first. Living in Jackson, having a peaceful life after the hell she and Joel had gone through had left her a little bewildered for the first few months.

Honestly, she only started talking to people because Dina decided that they would become best friends whether she wanted to or not and started talking to the green eyed girl at any opportunity. And Jesse, as a good boyfriend, went along.

Ellie was 16 when you heard her playing guitar at dawn on the porch of her house.

Though still a little shy, you apologized and immediately recognized the song Ellie was playing, one Joel had just taught her. Smiling and singing the rest of the lyrics that you had interrupted. And even a little embarrassed to have been seen playing outside, Ellie couldn't help but be intrigued by you for the first time in two years.

Over the time, the friendship grew as well as an internal conflict within Ellie.

She found that you liked several different types of music and sometimes hummed the lyrics to her. That your brother had found a music player that still worked and that you were able to charge it and since then you always listened to music before bed. That you, just like her, liked to write, but you never showed anything you wrote. Ellie didn't mind that much, tho. After all, she never showed anyone her private notes either.

She had noticed that you always had a soft smile when she played any song for you. That you had the habit of biting your lower lip and that you lifted your eyebrows while talking to people, giving them full attention.

She noticed that you rejected all men who approached you with the intention of flirting. And that you never looked at any of them with any kind of desire. Ellie also noticed how much you liked her hands and that your eyes always went to her mouth when she wet her lips with her tongue.

When Ellie realized how much she paid attention to you, she understood how fucked she was.

Jesse's sister. The girl she knew who had grown into a fucking beautiful woman. Who had also become a close friend. Who liked music, liked to write (God knows what), and that seemed genuinely curious when Ellie spoke some random curiosity about space.

Suddenly you had become the reason Ellie wrote romantic lyrics and poems during the night.

On your 22nd birthday Ellie found out she wasn't exactly discreet about her feelings for you. Her eyes widened when Dina sat next to her in your small party and asked if it was that year she would finally take her chance and confess to you.

Ellie didn't even know if you were into women, she wasn't going to spoil your friendship like that.

After most of the people had left the party, Ellie approached you. You looked fucking pretty in a summer dress and Ellie was feeling like crap for having to force herself not to look at your legs and breasts.

"Hey, I have something for you."

You interrupted what you were saying to Jesse and turned fully to her, a cheerful smile on your face. "Oh, so that's why you brought your backpack. I was wondering why you came here with it."

"Did you really think I wasn't going to give you anything for your birthday?" Ellie asked you with a side smile and teasing voice. "So much faith on me, I see."

She pulled a notebook out of her backpack. The cover was adorned with constellations and symbols of zodiac signs - Ellie had told you how people used to relate the day they were born to personalities and you had become obsessed with it.

Your eyes widened, delighted with the gift and your hands slowly moved towards the notebook, picking up gently while whispering her name like you couldn't believe what you were seeing. In the blink of an eye you already had your arms around her neck, hugging her tight and putting your face on her neck.

"Fuck, Ellie, thank you so, so much! I've wanted a new one for so long and Jesse never brought me one from patrols." Your voice was charged with emotion as you thanked her in her ear. Ellie knew that writing was like therapy for you – you'd already mentioned this several times –, she also remembered when you complained to her you had already filled out all the pages of your notebook and Jesse never brought a new one, but always brought something to Dina.

"Maybe I didn't give you one so you wouldn't write those things anymore, can you imagine if our parents read that?" Ellie's eyes turned to Jesse, who was smiling and teasing his sister with no real malice involved. "I didn't even know you knew those things. So intense that I blushed."

Quickly you turned to slap your brother's arm, your ears and cheeks red, and mouth slightly open with shock. "You weren't even supposed to have touched that notebook, let alone read it!" Your voice sounded high-pitched.

"My little sister, now a woman. Writing p- ow!" Dina pulled on Jesse's ear, causing a groan of pain from the man who then burst out laughing and gave you a bear hug. "Chill out, I'm just joking."

Ellie watched as Jesse laughed and you tried to get out of his embrace still trying to slap his arm weakly. Dina also laughed as she told her boyfriend to leave his sister alone.

If there was one thing Ellie was very proud of about herself, it was that she always minded her own business and respected others' privacy. But what her friend said was like a vortex in her head. Jesse asking what you would do if your parents read what you wrote. You, all red and embarrassed.

What the fuck do you write in your notebooks? ♥

It was one of those days that Ellie went on patrol extremely sleepy.

It wasn't something she was proud of, but this time it wasn't her fault. It was yours. What do you usually write? She thought maybe it was something like horror, but Ellie knew you were fearful and didn't like to be scared. And horror wouldn't leave that fucking beautiful red color on your cheeks.

Could it be something naughty?

God, Ellie fucking knew you had a perverted side that you let slip once or twice, but you're not as open about it as her or Dina. Did you write dirty stuff in your notebook? What would you write about? About characters you created? About people you knew? About yourself? Ellie scolded herself at the thought you could write about her.

If you were to write about her, what would you write?

"I hope there won't be any infected today or we will die in less than 2 minutes," Dina said with a teasing voice. "What got you so distracted today?"

Letting out a sigh, Ellie decided to trust Dina. It's not like her friend is going to tell Jesse what she was going to say anyway. If there's one thing Dina believed in the 'chicks before dicks' code. Honestly, Ellie needed to unravel before she went crazy.

"It's just," she cleared her throat. "I can't fucking stop thinking about what Jesse said at the party. About the notebook."

"Oh, that," the brunette let out a low chuckle as she shook her head. "Well, I might know a thing or two, but I won't tell you."

"Are you fucking kidding me? Thought I was your best friend." Ellie's voice sounded playful. "C'mon, throw me a bone."

Dina felt bad she was having so much fun at Ellie's expense, but she couldn't help but find it funny how the auburn-haired girl wanted to know anything that was related to you. As she got older, Ellie had become a more closed off person and disinterested in other people outside her personal circle. Seeing her grow closer to you was impressive to say, at least. Dina liked you much better than Cat.

"Look, Jesse didn't give many details, but that day he seemed a little dumbfounded by what he read," Dina spoke as she led her horse to go slower. They were arriving at the patrol building. "He commented something about how he didn't imagine you'd write those things, but that he should have expected it by now, since you're an adult."

When they arrived at the building, Ellie and Dina got off the horses and grabbed their backpacks. As they walked up the stairs, Dina wondered if she was doing the right thing by telling her friend what she knew, but she was tired of seeing the two of you obviously crushing on each other without doing anything about it.

"Listen up, I didn't tell you anything. You don't know anything! But Jesse said you wrote about girls. Intimate letters about girls. Now can you stop making excuses for yourself and try to get your fucking dream girl?"

Ellie was not religious, but she thanked God at that moment for the opportunity. You liking girls was a victory. Now she needed to convince you that the two of you would be fucking awesome together.

♥

If Ellie thanked God earlier, now she was cursing him. If he really existed, he was doing some kind of cruel test on her.

A simple and very organized room. It was easy to see what you liked when she walked in. Your books, your posters, your desk with some pencils and pens lying around. The slightly open drawer that Ellie could see the notebook she had given you as a gift inside.

She couldn't hear you in the bathroom, since it was downstairs. She didn't even know if you would take a long time in the shower. But her eyes were glued to the drawer and her fingers were itching to pick up the notebook and read at least one page of what you wrote.

"Fuck," she whispered as she got closer to the drawer. "I'm such a fucking bad person."

And it was at that moment that she, without making a noise, opened the drawer.

♥

Even with the world pretty much ending, you loved the fact that Jackson allowed people to have a little bit of peace. This allowed you to dress more comfortably - you were not one of the people responsible for patrols - so wearing dresses, for example, wasn't a problem for you. And you liked it.

Which led you to wear a dress today. Today, the day Ellie had arranged to watch a movie with you. In her house.

With limited resources, you had to make do with the basics of personal hygiene. Soap and a simple shampoo did their best to keep you clean and smelling good. And you had to admit you used it a lot to always make a good impression on Ellie.

The girl with a freckled face and green eyes you've been in love with since you were 14 years old.

But today Ellie was acting differently. Ever since you came out of the bathroom, already dressed, she was acting weird. Not a bad weird, but weird all the same.

You could tell Ellie was touching you more than usual. Her hand guiding you by soft touches in you back while taking you to her house, sending shivers down your neck. Her whispering things in your ear as if she was telling you a secret and 'unintentionally' touching her lips to your ear while sitting on her couch during the movie. Her voice sounding hoarser than usual. Jesus Christ, you didn't even know someone's voice could sound so hot.

Ever since you met Ellie, she had never spoken or acted like this to you. Maybe it was because you were Jesse's sister or she wasn't attracted to you. The only thing you had was your imagination. And you imagined a lot of things with Ellie Williams.

Your notebooks were proof of that.

What you weren't expecting was a scene of a couple kissing deeply in the movie. It was a suspense movie you didn't even remember the title. The chances of those characters dying were high, but at that moment, the man was pulling the woman by her hair while devouring her mouth. Fuck, you could see their tongue inside each other's mouths.

With your body rigid with embarrassment and your throat dry, you could feel your face heat up as you took a deep breath. Then you felt Ellie's eyes on you. Her hand slowly reached yours while she got closer, her shoulders touching your when she slightly leaned forward staring into your eyes.

"Hey," her voice low, she was so close you could feel her breath hitting your cheeks. You didn't look in her direction. "You alright?"

The guy took off the woman's blouse while kissing her neck. The woman let out a moan as she tried to rip off his shirt. Your eyes turned to Ellie's and you gave her a faint smile. "Yeah, I'm good."

Emerald eyes stared at your mouth. Her face tilted slightly as she moved closer and closer. The hand that had previously touched yours was now holding your chin lightly not allowing you to move your face away from her. Not that you really wanted to. "Bet you are."

Her lips were like a phantom touch, making you crave for her. Her nose lightly caressing yours. Ellie could get you mesmerized easily. The moans became background noise. "Ellie..."

"Let me kiss you," she sounded almost desperate. You wondered if she wanted you as much as you wanted her. "I promise it'll be good. It's going to be so fucking good."

Kissing ellie was hot as lava.

♥

Kissing girls has always been good. They were soft everywhere, and it felt so good to feel every bit of them during the kiss. Their arms around her neck, the soft waist that Ellie loved to squeeze against her. Their weight on her lap and their breasts pressed against hers. The moans they let out against her mouth. Kissing women made perfect sense to Ellie.

But kissing you was a fucking whole new experience.

Maybe it was the feelings involved. Ellie remembers that Dina had mentioned how special it was to be with someone you really loved. Now she gets it. She understands the way you kiss her back so enthusiastically, as if you've been waiting for her all your life. She understands because she's been writing songs about what it would be like to feel your mouth against her.

Her hands ran down your back and arms until they stopped at your waist, pushing you against the couch. Your body didn't reject hers, you obeyed Ellie's silent commands without a second thought. Your hands went to her neck, pulling her against you. Your legs wrapped around her waist, making your pretty dress slip up to your hips.

Every piece of clothing that came out, Ellie was more sure that you were everything she ever wanted. Your fucking delicious moans, your warm skin against hers, your mouth demanding hers, your hands running possessively down her body, you whining her name. The way you fucking begged her.

The way you fucking tasted against her mouth.

You, with a thin blanket of sweat on your skin guiding her to the ground, climbing on top of her, kissing her body in every way. Using your tongue to send shivers down every part of Ellie's body. Calling her beautiful, while kissing her stomach and lightly squeezing her breasts.

"I've always dreamed of this." Your voice came out fluttered as you made your way between her legs.

Ellie fucking loved space. And she felt you show her the whole fucking universe with your tongue.

♥

"If your freckles spread over the rest of your body like on your face, I would kiss and caress each of her with my tongue. Did you know that? All I can think about at night is your husky voice saying my name as I imagine you lying next to me in bed. Your fingers dancing through my body and your mouth glued to mine as if you can't ever let me go. And I wouldn't. Not where you can't reach me. I wonder if I would ever have the courage to hand you these letters. If I'll be able to taste you one day as I always write on these pages. Holding you in my arms while I drink everything you can offer me between your legs. I wouldn't let you go until all you could think about was me.

I don't know if I'd be enough for you, Ellie.

But I would give everything for you to love me as I love you. To kiss me like you kiss me whenever I think of you while I make myself come in my own hands."

#ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie williams x you #ellie x you #ellie williams #tlou2 #my writing #tlou x reader #tlou2 x reader

[sunakittymeow]

Summery: You are sick and a your childhood bestfriend taking care of you.

Genre: Fluff?

Warning: none, typos. (Not proofread)

Requested: No.

A/n: I planned to make a oikawa fic but changed to him because I love him.

You and tsukishima has been friends since childhood along with Yamaguchi. you both would bicker with eachother over the smallest thing and Yamaguchi have to butt in to solve the matter. 

But despite that you both cared for eachother, even though you both would say awful things yet you both won't leave eachother's side if needed. But ofcourse you won't tell eachother that. 

but today is different, you caught a flu and your parents were gone for business purposes leaving you alone. Your migraine has gotten worse than it was before. 

cough after cough left from your mouth. you were tired of this flu. Can't breath properly. You sneezed for the fifth time. 

But you for startled by a sudden knock on your door. 

"Come in" 

You spoke in a low voice, you had a sore throat. 

"You shouldn't let anybody enter into your room without asking who are they"

a the door flew out and the owner of the voice traveled himself. 

"It's fine, it's you."

"But there would be some time I won't be the one standing, so be careful" 

"Awww someone's caring" 

he glared at you making you laugh. 

"What brings you here kei?" 

"Your mom informed me that you caught flu, came to check on you"

You smiled at him cheekily. 

"Is that so? Wow thanks kei"

You giggled once again but soon coughed.

"God, you look awful" 

"What did you just said?" 

"You got a hearing probelm??" 

You shot a glare at him making him chuckle.

"aww is the little kid getting mad? Sorry didn't mean to"

there was it again. His snarky comments. 

you both bickered for some time and then he decided to ask about your medicine. 

"Mhm, I'm taking them"

lie. 

He clearly knew that how much you despise medicines, 'it's bitter and hard to swallow' that's what you say everytime you try to take medicine. 

"Yeah sure"

he opens the drawer and took out the medicine box, it looked like nobody touched it yet. 

He took out the medicine and handed you. 

"C'mon hurry up, i don't have all day"

He groaned. 

"How did you even-"

"Just take it"

He handed you a glass of water and forced you to take the medicine. 

"Kei i hate it"

You throwed some tantrums at him which didn't worked since he looked unfazed by it. 

Due to not eating anything your stomach grambles as loudly as possible making you whine. 

The blonde male sighed knowing you haven't touched any food. So he decide to cook something edible. He isn't a good cook at all but he knows the basic to make a porridge. 

"Here"

He placed the food on your bed carefully not to drop it. 

You had a disgusting expression on your face. Knowing you won't touch the food he hold the spoon to your mouth almost shoving it which made the spoon hit your lips and you let out a soft groan and he took the chance putting the porridge inside your mouth. 

"Kei, what the hell"

he rolled his eyes and didn't said anything while feeding you the porridge. 

After finishing the food (you almost threw up) he decided to put you to sleep. 

"Wait you still have one medicine left"

He quickly took out the last medicine and handed you, you lazily took it. 

Finally tiredness was getting you, so you laid down more and pulled the sheets closer to your body making you curl up into a ball. 

He noticed your tiring state and thought you have fallen asleep. 

"Sleep tight"

He whispered quality, not wanting to wake you up. And places a soft kiss on your hand before leaving.

(But little did he knew that you never slept that time. This gesture of his was enough to make your stomach churned up in happiness) 

#tsukki x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu x reader #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #tsukishima fluff #tsukishima smut #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima kei x you

[chaotic-trash-cryptid]

Can't fall back asleep, so everyone else gets to deal with this nonsense I came up with even though I'm not a writer

Imagine an 'x reader' where the reader is this idol that's like super energetic and talkative and all that while in their idol persona, for lack of better wording, only to also end up being shy, quiet, much more calm during their everyday life (possibly even having an interest in things that entirely contrasts that bubbly, cutesy idol look). The character is a huge fan, always attending their concerts, meet and greets, and such, and has even met them backstage a couple times. However, they end up accidentally meeting either in an online space, like a game or an online community for one of the idol's unexpected interests, or in real life, but the idol looks and sounds so different that it doesn't click when the character hears their voice

One day, the character ends up getting a backstage pass to be able to meet their favorite idol, only to accidentally come across the reader taking a small break from the idol persona, the reader having expected anyone with a backstage pass to check out the merch table that was available to the public before going backstage

The last paragraph was just one of many potential endings. It can play out however the writer sees fit, if anyone even actually thinks about using this idea. If a fanfic actually does get made out of this, I'd like to be tagged in the post about it (I don't care what the age rating ends up being, I'm a legal adult)

In the tags are just some of my current hyperfixations, feel free to ignore those. I'm not sure how to tag this, so sorry about that. Also, ignore any typos. I'm still tired

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst wonderland #my hero academia #mha #bnha #boku no hero academia #obey me shall we date #obey me #om shall we date #x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #obey me x reader #om x reader #fanfic ideas #fanfic #fanfiction ideas #fanfiction

[strangesthirdeye]

Being Sherlock's wife and going through the pregnancy would include:

Warning: It's Sherlock, he's a great man. fluff, aftermath of The Final Problem, sweet, baby, Sherlock is a great husband, pregnancy, Baby William creation.

As usual, I'm sorry if there are any wrong sentences or typos or grammatical mistakes, please forgive me and again English is not my first language, so I try to improve my language and writing in this way.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

• Him, dumbfounded and stunned when you told the news that you are pregnant which causes you to be concerned with the lack of response from him.

"I think you broke him" John.

•But later Sherlock recovers from the state of loading his information by hugging you tightly and repeatedly saying you two have become parents.

• Since you are still in the early stages of pregnancy, Sherlock will monitor your diet and recommend routines that should be followed by pregnant women. That's after he did research for pregnant women on Google.

• Concerned with the safety of you and the baby when you insist on joining him and John to solve cases. Even if you are still early in your pregnancy and capable of doing your work, saying that you don't need to tire yourself, but later let you join him and John.

• Morning sickness? don't worry Sherlock is always alert to your situation so don't be surprised if he suddenly appears behind you just to hold your hair as you vomit all the contents of your stomach into the toilet.

• Headaches? Sherlock can give you paracetamol and massage your head. Body aches? automatically, Sherlock is good at massage

• When it comes to the middle of pregnancy, the majority of pregnant women will have cravings with weird combinations of food. So you are no exception.

• Lemon and Honey? Sherlock can take the pickle and peanut butter boots? Sherlock doesn't know if the one he married all this time is human or not.

• wake up late at night just to eat something spicy? Sherlock automatically got up and left the flat for the sake's of you.

• you are also no exception to mood swings and your victim is Sherlock. Obviously.

• from sad to angry to happy and Sherlock handles your mood easily because he really expects you to be like that. He will be the place where you release your mood swings as long as you don't kill him.

• John being an expert about pregnancy (Mary preggo tadaa) gave him advice to handle pregnant women.

"and don't stress her out, Sherlock" John obviously.

• And now the awaited time has arrived. As your stomach is getting bigger and rounder, Sherlock can't keep his hands on his side because he always puts his big hands on your stomach just to feel the baby in that stomach.

• he will kneel and talk to the baby in the stomach which becomes a daily routine in these few months. He excitedly talked about his cases. Obviously.

• Him, excited when he gets a response from the baby in the stomach like a baby kicking your stomach because the baby is excited with his father. Often leaving you gasping for breath due to indigestion being kicked by the baby in the stomach.

• rub your belly every night and hug you from the back every time you sleep.

• when it comes to last month of pregnancy, your body aches and back pain are getting worse and Sherlock always helps you.

• he will whisper words of comfort in your ear as he hugs you from behind and strokes your hair to convince you that you are a strong person as you are having a mental breakdown.

• But overall, everything turns out fine and you don't have a mental breakdown anymore. Thanks to your loving husband.

• Excited because there are only a few weeks left before he will meet his baby and always finding some good names for his baby.

• Gender? nahh he doesn't care about that as long as the baby comes out well.

"Tina?" Sherlock.

"sounds like somebody's aunt" You.

•talking with baby has become traditions now. And he cannot wait to hold his baby.

• last week of pregnancy, he already took you to the hospital in case you give birth early. Bags and all facilities such as baby clothes and diapers have been packed by Sherlock. So no need to worry.

• John gave him a word of advice about the newborn. Such as what he should do and what he shouldn't do so that he won't panic.

• Rosie is excited to meet her new friend and always stuck with you while talking to the baby in your belly. She already sees you as a mother figure as hers has passed away. So no wonder she always stuck with you.

• When it's time for you to give birth, Sherlock will be where you endure the pain when you push the baby out of your vagina. He doesn't care if his hand is broken because you grabbed it or you swear at him. He's always there.

• Him, saying that you are strong and encouraging you to push the baby.

• panic when everything was quiet for a moment but sighed in relief when he heard the sound of his baby crying for the first time. He rubbed your head happily.

• Him, support his bundle of joy in both hands and smile genuinely as he found out that he got a boy.

• William Scott Hamish Holmes. That's your baby's name and his.

• Kiss William's forehead tenderly and whisper some words like welcome him to the family of Holmes.

• He is always there when you need him. What a great husband.

#benedict cumberbatch x reader #bbc shows #benedict cumberbatch #221b baker street #bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes x wife! reader #sherlock holmes x reader #bbc sherlock x reader #bbc sherlock x you #incorrect sherlock quotes #sherlock holmes #sherlock holmes imagine #dr john watson #Spotify

[midnight-moth]

Nivis

I was just watching the snow and then it happened. 1331 words of Quintessence ghoul sweetness & weirdness. (Bell/Phantom) (I’m obsessed with them)

If you haven't read any of my Phantom stuff, he is blind in the conventional way. But he can see some things, energy things, magic things. No CWs, just two idiots being idiots but also making each other's lives magical.

I did not proof read this, I'm sorry for typos, I will fix them when I'm not so tired.

They’ve spent weeks like this, soon it will be months. In proximity, never speaking, never approaching. Content to simply experience the presence of one another. Always in the library. Darkened corners and hushed voices, considered hallowed ground in the Ministry, it’s a place where someone would have to consider committing the worst kind of disrespect if they felt like harassing the pair.

Not that the others hadn’t noticed. Of course, Zephyr during his bi-weekly archiving, Aether, seeing one or the other slink through a crack in the doorway that they reasonably shouldn’t be able to pass through. Dew, when he decides to go hunting for something that Rain hasn’t read before, which is a task. It was for his sake that they had to initiate an interlibrary borrowing program, and increase the yearly budget for new acquisitions.

Tonight is such a night, that Phantom half sits, half lays across one of the generously stuffed chairs, passing fingers over little bumps that make words. Something new for him on the surface, being able to read without the aid of another, projecting the words into his head or reading aloud. 

He understands there’s a storm coming. “Snow up to your eyeballs!” Dew tells him. Phantom jokes, “Who’s eyes, yours or Mountain’s?” He’s good at hiding behind jokes and self depreciating comments. 

He’s heard a lot about snow, it’s cold, wet, fluffy, sparkly, pretty. And when they’re lit up on a cloudless night in shades of chartreuse and lilac, breathtaking. The way the night sky seems to penetrate every single flake, that they appear lit from within. 

Ghouls are familiar with magic, but sometimes what they can do seems crude compared to that. 

And Phantom’s heard them talking about it, he tries to hide the cracks and fissures that form in his heart in those moments. He can see a lot, but he can’t see that. Somehow what falls from the sky is so wondrously pure that he simply cannot get a read on it. Rain, sleet, hail, it’s all blank. 

Sure, he’s held his hand out the window to feel it, stood in it until he was soaked to the bone. Because it feels like being washed clean. So rarely is he so fully immersed in absolute nothingness as he is when it’s absolutely pouring down buckets from the sky. From this he finds kinship with Rain, Mist, Delta, River, and Dew. 

The snow feels different from the rain though. Sure it gets stuck in his hair, collects on his shoulders, makes his feet damp and cold. But it’s too light, ineffectual.

He’s left searching for an appreciation for what everyone seems to love so much. And tonight, he is searching. With one hand pressed to the icy glass, the other stuffed in his pocket, he concentrates, tries to feel something, anything at all.

Bell has been watching him, from his perch above the theology section. Feeling him, aching and longing for something. What, he’s not sure, he doesn’t intentionally pry. But he can’t always shield himself from what radiates from Phantom in thick, viscous waves at times. It collects and forms a pit in his stomach. 

Suddenly he feels a refreshing albeit absolutely freezing blast of air. Phantom has pried one of the windows open. Windows that have not been opened in a very long time. As he pulls it further, layers of paint crackle and flake from the hinges. 

Bell watches as he collects a handful. It doesn’t take long, with the way it’s coming down, for a little mountain of big, fluffy flakes to form in his cupped hands. His thoughts become louder, like shouting, loud enough to give Bell a headache. And now it’s clear.

“Why can’t I see it? Just once.” 

Elemental energy is strange. No one knows why through various cycles of nature it is cleansed away. Through the clouds, from the mouth of a volcano, deep in the ground beneath layers of soil and clay. Maybe because everything deserves a chance to start again, no longer burdened by the past. Ghouls are not so lucky. Phantom is not so lucky.

For once though, Bell has an idea. Something that might help. He isn’t sure if it’s okay, to acknowledge the scene playing out across the room. Then again, Phantom surely knows that Cowbell can feel it. Because Phantom has the same empathetic qualities. Isn’t that why they perform this strange dance, meters apart?

His feet land silently despite the floorboard’s penchant for creaking. As though he steps on slippers made of clouds, he seems to float rather than walk. He’s one of the few who has learned to harness some of what he’s collected over the years. He might as well use it if it insists on being sucked into his being by a vortex he can’t control.

He considers speaking, but it already feels like there’s a spell cast across the grounds of the Ministry. The snow has already piled on the lawns and the roof, the maze in the garden, the window sill. It’s heavy and oh so quiet. Insulated by a thick quilt made from the downy white flakes

Phantom sucks in a breath that stings his front teeth, the air is bitter cold, and he should probably close the window. But a strange voice tells him otherwise. Tells him to open the other, wide as they’ll go.

Bell could simply show him what he sees, but he knows that’s not the same. Like looking at a rainbow through a television. 

The air feels the way it does before it rains, full of static and with a strange metallic smell. The hairs on the back of Phantom’s neck stand on end, and it isn’t from the frigid air permeating the entire library.

Suddenly, from his vantage point, the sky is lit up in technicolor. Bright blues, greens, violet, magenta. So is the ground. So are the flakes melting in his hands, despite how frozen they are. He could see the trees in the distance, now he sees what makes the branches droop. 

What he feels - is - elation, unadulterated excitement. What everyone must feel when they see snow for the first time. Only it isn’t the same, most people haven’t experienced a lifetime of longing to see things like other people do. 

What Phantom feels, it chokes Bell. Closes off his airways. Makes him stumble back into the shadows far less elegantly than he arrived. Of course he can’t stop what comes in when he is focusing on putting something out. 

Thankfully he hasn’t cast some temporary incantation or cheap magic that will disappear as soon as he leaves, so he does. Phantom doesn’t notice, fully engrossed in the prismatic light and shimmering colour.

The way each flake moves of its own volition, in a different direction than its neighbor. He tries to track a singular flake on its descent to the ground, but despite the way it’s accumulating, it’s like none of them ever seem to land.

He isn’t sure how long he stands there with those windows that reach the ceiling pulled wide open. Long enough that there’s a light dusting of snow on the chair he was sitting on, on the floor, on some of the nearby bookshelves.

Long enough for his face to burn furiously, long enough for the tears clinging to his lashes to turn to frost and ice. Long enough that he didn’t realize he was alone now. That he turned, mouth hanging open while he searched for the right words to come out of it. 

But he is alone now, what he feels, that feels like Cowbell, is falling from the sky and clinging to the front of his shirt. What has become droplets of water running between his fingers. It’s almost a relief; that Bell is gone. Because Phantom isn’t sure he could find the right words for this, the right way to say thank you.

But then he remembers, he doesn’t have to. Cowbell knows, he can feel it too.

#yes you can see the northern lights in sweden #maybe this is confusing if you haven't read other stuff #and I kind of mention lore stuff I haven't written yet #but just vibe with it okay #phantom ghoul #cowbell ghoul #the band ghost fanfiction #nivis becomes Bell’s nickname #it means the snow #and it’s because when phantom looks at him he sees the same thing the bell projected for him

[flw3rrr]

A heart to be broken

Paring: Billy the kid X fem! reader

rating: 18+ NSFW MDNI

Warnings: Swearing, Horse dying, Mentions of death, Alcohol consumption, PnV (wrap it up guys) Praising, Talks about taking reader away for himself, Outside smut (behind a tree, no one can see) No description of year, no Mentions of y/n, No happy ending (Billy's heart gets broken) Not proof read, I apologize for any typos

summary: Billy was out on the roads along with his horse, when suddenly the horse fell i'll and sadly passed. Stuck Billy continued on foot to his destination. Until A group of two friendly people take him and promise to bring him to the nearest town. Finding out The lovely woman had a special place with horses and treated them when asked he fell instantly.

word count: 1.9k

The hot, flaming sun beamed down onto the land around Billy as he walked. He was hot, sweaty, and tired from walking since his horse had passed. There was a breeze here and there, but all he could do was walk to the nearest town. In the distance of the horizon, a wagon begins to slow down, approaching him.

"Sir, are you alright?" The voice repeated itself twice before Billy shook his head and looked at the man. "I mean, not really," he said, shaking his head with a shrug. "Oh, comon' Fred, let the poor man aboard." A woman's voice suddenly spoke. Looking over, Billy sees you. A warm smile was placed on your face. with a book that you held onto with your hands.

You gesture for him to climb up and join you and Fred. Smiling as he climbed in and sat down with a sigh of relief. "Might I ask how someone like you ends up walking by foot, especially in this heat?" Tilting your head and closing the book, placing it on your lap. Billy looked at you with a slight smile before adjusting himself. "I, uh, my horse sadly passed, so I was forced to continue on foot."

Frowning upon his words, you offer him a sincere look. "Well, I'm very sorry to hear about that. I wish we'd met sooner; perhaps I could've seen what was wrong." a silent pause sat for a bit before you continued. "Forgive me; I didn't even ask for your name." letting out a huff of breath out of embarrassment "No, it's alright; I should have said it in the first place." giving his hand out to shake.

You'd started to enjoy his company as you promised Fred would take him to the nearest town. Carrying suspicions as well that he was 'Billy the kid' But held it deep down for now. Looking over your shoulder, you notice two people standing by a horse, lifting its leg as if it were hurt. "Fred, stop; I want to see what the issue is." Immediately jumping down from the carriage as you walked over. "Gentlemen, is everything alright?" Both heads look up before going back to the horse. "Afraid not, miss. It seems our horse, honey, hurt her hoove."

"Here, let me see." Carefully shoving them away and kneeling down to take a look. As you continued this process, Billy jumped out in case anything happened. "Ah, I see the issue." Bringing a white rag you held before wrapping it around the horse "I'm not sure if you guys ran too fast, but it looked like she possibly sprained it. I suggest taking her to your destination and making sure she rests." Standing back up before nodding and walking away. "Thank you, miss," one yelled.

Billy helped you back, which you thanked kindly. "So now I understand what you meant by when you wished you'd met me sooner," he said, smirking as he leaned back, his legs slightly spread. "Are you some vet for horses?" Tilting his head to the side, he was intrigued to know more about you. "You could say that... But Fred and I travel to see if any horses are properly healthy.” Billy thought for a moment. Learning so little yet so much of you drives him more towards you more. the way your heart cares for anything that stands within the planet. "That's wonderful to hear Miss, t's good to know there are people on this planet with human decency." Stating as he nodded his head in approval.

The ride has been lasting for four days. Billy silently prayed that he'd met you and Fred. He could possibly be dead on the floor from a heat stroke or dehydration; double points if both. Perhaps it was a gift from above, he thought as he watched you fall asleep as the carriage moved. You've both grown closer during your trip. Fred stopped the carriage at some hidden, not-so-hidden area to rest for the night. Billy offered to keep watch for a while, which Fred gladly agreed to.

Early in the morning, the sun rises on the horizon. The heat is slowly coming through as the sun makes its morning call to the universe. Feeling a tap touching his shoulder, jolting awake, looking up to see your face. holding a meal cup, which he assumes to hold coffee, you hand it out to him. "It seems you need your energy back, cowboy." You softly smirked at him.

"Shit. I was supposed to keep watch. It's been a while." Turning his neck out of discomfort. "That's okay." Sitting beside him. "We really are in the middle of nowhere, so it should be fine." Turning your head to look back at Fred "He needs more sleep. Let's try not to be loud." Biting your lip out of instinct. "What'd we doin' to where we need to be quiet?" Raising his eyebrow in amusement. "You tend to be loud whenever you think I'm funny. And he tends to be a person I call somebody who loves beauty sleep." Giggling while observing Billy's features

The way his eyes and lips drag you down. Like a man sent from heaven just for you. He was kind, as you learned. Unless he was making an act, you acted blind if so. "Have I ever said you were good-lookin', Billy?" You question him with a tilt in your head.

"Fraid not miss; unless you did, I have a terrible memory" he smirked before taking a slight sip of the warm coffee. Looking back at him before opening your mouth. "Well, then, if I haven't, then now is the time I'd tell you." Billy, now looking at you as if you just placed some type of spell on him. You looked divine to him, and he wondered how you felt around him. "You playin' tricks on me of some sort?" Shaking his head before once more taking a sip.

"No tricks from me; I'm practically an angel." Smirking, placing your hand on his shoulder. "With all your sweet words, it makes me feel special, y'know?" A silent pause between both of you, slight breathing heard, and Fred's distance snoring. Before you could speak, Fred awoke, angry at the both of you for the fact he "overslept." Causing you to roll your eyes before preparing to hit the road once more, but not before checking onto the horses.

Within another two weeks, Billy had been a real help. Especially by the time two men tried to rob you three, with a quick wrist of his, both of them were on the ground bleeding out. It made your little crush grow deeper within you. But at last, you all reached the town, a place to relax and get Billy his own horse once again, and, sadly, part ways. But you ignored that deep sadness as you looked around the town, admiring the people and the children playing. It seemed like a safe town. "It looks nice, don't you think Fred?" turning to look at him.

"Yeah, you could say that." Stopping the wagon before getting off. "I'm going to see if anybody needs help with horses. You do whatever you need. Say goodbye to Billy, and then we'll leave." You feel your heart break at those words, knowing it'd be hard. "Whatever you say..." Before walking off to the saloon to where Billy was. He'd gotten off at the entrance of the town to see if any jobs were available. Upon noticing him, you walk toward him before tapping his shoulder with a smile. "Well, how was your search so far, cowboy?" Taking his drink from his hand to take a sip of the gross whiskey. Billy sighed before shaking his head. "Not very many good finds... but someone is thinking of offering me something to start out." His head down, staring at his boots

"Don't doubt it; I'm sure you'll be fine." You were quiet again before speaking up. "You do realize that this will be our last time together... We have to continue our journey to our next location for those who need us." Fiddling with your hands as you spoke in a low, quiet tone. Billy's head shot up to look at you, intensely staring at you before taking a last sip of his drink before dragging you out to the back. "Billy?! Where are you taking me?" A little hesitant on following him, his strength leaves you no choice either way. Feeling a hard tree behind your back as he softly placed you. Looking at him in confusion. "Billy, what are you doing?" Questioning him before getting to complete your words, his lips slammed onto yours. The heat was building up between both of your bodies as you quickly comprehended what was happening before he pulled back to look at you.

"Doing something I wish I did sooner... I can't let you go... I'm deep for you." Placing his forehead against yours, noses brushing against each other. "Please just let me," Billy said, asking for your approval to continue on. "Yes," you breathed out before kissing him deeper as his hands wrapped around your waist. Hands travel around his body before finding their place around his neck. Rushing his hands to bunch up your skirt and wrapping your legs around his waist, he desperately needed to know how you felt. The feeling of him sliding into you made you moan, the back of your head hitting the bark of the tree. " 'Shit.. your so tight and wet for me." He groaned out as you tightened around him. Taking your hands, you place them on his cheeks to kiss him deeply as he slowly begins to thrust into you to build up pace.

You let out whimpers and moans as he began to hit the right spots, both of you moaning into one another's mouths, the heat getting stronger as his pace grew faster. The only sounds heard were moans and skin slapping together. "Billy, I'm so close..." You pull back to breathe out, moanings slipping out through every word. "Go on.. cum for me.. you're doin' so good f'me." Groaning, feeling you were close, slowly bringing him to his orgasm. By seconds later, you release your orgasm. Moaning into your hand, you quickly slammed over your mouth. 'Yeah, there you go, amazing." He moaned before pulling out quickly as his white, sticky cum landed on the inside of your thigh. Heavy breaths were only heard before Billy spoke.

"Stay with me, please." I'll keep you safe and do anything you ask. Please, I need you with me." He begged as his hand softly stroked your cheek. Frowning at his words, you place your hand around his wrist. "Billy, you know I can't. Me and Fred have to do our jobs. We love meeting new people and taking care of horses." Fighting the tears your eyes held. "But you could do that here... There will be many to take care of." Carefully pushing him away and speaking again. "As much as I'd love to, you know I can't." Kissing him once more before stepping back. "I pray we meet again, Billy, and perhaps next time we can be together." You smiled softly before giving him one of the rings you held before walking away.

Billy watched you as you walked away. His heart was breaking at the sight of you walking away. His heart told him to chase after you while his body held him still. Fiddling with the ring you gave him, he silently prayed you'd meet again.

~~~~~~~~

A/N: My plan was to get this out sooner but I badly injured myself.. oops.

#billy the kid #billy the kid smut #billy the kid x reader #billy the kid 2022 #william bonney #william bonney smut #cowboy smut #western #wild west #tom blyth

[selesera]

I’ve got nothing to believe unless you’re choosing me

hello! I go by Sel here and I am sharing my first piece of writing with you, tumblr. I want to dedicate this to @the-lonelybarricade because she is the kindest person online and she immediately saw my other post saying I was proud of myself for writing this and said she -sobs- wanted to read it 🥹

This is a short drabble that came out a little sad and angsty but I am a diehard elucien so have hope dear reader! This was inspired by You're losing me by my queen and saviour tswizzie. I'm so sorry in advance for any typos!

__________________________

Lady Elain, 

I write this in the hopes that you will agree to speak with me upon my next visit to Velaris.

It is important and urgent.

Cordially,

Lucien

Elain smoothed out the folded lines of his letter again. Her fingers lightly brushed the letters of his elegant penmanship, terrified of blurring the ink and erasing the way he had written her name. She knew what his “important and urgent” topic was. He was tired of being shackled to her. She could feel his exhaustion, his self hatred, his desperation. Not through the bond, no. She kept her side of that golden string firmly closed. No…she could see his dreams. 

She saw night after night how he confronted her, told her she had to choose. Begging her to choose him. To love him. Or to free him.

Some nights, he would dream that she accepted him and the dream would devolve into a flurry of kisses, wandering fingers, moans and sighs of pleasure. 

Other nights, he would dream she rejected the bond. In those dreams she would stare at her own face, hardened by indifference and disdain. Watch herself coldly stand by as he wept at her feet. Scream at herself to comfort the man - male - that loved her.

She wished she could say those were the worst dreams but she had had the misfortune of seeing his other dreams too. His nightmares. Beron beheading a beautiful fae named Jesminda, wearing an expression on his cruel face much too similar to her own. Hot spikes descending on him. Standing firm against the whips against his back. Screaming as blood red nails dragged down his face. 

The truth was that Elain didn’t know how she felt about being able to see his dreams. On one hand, she felt lucky that she could see the pieces of his history that influenced who he was but that he did not let define him, even as her heart broke at the horrors that he had endured. On the other hand… if she was being honest with herself… it made her angry. 

How dare he make her care about his future? How dare he make her want to soothe and heal every jagged wound to his heart? She was independent. She was not his keeper. She was not the plaything of the cauldron. She would make her own life or die trying! 

At least that’s what she kept telling herself she would do. 

Truthfully, she was scared. How could she be independent in her baby sister’s house? Enjoying all the luxuries that her money bought? She loved Feyre. So much. Had finally created a true relationship with her sister but she still felt stifled. Bored. She couldn’t help thinking that a little distance might do them some good...

One of these days she was going to be able to control her traitorous thoughts… one of these days in her interminably long life.

This is why she hated thinking about him. He always made her question everything about herself, about her life.

Elain looked down again at the letter in her hands. The time had come to respond.

Two pathways emerged in front of her. The first, a path where she chose to stay in her quiet life and let her fear win. The second where fear was still present but sunshine and wildflowers lined the path and a love like no other awaited her.

She put her pen to her paper.

Lucien, 

Please accept my regrets. I will be unavailable during your next trip to Velaris. 

I will endeavour to make myself available on your next visit.

Elain Archeron

#elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elucien #acotar #acotar fic #elain x lucien #elucien fic

[frxxxncx]

3:00 a.m - j. wonwoo

»best friend!¡wonwoo x fem!¡reader.

»Summary: wonwoo’s phone rings religiously at 3 a.m. every night.

»Tags: smut (MDNI), nicknames (pretty doll, darling), nonidol au, blood, mention of edged weapons, management of sulfuric acid, wonwoo is two years older than reader, reader15¡!, wonwoo17¡!, yandere behavior, wonwoo is an instigator.

nota: Super hyper mega late spooky season little thingy because wonwoo looked so cute on today’s gose.

note 2: Any typo or incoherence that you might find was completely intentional, it’s for the sake of learning about my mistakes.

»Words: 1.3k

The ring of the phone filled the room, making an echo in the wall and vibrating over the table.

Wonwoo looked at the phone rumbled over the nightstand, not moving a muscle, still sitting on the edge of his bed.

Ring, ring, ring.

"Ah, y/n?" He asked you as he answered the call, not paying attention to the name of the caller in the phone.

An affirmative sound was heard on the other end of the line.

"What happened?" He asked with a soft voice "You calling at this hour..."

Your blank yet sweet tone interrupted him "Oppa, can you come over, please?" you asked impassively.

"Right now?" Wonwoo queried with a smile in his tone.

"Yes, it is extremely important, I need your help to load some things" you answered with a very sweet tone.

"Okay, I get it" he said, confirming what you needed "Which place?"

•||

"Y/n?" He called your name at the entrance of the old house, looking for something in his bag. "I'm coming in," he warned, closing the squeaky door behind him.

Wonwoo walked slowly in the dark corridor of the house carefully to not touch anything nor bump into anything, until he got to the back door. He gasped at the sight of you sitting beside a girl with the same uniform of your school, but when he saw your smile, even if your face was splashed with blood, it calmed him.

"It looks like this time you made it very extravagant too, pretty doll" your friend said giggling softly.

"I'm sorry for calling you so late," you said, insecure, making weird figures on the floor with the splattered red fluid, due to the cute nickname.

In fact, it was three in the morning, but you were there in front of him with your face painted in carmine just like your clothes, and you also had a small ax in your right hand, covered completely in the thick substance, Wonwoo thought to himself that you matched perfectly the ungodly hour.

"Don't worry, it doesn't bother me, because it’s you" his voice caressed your ears like honey while he was still looking for something in his bag.

A victorious sound came out of his mouth when he finally found it "Take here" he said lending to you a plastic bag with clean clothes "You have to change your clothes, I brought you some of the things you have in my house"

"Ooh, thank u, Wonwoo '' you went to hug him, but he stopped you.

"Go take a shower, I'll clean here" he demanded, putting on gloves.

You nodded and went quickly to take a bath. Wonwoo fixed his scarf leaving the ends in his back so they wouldn't get stained, he looked closely at the dead girl and finally remembered her, she was his desk-mate in chemistry, understandably he didn't recognize her at first glance, the fair skin of her face was covered in cuts and scratches.

That day... he helped her carry some papers to the principal's office, probably you didn't know her. He looked at the girl with a tired expression and opened his mouth.

"Y/n!, what do you think is faster!?, clean everything with water or get it all out through the back door!?" He shouted high enough for you to hear him.

"I would only use a bucket to do it" you yelled in response and Wonwoo could help but chuckle.

"Of course you would" he mumbled getting out of his duffle bag a container with sodium peroxide, he got up and exited the house, grabbing the bucket beside the tap that was sticking out of the house, the water was freezing cold, he continued, putting a layer of the yellowish powder in the water.

He entered once again, still hearing the shower upstairs, he knelt and started to clean, the ceramic was starting to look more and more white, making Wonwoo feel proud, and at the same time, the girl's body was starting to become a hindrance.

•||

"Uff" sighed the man zipping the black duffel bag.

The chirp of the wooden stairs makes him notice that you finally had finished washing.

"Welcome back" Wonwoo said brightly, while you finished putting your glove in your right hand.

"I'm wrapping up here" he commented grabbing the huge bag where the body was hidden, he lifted it and put it in his shoulder, and you looked at him with your mouth shut

"Let's go"

You were walking in the little forest behind the house, stepping through the trees, sticks breaking below your feet, you couldn't stop biting onto your lower lip nervously.

"Oppa, I'm sorry" your tone was solemn, and the older heart ached a little.

"Hm? Because...?"

"You know… for always being like this” you answered looking at your fingers.

"That's okay, Darling, I'm good with tough work, besides if you carry something so heavy you would become shorter" he joked with a beautiful smile getting close to you to caress your damp hair.

Both of you continued your stroll until you got to a familiar place, it was remote and isolated, very deep into the forest.

"Hey, y/n" he called out, dropping the hefty bag on the floor, now grabbing the shovels that were being held by you, "perhaps, do you like me?"

"I'm not sure" you didn't know what your feelings were, for all you know when you looked at him, you just wanted him to be yours, and only yours.

"I see," Wonwoo whispered with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, both starting to dig in the floor.

You kept digging and digging in silence until the hole was deep and vast enough to fit the body in, once the now naked body was in the improvised tomb, you talked again.

"You definitely hate this part of me, right?" You muttered sadly, looking from the corner of your eye how Wonwoo opened a gallon of sulfuric acid -that he had stolen as from his chemistry lab- and poured it onto the girl's body, putting emphasis on her face.

Jeon hurriedly left the container on the floor and went straight to you.

"Not completely" his calloused hands stroked your cheeks sweetly, his honeyed voice was serious, eyes shimmering with adoration.

"I love you"

"Only you"

"I love you desperately"

The red invaded your face, your flesh was burning under the soft touch of his hands, a timid smile slipping from your lips.

"Okey" you stumbled feeling tender at his words.

Wonwoo grabbed your chin and cupped your lips with his own, the warm embrace making you moan happily, lips dancing and melting together.

•||

"Fuck, it's pouring rain, don't you think?" He said, making a pouting while you looked at him with a big smile.

His eyes fixated on a girl who was classmates with one of his friends, she looked sad at the rain, whispering to herself something about having to stay there all day due to the heavy rain.

"Where's your umbrella?" Wonwoo asked you, with curious kitty eyes.

Your face had a question mark painted on it, and you looked at your bag.

"Is here" you moved your bag jokingly, still smiling .

He smiled at you nodding and went to the blonde girl.

"Excuse me" he called out to the girl whom saw him with intrigue.

"Yeah?"

"You can have my umbrella, my friend and I live in the same neighbourhood, so there is no problem, you can lend it back later" his voice was sweet and the cheeks of the blonde were tinted in a cute shade of pink.

You saw them, and the smile that was brightening your face was nowhere to be seen, eyes glaring at the girl, when you saw your friend turn in your direction your face moved quickly to keep watching the rain.

"Y/n, I don't have an umbrella, mind to share?"smile favouring his pretty face.

"It's okay" You said in a mutter, barely perceptible. 

Wonwoo was there, once again, sitting on the edge of his bed, phone in hand, smile drawn in his face while looking at the dark screen, eyes dropping off instantly in the clock on his bed-site, 3:00 a.m screaming in a green fluorescent light.

His phone vibrated in his hand, an obnoxious melody filling the room annoyingly.

"Hello, y/n?"

#I completely forgot about this 🫥 #seventeen #svt #wonwoo I love you #svt fanfic #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #wonwoo #jeon wonu #wonu #svt wonu #jeon wonwoo #seventeen wonu #seventeen horror #svt horror #svt wonwoo #seventeen wonwoo #wonwoo x reader

[raina-at]

John Watson has a problem with vows, with promises, with words like "always" and "forever".

Put simply, life has taught him the hard way that, well, shit happens. Your best intentions can come back to bite you in the arse in unexpected and life-derailing ways.

A few examples: His parents' "always" ended in a bitter divorce when he was ten. He thought he would always be in the Army, but a stray bullet ended that, too. He got married, and his wife turned out to be a psycho. That "always" ended very, very quickly when he realised that she shot his best friend through the chest.

All that having been said, there's a few things John Watson is rock-solidly certain about.

One is his daughter. He will love this little girl and protect her with his life for as long as he'll live, which is reasonably the only always he can promise.

The second is his job. He will be a doctor for as long as they let him be one. The work saw him through some rough times, and it's more than a job. It's part of who he is, part of the very core of him.

The last and best thing he's certain about is that he will love Sherlock Holmes until the very second he dies, and if there's an afterlife, he'll continue there. It's just empirical evidence, at this point, because Sherlock put him through the best and worst moments of his life, and he still loves him so much it hurts to breathe through it sometimes. He can't and won't promise that they'll never fight, that he'll never be angry, that they'll never have days or weeks or months where they won't be able to stand the sight of each other (see above, shit happens). But he handed his heart over to Sherlock the moment he first received the keys to 221B, and he has no intention of taking it back.

So that's it, he supposes. He's Dr John Watson, Rosie's father and Sherlock Holmes' husband. And that will always be true.

For the prompt Always by @notjustamumj. I basically wrote this on my phone at a conference today, so I'm sorry for any typos in advance.

@calaisreno @lisbeth-kk @meetinginsamarra @helloliriels @the-reading-lemon @7-percent and anyone else who likes to play.

Sorry if this is shit, I'm so tired...

#johnlock #bbc sherlock #johnlock fic #my fic #notjustamom may prompts #Always