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gukyi · 5 years

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the coffee shop contract | jjk

summary: apparently, having an instagram profile with a different girl in every picture is reason enough for your friends to strike up a deal where they’ll pay you to have a relationship. well, jeon jungkook’s no good at relationships, but a fake relationship isn’t a real relationship. is it?

{fake dating!au, college!au}

pairing: jungkook x female reader genre: just fluff because i have a one-genre mindset word count: 18k warnings: alcohol consumption but no main character is overly drunk, dumb college antics, i know this is a fic but please don’t do these things in college actually a/n: yes, this story is actually based on a real instagram account my friend showed me in college. oh yeah, college? that’s a thing. i’m sorry for taking so long with this fic, i’m trying my best but college is hard. please wait patiently for me and enjoy this plotless piece of garbage!

Jeon Jungkook thinks that his college experience is overwhelmingly standard. He goes to his classes (most of the time), goes to parties on the weekends (sometimes), goofs off with his friends when he’s supposed to be studying (all of the time), and eats like shit.

(The plus side to his eating-like-shit habits is that he’s a gym junkie, which means that in theory, every time he exercises he burns off all of the shit and just leaves the energy behind. In theory.)

He operates under the assumption that he leads a very normal college life. He is but a typical student with a very small budget who detests the fact that he has to buy brand new versions of his textbooks just so he can get the online access code. He thinks he’s nothing but average.

His friends think differently.

“It’s not that weird, guys,” Jungkook insists in a group study room one day, where neither he nor his friends happen to be studying. In fact, Jungkook’s laptop is dead. He forgot his charger in his bedroom. He has no idea what he thought he would be doing when Taehyung texted and asked if he wanted to come and study with them.

They are doing anything but studying.

Taehyung has been on his phone the entire time, and the same topic of conversation that circles their friend group every now and then is at hand. “Yes it is, Jungkook,” he insists. He holds his phone up to both Jungkook and Jimin to prove a point. “Think about it. Okay, I’m scrolling back and forth on Tinder—”

“You just swiped right on some random dude,” Jungkook points out monotonously, a single eyebrow raised. Next to him, Jimin bursts into the laughter he was doing a poor job of holding in. “Why do you even have Tinder? You’re dating someone, and he’s sitting right next to you.”

“Fuck,” Taehyung mutters in exclamation, quickly pulling his phone back to try and rectify his carelessness. “Wait, never mind, he’s cute.” Jungkook shakes his head to himself. “Stop trying to distract me! I’m trying to explain something to you!”

Taehyung resumes.

“Anyway, think about it. I’m scrolling back and forth on Tinder and I see this cute guy who goes to my school named Jungkook. His pictures feature some pretty decent selfies, no workout or shirtless pics, and an awful shot of him with two hot dogs shoved into his mouth at once, courtesy of his best friend,” Taehyung explains, beaming. He even makes a point to pull up the aforementioned hot dog picture. It’s not pretty, but it’s a good conversation starter. “His bio is pretty standard, likes adventuring, hates doing required readings for class, lives off of coffee. I like the look of him.”

“Get to the point, Tae,” Jungkook says with a sigh, tossing his head back in exasperation. It’s not as if he’s in any sort of rush to move on from the conversation because he has something better to do, because he doesn’t. He just doesn’t need to be grilled like this.

“I go to look him up on Instagram, because maybe he’s the kind of guy to have his profile public for the viewing of others.” Taehyung pulls up Jungkook’s Instagram. He had forgotten about how good his aesthetic was. “Lo and behold, his profile is public! Hurrah! I can stalk him happily just to see if he really is my type. But, wait, what’s this?”

Jungkook facepalms.

Taehyung keeps going, scrolling further and further down Jungkook’s page. “It looks like every single Instagram post is with a different girl. Wait! Maybe they’re the same one—nope, they just did their hair similarly. Huh. That’s strange. Every picture features a different girl, no repeats. Now I really don’t think I want to swipe right anymore. So I go back to Tinder, and I avoid the guy by the name of Jungkook at all costs.”

Jungkook thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have come to the group study room at all. Maybe, if he leaves now under the excuse that he forgot his laptop charger, he just won’t have to come back. Ever. For the rest of his educational career.

Taehyung puts his phone down on the table with a smack, staring at Jungkook with an extremely unimpressed look on his face.

“Are you going to do this every time I tell you I went on a date and I don’t think I want to go on another one?” Jungkook frowns. Maybe he needs new friends. Maybe that would be a better solution.

“Yes, because you’re a stand-up guy who’s funny and smart and got a hot ‘bod and you can’t seem to tie down anybody for more than a couple of months, max,” Taehyung tells him pointedly. He’s always been extremely good at backhanded compliments. “Aside from us, your best friends.”

“I’m rethinking the ‘best friends’ part,” Jungkook says. He can’t believe it, but he thinks he would rather be studying.

“You wouldn’t do that to the man who paid for new Airpods for you!” Taehyung cries out, loud enough for someone in the main study room to turn around and glare at the three of them.

“You’re the one who broke them! You dropped them on the street and let some biker ride right over them!” Jungkook reminds him, eyes wide. He remembers the image vividly, Taehyung snatching his earphones out of his hands as they walked towards their favorite Korean place, watching them tumble right out of his slippery fingers and onto the pavement, and a bicyclist with those flashing red lights attached their handles coming speeding down, right over the case. It was the most tragic thing that Jungkook has ever witnessed.

“And I bought you brand new ones that were engraved with your name like a good, rich best friend would.” He may be an eclectic international student majoring in economics like half of the campus, but at least Taehyung’s self aware.

“Well, it’s not like Jungkook’s going to redo his entire Instagram feed or anything,” Jimin adds callously. Someone gets it. “He’s got this whole muted, neutral-toned aesthetic going on. He also doesn’t seem to mind the lack of commitment.”

Taehyung tuts, shaking his head. He’s still on page one of his fifty-page reading on Economic Disparities in the Post-Cold War Global Stage. He has not even picked up his highlighter. “That’s where you’re wrong, sweet Jiminie.”

“I know you guys are dating, but please never say the phrase ‘Sweet Jiminie’ in front of me ever again,” Jungkook pleads.

“I’m willing to wager that with the right incentive, Jungkook will actually make an attempt at maintaining a real, long-term, committed relationship with someone he’s genuinely interested in,” Taehyung says, a devilish glint lacing his dark brown eyes.

Jungkook hates that look. It’s the same look he had when he suggested they roll their office chairs down the hall of the dorm at three in the morning freshman year. Same look he had when he had Jungkook take sensual nudes of him to send to Jimin pre-relationship because Jungkook apparently had the photography skills of Photous, the photography god (that Taehyung is convinced exists in Greek mythology). Same look he had right before he downed five Monster drinks consecutively, which had the opposite of the intended effect and caused him to pass out in the group study room.

“No favor you could do for me would make me even consider accepting this wager,” Jungkook tells him immediately. He loves his best friend, but multiple times Taehyung has said he’d do Jungkook’s laundry and ended up turning all of his white belongings pink—his bedsheets, towels, and a couple of his favorite shirts are now all cotton candy-tinged.

Taehyung shakes his head. “I’m not talking about favors, young padawan. I am talking cash, the cold, hard kind that you can feel clenched between your closed fist.”

Taehyung comes from a family with money to burn but never does he spend it so recklessly. Except maybe when he bought five Monster drinks with the intention to drink them all like vodka shots. He shuffles around his backpack (work still forgotten) before pulling out his wallet, slapping two hundred dollars onto the table in front of them.

Jungkook, the money-starved college student he is, immediately reaches out for the stack of bills, but Taehyung nabs it from him before he can regain any semblance of personal dignity.

“Ah ah ah,” he tuts condescendingly. Jungkook shrinks back into his wheely chair as he reminds himself that while taking Taehyung’s money may have short-term benefits, he will feel long-term guilt. “Not yet, Jungkookie. First, you need to accept and complete the wager.”

Jungkook huffs. This feels like a drug deal. “Specifications,” he coughs out.

“If you actually find yourself in a committed, loving, uplifting, and completely real relationship with someone that you are mutually attracted to for longer than three months, with at least three Instagram posts of them on your page, I will give you money,” Taehyung says. This immediately crosses out Jungkook’s plan to coerce his favorite music production major (and other best friend), Min Yoongi, into helping him.

Jungkook narrows his eyes. “How much money?”

Taehyung ponders the question for a moment, checking his wallet one more time just to make sure the same amount that was in there two minutes ago is still there now. “I’ll be generous,” he says with a shrug. “Four hundred.”

Jungkook’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. Sure, he’s well aware that his best friend is one-hundred percent loaded, but four hundred dollars could finance his textbooks for the next two semesters, probably. It could buy him a new computer program and matching equipment for his average mixtape-making skills. He could send it home to his parents and they could go on a wholesale store shopping spree. They could buy him all the granola bars and multigrain crackers he could ever dream of.

“Are you serious?” Jungkook asks, gobsmacked.

Taehyung nods nonchalantly. “Yeah, why not? If you didn’t use the money, then I’d just buy some dumbass shit like more energy drinks. I’d say it’s a pretty good use of my cash.”

Jimin’s looking at Jungkook like he’d be a fool not to accept the deal. Jungkook wonders what the harm is. He succeeds, and not only does he get four hundred dollars, he also gets to be in a genuinely enjoyable relationship with someone he actually cares about. He’s in college, too, which means that it’s the perfect time to make some possibly-regrettable and extremely stupid decisions. And maybe, for once in his life, Taehyung’s right. Maybe having an Instagram feed with a different girl in each picture gives off fuckboy-let’s hook up and then I’ll never speak to you ever again vibes. Maybe he should really rethink his Instagram aesthetic.

“Choose quickly, Jungkookie, or I might come to my senses and go buy one hundred Chicken McNuggets with the money instead,” Taehyung advises.

Taehyung’s hand makes to put the two hundred dollars clenched between his fingers back in his wallet, and that’s when Jungkook impulsively shouts, “Yes! I’ll do it. Fine. Whatever.”

Taehyung cackles like the Wicked Witch of the West. Jungkook wonders if there’s a downside to this.

But to his clouded, 1AM mind, surrounded by friends that make him lose even more brain cells, it seems like the perfect decision.

“You do realize that Taehyung is basically paying you to court someone, right?” Yoongi asks over coffee the next day. It’s four in the afternoon, Jungkook’s finished with classes, Yoongi hasn’t started his homework, the both of them have ordered the most caffeinated drinks possible.

“So?” Jungkook asks as he takes another sip, shivers as he feels it run through his blood.

“So, any person you actually try and date for the next three months will find out about the deal one way or another and then feel used, and you’ll feel shitty. If you do somehow manage to date someone for the next three months successfully, they’ll find out about the money and dump your dumb ass,” Yoongi explains callously. He downs half of his coffee in a single go.

Jungkook grins. “I’m really loving the confidence that all of my friends have in me when it comes to maintaining long-term relationships. It makes me feel so great.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “You know that I’m right, Jungkook. You can’t just accept this deal and expect the person you end up dating, if you even end up dating someone, not to find out. That’s unrealistic and basically grounds for a terrible breakup rom-com.”

“I already told him that I’d do it. I want the money because I am a broke college student. It seemed like a no-brainer at the time,” Jungkook says, exasperated. He sighs into his coffee and the foam wobbles. “What am I supposed to do? Tell Taehyung that the deal’s off and let him make fun of me for the rest of recorded human history?” Jungkook whines.

“I don’t think he’ll do that.”

He definitely will. Taehyung’s gravestone will say Don’t Forget to Find Jeon Jungkook’s Grave and Laugh At Him For Me. Jungkook will spend the rest of eternity buried six feet under with random strangers laughing at him until the sun absorbs the Earth and wipes out life on the planet entirely.

“Yes he will,” says Jungkook, pouting. “What other option do I have?”

A chair screeches on the wooden floor next to him and Yoongi and suddenly, someone speaks.

“Sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping even though I definitely was, and I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to be in some sort of monetary predicament,” you say, looking at Jungkook with wide eyes. You look familiar, but Jungkook can’t place where from. Maybe one of his classes?

“Can I help you?” Jungkook asks, taken aback by your sudden brazenness. The last time Jungkook came face to face with someone so shameless was the first time he met Seokjin while at a house party in Namjoon’s apartment. Seokjin walked through the front doors blasting Who Let the Dogs Out from his iPhone and immediately declared himself king of the household before Namjoon could even say hello.

You shrug, shoulders nonchalant and unbothered. “I think I’m the one who should be asking you that question.”

Jungkook’s flabbergasted. He turns to Yoongi, who, like he does with most things that don’t directly involve him, seems to have already assumed a hands-off position. Like it’s not his problem that his best friend has just been approached by a random stranger in a coffeeshop who looks to be promising a solution to his problems. Like the Shadow Man from Disney’s Princess and the Frog. Like a mafia boss.

With a non-comforting pat on Jungkook’s back, Yoongi stands up, finishes the rest of his coffee in a single gulp, and says, “Looks like this one’s on you, ‘Kook.” He doesn’t say anything else and, five seconds later, he’s gone.

“Jungkook, right?” You ask the moment Yoongi’s out the door. You’ve fully shifted your chair to face Jungkook, and Jungkook doesn’t know where to look when your eyes are staring right at him.

“How do you know my na—”

“I’m Y/N. I hope you don’t mind me barging in on your conversation like this,” you say, not at all deterred by Jungkook’s very obvious bewilderment.

“Um—”

“See, I was just drinking my hot chocolate even though it’s still warm outside, and I overheard that you were in quite the dilemma,” you say. Even though you technically aren’t invading any of his actual personal space—you’re not touching the table, accidentally brushing your foot against his leg, leaning in aggressively close—Jungkook feels like you couldn’t be any nearer to him. Like all this overwhelming forwardness and confidence is rendering him speechless and keenly cognizant of his personal bubble. “And I’m here to propose a solution.”

“Do you go here?” Jungkook somehow manages to get out.

“Me? Yeah, I’m majoring in communications,” you tell him casually. Jungkook wonders why he’s not surprised to hear that.

“Okay…” Jungkook still doesn’t know what to say.

“In any case, in the past five minutes I’ve spent listening to you talk about how your friends said they’d pay you if you managed to date someone for more than three months, I’ve devised a foolproof solution that benefits all parties involved,” you tell him like you’re trying to get him to sign onto a business deal. Jungkook swears that there must be fine print somewhere. He just can’t tell where.

Jungkook raises his eyebrows. He’s interested. “Which is…?”

“Date me.”

If Jungkook’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when Taehyung pulled out that fat stack of cash in the group study room, they must jump right out and roll onto the wooden floor at this.

“I’m sorry, w-what?” Jungkook sputters, like he hadn’t heard you correctly even though he definitely had. He was expecting something maybe more in the realm of counselor, like tell your friends you don’t want to do the deal, if they’re really your friends they’ll honor your wishes, or maybe even on the opposite side of the spectrum, like if you run away to Norway now and change your identity they’ll never be able to find you, here I know a guy. Not date me.

Certainly not Date Me.

“Date me,” you repeat. It’s the simplest phrase. And yet, it befuddles Jungkook more than his theoretical computer science class does. “Maybe I should rephrase it. Fake date me. How’s that sound?”

Jungkook lets out something between a cough, a chuckle, and the noise a dying Canadian goose would make.

“Basically, what I’m thinking, what my vision is, is that you and I agree to fake date for two weeks past the designated period—in your case, three months. This prevents your friends from thinking that the whole relationship was all for show and so you can preserve your dignity. I, as your honorable and true girlfriend, will do any and all things necessary to make your friends believe that you are genuinely committed to our relationship. Then, your friends pay you after the three months is up, and because it takes two to tango, I get half. Sound good?” You propose. You seem to have thought of everything.

The first problem is that Jungkook doesn’t know how he’s going to maintain the facade of a real relationship with someone he 1) barely knows and 2) barely knows. The reason he doesn’t commit to anything isn’t because he’s afraid of commitment (okay, maybe he is) but because all of the dates he ever goes on are Tinder dates or hookups-post-one-night-stand. He doesn’t date people he’s already familiar with, and then it never goes further. Even if he didn’t meet you on Tinder or sleep with you after a shitty frat party, he doesn’t see how this scenario is much different.

The second problem is that, true to his college student nature, Jungkook is starved for cash. When Taehyung promised him four hundred dollars, he immediately began thinking of ways to spend each and every cent. But the prospect of him losing half of that money to someone he barely knows has him more than hesitant. How will his parents go on their wholesale store shopping spree without four hundred in cash to blow? If Jungkook wants those four hundred dollars so badly, why not put in the effort?

The third problem is that Jungkook is a phenomenally terrible actor. When he was in grade school and everybody had to participate in the class play on why smoking is bad for you, Jungkook’s role was Kid In The Background Sitting On A Chair Reading A Book. He was on stage for a total of two minutes as the main character was peer pressured into smoking, and he never set foot on it again.

So, if Jungkook were to arrange this into a five-paragraph essay with Times New Roman size twelve font, he’d have a pretty good argument for why your proposal is probably not a good idea.

But then, Jungkook is reminded of a few key things that keep him from declining right off the bat.

First, he’s already said yes. Which means that, if he wants those four hundred dollars, he’s going to have to go through with Taehyung’s deal.

Second, going through with Taehyung’s deal and keeping the four hundred dollars all to himself will require lots of effort on his part. He will have to keep going on dates until he finds someone he clicks with, and then he will have to keep going on dates with that specific person for the next three months and develop a meaningful relationship.

Third, Yoongi’s right, as he usually is. Even if Jungkook establishes a relationship, the deal will always be in the back of his mind, and the truth will eventually come out. This may lead to Jungkook’s first genuine heartbreak—if he’s committed to the relationship—and Jungkook isn’t mentally prepared for that either.

And somehow, as Jungkook makes it through the labyrinth that is his mind, he comes to the overarching conclusion that maybe accepting your proposal isn’t such a bad idea after all. If you already know about the money, you’re willing to help him dupe his friends, and you don’t really care about splitting up in three and a half months, then the only thing that Jungkook is losing is two hundred dollars. And while that may be a lot, he’ll still have two hundred of his own to console him.

Despite the lack of communication between the two of you, surrounded by the white noise of the ambient coffee shop, you don’t appear at all deterred by Jungkook’s radio silence. You’ve put the deal down on the table and are waiting for Jungkook to either pick it up or push it off.

“You get half?” He asks, just for clarification. It’s difficult to miss the fact that you are, essentially, halving the benefits he’s reaping from accepting Taehyung’s deal.

You nod. “Yup. But in return, any dates we go on I will pay for my share, so you don’t have to worry about that. I will also be a loving and doting girlfriend you gets you coffee, croissants, and Dunkin’ whenever you ask, and even sometimes when you don’t. So I think that it evens out.”

“You’re sure about this?” Jungkook asks.

You laugh, cracking a smile that shows off your teeth and fills out your cheeks. Jungkook looks right at you, and maybe he doesn’t feel anything right now, but he thinks he might be able to find a friend in this along the way. “I’m the one who suggested it, aren’t I?”

Jungkook sits resolutely. He just prays that neither Taehyung nor Jimin ever find out about this. If they do, he really will have to escape to Norway and change his identity.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, his eyes staring firmly into yours. “I’m in.”

Seeing as the both of you are college students with the most updated technology at your fingertips, you pull out your laptop and situate it between the both of you. You’ve shifted tables so now that you can face your future fake-boyfriend, and Jungkook feels more and more like he’s signing up for some shady website in the hope that it’ll give him the answers to his problem set. Immediately, you share a Google Doc with him.

“What should we call it?” You ask, cursor hovering over the Untitled document.

“The contract?” Jungkook suggests weakly. He was never good at titles.

“The Coffee Shop Contract,” you add on, typing it dutifully into the bar. “Sounds official.”

“It’s official because there’s money involved,” Jungkook points out. You wouldn’t be writing up this formal contract if you weren’t reaping any financial benefits so long as you both honor it.

“Maybe it’s just because we don’t know each other yet, but you seem like the type of guy to swindle me out of promised cash,” you observe, albeit somewhat inaccurately.

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m untrustworthy?” Jungkook asks, only a little offended.

You purse your lips into a thin smile. “My friends make fun of you because you’ve got a different girl in every single one of your Instagram posts. Can you blame me?”

Jungkook tosses his head back, exasperated. “It’s not that weird!” He exclaims.

“It’s kinda weird.”

You type up a brief outline of the requirements. It looks like this:

The Coffee Shop Contract

Signatories Jungkook and Y/N.

This contract entails a fake relationship between the signatories of Jungkook and Y/N.

This fake relationship shall last no less than three months and one week and no longer than three months and two weeks.

Both parties involved shall do any and all things possible to ensure that this fake relationship appears as realistic as possible.

Both parties will pay for their share of any and all outings made together.

Three Instagram posts on Jungkook’s account must be made throughout the duration of the relationship.

Should this fake relationship be successful, Jungkook shall give half of his payment to Y/N as compensation for her efforts.

No falling in love with each other.

No one can know.

Signatures: _______________________ and __________________________

“What was the reason you needed to type up a whole contract? I thought we had already discussed all of this,” Jungkook asks when you’re finished, eyeing the document on the screen. It looks much too official for his liking. Jungkook, if he could, would probably write his essays on a series of Post-It Notes—specifically the accordion-style ones, because those bring more joy into Jungkook’s life than he cares to admit.

“This solidifies it,” you inform him sternly, fingertips moving quickly across your keyboard. “So that way if either of us breaks the rules, the deal’s off.”

Jungkook frowns slightly, tilting his head. “What if we both break the rules?”

“Well then,” you tell him firmly, resolutely, putting your hand on top of his. Jungkook jumps slightly at the touch, but your palm is warm and it wraps around his with determination. “I suppose that we go down together, or we don’t go down at all.”

When Jungkook’s alarm goes off at ten o’clock that Sunday, the first person to say anything is Taehyung. He comes stumbling out of his bedroom in their two-bed one-bath off-campus apartment, hair disheveled and still wrapped up in the hoodie he’s been wearing for the past forty-eight hours.

“Jungkook?” He asks hazily, voice muffled and thick from sleep and the retainers still in his mouth. “What are you doing up?”

Jungkook looks up from where he was mid-washing his mouth out post-teeth brush, and stares at Taehyung’s reflection in the mirror. The fluorescent light of their bathroom illuminates his undereye bags and the hickey he seems to have acquired in the past 12 hours extremely well.

“Huh?” He asks, mouth only slightly full.

“What are you doing up? Didn’t you get back at like, four last night?” Taehyung asks. He must faintly recall the door slamming shut as Jungkook stumbled back, the alcohol from whatever parties he ended up slowly making its way out of his system. Jungkook does not over-drink… but he also doesn’t under-drink. He was with Jimin the whole time, though, who was flat out hammered, and when Jungkook wrapped an arm around his waist and insisted he drop him back off at his apartment across the street from his and Taehyung’s, Jimin told Jungkook that he was very nice and attractive but that he had a boyfriend.

Jungkook wonders if Jimin’s going to wake up before three this afternoon.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. He splashes his face for good measure before slapping on some of the lotion they have on the edge of the sink that he always mistakes for soap. His mother told him that furiously smacking skincare into your face wakes you up and depuffs your eyes. So he does it. “I’m meeting someone for brunch.”

Taehyung slaps himself in the face.

“Don’t tell me Jeon Jungkook is awake at ten in the morning to meet someone for brunch,” Taehyung says, even though that’s exactly what Jungkook is telling him.

“I am,” says Jungkook.

“Who?” Taehyung demands to know, leaning against the doorframe. While his body may be falling asleep, his mind sure still runs a mile a minute.

“Uh, some girl,” Jungkook says, trying to make it sound as nonchalant as possible. Jungkook accepted Taehyung’s deal a week ago, and you had told him to only start mentioning ‘a girl’ after time had passed to keep Taehyung less suspicious. So you had texted him last night while he was four vodka shots into the night, saying that you should meet up for brunch the next day, and Jungkook, the dumbass he is, said yes without realizing the time you had suggested.

And now he is paying the price in bags.

Eye bags.

“A girl?” Taehyung asks, immediately more awake. “Did you meet her last night?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jungkook lies.

Taehyung scoffs. “Did she give you that?” He points to Jungkook’s neck.

“Yeah,” Jungkook lies again.

“Wow, what a ladies’ man, huh?” Taehyung asks, giving Jungkook a good punch in the shoulder before he pulls his hoodie right over his head, tugs on the drawstrings for the South Park effect, and trots back to bed.

Jungkook runs a hand through his hair before his eyes focus back on the hickey on his neck. He can’t remember a damn thing about who gave it to him. For all he knows, it could have been Jimin. Jimin has, for the record, mistaken Jungkook for Taehyung quite a few times when drunk, though clearly he was able to distinguish between the two of them last night. He grabs Taehyung’s concealer (which is two shades darker than his skin tone) from the cabinet behind the mirror, tries his best to hide it, and prays that you won’t make fun of him when you meet up.

“The fuck is on your neck?” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth when Jungkook appears at the corner table of the brunch place. He was late, as per usual, but only because Jimin came knocking on the door and Jungkook had to direct him to Taehyung’s room before he collapsed face-first on their couch and stayed there for the next two days.

“Uh,” Jungkook says.

“Is that a hickey? Are you attempting to conceal a hickey with concealer that is literally two shades darker than you?” You ask, squinting as you lean in.

“Uh,” Jungkook says again. He sits down, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I ordered us orange juice already,” you tell him. “But it seems like you had a lot of fun last night. Care to tell me anything about it?”

Jungkook picks up the menu to keep his hands busy and give himself an excuse not to meet your eyes. The french toast looks good, and is less expensive than the avocado toast for some strange reason. Classic brunch problems. “I mean, it’s not really that important—”

“Hey,” you say, leaning over and snapping your fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “I’m your fake girlfriend now. I’m obligated to be interested in what activities you get up to when I’m not with you. So, what did you do last night?”

Jungkook figures that since he walked in here five minutes late with mismatched concealer poorly hiding a hickey, you have a right to know what the hell happened last night. If he even remembers what happened last night.

“I went out around ten with my roommate’s boyfriend,” Jungkook begins, because that part he knows happened.

“Wait, your roommate’s boyfriend? Why not your roommate, too?” You interrupt, though it’s a valid question.

“Well, Taehyung’s not really a partier. I mean, he met his boyfriend, Jimin, at a party, but he doesn’t really like going out and getting drunk that much, and he’s also a damn lightweight so you really can’t take him anywhere unless you want hin clinging to your side the whole night,” Jungkook explains.

“How did they meet?” You ask, not out of obligation but because you’re genuinely interested. Which is nice, Jungkook realizes, that you actually want to keep listening to him talk instead of disregarding him in favor of the menu. Jungkook can’t really think of many dates where both he and the person he was with weren’t asking questions just for the sake of asking questions. But you seem to have a different approach. “If he’s not a partier.”

“That’s actually a funny story,” Jungkook begins, already laughing. “Taehyung hates parties but that night he was determined to go to one because this cute boy he saw on Tinder was going to be there. And so he dragged me out to this party at eleven at night to try and find this boy, but then gets roped into a game of beer pong with said boy, so, mission accomplished. Except, because Taehyung’s a lightweight and a terrible shot, he misses entirely and bonks the shorter kid next to the cute boy on the head.”

“Let me guess,” you finish. “That was Jimin?”

Jungkook nods. “Only Taehyung would end up falling in love with the best friend of the boy he thirsted over on Tinder.”

“Can I ask who the cute boy is?” You raise your eyebrows.

“Oh, that’s Hoseok. We’re actually all really good friends now,” Jungkook says, because that’s just how the cookie crumbles. “His boyfriend is a really close friend of mine.”

“Wait, are you talking about Jung Hoseok?” You ask, eyes wide. Jungkook nods. “My friend’s in the dance group he leads. He’s dating this guy named Yoongi, right? She says they’re super cute together, and that he drops into practice all the time to say hello, and Hoseok makes him dance with them.”

Jungkook nearly bursts into laughter in the middle of this crowded restaurant at the image of Yoongi trying to hip-hop choreography that Hoseok creates. He loves Yoongi, but he’s got the coordination of a baby giraffe and two left feet. Which is exactly why he sticks to music production, the less physical of two musical evils. “Yeah, he was with me in the coffee place when we first started talking.”

“That was him? No way,” you say, shocked.

Jungkook has to say that he’s equally as surprised. You seemed familiar, but Jungkook assumed that it was because you had the same class or something. What he wasn’t expecting was this labyrinth of mutual acquaintanceships that draws a path between you and him.

“I guess we’re closer than you think,” Jungkook says with a shrug. The waiter comes over to ask for their orders, and Jungkook, because he’s reckless and you’re grinning at him with a smile wider than the sun, orders the avocado toast.

You nod, handing your menu to the waiter before he whizzes off. “Isn’t it funny how that works?”

After the second time you go out to a restaurant—this one a relatively nice but not upscale pizza place—Taehyung wants to meet you.

It’s not so much wants.

It’s more like demands.

“Two dates, Jungkook!” Taehyung screeches at the same time the first kernel in their microwave popcorn bag pops, making Jungkook wince. “You’ve been on two entirely separate dates with the same person, and I haven’t met them yet!”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Jungkook says awkwardly, avoiding Taehyung’s gaze so as not to watch him go bug-eyed right in front of Jungkook’s nonexistent salad as he slowly waits for their microwave to implode and burn their entire apartment complex down. “it’s just two dates.”

“Which is two more than you normally go on,” Taehyung insists, holding up two fingers just in case Jungkook was unsure as to what number he’s been saying repeatedly as the popcorn pops. “Perspective, Jungkook! This is a big deal for you!”

“You act like I’ve never been on a date before when I, in fact, have,” Jungkook deadpans with a frown. He tries not to flinch when the popcorn surprises him with the last few kernels.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says like a white girl in a Netflix original movie, opening up their shoddy microwave to a steaming (and slightly overcooked) bag of dollar store popcorn. “But when was the last time you went on two dates with the same person?”

Jungkook opens his mouth to respond when he realizes he can’t give an answer without incriminating himself. It’s definitely been a while.

Taehyung picks up on the nanosecond of silence and Jungkook’s fish gape immediately, cackling as he tears open the popcorn and a quarter of the pieces go flying across their tiny counter island, still sticky in some places where Taehyung forgot to wipe up the juice from the watermelon he was cutting (sans cutting board) last night at two in the morning.

“Perspective! Matters!” Taehyung says, interjecting each word with a piece of popcorn in his mouth. Jungkook reaches over to take some for himself, just happy knowing that the microwave hasn’t caused his tragic demise and he can put off death-by-microwave for another day.

“You’re an Economics and Fine Arts double major, perspective is all you care about,” Jungkook says, cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk preparing for winter. “I think you’re being dramatic.”

“I think that two dates is a record,” Taehyung tells him pointedly.

“How noncommittal do you think I am?” Jungkook asks, shocked. He’s been in committed, long-term relationships. In high school. And nowadays in college, the definition of long-term has become so distant from what it used to be that three weeks is pretty much long-term at this point.

“Very,” Taehyung says. He tilts the popcorn bag into his mouth and finishes it, and Jungkook is both horrified and impressed, because the bag was still a quarter-full when Taehyung decided it would be a good time to chug carbohydrates covered in butter. “I gotta meet them, Jungkook. I’m your best friend. I have to!”

Jungkook narrows his eyes. “You do not have to meet her. In fact, you shouldn’t even be involved in my existent or nonexistent dating life at all. You have a boyfriend.”

“Excuse me, I am still your best friend despite already having met the man I’m going to marry and adopt three dogs and a giant iguana with, and therefore I’m allowed to want to meet her. We should do something fun,” Taehyung says, before his eyes light up in the same way they did before Taehyung once suggested they take an extremely pricey Uber out into the suburbs just so they could go to the biggest wholesale store in the area and buy as many sixty-brownie packs as possible.

The same way they did before Taehyung thought it was a good idea to pay Jungkook money to get himself into a committed relationship, and the same way they did when Jungkook agreed.

“Oh my God, we should go play laser tag! That’s so much fun!” Taehyung begins to jump up and down in the middle of their apartment like an eight-year-old boy at an amusement park for his birthday, and Jungkook has reason to be worried he’ll fall right through the floorboards and into the apartment below.

Jungkook couldn’t think of a worse group outing for you to meet his friends. While Taehyung definitely sucks at laser tag (Jungkook always wins), a furiously competitive, glow-in-the-dark, shriek-inducing, friendship-ending activity may very well be the last thing Jungkook wants to do with you while you meet his friends. He wants you to like them. He wants them to like you. Laser tag doesn’t promise either of those things. Laser tag, in fact, actively promotes immediate dislike.

“Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m introducing you to her in a laser tag setting,” Jungkook immediately rejects Taehyung’s suggestion. Taehyung frowns, probably trying to think of some other equally as infuriating activity for the four of you to do together. Jungkook racks his brain, trying to think of something else that appeases Taehyung’s desire for physical competition while also minimizing the potential for disaster (which is very high whenever Taehyung is involved). “How about… mini golf?”

Taehyung breaks out into a devilish grin, and Jungkook wonders if mini-golf was an even worse suggestion.

“Mini-golf?” You ask as you arrive at the mini-golf place, a little outside location far away from the hubbub of the city but close enough to not require an overpriced Uber.

“It was this or laser tag,” Jungkook says, whipping his head around to see if Taehyung and Jimin have arrived yet. He can’t seem to see Taehyung’s faded teal hair nor Jimin’s pink, which would otherwise be easy to spot because whenever they walk anywhere, Gen Z’ers stop them on the street to remind them that they look like Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly OddParents.

“Laser tag!” You exclaim, punching Jungkook in the shoulder for emphasis. “That would have been such a good idea! Mini-golf is so overdone, I would have loved to go to laser tag.”

Jungkook pouts. He can’t believe he already royally fucked up the first meeting between his fake girlfriend and his best friend (and his best friend’s equally-as-chaotic just not-as-loud boyfriend) because you and Taehyung wanted to play laser tag and Jungkook was the dumbass who thought that mini-golf would be a better idea. Maybe Jungkook should just try to get knocked in the head with a mini-golf ball going at one hundred miles an hour like it did in Avril Lavigne’s VMA-deserving music video Girlfriend, fall on the ground and roll into a Porta Potty, and then wake up with no recollection of any of the day’s events.

You notice Jungkook’s pout immediately as you hand over eight dollars so he isn’t paying for the both of you, and pat him on the back. “But I still like mini-golf. It could be worse. We could be at a Kidz Bop concert right now.”

Jungkook supposes that there’s always a silver lining.

The silver lining vanishes the moment he hears a preteen boy who’s on hole eight shout, “Oh my God, it’s Cosmo and Wanda!”

“That would be the other half of our party,” Jungkook says with a grimace, staring distantly into the void as Taehyung and Jimin clamber onto the course. Taehyung carelessly gives the poor teenager in the booth a twenty, does not take his change, and picks up a golf club that is nowhere near the right size for his nearly-six-feet-tall figure. Maybe if Jungkook makes eye contact with the supermassive black hole that Taehyung is convinced actually exists at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, he’ll just get sucked right in and lose all the matter in his body so he doesn’t have to deal with this shit for the next two hours.

“I’m Taehyung,” Taehyung introduces himself aggressively, holding out an enormous hand for you to shake. You do so hesitantly but firmly, trying not to break eye contact with Taehyung, a task you will soon find to be quite difficult, as Taehyung can keep his eyes open for over five minutes straight. “And unfortunately, my charming personality and extreme good looks have already attracted a mate. This is my soon-to-be husband, Jimin.”

Jimin waves respectfully, pink hair bouncing.

“They’re not engaged,” Jungkook says, feeling the need to elaborate because Jungkook’s known Taehyung since before freshman year of college, and sometimes even he can’t tell when he’s kidding.

“Real shame, but I actually have my eye on the only natural-hair-colored college-aged super buff guy in the group,” you say, nudging Jungkook’s side with a wink. Jungkook thinks he might vomit at your description of him.

“Kook’s a real looker, but he flakes on us all the time. I’m impressed you even managed to get him to come with us,” Taehyung jokes, but the comment nonetheless makes Jungkook’s mouth open in indignation.

“I’m the only mutuality between all of us,” he re-emphasizes, “I’m the one who organized the whole thing!”

Taehyung leans in to whisper into your ear, but Taehyung’s whisper is normal people’s regular outside voice, so Jungkook can hear every word. “Truthfully, I wanted to go play laser tag.”

You nod enthusiastically. “So did I! Jungkook just mentioned it and I wish we had gone there instead. We’ll have to go sometime. Just a warning: I’ll crush you.”

“I accept your challenge,” Taehyung says with a firm nod.

Jungkook coughs loud enough to interrupt the both of you and even attract the attention of the next family who’s come up to pay. He feels bad for them—they’re going to be stuck behind the four of you for the rest of this hellhole of a mini-golf game.

“Are we here to play some mini-golf, or what?” Jungkook asks, tiny golf pencil and paper stuffed into his back pocket to record scores, because Jungkook came here to win, and winning is what he will do.

Jungkook does not win.

He actually loses by one point. A singular value. A sole divisor.

He’s pissed, but also impressed.

Taehyung comes in dead last, as he normally does even when he’s playing mini-golf with a club that’s actually the right size, but the gap between him and Jimin’s third place is significantly larger considering his club is meant for someone who’s about a foot shorter than he is. Even so, he seems to give no shits whatsoever about his abysmal performance, and is instead spending most of his time post-mini-golf game high-fiving the shit out of you.

“You beat him! I can’t believe it! I don’t think Jungkook’s ever lost a game of anything in his entire life!” Taehyung exclaims, making Jungkook wince. It was down to the wire the entire game with you and Jungkook neck-and-neck, Jimin a fair few points behind the both of you, and Taehyung hardly in the same ballpark. And on the last hole, Jungkook overshot the curve and his ball jumped the hole while yours sailed in, leaving him to wallow in his second-place pity.

“Just doing my job,” you say with a flip of the nonexistent hair next to your left shoulder. Your hair is nowhere near your hand whatsoever. “He was the one who suggested mini-golf before he knew what a pro I was.”

“It was one point,” Jungkook reminds you, fuming. “If my golf ball hadn’t skipped the hole we’d be tied,” he says, consoling himself more than anyone else.

“But it did, and now you owe me dinner because you lost and I won,” you tease as you walk out of the mini-golf place, sipping on overpriced sodas from the generic mini-golf diner.

“That was not part of the deal whatsoever,” Jungkook says with a frown. “I never agreed to that. We never said anything about dinner. What the fuck.”

You laugh, tilting your head back as you chuckle, Sprite fizzing in your hand. Taehyung insisted nobody get straws, and now you all have disposable open (and full) cups of soda in your hands as you make the treacherous journey back to your campus. “Fine. How about we go out to get some bubble tea after this?”

Jungkook likes the sound of that. He’s been craving some taro tea recently.

“Deal,” he says with a nod, and the two of you shake hands to seal it.

Jungkook finds that he’s actually really looking forward to getting bubble tea with you post-mini-golf game. He’s spent so much time with you and the rest of his friends (however many there are) that you haven’t gone out alone, just the two of you, in a while. Jungkook misses that.

You get along so well together.

Jimin grabs your attention with a question about Hoseok, since the two of you happen to be connected through his dance group, giving Taehyung just enough time to swoop in and wrap an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder, Dr. Pepper spilling onto the asphalt beneath them.

“Damn, she really knows how to keep up with you,” Taehyung says, quieter than he’s ever spoken before.

“Are you implying that I’m difficult to keep up with?” Jungkook immediately retorts.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “No, you dumbass. I’m saying that you’ve never been on a date with someone who meshes so well with your own personality. No wonder you guys have been on two dates.”

“I can’t believe you think I’m this one-date-wonder kind of guy.”

“You guys go really well with each other,” Taehyung says, and that sort of out-of-the-blue, genuinely complimentary statement makes Jungkook narrow his eyes in suspicion. “Seriously, I’m not just saying that. I think you guys make a cute couple.”

Jimin says something funny and you laugh again, giggles breaking out into the air as you slowly make your way towards campus. You’re not looking at Jungkook, but Jungkook is looking at you, and he thinks that maybe even if this is all just one big ploy, he might still get a really, really wonderful friend out of this.

Taehyung pinches Jungkook’s cheek before turning his chin to face you. “I think that she’s someone you might want to hold onto.”

For once in his life, Jungkook has to agree.

Jungkook is running late.

This is no rare occurrence by any means, as Jungkook frequently shows up five minutes late to class with nothing but his half-charged laptop and an eraser-less mechanical pencil, which leaves fantastic impressions on both his classmates and his professors.

But Jungkook hit snooze on his phone four times, and now he’s got ten minutes to get his shit together and get to his Metropolitan Nature class before he gets chewed out by his professor for being late three times already this month.

He makes a few quick sacrifices. First, he’s not getting changed out of his pajamas, so this is what his Metropolitan Nature professor is getting, whether she likes it or not. Second, he doesn’t have time to use the bathroom so he’s just going to wipe his face with one of Taehyung’s makeup-removing wipes and pee after class. Third, there is no way in hell he’s making himself any sort of breakfast, not even grabbing a granola bar or anything, so he’ll just suffer until later, when he isn’t a debilitating mess of a human being and has time to stuff an apple into his mouth.

And then, as he’s scrambling to get his backpack and make it to class on time (five minutes to go!), there’s a knock on his door.

Jungkook almost doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs the nearest object to him—which happens to be their television remote—and holds it out in front of him like a weapon, waiting for the burglar on the other side to bust the door down, realize that Jungkook and Taehyung’s shared apartment has absolutely nothing valuable inside of it, and turn around to rob someone else.

There’s another knock on his door. Jungkook decides that it’s probably not a burglar, but he keeps the remote in his hand just in case and opens the door.

On the other side is, much to his surprise, you, with a steaming cup of what he assumes is coffee and a little paper bag in your hand.

“Oh, geez, what’s up?” Jungkook says, quickly trying to fix the mop on his head known as hair, to little avail.

“Why are you holding the TV remote?” You ask instead of greeting him back like a normal person.

“Oh, uh, just making sure you aren’t a robber or murderer or anything,” Jungkook says. There’s too long of an awkward silence that falls between the two of you, and in that time frame, Jungkook tosses the TV remote behind him and listens as it lands with a thud on the rug by the couch.

“O…kay…,” you say nervously. “I got you breakfast.”

Jungkook’s mouth drops open and he’s too sleep-deprived to shut it again. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I told you that I would,” you remind him. “It’s a croissant and hot chocolate, because I wasn’t sure what your coffee order was. Here.” You don’t give him the chance to respond, instead shoving the cup and paper bag into his hands very ungracefully.

“Oh, wow, I—I don’t know what to say,” Jungkook says, very obviously floored at your random generosity. He knows that this was what you discussed but he didn’t realize that it would actually be put into practice.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would probably suffice!” Taehyung calls from his bedroom, clearly having overheard your entire conversation thus far.

“Fuck off!” Jungkook shouts back, and he hears Taehyung cackle.

You raise your eyebrows, leaning forward slightly.

“Oh, yeah, thank you,” Jungkook says, still flabbergasted. “Seriously, I—I really can’t thank you enough. This was super nice of you.” God, who still uses the word super? Jungkook has to go before he embarrasses himself further.

“No problem,” you tell him with a shrug. “Just doing the girlfriend thing.” It’s a good thing Taehyung’s in the other room, because he can’t see you wink.

“I really appreciate it, Y/N. This was so thoughtful of you.” Jungkook doesn’t know how else to express his immense gratitude for this simple act, mostly because no one’s ever spontaneously brought him food at such an opportune time before. He missed you, is what it is. He didn’t realize it until you showed up at his door, and now he’s speechless and looks like an absolute fool, all because he missed you.

Weird.

“It was no big deal, really,” you tell him. “You headed to class? Let’s walk together.”

Jungkook’s already late but he decides that he would much rather walk than sprint, because that means he gets to savor the taste of blazing hot chocolate and a warm croissant, all while spending more time with you.

When Jungkook was thirteen, a brand new go-kart arena opened up in their town. It had flashing neon lights and a giant sign and an arcade with actual prizes to be won in exchange for tickets. There was no sight more glorious to Jungkook’s freshly-teenaged self.

His best friend at the time invited him out the day after it opened, and Jungkook was so excited that he said yes before thinking about anything else. He had never been go-karting. He couldn’t remember the last time he went to an arcade. He wanted to win ten thousand tickets to get a remote-control car.

But he had no money because he realized that he was only getting paid for mowing his neighbor’s lawns at the end of the week, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to pay for anything.

In desperation, Jungkook begged his older brother for some cash, promising that he would pay him back as soon as possible. Jeonghyun agreed (albeit begrudgingly) and Jungkook went on his merry way, having a grand old time at the brand new go-kart place with an arcade and winning one thousand tickets, which was enough to get him five of his favorite candy bars.

Jungkook fully intended on giving some of them to his older brother as a thank you, but he ended up eating all of them on the way home, and then Jeonghyun doubled the amount that Jungkook owed him, and it took Jungkook a month to repay him.

Jungkook discovered then that owing people is the worst feeling in the entire world, a sentiment he’s maintained ever since. It makes him an extremely reliable person whenever he borrows anything, which is already rare to begin with.

Jungkook owes you more than just some hot chocolate and a croissant. You’ve saved his ass on numerous occasions, getting along well with Taehyung and Jimin and suggesting that you’re interested in him, striking up a deal that will save him from the wrath of Taehyung, giving him breakfast (free of charge!) on a day where he definitely wasn’t planning on eating anything. He feels like hot chocolate and a croissant just doesn’t cut it.

In the end, Jungkook knocks on your door at seven in the evening with a paper bag filled with various Chinese takeout dishes. He never knows what to get whenever he gets Chinese food, so he gets a little bit of everything and, inevitably, eats all of it. He’s hoping that this is sufficient enough repayment, because you certainly deserve it.

You open the door drowsily, mumbling something that sounds like “Who is it?” under your breath, when you see Jungkook and your eyes light up.

“I brought Chinese food,” Jungkook supplies helpfully, holding up the bag as if the scent that’s wafting through the air isn’t proof enough.

Your mouth drops open, just like his did. “Oh my God, you’re my hero. I was just about to make myself some shitty instant ramen for dinner, but this is so much better.”

“Just returning the favor, I guess,” Jungkook says with a shrug. “It was really nice of you to drop by this morning.”

“It was really nice of you to bring Chinese food tonight,” you respond as Jungkook hands over the paper bag. You let it sit on your palms, too heavy to be held by the top of it. “You just saved me from my fourth instant ramen dinner of the week.”

Jungkook laughs. He and Taehyung were like that during their freshman year, boiling water in their kettle at four in the morning to burn the insides of their mouths out with the fire noodles. Fond memories. You grin at him, Chinese takeout resting securely in your palms, and gaze at each other for a few more seconds before Jungkook coughs to end the silence.

“Aren’t you coming inside?” You ask, stepping away from the door to usher him in.

“Oh, no, the takeout was just a thank you for this morning,” Jungkook says, shaking his head and his hand as he takes a step away from the door. His stomach grumbles.

Exposed.

“Don’t think I can’t hear the whale coming from your belly,” you say, eyes narrowing as you point at his torso. “Come on, you paid for this thing, you might as well get your fair share. There’s no way I’ll be able to eat all of this myself.”

“No, it’s alright, seriously—” His stomach growls at him, like it’s personally offended that Jungkook’s rejecting the Chinese food.

You frown at him, raising a single, unimpressed eyebrow. “Come on, you dumbass. It’s getting cold.”

Jungkook relents, though it probably wouldn’t have taken much more to wear him down anyway, and walks inside your apartment. He slips off his sneakers and joins you as you set the food down on the coffee table in front of your couch, fabric worn and pillows sunken in. It looks delightfully comfortable.

“Sorry it’s kind of a mess in here,” you say as you grab plates from your kitchenette. “You caught me off guard—I just got out of the shower, too.”

Your apartment is cleaner than his and Taehyung’s looks on days where they actually try to tidy up. Jungkook wishes he had those capabilities, but when he’s presented with the options of cleaning up or taking a nap, he will invariably choose the latter. And the clothes you’re wearing, even if you insist that they’re your nasty lounge clothes from high school, Jungkook couldn’t care less about. You look nice.

You always look nice.

Once you’re all settled, you tear open the stapled paper bag to reveal the glory hidden inside. Jungkook gets one whiff of the scent and nearly passes out, huffing it in like an Expo marker. He was a little worried that he hadn’t gotten enough, but as you begin to take each box of rice and biodegradable container of noodles and vegetables and soup and everything in between, he realizes he had nothing to stress over.

“Oh my God, we’re gonna have so many leftovers,” you say excitedly, eyeing all of the dishes as you break apart your wooden chopsticks. Every smell imaginable fills your apartment, and it makes Jungkook’s mouth water and his stomach rumble. “This cost way more than the hot chocolate and croissant, definitely. Let me Venmo you back half.”

Jungkook shakes his head defiantly, taking the rice out of your reach as punishment. “Absolutely not. I won’t let you pay me back a single cent.”

“What? That’s not in the contract,” you say with a frown, making to pull it up on your phone just as proof.

“Who cares about the contract?” Jungkook says, snatching your phone right from your slippery fingers and placing it on the end table next to him. “I’m just doing the boyfriend thing.”

You attack the mountain of food in front of you like an all-you-can-eat buffet, taking a handful of noodles here and a couple pieces of broccoli there, a few dumplings and a bit of soy sauce, a spoonful of rice, some of the wonton soup. Your plates are filled to the brim with helpings from every single container, too excited to save any one dish for another day.

“God, this is just what I needed,” you say with a pleased sigh, tossing your head back.

“Long day?” Jungkook asks before he puts a chopstick-ful of rice in his mouth.

“The longest. I don’t know if I told you this, but my Communications 316 professor is absolutely incompetent. He has no idea what he’s talking about, confuses himself half the time, and doesn’t listen to the TA. It’s ridiculous. I might as well teach the damn class,” you say, clearly exasperated.

“Sounds awful,” Jungkook comments with a wince. If he ever had a professor like that he would just drop the class and change majors, but you don’t seem to be taking as dramatic an approach. Maybe Jungkook’s just a chronic over-reactor.

“It is. Never take Comm 316, you’ll actually want to jump into a black hole. What are you majoring in, again?”

“Physics,” Jungkook tells you over a mouthful of food.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” you say, and for once in his lifetime, Jungkook knows that there’s someone out there genuinely impressed by his choice of study. Normally he gets much more sarcastic comments, or the person he’s chatting with will just say “Flex” before changing the topic. “Do you wanna do engineering, astrophysics, or theoretical stuff?”

“Not sure yet,” he tells you, “but I’m thinking more astrophysics. I think space is really cool.”

“Astrophysics, holy shit! That’s like, the coolest thing you could probably ever major in. Meanwhile, I’m probably gonna end up being the personal assistant to some Instagram-famous fifteen-year-old.”

Jungkook refuses to let you put down your major. He’s a shitty conversationalist and an even worse public speaker. Jungkook thinks anybody who pursues an avenue like Communication could probably debate his ass into next month. “Hey, those fifteen-year-olds make bank, so I see no issue with that.”

You laugh, nodding. Jungkook leans over the table to help himself to another couple of dumplings, looking back at you as you smile at him, a single grain of rice stuck on the corner of your lips. In the warm evening light of your apartment, the soothing noises of ambulances and honking cars below you, Jungkook decides to remember this moment. Save it forever.

“Let’s take a photo,” Jungkook suggests, even though he’s already taking his phone out of his back pocket. “This is too good not to remember.”

“Right now?” You ask, caught off-guard. “I just stuffed my face with Chinese food, I’m wearing a t-shirt I got when I was in tenth grade, and we’re in my grody apartment. Are you sure?”

Jungkook’s already setting up the phone stand, stacking empty biodegradable Chinese takeout boxes to create the optimal angle. “I gotta get three Instagram posts in, remember?” He says. Because that’s obviously the only reason he wants to take a photo of the two of you, right here, right now.

Obviously.

You’re still hesitant, but Jungkook sets up the self-timer on his phone and leans back into the couch, pulling you in next to him. “Just relax,” he tells you. “You look wonderful.”

The first few pictures are classics—back straight, head up, chin down, hair fixed. Jungkook lets his phone click like a photobooth, making sure the camera gets every one of his angles. Then, the two of you start to get a bit more playful, coming up with creative (or uncreative) poses—peace signs, finger guns, winking faces. You drape your body over his legs and get a few of you looking like perpendicular line segments, a couple of you cuddling, one of you squishing his cheeks.

“Okay, last one,” Jungkook says, setting his phone up. He expects it to just be a relatively normal one, your bodies close to each other but not aggressively so, but a second before the camera shutter clicks you plant your lips on his cheek, making him smile as he gasps. His phone snaps the last photo, and it takes everything in Jungkook’s power not to immediately look at the final shot.

“What was that for?” Jungkook asks, fingers tracing over where your lips pressed against his cheek.

“Just ‘cause,” you say nonchalantly, beginning to gather up your leftovers. “I didn’t know you had a scar on your cheek.”

“I got it when I was little,” Jungkook says, finger lingering on top of it.

“It’s cute,” you tell him, standing up to pack away the leftovers in your fridge and toss out anything you completely devoured. “You’re cute sometimes, you know that, Jungkook?”

Jungkook’s speechless. He stands in the middle of your apartment like a fish out of water, eyes wide as they watch you flitter around your kitchenette. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if there is anything to say.

“This was a lot of fun,” you tell him when you bid your goodbyes, leaning against the doorframe of your apartment. “Thanks for bringing me Chinese.”

“Thanks for inviting me in to eat it with you,” Jungkook says back. “We should do this again sometime.”

“You mean like a date?” You ask, eyebrows raised. “What do you think we are, boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Jungkook laughs. “My mistake. We can have a friend dinner, if you want.”

You grin. “Hmm, I think I like boyfriend and girlfriend better, don’t you think?” You ask.

Jungkook pretends to ponder the question, like he doesn’t already know the answer. “Me too.”

The entire way home, Jungkook’s cheek tingles.

Jungkook (10:18AM): hey what r u doing rn??

You (10:18AM): i’m about to go to this volunteering thing at the animal shelter !!!

Jungkook (10:18AM): wow really?? that sounds like fun

You (10:18AM): yeah i’m really excited !! You (10:19AM): are you an animal person jungkook

Jungkook stares at his phone distantly. He was secretly hoping you’d be free, because it’s a Saturday and he’s got nothing planned the entire day. He could do work, sure, but that’s a Sunday problem. And he just wanted to do something with you. Sue him.

Jungkook (10:19AM): yeah i love animals Jungkook (10:19AM): except iguanas fuck those guys

You: (10:20AM): do i wanna know????

Jungkook (10:20AM): in high school my brother got an iguana and it ate my school id so i couldn’t buy lunch for the whole year

You (10:20AM): i’ll ask later You (10:20AM): but my volunteering thing isn’t until 10:30 do you wanna come?

It’s not that Jungkook’s heart skips a beat, but it skips half of one.

Jungkook (10:21AM): are you sure?? i don’t want to be a bother

You (10:21AM): no come !!! it’ll be so much fun !!! we’re just holding an outdoor adoption fair for the day so we get to spend time with animals and encourage people to adopt them it’ll be lots of fun!! You (10:22AM): please come i’ll be so lonely without you :(

You don’t need to say another word. In fact, you pretty much had Jungkook sold the moment you told him what you were doing. He’s already halfway out the door of his apartment by the time he texts you back.

Jungkook (10:23AM): i’m on my way!!

He gets to your apartment in record time, too excited to spend time with you to be ashamed of the desperation that’s radiating off of him. Jungkook’s not socially starved, nor does he not have other friends he could pass the time with. But he’s been friends with Taehyung, Jimin, and Yoongi ever since he set foot on campus for the first time, which means that he’s spent more time with them the past few years than he has in the past couple of months with you, because that is how math works. And Jungkook hates math, but he knows that he would much rather spend the day with you than anybody else.

He knocks on your door, only slightly out of breath, to find that you haven’t even put on your shoes yet.

“You got here quick,” you comment. “Did you run?”

“I didn’t work out this morning,” Jungkook lies like a liar. It’s by no means a good excuse, he just didn’t want you to think he ran all the way just to be with you. He wants to retain some shred of dignity, especially after losing most of it when he agreed to a deal where he would date someone for three months in exchange for money.

“Sure thing, Batman,” you say. “I’m almost ready, just give me a second.”

Jungkook waits patiently in your doorway, catching his breath and trying to wipe away the sweat that’s slowly beginning to collect on his forehead in a futile attempt to make him seem as cool and natural and not-at-all-excited as possible. It doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Whatever. Jungkook supposes that there are much worse things than having you think he just wants to spend time with you this afternoon. After all, he really does.

On the way there, you tell Jungkook all about the cat that your family had when you were growing up. His name was Pickle and he frequently brought your family stolen flowers from neighbors’ gardens, which was both extremely endearing and also rage-inducing. He also exclusively ate cat food that was the combination of meat and vegetables, which made you believe for a solid three years that all mammals were omnivores. They were, in fact, not.

“I haven’t had a cat since he died when I was thirteen, holy shit I want one so bad,” you say as you arrive at the park right by the shelter, where the adoption fair is being held. “Thanks for coming, by the way. You didn’t have to. You probably have lots of Physics work to do.”

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says instantly, refusing to let you believe otherwise. “I did. That’s why I texted you.”

“To come to the adoption fair?” You ask, waving hello to another one of the volunteers. You must be here often.

“No,” Jungkook says, faltering slightly. “To, uh, well—to hang out with you, actually.” God, he sounds like he’s twelve. Hang out? To hang out with you? The same way that preteens do because they’re too old for the word playdate? For God’s sake. You’re college students, friends (hopefully, because if not then Jungkook has completely misread this situation), and fake lovers. And Jungkook chooses the phrase hang out to describe time spent with you.

“Oh,” you say, more to yourself than to him. Your brows furrow slightly, like you’re pondering something too insignificant to say aloud. Jungkook knows that feeling. “Well, I’m glad you texted me, then.”

Jungkook’s glad, too.

The animal shelter staff, despite his unannounced arrival, are absolutely thrilled that Jungkook’s volunteered to help alongside you. They tell him that he’s got an extremely friendly and marketable face, and will be good for talking to prospective adopters because he’s, by default, extremely charming.

“I can vouch for that,” you mutter into his ear before another worker asks you to help out with some of the dogs. Jungkook stands there, your words ringing in his ears, as the instructions the shelter coordinator tells him fly right over his ear. Charming, huh?

Realistically, there are plenty of ways that Jungkook could be spending his free Saturday that would be appealing to most, if not all, college students. He could be lazing around in bed, sleeping in until two in the afternoon, and never getting out from under the covers. He could be marathoning his favorite TV show or a new K-drama that Taehyung’s obsessed with, finishing the whole series in a single day. He could go out for brunch like any good college student would, go to an overpriced café and take aesthetically pleasing photos to post online, spend the whole day online shopping.

But instead, he’s standing in the sun surrounded by prospective owners and a whole bunch of pets, watching as you play with a few of the puppies in the pen as people ask you questions, and Jungkook decides that there’s really nothing else that he would rather be doing than this.

Here’s the thing: animals are cute, but you with animals is cuter.

Jungkook comes to this conclusion relatively early in the day, after staring at you unabashedly as you play with the puppies, pick up cats for people to hold, and encourage prospective owners to consider older animals in the shelter because they give just as much love and joy as the babies. He is, admittedly, not doing the thing he came here to do (volunteer), but hardly anyone is paying attention to him and he is, in turn, paying attention to you. And you’re doing your work, so does it really matter if he’s not doing his?

In the end, Jungkook actually does begin to contribute something of substance to the event, but only because the coordinator assigned him to the animal registration table for people adopting pets, which means he doesn’t get a free pass to watch you play with puppies for the rest of the day.

Jungkook volunteers, he swears, but he doesn’t do it that often, which makes participating in this even feel that much better. He can’t help but smile and congratulate the brand new owners on their new best friend(s), happily filling in the official papers and watching as each animal goes to their forever home. It’s humbling, and it makes him happy, and Jungkook doesn’t think he could get that sort of feeling if he just stayed at home watching Netflix.

The day ends up being a success. At least, that’s what the coordinator tells him, because over half of the pets available got adopted in that single afternoon, which seems to be quite the accomplishment. The good news is that even though Jungkook was objectively less than helpful, the coordinator isn’t shouting at him because everything turned out well anyway. So that’s always a plus.

“We’re gonna start packing up, folks,” the coordinator says into her megaphone as the day winds down. “Animals first, equipment second!”

“Jungkook, come over here! Quick!”

For a second, Jungkook thinks you’re in pain, but it’s enough of a second for him to turn to the sound of your voice and dash over, responsibilities (as per usual) forgotten.

And then it turns out that you’re nowhere near injured, or hurt, or anything even resembling endangerment of your wellbeing.

Instead, what he sees is this:

You, waiting in the middle of the park, grass tickling your ankles. You, grinning as you meet his eyes from where he stands a few feet away from you. You, with your t-shirt from the rescue center and plain jeans on.

You, with a kitten in your arms, mewling softly as you stroke its back.

“Are we allowed to adopt now that the fair is over?” Jungkook jokes as he comes over to you. It’s when he’s right by your side that he notices something different about the cat, at the exact same time you point it out—

“She’s only got three-legs!” You say, overwhelmed with affection and completely endeared. “Look at her! She’s only got three legs,” you say, motioning for Jungkook to come closer.

“Do you know what happened?” Jungkook asks, leaning down to hold his fingers out for the kitten to sniff. She does so dutifully, pressing her little pink nose up against Jungkook’s fingertips before deeming him a satisfactory human being. Instinctively, Jungkook begins to rub at her cheek.

“No, only that they found her with something on her leg and it had to be amputated when they brought her to the shelter,” you say, bottom lip coming out in a pout as you look down at her.

Jungkook grins. “What’s her name?”

“Miracle,” you tell him.

Fitting name.

“Isn’t she adorable?” You ask, holding Miracle close to you as she clings to your chest. It’s clear that the both of you have already latched on to each other.

Jungkook nods, because how could he ever disagree? You’re standing in the middle of the local park as the afternoon draws to a close and the evening light sets in. It’s a little chillier now that the sun is going down, but it casts a hazy glow over your surroundings. And you’re just waiting there, a kitten in your hands and a smile on your face, and Jungkook can’t resist.

He can’t resist the way you look, how you could possibly look like this. He can’t resist as he pulls out his phone, not-so-subtly pulling up the camera so he can snap a few quick shots. Because pictures like this deserve to be remembered forever.

You don’t notice until the fifth picture in, when Miracle begins to meow, drawing your attention away from her and up to Jungkook.

“Oh my God, hey!” You shout softly, trying not to frighten Miracle or attract the attention of any of the other volunteers who are very obviously doing more work than you two at the current moment. “How could you snipe me like that? I’ve got cat fur and dog slobber all over me, I probably look like trash.”

“You don’t,” Jungkook insists, but he pulls his phone out of your reach anyway. Just in case. “You look fine.”

“Fine does not equate to picture-worthy,” you hiss, but you’re laughing.

“I’m a photographer, Y/N,” Jungkook says, patting himself on the back. “If I need a work a little magic, then I will.”

You scoff. “Sorry that my sweaty ass isn’t up to par with your Instagram standards,” you joke, making Jungkook chuckle. You put Miracle back into the pen she was waiting in throughout the fair, beginning to wrap up. “But at least you finally have two pictures of the same girl on your Instagram page.”

Jungkook chuckles again, but this one isn’t as real.

He had forgotten about Instagram entirely.

“Jungkook, your fucking phone alarm keeps going off!”

Jungkook’s in the bathroom, halfway through the latest John Mulaney Netflix comedy special, doing his goddamn business.

“It’s for my laundry!” He shouts back. He needs to go and pick it up at the laundromat around the corner before someone steals one sock from every pair and leaves him, hypothetically, sock-less. “Can you just turn it off?”

“Fine!”

Jungkook thinks that’s the end of the conversation, so he unpauses the comedy special and laughs as John Mulaney tells anecdotes about his youth. And then, two seconds later, there’s banging on the bathroom door.

“Jeon Jungkook!” Taehyung shrieks, accompanying every syllable with an equally as impactful thump on the door. “Open this door!”

“I’m on the goddamn toilet!” Jungkook shouts back. What does a locked bathroom door mean to Taehyung? Doesn’t he know what the hell Jungkook’s doing in here? “Give me a second!”

“We have to talk, right now!” Taehyung yells. Their neighbors are probably calling down noise complaints at this very moment.

“What the fuck,” Jungkook mutters, closing out of the Netflix app on his phone and hurrying himself up. He finishes up his goddamn business, laments the cutting short of the comedy special, washes his hands, and opens the door.

The moment it cracks open even a sliver, Taehyung is crashing into the bathroom, holding up Jungkook’s phone like it just murdered his entire nuclear and extended family. Jungkook nearly stumbles back into the shower at the force of everything, before Taehyung dangles his own goddamn phone right in front of his face.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Uh…” Jungkook says, a little frightened and a lot confused, “the time?”

“Not that, you dumbass!” Taehyung says. “Your lockscreen!”

“What about it?” Jungkook asks, desperately trying to scramble for his phone back. And while Taehyung may have the upper hand and the element of surprise, Jungkook is swole and swift, and he manages to rip it out of Taehyung’s grasp before long.

“It’s of Y/N! Are you serious!” In hindsight, maybe Jungkook shouldn’t have taken his phone out of Taehyung’s hands, because now both of them are smacking Jungkook’s shoulders repeatedly like the worst cuckoo clock ever.

Jungkook pushes Taehyung off of him and gains his bearings. “So? We’re dating.”

Fake dating. Minor detail.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says like a popular white girl in a teenage movie. “But you’ve never set a photo of someone as your lockscreen before! Or ever!”

“She’s cute, what do you mean?” Jungkook says defensively. Taehyung is reading way too into this.

Taehyung frowns. “I’ve known you since before we started college, and in that time not once have I ever seen your phone background be of a picture of a girl, or anybody, you were romantically interested in. Ever. I’m pretty sure you’d set your lockscreen as Hyuna before you’d set it to a picture of a girl you like. Let alone one with a three-legged kitten!”

“First of all, I love Hyuna, so fuck you,” Jungkook says pointedly. He’d die for her, full stop. If Hyuna told Jungkook to abandon his twenty-first century life and live as a hermit for the rest of his life, he’d do it without question. “Second of all, is it really that big of a deal? We’re just dating. It seemed like a natural segue.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says, taking another step back from Jungkook. He looks him up and down like a doctor inspecting the body for wounds, hands on his hips. Then he says, “I can’t believe you’re actually starting to fall for somebody.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to tell Taehyung he’s being overdramatic and ridiculous (as he usually is), but something stops him. There’s no way he could be falling for you. Absolutely not. You’re just friends, and after these three months are over you’re just going to go back to being friends. Friends who are, collectively, four hundred dollars wealthier. It seems like a good deal. It’s also fake in every sense of the word.

There’s no way that the feeling are real.

How could they be?

Min Yoongi does not want to make a big deal out of his and Hoseok’s first anniversary. Jung Hoseok wants to hire a plane to write JHS ♡ MYG in the sky.

Naturally, they have a house party.

It’s half an excuse to celebrate the first of what Jungkook is probably correct to assume is many, many more anniversaries, and half an excuse to throw a party that involves alcohol but does not involve frat boys. Which are two criteria that Jungkook heavily considers when figuring out plans for the night.

Because it goes without saying, Jungkook invites you as his plus one. If he didn’t, Taehyung would probably accuse Jungkook of trying to fake date for money (which he obviously isn’t already doing), and then steal his manga collection and sell it on the streets, in that order. These are things that Jungkook definitely does not want. Also, you know Hoseok, which means that by the transitive property in Jungkook’s eighth grade geometry class, you know Yoongi. And that basically rounds out Jungkook’s friend group.

By the time you and Jungkook arrive at Hoseok’s apartment just a couple of blocks off of campus, he can already hear the bass thumping through the floorboards outside. Hoseok and Yoongi have good music taste, for sure, but there is no way either of them would willingly set the volume that high. Which means that—

“Jungkook!” Taehyung shouts, already buzzed, as the two of you step inside Hoseok’s apartment. He wraps an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder, nursing a nearly-empty glass of red wine. Jungkook is right to assume this is definitely not his first glass. Taehyung waves hello to you as well, doing his rounds as per usual, before fluttering off to cling onto someone else.

Hoseok’s house party looks less like a party and more like a house. The lights are dim (courtesy of Yoongi), hors d'oeuvres are set out on the counter island (courtesy of Seokjin), and only their closest friends (plus guests) are here (courtesy of Hoseok). The only thing that might elicit any sort of party vibe is the booming bass that rings throughout the room as music plays from their television (courtesy of, you guessed it, Taehyung).

“Hey, Jungkook!” Hoseok shouts from where he’s lingering around the kitchen island, popping an olive into his mouth. He waves the both of you over to where he and Yoongi are standing, drinking their tasteful wine and eating their tasteful tapas. “You’re the girlfriend, right?” Hoseok asks, pointing to you with a smile.

“That’s me,” you say, nodding. “Hoseok and Yoongi, right? I recognize you from—”

“From the pictures,” Jungkook interjects. You look to Jungkook with a puzzled expression, and he raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes unhelpfully. “I showed some to you, remember?” He says, trying to be natural.

“Oh, yeah,” you say, catching on. Changing the topic, you turn to Hoseok and say, “You direct a dance group, right Hoseok?”

“Yeah! You’ve heard of it?” Hoseok says, eyes lighting up. He’s always happy to talk about the things he loves (dance, chemistry, and Yoongi).

“My friend is in it,” you tell him. “Do you know Chungha?”

“Oh my God, yes!” Hoseok exclaims excitedly. “I think that when I graduate, I’m gonna make her the leader. She’s so talented.”

“Learned from the best,” Yoongi adds in softly, blushing. Hoseok responds by pressing a kiss to Yoongi’s cheek, grabbing another olive to go as he heads off to greet other guests.

With Hoseok out of the picture, Yoongi’s disposition morphs almost instantly. In the blink of an eye, he goes from humbled, in-love boyfriend, to jaded, suspicious college student.

Jungkook opens his mouth to explain to Yoongi before his friend reads him like a board book, but Yoongi beats him to it.

“Let me guess,” Yoongi says, eyes narrowed as he stares the both of you down. Unlike Jungkook, who’s already caving into himself under the weight of Yoongi’s gaze, you’re holding onto his arm firmly, looking at Yoongi with a stern glare. “You asked her to pose as your girlfriend so you can get the cash?”

“Well,” Jungkook says, because technically Yoongi’s wrong. He didn’t ask. You did. And you’re splitting the cash, so that solves that issue. “Not really,” he says, like a kid trying to get out of punishment for something he very clearly did.

Yoongi frowns. He turns to you. “Please tell me that you’re getting compensated for hanging out with my dumbass friend.”

“Hey!” Jungkook cries indignantly.

“Yes,” you assure Yoongi. “I am. But thanks for the concern.” Just then, Hoseok calls you over to introduce you to a couple of his friends from his dance group, and you wave goodbye to Jungkook and Yoongi before scurrying off.

Yoongi looks at Jungkook, and Jungkook feels fucking transparent under his sharp gaze. He grimaces. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

“Yes,” Jungkook insists, taking some offense to what Yoongi’s insinuating. He’s got everything under control, thank you very much. The guidelines to your arrangement were laid out very clearly in a Google Doc, electronically signed by the both of you. You’re getting along well. Jungkook hopes that you’ll be still friends after all of this is over, because he likes spending time with you. Go figure. “I’m fine, Yoongi. You don’t need to worry.”

Yoongi looks skeptical, but he drops the subject anyway. “If you say so,” he says. “I just don’t want you to expect something you aren’t getting.”

“What do you mean?”

Jimin finds Jungkook, in that instant, and drags him to participate in karaoke with you, him, and Taehyung. As he’s getting pulled away from the conversation. Jungkook looks at Yoongi desperately for a response. Yoongi doesn’t answer.

Two rounds of early 2000’s karaoke and several voice cracks later, you end up next to Jungkook’s side as the party rages around you. Well, not necessarily rages. More like continues.

“What did Yoongi say to you?” You ask, leaning in to whisper into Jungkook’s ear.

“Oh, he was just making sure that I knew what I was doing,” Jungkook says. It’s not not the truth.

“And do you?” You ask, eyebrows raised as you look up at him.

Jungkook falters.

He thinks he does.

“Taehyung, did you drink this whole bottle—god damnit,” Seokjin’s voice echoes throughout the apartment as Taehyung happily bounces out of the kitchen, even more tipsy than he was when he slung his arm around Jungkook as he and you walked into Hoseok’s apartment. He’s not flat out intoxicated yet, but he’s certainly getting there. Hopefully, Jimin has the sense to keep more alcohol out of his hands.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung coos happily as he peppers platonic kisses all over Jungkook’s cheek. This is natural. “Don’t forget about the deal, alright? I still have the four hundred dollars if you manage to date for that long.” He singsongs his words. In Taehyung’s stupor, he seems to have forgotten that you are still standing right next to Jungkook, watching as his best friend plops wet smooches on the side of Jungkook’s face 1) like it’s nobody’s business and 2) like he doesn’t already have a boyfriend he does this regularly with anyway.

Jungkook turns to you, eyes wide, but you pat his shoulder and calm him down.

It’s fine, you mouth to him. I already know.

Obviously, Jungkook’s mind supplies unhelpfully. That’s why you’re here. Because you already know about the deal. And the money. Obviously.

“You know what,” Taehyung says, finger pointed. “I’ve never seen you kiss Y/N,” he continues, and Jungkook already doesn’t like the direction Taehyung’s headed in. “You guys should do it.”

“Should we, though?” Jungkook say, looking hesitant.

“I know you, Jungkook,” Taehyung says accusingly, “I know that you would start fake dating something just so you could get the cash. Prove that you aren’t.”

Jungkook frowns. “You know you actually have no power or right to make us kiss, so—”

Before Jungkook can continue, you flip him around to face you and pull him in close, hands on his neck as you plant your lips on his. Jungkook nearly stumbles back from the shock of it all, but you keep your grip tight and slowly, his hands find his way to to your waist. Distantly, he can register Taehyung (and probably everyone else in the room) shouting, but all he feels is your lips on his and his heart on fire. It’s by no means a super majestic, romantic, movie-worthy kiss, but Jungkook’s breath catches in his throat and he instantly relaxes at your touch, and that’s never happened to him before.

When you part, it feels like Jungkook’s heart is about to beat right out of his chest.

Taehyung seems perfectly satisfied, and has already moved on to pressing up against Jimin in an effort to upstage the both of you. He will definitely succeed in his endeavors, mostly because Taehyung and Jimin are a thing, and Jungkook and you, well.

You turn to Jungkook, cheeks warm from both the rush and the embarrassment, and you grin. Jungkook takes one look at you, and his heart starts to race. He maybe wants to do that again. Actually, he knows that he wants to do that again.

Fuck.

You (3:23PM): hey are you busy rn?

Jungkook (3:23PM): no Jungkook (3:23PM): what’s up?

You (3:23PM): do you wanna go out and get acai bowls? You (3:23PM): i feel like we gotta talk about some stuff

Jungkook (3:24PM): yeah Jungkook (3:24PM): right now?

You (3:24PM): sure You (3:24PM): meet in 15?

Jungkook (3:25PM): okay!

Jungkook is nervous.

Granted, Jungkook gets nervous when he’s spontaneously offered a baby to be held and he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t frequently hold babies, but still. He’s nervous.

He’s sitting in the acai bowl place with his hands in his pockets, palms sweating. Logically, he should take his hands out of his pockets to remedy this, but if he does that then he’s just going to rub his sweaty hands through his obnoxiously long hair until you get there, and he doesn’t want to pour his heart out to you with sweaty hair.

So he sits on the high stools by the counters against the windows with sweaty hands and a nervous blink, watching to see when you’ll walk in.

It occurs to him then that if all goes well, you might actually end up holding hands after all of this is over, and for God’s sake he cannot have sweaty hands, so he gets up and grabs about fifteen napkins from the dispenser to the suspicious glare of the underpaid teenage worker behind the cash register, rubbing his palms profusely on them.

It is then, as Jungkook stands looking simultaneously like a fish in water and like he just walked out of middle school PE, that the bell above the door rings and you walk in, hands in the pockets of your hoodie and your backpack resting on your shoulders.

“Hey,” you say softly, standing next to him as you stare up at the menu board. Jungkook’s come here before with you, and he’s already memorized your order.

“Hey,” Jungkook replies, weirdly out of breath.

“What are you getting?” You ask. Jungkook hates how neither of you know how to start the conversation.

“Oh, just, uh, my usual, I guess,” Jungkook says with a shrug. He has been here a total of one other time (with you), and he didn’t really like what he got last time, but now it’s been established as his ‘usual’ and he’s in too deep to change it now.

You end up back where Jungkook was sitting before, next to the giant glass window that overlooks the busy street. Jungkook sets his acai bowl down on the counter, turns to face you, and takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

“I—”

“I think I like you,” you blurt out first, words tumbling out of your mouth like an avalanche. You’re staring at Jungkook, biting down on your lip nervously, and Jungkook sputters. “I’m just gonna tell you up front. I think I have a crush on you. No, I know that I do.”

“I—” Jungkook says again, floundering. “I don’t—”

“I’m really sorry,” you say, turning back to look at the strawberries in your bowl. “I think it’s been building up slowly for a while, but ever since that night at Hoseok’s house I just… I realized, you know?”

Jungkook’s silent.

“And I knew that I had to tell you because we’ve been really clear about all of the terms of this… agreement and I wasn’t going to hide this from you either,” you’re rambling now, words practically bouncing on top of each other. “I’m really sorry, Jungkook. It’s okay if you’re angry or something, I know that this wasn’t part of the contract because you kind of have to find a new partner since we both made it clear that this relationship wasn’t inherently romantic even though I made it into one anyway. Just say the word and we can call this thing off. I’m sorry.”

You stare down into your acai bowl like it just set the curve for your least favorite class. Jungkook sits there, acai bowl untouched, words processing.

“Do you… want to say anything?” You ask, nervous again.

“Don’t apologize,” Jungkook says. His hands are all sweaty again, but he barely pays them any attention. “I don’t care. Fuck the contract, honestly. It’s a Google Docs.” You’re gazing at him with wide-eyes, shocked that he’s even opened his mouth. “I’m really glad that you and I are doing this together. I probably would have never even met you if it weren’t for you interrupting me and Yoongi at the coffee place.”

You grin.

Jungkook realizes, then, that he’s been waiting too long to do this.

“Honestly, I—” He says before chuckling, sweaty hand scratching at the nape of his neck, “I was gonna tell you something too. But you beat me to it.”

“Hmm?” You ask, looking at him.

“I think I like you, too,” Jungkook says, and his heart seems to finally settle. “No, I know I do. You’re right—it’s been a long time coming, but the party at Hoseok’s just… I realized. I needed you to know that, too. You deserved to know that this is reciprocated.” Jungkook gets a burst of confidence (probably from the cool air that rushes through the room whenever someone opens the door), and takes your hands in his own. They’re sweaty, and Jungkook feels like he just ran a marathon, but it feels almost like they belong. Like this moment was meant to be.

“We may have started this thing because of my dumbass friends, but I want to continue it with you,” Jungkook says. He’s six lectures behind in his differential equations class, he hasn’t done the readings for his Korean-American history course since the beginning of the semester, his diet has mostly consisted of midnight ramen and chocolate chip granola bars, but he has never felt lighter. “I like you a lot, Y/N.”

“Oh, thank God,” you say dramatically, heaving a sigh. “Because I like you a lot, too.”

Naturally, it’s smooth sailing from there. At least one aspect of Jungkook’s life is working out for him. His differential equations lectures, history readings, and diet are still works in progress.

“So, can I delete the Google Drive document?” You ask, pulling out your phone. “I don’t think we need it anymore, do we?”

“Unless you still want to reference it for instructions on how to be a good significant other,” Jungkook jokes. He still hasn’t touched his acai bowl. He definitely needs to come clean and order something else next time. “My standards are pretty high.”

“Hey! I exceed all of those standards on a regular basis, don’t I? I bought you hot chocolate and a croissant that one day. And I’m good with your friends. Isn’t that, like, what all guys want in a relationship?”

Jungkook pouts. It kind of is, but truth be told you exceed his standards just by existing. “No,” he insists. “Sometimes they just want to be little spoon but everybody makes fun of them.”

“Aw, do you want to be little spoon?” You ask, totally endeared. You press a kiss to his cheek and it makes his skin turn cherry red. “You can be little spoon. I think that I’m a great cuddler.”

“We’ll have to test that theory,” Jungkook says with an eyebrow raise.

“Hmm, I like the sound of that,” you say, leaning into him. Jungkook lets his body be enveloped by your warmth, basking in it, before you jump up, something else popping into your head. “Oh! We should probably tell your friends to call off the deal, don’t you think?” You say. “This isn’t really about the money anymore, is it. I’d feel bad.”

Jungkook has half a mind to tell you that Taehyung would probably bathe in one hundred dollar bills if their apartment had a bath, so four hundred dollars is practically pocket change in his eyes, but you’re right. As usual, you’re right. Curse you and your good-hearted nature.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jungkook concedes easily. You could probably tell him to change his major to English and he would listen to you. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

“Oh God, they’re gonna roast us so hard for making a deal,” you say, face-palming. This is true, but Jungkook’s friends will get over it. Jimin’s a hopeless romantic and Taehyung will just be overwhelmingly thrilled that Jungkook actually managed to hold down a relationship.

“They’ll get over it,” Jungkook says. He presses a kiss to your forehead and lets his heart flutter.

“You think anything’s gonna change?” You ask, resting your head on his shoulder.

Jungkook pauses for a second. Wonders if there’s something to fear. And he decides that he couldn’t care less about that. “Even if it does, I don’t care. As long as we’re together.”

“We’ve been summoned,” Taehyung says as he and Jimin arrive at the group study room Jungkook booked specifically for this occasion.

“By who?” Jungkook asks, scrunching up his nose in disgust. “Because it wasn’t me.”

“No, you’re right,” Taehyung says, collapsing on the chair across from Jungkook. “It was this angry gremlin with hair that looks like a wet mop. Let’s see… what what his name again?”

If there wasn’t a massive table separating them, Jungkook would throw hands at this very instant.

“The fact that you called both of us here frightens me greatly,” Jimin says as he takes a seat next to Taehyung, their hands interlacing almost instantly. “Either you’re about to tell us you’re dropping out or that Taehyung’s cheating on me with you.”

Jungkook frowns. “Why the fuck would I ever date Taehyung?”

Taehyung gasps. “What do you mean? I’m a catch. Admit it, Jungkookie, you’d date me in a heartbeat.”

“I would literally rather have Jimin vomit into my own mouth,” Jungkook deadpans. Jimin nearly actually pukes at the mention of such an action, and Jungkook decides that even the pure thought of that makes him want to cannonball into a volcano. “But I’m not cheating on either one of you with the other one, and I’m not about to drop out.”

“Oh, thank God,” Taehyung says dramatically, like he says everything else. “I thought that we would lose our resident Buff Boy who eats all of my leftovers at meals. I was worried there for a second.”

“I hate you,” Jungkook tells Taehyung genuinely.

“If you’re not dropping out, then why did you call us here?” Jimin asks curiously. “To study? Taehyung doesn’t even know where his backpack is.”

“You lost your backpack?” Jungkook says, in awe. He knew Taehyung was careless, but he didn’t think he was that careless. Maybe he really has lost all fucks. Which does not bode well for him, considering he has to write a thesis in order to graduate.

“I just don’t know where it is right now, alright?” Taehyung says, ashamed. He very well should be. What kind of college student loses their backpack? “Why did you ask us here?” He changes the topic so as not to be subject to any more shaming.

“Uh, to talk about the whole deal thing,” Jungkook says awkwardly. He has no idea how he’s going to go about this. He walked into this group study room about as prepared as Taehyung is when he walks into his first round of midterms.

“Ah, yes,” Taehyung nods sneakily. “Honestly, Jungkook, I’m impressed that you and Y/N have even been going on for this long. Does she know about it?”

Jimin smacks Taehyung in the side. “Obviously not, otherwise they wouldn’t still be dating. Have some faith in our Jungkookie for not betraying this deal to her.”

“Actually—”

“Oh, yeah,” Taehyung says with a laugh. “If she knew about this, she’d absolutely break up with you.”

“I’m. Aware.” Jungkook says stiffly.

“You’ve exceeded all expectations, Jungkook,” Taehyung says happily. “You got a girlfriend and you managed to maintain a relationship for nearly three months all without mentioning the deal to her.”

“Your faith in me is overwhelming.” Jungkook frowns.

“We’re very impressed with you, you know? She seems really nice, too. I thought you’d, like, resort to Tinder dates just so you could get the money,” Jimin adds on.

“Oh, speaking of money, since Jungkook’s doing such a good job, how about we…” Taehyung pauses for dramatic effect, which is something he does so frequently that it just makes every one of his sentences overdramatic, “raise the stakes?” Taehyung wiggles his eyebrows just as an add-on to the proposition.

“Seriously, Tae? Don’t waste your money on something like this—”

“But you’re doing so well! Why wouldn’t you want more money?”

The nagging college student part of his brain tells him to just cave and accept the money, because a higher payment means more money for the both of you, which is… tempting. Jungkook is, still at heart, a desperate and money-starved college student.

But he knows he can’t. Not because it would be a waste of Taehyung’s resources, but because neither of you need the money anymore. What for? You’re already dating.

“Because—”

“Even I would accept it, and I’m an international student,” Taehyung says with a laugh. “Y/N doesn’t even need to know!”

Something in Jungkook snaps.

“You know what, you guys?” Jungkook says, standing up from his seat angrily, hands slamming onto the table. “No. I don’t want your money, and I don’t want you guys to raise the stakes or whatever. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be paid to date someone.”

“But what does it matter if she doesn’t know?” Taehyung asks, a single eyebrow raised in confusion.

“It matters because I care about her! For fuck’s sake, that’s why it matters,” Jungkook says, running a hand through his hair out of exasperation. “It matters because it’s about the principle. I care about her, and I don’t need any sort of incentive to date her. I just want to.”

“But—” Taehyung says again.

“She knows, you dumbass!” Jungkook shouts. “She’s well aware that there was money on the line. We started dating because we came up with this—this agreement to split the money once the three months were over. But then we both realized we actually wanted to date each other for, you know, an actual relationship, and we decided to get rid of the deal. Which is why I called you guys over here. To tell you that I don’t wanna do it anymore. I’m out.”

“Seriously, Jungkook?” Jimin says. “You started fake-dating someone for money and then you fell for her?”

“She is really nice,” Jungkook insists. “You said it yourself, Jimin. I care about her.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says, speechless, for once in his life. “I never knew you actually went through with all of this. I didn’t even think you’d manage to do it at all. You had me fooled.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “Me too. The fact that you guys even thought this deal was a good idea at the time is just… it’s ridiculous. I was dumb, too, for accepting it. But I don’t wanna do it anymore.”

“Okay,” Taehyung says with a simple nod. He’s holding Jimin’s hand, which means all this talk about romance and dating is making him sappy. “We don’t have to do it anymore. I’m sorry for being so obnoxious about it. We’ll call it off.”

Jimin raises his hand, almost like he’s scared to say something. “I know we’re calling this off, but since Y/N knows about this whole deal in the first place, I feel like we should do something to make it up to her. You know, because she got roped into this thing.”

“I think that’ll be nice. Something meaningful, too. Not just money,” Taehyung adds.

Jungkook grins. He knows exactly what to get.

When Jungkook knocks on your door the next afternoon, he can barely hold his grin in.

“Jungkook?” You say when you open the door to see him, holding a nicely-wrapped but suspicious-looking box in both of his hands.

“Hi, Y/N,” Jungkook says happily.

“I don’t like that look on your face,” you immediately say as you usher him inside. “You’re scaring me. You text me are you at your place rn? and when I say yes, I receive no further information.”

Jungkook just smiles. “I have a present for you.”

“I can see that. Can I ask why?”

“Because you’re my girlfriend.”

You squint your eyes. “Is that a good enough reason?”

“I think so. It’s also from Taehyung and Jimin, but don’t give them most of the credit. It’s mine. I got this for you. Because you are my girlfriend and I am your boyfriend.”

“O...kay,” you say hesitantly, hands held out as Jungkook places the box in your palms. You sink under its weight, clearly surprised at how heavy it is for a simple box. “If this is a prank, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Please don’t break up with me. I think I might love you,” Jungkook says, smile so wide it’s beginning to hurt his cheeks.

You pause, hand on the top of the box about to open it, and look up at him. Your face is impossibly soft, and Jungkook wishes that you could stay like that for longer, just so he can etch it into his memory. Remember it when he’s sad. “You think you might love me?”

“I think so,” Jungkook says honestly, because it’s true. He’s not sure yet, but he knows he’s on his way. “I think I do.”

“I—” You say, soft grin lacing your features. “I think so, too.”

“Open it!” Jungkook insists, giving your wrist a squeeze as encouragement. “I promise it’s not a prank. But even if it was, please don’t break up with me.”

“You are never this happy, which makes me exceedingly stressed,” you say, hands tentatively beginning to take the lid off of the box. “Why are there holes in the side of this thing? Is something about to squirt out at me?”

“No,” Jungkook says. “It’s nice, I swear.”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“You’re my girlfriend,” Jungkook says. “You deserve it. You wanted it, too. I got exactly what you wanted.”

Before you even have the lid off of the box, you hear a sound.

Meow.

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #bts fake dating au #w: the coffee shop contract

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mediaeval-muse · 3 years

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Book Review

Confessions of the Fox. By Jordy Rosenberg. New York: One World, 2018.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, queer fiction

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Set in the eighteenth century London underworld, this bawdy, genre-bending novel reimagines the life of thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard to tell a profound story about gender, love, and liberation.

Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found. Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript—a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined—and only a miracle will save them all.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: sexual content (as in sex acts, not the mere presence of lgbt+ people), blood, graphic depiction of top surgery, violence, racism, gender dysphoria

Overview: I didn’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but something about it just hit all the right angles for me. I adore historical fiction that not only aims to imitate the aesthetics of the period, but also focuses on underrepresented identities, such as queer, non-white, and working or poverty class people; thus, it was inevitable that I would find Confessions of the Fox would be so engrossing. I do understand that this book might not be for everyone, as Rosenberg plays with a lot of academic ideas that usually fall in the realm of theory, but personally, I loved that this book wasn’t just about trans identity. While gender and identity and queerness were at the heart of this book, Confessions was also about archives and policing and commodities and so much more - things that were related and engaged the more academic part of my brain, but somewhat complicated for casual reading. Nevertheless, it was ambitious and smartly-constructed, so I’m giving it a high rating, even if I have quibbles here and there.

Writing: As a former academic and lover of history, I very much enjoyed Rosenberg’s approach to genre, form, and writing. It would have been easy to simply write a story using modern aesthetic tastes, but Rosenberg goes out of his way to imitate the prose style of the 18th century. I loved the richness of the vocabulary and the complexity of the sentences, as well as the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane. It was refreshing to read such beautiful prose that the author clearly put a lot of love into, and if you want to be so immersed in a story that you feel like you’re reading a historical document, I think Rosenberg does a wonderful job.

I also really loved the way Rosenberg wrote about trans identity in the 18th century. There are passages, for example, where Jack’s attention wanders while being dead-named, where Jack expresses feelings of confusion or freedom when talking about his physical body, where he talks about the process of coming into being when he heard Bess use his name, etc. I thought these passages were the most beautifully written and impactful, and they stayed with me the most after I finished the book.

These 18th century “confessions” are accompanied by a number of footnotes, written by a character named Dr. Voth in the present day. In these passages, Rosenberg shifts his tone and style, thereby differentiating between past and present without having to constantly remind the reader that Jack and Bess’s story is told through something of a frame. I think the choice to have footnotes instead of chapters where Voth’s POV takes center stage was a good one - it more effectively created parallels between the 18th century story and Voth’s personal story, and reminded the reader that history (especially trans history) evolves as a result of a kind of archival work, collected in pieces by many different people. In that sense, form matched function, which I am always delighted to see in my novels.

That being said, I can’t say I enjoyed Voth’s voice all that much. This criticism is probably a personal preference rather than anything Rosenberg did wrong - I just think Voth’s voice felt a little too conversational, like he was talking to someone instead of writing.

Plot: Most of Rosenberg’s novel follows Jack Sheppard and Bess Khan as they discover Jack’s identity, evade arrest, and disrupt a horrifying commodity trade (so to speak). In my opinion, the plot points surrounding Jack’s personal journey were incredibly well-constructed; I felt that the evolution of Jack’s gender identity, the romance between Jack and Bess, and their evolution as criminals were all very compelling and touched on a number of engrossing themes, from gender to poverty to anti-capitalism. Granted, there were some areas where I think the pacing dragged, but part of me thinks this was due to the 18th century style and genre conventions, more than anything Rosenberg was doing wrong.

In Voth’s footnotes, we also get something of a personal story which includes Voth being coerced into working for an exploitative publishing company at the direction of his university administrator. As we go through the footnotes, Voth recounts conversations he had with these figures while also disclosing details about his failed relationships - with one ex in particular. While I did like the parallels that exist between the manuscript and Voth’s own life, there were some things that challenged my suspension of disbelief. For example, I would never expect an academic to record personal anecdotes and intimate confessions in footnotes for an academic project. Maybe that happens in academic circles outside mine, and I understand it needs to happen for plot reasons (just reading references to critical theory or secondary sources would be boring for most people), so this criticism is coming from a place of being too close to the setting surrounding the text, in a way.

I also think that there were some passages where sexual activity would be mentioned where it was not needed. I do understand, on some level, that sex and sexuality is an important topic in trans studies (and queer studies as a whole), and I don’t want to appear too prudish. However, I think random references to a character masturbating, even if they were making a point, were a bit egregious. I was especially put off by the story of a 15 year old masturbating (in the present-day footnotes), and though I understand the story was illustrating an academic concept and books should acknowledge that (many) teens do have sex drives, it was also a bit much for me, personally.

Characters: Jack, our primary protagonist, is interesting and complex not just because he struggles with his identity as a trans man, but also because he struggles with acting in ways that are not out of self-interest. Though he is a thief and thus acts in self-interest in understandable ways, he eventually uncovers an operation which involves the production of a drug-like substance (or something - that’s the best I can describe it). Bess demands that he destroy all samples so that the substance can’t be reproduced by others, but Jack wants to confiscate the samples for himself to make a huge profit. I liked that this conflict existed, not only because it showed Jack as having other challenges in his life other than his gender identity, but it also spurred character growth and emotional turmoil.

Bess Khan, a prostitute and Jack’s lover, was written in a way that respected sex work and provided commentary on race and policing. I really liked that she had a strong set of principles and desires that were larger than herself, and I liked that she was confident and forceful where Jack could be meek and unsure.

Other rogues were equally loveable and admirable. Jenny, another prostitute, was a nice example of women forming networks of support within the criminal underworld while also showing how white women (even prostitutes) are treated differently than non-white women. Aurie, a black queer man, was also a supportive friend to Jack who is frequently instrumental in his survival. There is also a wide variety of named and unnamed rogues who were non-white and/or queer in some way, providing a rich array of characters that dispels the assumption that 18th century England was homogenously white and straight.

Our main antagonist, Jonathan Wild, is a bit less interesting in that he’s mainly just corrupt. I personally didn’t care for the chapters from his perspective, though I do understand that he functions as an important, symbolic figure that embodies all the things Jack and Bess work against (capitalism, police corruption, etc.).

Voth, our modern day commentator, has his moments, but sometimes, I would waffle back and forth between finding him engaging and finding him pretentious. I understand that he is supposed to be flawed, and I sympathize with a lot of his plights - mainly the pressure from his university and the anxiety he suffers from. But also, I found his voice to be somewhat combative, and if the point was to make a complicated, likeable-sometimes-unlikeable-other-times character, then I think Rosenberg succeeded.

TL;DR: Confessions of the Fox is a beautiful debut novel that engages with trans identity and history, though it does so in a way that may be a bit too academic for some readers. But while it definitely demands much of your attention, Rosenberg ultimately delivers a rich, engrossing story that reaches beyond the historical and textual boundaries of the page and invites the reader to see themselves as part of a vast network that is constantly “making” and “becoming” itself.

#book reviews

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING STUDENTS

And strangely enough, it's also why they fail so frequently. In a sense, though, my filters do themselves embody a kind of password for sending mail to me. What you want to keep out more than bad people. So eliminating economic inequality means taking money from the rich. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to get it from somewhere. In practice the founders grow with the problems. I did enjoy developing for the iPhone, the control they place on the App Store. It's like the sort of software that's supposed to be the most powerful forces in human nature.

I have not yet seen evidence that seemed to me an important question, maybe the most important sentence first; write about stuff you like; if you can't get users, though. Next I create a third hash table, this time mapping each token to the probability that the mail is spam. They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. They could take everyone and keep just the good ones. VCs interested only in high-growth companies? And because startup founders work under great pressure, it's critical they be friends. The first person to write about, then write down what you said; expect 80% of the ideas writing would have generated. Designers trying to be artistic resort to swooshes and curlicues. You look at them and you think, the gall of these guys to try sending me mail that begins Dear Friend or has a subject line that's all uppercase and ends in eight exclamation points. There were a few other patterns, but these were the biggest. But I wouldn't want the site to go away.

False positives are innocent emails that get mistakenly identified as spams. The most ambitious is to try to write software that recognizes individual properties of spam. 1654587 us-ascii 0. You might come up with organic startup ideas usually don't seem like startup ideas at first. Parents will tend to make filtering easier. If we'd had our later selves to encourage and advise us, and Demo Day to present at, we would have been much better if we had operated under the assumption that it's all about us. The superior man is always happy; the small man sad, said Confucius. It used to be the most valuable antidote to schlep blindness is Stripe, or rather Stripe's idea. Not opting out is not the end of the world just doesn't get startups, and why startups do things that ordinary companies don't, like raising money and getting acquired. So I bought it, but my mental models of the crusades, Venice, medieval culture, siege warfare, and so far no spam that does. An expert pianist can play notes faster than the brain can send signals to his hand. Result: if it can't contain exciting sales pitches, spams will inevitably have a different character.

There is rarely a single brilliant hack that ensures success: I learnt never to bet on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success. The statistical approach is fairly robust, and can tolerate quite a lot of the obstacles to ongoing diagnosis will come from some little startup. Though I have to say, not at all, if you're not. The other way to get a cozy, tenured research job. Founders of successful startups: a lot of people predicted that startups would outsource their development to India. Surely at some point. 6x 7% 33. And if the answer is obvious: from a job. You've made something you need to use a more succinct language, and b Microsoft's agenda consisted of stuff they weren't good at. Growth is why startups usually work on technology, or take it away from the rich. She writes: Hilbert had no patience with mathematical lectures which filled the students with facts but did not teach them how to frame a problem and solve it.

If you're really getting a constant number of new customers to existing ones. So I don't think anyone really believes it is the true test of a language is how small it makes your programs. In addition to the technical obstacles all startups face, they'll be going against thousands of years of medical tradition. The inhabitants of fifteenth century Florence included Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. We're dealing with one of the rare ideas that generates rapid growth. Probably the most important question for anyone interested in language design, and one that it would be useful to confront directly. Refutation. Think about where credentialism first appeared: in selecting candidates for large organizations. If there are tensions between cofounders we help sort them out. Well, one reason it's bad in practice is that other countries might not agree to slow down with us. The lowest form of disagreement. VCs want to invest in startups, and partly it's yet another consequence of the fact that the founders of Chatterous told me recently that he and his cofounder had decided that this service was something the world needed, so they must be promising something people want.

7% coming out of later stage investors? That sounds about right. Google to do. It may just be one way to do it. They overvalue ideas. In Wright's early plans for the Guggenheim, the right half was a ziggurat; he inverted it to get hot, and you have no more than a week ahead. In architecture and design, you probably need to be hackers to do what hackers do for fun: cook up amusing hacks with your friends. Why don't government officials disclose more about their finances, and why startups do things that ordinary companies don't, like raising money and getting acquired.

You need some kind of competitive game with the spammers. When you're writing a real essay. It's unlikely you could make something better designed. One of the reasons I like being part of this world. If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do are more different than most people realize. Which means, in the sense that there's less demand for them. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be successors both directly, as Roger Bannister did, by lodging the idea in users' minds that a single person could unroll the future for them. They treat iPhone apps the way they speak. Which meant, with current US tax rates, that it bumps into new ideas. The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users.

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scripttorture · 5 years

Note

Part 1. I'm a fanfic writer. I'd like to ask about the repeated exposure of cops witnessing torture, seeing injuries after torture, interviewing victims of torture, as well as also being victims of torture themselves. In reality, when cops do witness torture, see injuries after torture or interview victims of tortue, it is never the huge amount that fiction puts them in. Cops never ever have much of the excitement of anything in fiction. They do not solve murders every week, they do not see horr

Part 2. horribly gruesome stuff every week, they do not shoot someone every week (in fact the majority of cops haven’t shot someone their entire career), they don’t get criminals personally targeting after them or their family year after year, and most importantly they do not keep investigating or go after criminals alone when they are physically or psychically drained especially when told to take a medical leave. Obviously fiction puts these cops into situations that never happens in real lifePart 3. life even if the individual incidents of torture are actually done realistically. Would’t it stand to reason that the psyche of these cops in these fictions are actually less like actual cops and slightly more in the territory of veterans who may have PTSD and other issues. Is that correct? Then it also stands to reason that real life psychological evaluation and medical leave rules also will not work for fiction. What do you say? (end)

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking but I’ll do my best.

The first thing I say is: it depends where you live. In the Western world being a cop is not a particularly dangerous profession and you’re right most people do not witness a lot of violence over their career.

However this is not the case every where. Police are targetted for violence in some areas, especially during times of war or occupation. When they are serving areas that have a large influx of refugees then the chances are police will be dealing with a lot of torture survivors. When police are attempting to operate in areas that are suffering from protracted violence conflicts then yes, they’ll be witnessing torture just like everyone else.

Whether assumptions like these are true depends on where you’re talking about. From what you’ve said you’re probably not talking about Kashmir, any of the northern Nigerian states that still suffer under Boko Haram or Syria.

But please don’t forget that these places exist. There are places where most police officers will have witnessed torture and places where large numbers of them will be torturers.

All the things that you’ve said ‘never’ happen- well I’m sorry but they do. Probably not where you live but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

I’m going to go into the rest of this assuming we’re talking about a stable, rich, country where torture is not routine.

Witnessing torture is traumatising and if someone witnesses torture repeatedly they’re likely to develop long term psychological problems. That doesn’t necessarily mean PTSD although PTSD is possible.

There’s some research to suggest that PTSD is more likely if someone was physically harmed. So it’s likely that a higher proportion of torture survivors have PTSD then witnesses.

Some of the other common symptoms of torture can have a physical cause. Chronic pain can be a result of injury for instance. It can also have a psychological cause or a mixture of physical and psychological causes.

But generally? The symptoms of torture are the same for survivors, witnesses and torturers. There does seem to be a difference in the degree to which people in these groups effected. That difference is likely down to exposure: a witness might only see someone being tortured once, a torturer would see it every day.

Because of that I usually suggest different numbers of symptoms for witnesses, survivors and torturers.

Symptoms aren’t predictable though. No one can say for sure which individual will develop which symptoms.

I always suggest writers take a look at the list of common symptoms here and then decide what’s best for their story.

I try to think about whether I can use symptoms to add to the plot, create interesting challenges for the characters or show the readers more about the characters.

I don’t know enough about war veterans in particular to say whether they look similar to people traumatised by torture. Broadly speaking trauma symptoms are the same no matter the trauma, but that doesn’t mean there are no differences at all.

A common trait I’ve noticed in people who come from places where torture was routine (regardless of whether they experienced or witnessed torture) is an inability to trust the police. I would not expect war veterans to have the same response.

In real life cops who witness torture repeatedly or are tortured themselves are traumatised. They develop some of the common symptoms seen in people who are exposed to torture.

And generally speaking, yes this is not portrayed well in a lot of popular crime shows on the TV.

That can be because the show doesn’t treat a torturous practice as torture (ie it doesn’t realistically show the effects or assumes a practice is harmless). It can also be because a lot of writers don’t realise that witnessing traumatic events can be traumatising.

I say ‘can be’ because it isn’t always. But the more traumatic events someone witnesses the more likely they are to develop symptoms.

I think these problems are often tied up with broader tropes in the genre; ideas about toughness, masculinity and self reliance. There’s a marked tendency in crime fiction to show catching criminals as the result of a heroic individual rather than the result of teams working together.

I don’t think the idea of tough, masculine, self reliant heroes is inevitably bad. I also don’t think there’s necessarily a problem with this fantasy idea of one brilliant individual doing something extraordinary.

The problem comes when that extraordinary individual is presented as the normal reality.

And a separate problem comes from linking a completely impossible idea of ‘resilience’ to male gender identity.

Torture is traumatising. Being completely unaffected by torture isn’t something anyone can achieve by becoming ‘tougher’ or ‘more manly’. The only way to be completely unaffected is to not have a human nervous system.

I do worry about the effect these kinds of heroes have on boys and young men. Because they set a standard for ‘toughness’ that it is absolutely impossible to reach.

Which I think brings us to the last question: whether cops who have witnessed or experienced torture would be placed on leave.

Again, this depends on the setting of the story. In the Western world, yes absolutely. They’d be removed from active duty and (hopefully) put in counselling.

But in countries where more people are likely to have experienced or witnessed torture? No, probably not.

It’s difficult to get an accurate idea of what happens in places that are falling apart. This is my impression, based on survivor accounts, interviews with torturers and the notes Fanon made after the Franco-Algerian war.

In the worst areas police who repeatedly witness or survive torture are not dismissed or put on leave because there is no one to replace them. They struggle on until their health problems become severe enough that they can’t keep going. They have a mental breakdown. They may end up hospitalised but more often they end up losing their job and staying at home dependant on their family for support as they’re unable (at least for a while) to hold down a job.

They are, bluntly, chewed up by the system.

For examples I’d suggest looking up what’s currently happening in Syria or parts of Mexico that are suffering from extreme gang violence.

In areas where police are dealing with a lot of torture survivors but do not witness or experience torture themselves it’s- a little different but the end result is often similar in that they leave their jobs.

The stress and workload take a heavy toll on individuals. There’s a higher rate of people quitting or burning out while on the job.

Anecdotally a lot of people report a sense of failure that they ‘couldn’t cope’. Depression seems to be common and a lot of people also report having difficulty relating to their friends and family afterwards.

These people don’t always have trauma symptoms. Their symptoms are instead caused by a huge amount of workplace stress, inadequate support and- well people being pressured to achieve things that just aren’t possible with the resources they’re given.

For examples I’d suggest looking up people working in refugee camps in Turkey and Bangladesh. You might also find useful information by looking up the police groups that tackle the worst forms of child abuse.

Underlying all of these questions seems to be the notion that it’s alright for fiction to continue using these unrealistic tropes.

That’s an idea I strongly disagree with.

I think that if we’re choosing to portray torture in our fiction then we have an obligation to do it justice.

Because we are telling someone else’s story and it’s a story that is usually twisted into something unrecognisable. It is profoundly unfair to use someone else’s experience in a way dismisses their pain.

This is made worse by the fact public understanding of torture is incredibly poor.

When we choose to show torture as harmless we add to the voices of real people claiming that it is harmless. We tacitly support them by teaching others that torture can be harmless.

And these lies lead to more people being tortured in reality. With the ‘justification’ that it isn’t really that bad. Despite the body count.

We can have individualistic tough-guy heroes without suggesting torture is harmless.

We can write cops seeing, hearing about and surviving torture in ways that are compassionate to real survivors.

We can write stories that show we care. I believe we must.

To paraphrase Diana Wynne Jones, fiction is a place wherein we can trial solutions to real world problems. It allows us to explore the real issues we face in a safer way.

When we misrepresent torture we are failing to honestly confront one of the worst crimes committed in the world today.

I believe this is at best cowardice and at worst malice towards the vulnerable.

If we do not try to improve even our imagined worlds how can we hope to improve our reality?

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#Anonymous #writing advice #tw torture #tw child abuse #tw terrorism #tw police brutality #effects of torture on witnesses #effects of torture #writing victims #writing witnesses #mental health #crime fiction #torture apologia #toxic masculinity #trauma #war crimes

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uniqueuglyfruit · 5 years

Text

#I mean the poor guy had NO canon personality ( @sauntering-down on this post )

Actually!! While it’s true we know little of Kom’rk, it’s not true we know nothing. We actually know a lot more about him as an individual than generally believed, even from the few scenes he’s in.

To summarize first, Kom’rk, when we first meet him, gives a sense of one who fears the infrequency with which he sees his family has developed into them not caring enough about him to miss him. However, he deflects this with a joke, preventing it from getting too serious. While he seeks validation, it seems he doesn’t want to appear possibly needy or clingy, and when he does get doted on and fussed over, he acts as if it’s not a big deal. Generally, Kom’rk is either easily bored or feels the need to maintain an aloof, bored facade even among family.

At Kyrimorut, Ordo asks Kom’rk to help him with larger tasks, and Kom’rk readily helps him. Despite the fact it seems Kom’rk makes reports through Jaing, in person, Kom’rk is open, almost forward in expressing his concerns―even those that may be simple annoyances. Kom’rk also readily and quickly criticizes his brothers, most especially Ordo, firm but also kind as he does.

To place him in comparison with the other Nulls, he’s closest to Jaing, with whom he has an easy and joking rapport, and it seems he works best professionally with Jaing; this relationship is likely similar to the one Mereel and Ordo have. He has similar preferences and styles of socializing as Mereel, and he and Mereel seem to have similar tastes in what they look for in a social scene. His sense of humor seems most similar to Ordo’s. He’s one of the more extraverted Nulls.

So, very long quote by quote breakdown of what we know (or what I interpret) about Kom’rk and his relationship with some other characters, the latter of which I talk about more than intended, but how characters relate to others is also important.

After his brief appearance as a child, Kom’rk spends most the series as an unseen character, spoken of but never physically present. Much of what we learn first about him is about his significant relationships.

“Fierfek, son, Kom’rk and Jaing can track a flitnat across the galaxy and we can’t find a gang in our own backyard.” (Triple Zero)

“Only ones I haven’t met are Jaing and Kom’rk, and they’re still after Grievous.” (True Colors)

This is the first thing we learn about Kom’rk. It doesn’t establish overly much about Kom’rk’s personality, but it establishes where he is in the scheme of skills and operations the Nulls have. He’s a skilled tracker, and he’s assigned, with Jaing, to track Grievous. And it also establishes an important relationship: Jaing.

Unlike the other Nulls, the long-term assignment that Kom’rk and Jaing are given is a joint op. This is highly unusual, as the Nulls are essentially trained to work as solo operators. This doesn’t suggest anything to me about Kom’rk’s or Jaing’s abilities―they’re tracking Grievous, intensely high value target. Rather, it tells me that Kom’rk and Jaing must work especially well together professionally. And while the Nulls all get along and work well together, it takes a particular kind of rapport for two people to work very closely on a single mission over the course of years.

I’ll get back to this.

“Oh, he’s fine. He’s learning a few saucy tricks from my brother Kom’rk. Good man, Corr.” (True Colors)

“So [Corr] you’ve enjoyed a rich social education with Mereel and Kom’rk, have you?” (True Colors)

The second thing we learn about Kom’rk is he spends time with Corr, and he and Mereel have been influential in shaping Corr’s coming into his own with a marked self-confidence, extraversion, and easy sociability.

There’s no reason to doubt this―Kom’rk may have an assignment on Utapau, but there’s indication that Kom’rk doesn’t necessarily stay there all the time. (I’ll point it out later.)

Judging by the development in Corr, one can judge the difference as reflective of what Kom’rk is like as a person. And it suggests an extravert who enjoys a social scene and is easily sociable, who has similar styles and preferences of socializing as Mereel and likely enjoys similar social settings as Mereel does.

“I saw Kom’rk once, but he doesn’t seem as…” And that was as far as Darman got. (True Colors)

This is an incomplete thought, and there isn’t anything concrete to get from it, really. I just love it. Considering the two Nulls Darman is most familiar with are Ordo and Mereel, it’s safe to say that Kom’rk’s bearing and demeanor strikes Darman at a single glance as different enough from those two to make an impression such.

Of the six Nulls, [Mereel] was the one best able to deal with the demons the Kaminoans had forced on him. But the others—A’den, Kom’rk, Jaing, and Prudii—kept Skirata awake at night to varying degrees. And Ordo… (Order 66)

This is a quote I always pull for the Nulls. I work under the assumption that this isn’t randomly ordered. I always maintain that this is specifically the order from least to most concerned Kal is. Under this, we learn that Kal isn’t overly concerned about Kom’rk. To some degree? Yes. But Kal doesn’t believe Kom’rk needs as much concern as three other Nulls.

It is also, in my belief, a rough ordering of the Nulls from most extraverted to most introverted. (My thoughts on Kal’s association of extraversion with well-adjustment are for another time, even if not elaborating weakens my point here somewhat.) By this conceit, it confirms at this moment Kom’rk as one of the more extraverted Nulls.

Then the hatch opened and Kom’rk stuck his head into the compartment.

“So, nobody missed me,” he said. “I’m gone a year, and nobody baked a cake.”

“Kom’ika…” Skirata got up and embraced him with a crunch of armor plates.

Ordo waited his turn. “Come on, get that bucket off and let’s take a look at you… shab, son, you’re looking thin.”

Kom’rk shrugged, clipping his helmet to his belt. His face did look drawn. (Order 66)

This is meeting adult Kom’rk for the first time. Obviously, of immense significance, despite its brevity.

Now, personally, I choose to understand that the first statement Kom’rk makes actually is of significance, and I choose to believe that, for a fleeting moment, it’s utterly sincere. (Why introduce a character with that if it doesn’t speak to some truth?) Kom’rk is afraid that he’s been gone so long, Kal and Ordo don’t care anymore and they don’t miss him.

But, that’s a weighty statement. One that yells a little too loudly for validation, and would even be needy and clingy. Solution: deflect and diffuse with a joke. Steer the conversation elsewhere before it gets too far down the road toward serious. (Mereel does this all the time, by the way.)

Kom’rk does get the validation he seeks. Kal immediately goes to hug him, and he is concerned about how thin Kom’rk looks. However, despite for a moment fearing he won’t get this reception, Kom’rk simply shrugs. He plays the concern off as if it isn’t of importance―or, he plays off the potential that he isn’t as well as he should be. Or, both.

“Grievous still comes and goes on Utapau, Kal’buir, and he gets visits from interesting allies we didn’t know he had. The Regent of Garis, in fact.”

“And there was I thinking he was in the Republic camp.”

Kom’rk handed Skirata a datachip. “A crumb to toss to Zey—here’s the voice traffic between the two of them, minus the locations, of course. We don’t want Windu or Kenobi charging in there and blowing it before we’ve milked the situation.” He lowered his voice. “And Grievous keeps asking Dooku what’s happened to all these gazillions of droids he was promised, poor old dear. I think he’s been set up.”

“Told you so,” Skirata said. “All propaganda. All osik.”

“Can I have a change of scene, then? It’s boring out there.” (Order 66)

I’d like to note the irreverence in Kom’rk’s tone when talking about Jedi, Grievous, and the assignment Kal gave him. (Compare: Ordo’s staunch acceptance of the lot Kal assigned him, despite deep dissatisfaction with it.)

[Jaing:] “He [Grievous] misses Utapau, obviously. I got a tip-off.”

[Ordo:] “You’re not there, then.”

“No, we’re just tidying up a few loose ends on the Rim.”

“Time we told Zey?”

“Yeah.” Jaing sounded tired. “There’s still something not right about this, but I’m past caring, and so is Kom’ika.” (Order 66)

Here, Kom’rk is indicated to not be at Utapau, instead managing other undisclosed tasks elsewhere.

To return to Kom’rk’s relationship with Jaing, this strikes me as Jaing makes Kom’rk’s sitreps on his behalf, or for the both of them. A little later, Ordo asks Jaing to relay his message to Kom’rk, suggesting to me that when Kom’rk is away, it is normal for Ordo to speak to him indirectly through Jaing.

This gives more of a weight to the possibility that Kom’rk fears Ordo and Kal are unconcerned about him, because he is more distant than the others, but it also speaks of a certain kind of dynamic: not only is Kom’rk rarely heard from directly for us the reader, but he is also rarely heard from directly for narrating characters like Ordo.

It is worth remembering here that of all the Nulls, Kom’rk is away from home base for the longest periods, at one time gone for a year.

Why Kom’rk may communicate indirectly through Jaing, if such is true, is unclear. Perhaps for efficiency. It is redundant to have both Jaing and Kom’rk report the same information. Perhaps it speaks to strain in his relationship with Kal.

Good time to talk about his relationship with Ordo.

“Is it going to burn properly?” Kom’rk asked. “Do you want some accelerant on the pyre?”

Ordo thought that was a good idea, and wondered how it could be done discreetly. (Order 66)

When Ordo and Kom’rk had herded the whole clan into the karyai… (501st)

While I may suggest that there’s possibly strain in his relationship with Kal, I hesitate to suggest such with Ordo. (Full disclosure: Ordo is my favorite.)

I say this because when Ordo needs two large tasks done, one of which is a delicate and emotionally charged matter, Ordo asks Kom’rk for help, and Kom’rk gives it. While one may chalk it up to necessity, the sincerity with which Kom’rk helps Ordo with the pyre speaks to me otherwise,

“They’ve completely overhauled the system overnight, Ord’ika.” Kom’rk took back the ’pad. “Data, comms, everything. We can’t get in. We can’t take stuff out. We can’t talk or listen at will. We can’t spy.”

It was the first time Ordo could recall when he and his brothers had not been able to get at anything they wanted. […] “It’s more an annoyance,” Ordo said at last. […] “None of this is beyond you or me to bypass, and Mereel or Jaing can crack this over a cup of caf.”

“I’m sure we can, but we’re starting over. The whole system’s changed. We’ve been used to being on the inside, exploiting opportunities, but if we want to keep that level of access, we’re going to have to start working harder.”

“Apart from extracting our brothers, why is this urgent?”

Kom’rk shrugged. “Just in case.”

And we hate being shut out. Ordo and his brothers were used to being in control. “We still can’t comm Darman or Niner, then?”

“No, and we can’t even get a medical sitrep on Niner. Or find out where Darman is. Because it’s the Imperial Army now.” (Order 66)

Ruu left, taking her plate with her, and Kom’rk raised an eyebrow at Ordo.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, ner vod, but you lack sensitivity. Poor woman didn’t go looking for Kal’buir. We abducted her.”

“She knows the score.”

“So you’re happy now.”

“Less tense, let’s say.” (501st)

Despite my saying Kom’rk appears distant over comms, in person with Ordo, he is almost forward. He is open with his concerns and has no issue quickly and concisely stating them, even if they’re ultimately simply annoyances rather than urgent matters.

I don’t interpret forwardness as a sign of strain―Kom’rk comes across firm, but not unkind. As someone with multiple siblings, I can say this tone is common, especially when sincerely and without malice trying to help a sibling address a flaw they have.

Frankly, as I see it, it is suggested that Kom’rk’s relationship with Ordo is a direct, open, and straightforward one. Also, is it possible that the deflection he displays earlier is for Kal, rather than Ordo? (Full disclosure: I do not like Kal and am heavily biased against him.)

Additionally, though the inability to hack into the military mainframe is relevant to the situation with Niner and Darman, Kom’rk’s concerns over it are not framed that way. Kom’rk is mostly concerned they have no access and his frustration of being shut out. He also appears aware Ordo may not consider this urgent―Ordo does not―but that doesn’t stop him from mentioning it. While it’s one part thoroughness, one part some relevance to a problem they have, I also think it’s two parts feeling able to express even minor concerns to Ordo.

“Son, you know how many times we’ve pulled that stunt?” Skirata asked.

“Yes. You know how many times it’s worked?” [said Prudii.]

Kom’rk inspected his fingernails. “Well, that’s another problem they’ve brought upon themselves—it’s not like they can take our DNA to prove who we are. Or stick us in a lineup. (501st)

I just wanted to point out behavior indicative of boredom. This is the second time. So, at this point, I’d feel safe assuming Kom’rk is either easily bored or feels the need to maintain a bored, aloof facade, even around family. (I’d also note both are around Kal, and he doesn’t exhibit this when not around Kal, your mileage may vary due to the small number of instances.)

Kom’rk had claimed a corner [of the workshop Jaing set up] to himself and was hunched over a 2-D holochart, tapping numbers into a datapad, completely absorbed in the calculation.

“Who’d have thought it, Bard’ika?” Jaing said, not looking up from the screen in front of him. “Saucy old di’kut, showing up like that. Moral of the story—always go back and check for a pulse.”

“Ordo’s never going to live that down,” Kom’rk muttered. “Ha… ha…” (501st)

Again, support for works well professionally with Jaing.

Also since everyone and their pet strill is probably ribbing Ordo in absentia about how he was wrong about Maze shooting Zey, especially Ordo who is always right and whose entire reputation rides on his being right, perhaps Kom’rk is tired of this topic already. A drawn out laugh like that is often flat-toned: “[mocking tone] Ordo’s never going to live that one down. [unamused] Ha… ha…”

Seeing as Jaing finds this whole thing funny, Kom’rk who doesn’t appear to find it funny at all, serves counterpoint. Likely speaks to at least a concern for how Ordo is taking it, or an empathy for how Ordo will not find this funny himself at all. Kom’rk is either tired of an overplayed joke making fun of Ordo at Ordos expense or isn’t a fan of making fun of Ordo for something Ordo cannot also laugh about. Probably speaks to Kom’rk’s sensibilities or again overall relationship with Ordo.

“Still, it’s hard to cap someone who’s just standing there looking pathetic, even when you know you’ll regret it one day if you don’t.”

“I’ll do it,” Kom’rk said. “Nothing personal. Just necessary.”

“Or we could use them to our advantage.” Jaing tapped his finger on the pile of flimsi. “Because one day, the Empire’s going to really tick us off, and we’ll need the skills of some saber-jockeys who owe us.”

Kom’rk laughed. “They’ve owed a lot of people for a long time. Don’t see much of them repaying their debts.” (501st)

“Of course, if we know where they’re holed up, we could just wipe out the rest of them now,” Kom’rk said. “Or even do a deal with the Empire. But I don’t trust any of them.” (501st)

Pragmatic. Cynical. Negative about the Jedi.

Yes, traits that are said to be shared among all the Nulls to varying degrees, but it’s nice to actually see them.

“Let’s not be too hasty. We know where their bolt-holes are, and with a little ingenuity we can track their movements. They step out of line—the Empire gets a treasure map with here be Jedi on it.”

Kom’rk laughed again. “That boy’s sick.”

“You got that location yet?” Jaing asked. “Chop-chop. Get a move on.”

“In a minute. It’s looking like the Plawal Rift.” (501st)

Again, more support for his rapport with Jaing. And this exchange demonstrates a different energy and tone he has with Ordo. Where he is much more straightforward in his exchanges with Ordo, he has more jest and hard edges for Jaing. It’s a balanced push and pull, and almost a series of little playful jabs.

Now, I’ve talked already a lot about Kom’rk and Jaing, but here, in this moment, is where I feel most that their relationship is similar to the one Mereel and Ordo have, that very balanced counterpoint and deep, unspoken understanding. Just as much as one better understands both Ordo and Mereel as individuals through their relationship, I think it’s possible to have the same with Jaing and Kom’rk.

“Ordo thinks I’m going soft on my old associates,” Jusik said. “I can’t blame him.”

“Are you?” [said Kom’rk.]

“Do you think I am?”

“Nah. Do you want me to shoot you if you are?”

Kom’rk had that kind of deadpan humor. But humor had its serious purpose in life.

“Yes,” Jusik said, half-meaning it. “Make it before I do any real damage.”

Jaing just looked up at Kom’rk, the slightest pause as if it wasn’t funny.

“You got it, ner vod,” Kom’rk said, and went back to his holochart. (501st)

This again speaks to an understanding of Kom’rk that Jaing has that other people may not, or at least that’s how I read Jaing’s hesitation while Jusik is still trying to figure out how serious Kom’rk really is.

Also, Kom’rk’s sense of humor, laid out in exposition. Much like Ordo, he’s dry―though even more dry than even Ordo is, it seems. But it does say a lot about him that agreeing to shoot his adoptive brother is conceivably something he’d say as a joke. Or, maybe it suggests something about his opinion of Jusik.

And that’s everything we know about Kom’rk, and what we can possibly glean it all. Social, dry witted, distant. But close with his brothers, most especially Jaing, likely Mereel, and readily but kindly criticizing Ordo. Possibly worries about how much his family actually cares, but masks it under jokes to not come across as needy. Both open and distant when it comes to communicating, depending on context. It’s true we have very little proper scenes with him, and be clearly is the least developed of the six Nulls, but we actually know a lot more about him and what he’s like than generally believed.

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funkymbtifiction · 5 years

Text

Developing the INFJ "sixth sense"

I’m an INFJ in my early 20s, and most of the time when I read descriptions etc of the type, they contain something along the lines of “INFJs pick up on things that others don’t notice”, “INFJs have sort of a sixth sense etc”. However, as convinced as I am about my type (I’ve analyzed it function by fiction), I just don’t have that awesome sort of insight, whereas other Ni-doms that I know do.

So I’m wondering how does that develop and if there’s a way to do it or if upbringing is decisive. Could it be, in my case, that being homeschooled with no friends and growing up with an abusive parent with anger issues which caused me to repress my emotions is what has caused some sort of an underdevelopment or repression of my functions? Or generally, are INFJs with underdeveloped Fe (or anything else) likely to not be as insightful as the stereotype suggests they should be? And how could one go about developing that sort of insightfulness?

Sorry for the ramble, I’m just very confused.

Usually when a question comes along like this (”I am such and such a type, but I can’t relate to things people of this type do!”) I suspect a mistype. INFJ is a popular type and usually the response (along with INTJ) online quizzes give. I would guess 90% of online INFJs are mistyped INFPs, ISFJs, and ISFPs. Since you made no real mention of things you do or do not do, to support or disprove Ni-dom, I can’t be sure you’re aware of what it actually does, so I can’t tell you if you are a Ni-dom are not.

But to answer your question, I think an abusive home environment would make you MORE Ni, not less. Why? Because if you are an INFJ, Ni is your first mode of operation. It’s the easiest thing in the world to “do” for you, so if you were not developing Fe properly, the temptation would be to crawl back into Ni, and live entirely off your perceptions – which may or may not be accurate, since low-emotional-health Ni-doms are somewhat famous for clinging stubbornly to their erroneous conclusions. As an example, Ni-doms figure out early in life that they can rely on their intuition to “skate through life.” Or so they think. ;) They just seem to “know things.” I have had real Ni-doms tell me before that they didn’t have to study for exams, they just knew the answers. They trust this. If it works right once or twice, they assume they don’t need to finish studying a topic, they will just allow their Ni to “fill in the blanks” and run with it. If they are immature / young / under-developed, the result is an ill-informed intuitive living off intuitive “hunches” and “guesses,” filling in the gaps in their education about whatever topic it is, with pure guesswork that may or may not be right.

“Picking up on other things people don’t notice” is often Se-related. Se/Ni is quite good at seeing what’s really going on with someone else, via their body language and overall tone. Unless an INFJ has developed their Se, they are not going to be particularly in tune with other people. An INFJ may ASSUME they know what is going on with someone, but it’s all a hunch / guesswork, and not that they have special people-reading abilities. What you want to focus on is patterns, and how much of your daily life involves operating off hunches with no proof behind them. I challenge you to start keeping track of how many times a day you operate off an assumption, without evidence. If you are an intuitive, the amount of times you rely on your “instincts” will add up fast.

When people talk about Ni-dom insights, it really is just a “knowing” of how a pattern is going to unfold in the future and have later consequences. Something else to remember about Ni-doms is that they are all or nothing – if they cannot have the perfect vision of what they want, they won’t do it at all. It is either to execute on the level they envisioned in their mind, or nothing.

An INTJ gave me a rather humorous but true anecdote the other day, about the difference between NPs and NJs. She said the ENFP will proudly announce their intention to do something daily leading up to an event, then start out going strong. This will last for four days, before their work becomes sloppier and less enthusiastic. Their output will become more sporadic and then weeks will pass without them updating it. Meanwhile, the INFJ envisions the high level of output they intend to do, down to the most minute detail – a rich end result of unparalleled quality. But when they realize they cannot afford the equipment required to turn out this masterpiece, they refuse to do it at all. (Because it is not in the nature of Ni to improvise on a preset idea or to settle for less than the perfect vision they have in their mind. Unlike Ne, they do not grow bored but also cannot adapt and turn out a “lesser” end result with what they have.)

If you have underdeveloped Fe, your problem will be in being able to express your emotions to deal with them, in caring about maintaining friendships, in not having much empathy or an ability to connect to and mirror others, and not being able to find and build upon similarities in a group to accomplish grand end results for everyone involved.

To develop insightful abilities, you need to learn all you can about human nature and behavior so you have an arsenal of knowledge on your side, then learn to ask questions rather than leap to assumptions. The most insightful people understand others on a broader and closer level – as human beings and as individual friends.

- ENFP Mod

#question #infj #mbti #submission

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reactionaryhater · 5 years

Note

Watch Innuendo Studios’ video “There is Always a Bigger Fish” and give us your thoughts on it.

Sounds interesting enough. I’m busy this week, but I’ll give it a look tonight and more or less stop to jot down my thoughts as they come. Warning: This will be LONG and RAMBLING.

The topic of the video, as Innuendo Studios (IS) claims, is “the core ideology of conservatism.” I should start by saying I’m not a conservative, in fact I’m ideologically at odds with much of what our Republican party does. Additionally, I’ve never really understood conservatism as a general concept. Like, if you bring up liberalism, or socialism, or progressivism, or whatever you call the Democratic party, I know some basic markers that distinguish these from other political beliefs. Conservatism, I’m not so sure. There’s the idea of small government and traditional values, but these are both relative to our society. And when they come at odds, which does the ideological conservative choose? So on that note evaluating this video might be difficult.

“Say for the sake of argument, you’ve got this friend.”

Oh boy, here comes a self insert fic. I’d like to call this a strawman, but I can’t have it both ways now. I will say arguing politics by private message sounds a bit pathological to me.……cough…Okay will this bickering be on the test?

“Republican thought.”

Okay, we’re not talking about core ideological conservatism here, we’re talking about Republicans. Good to keep in mind.

“If you didn’t believe your friend shared these assumptions, you’d basically be calling him a fascist or a sadist.”

That says quite a bit about the breadth the word “fascism” has for IS. Anyone who doesn’t believe “Do unto others” and isn’t clinically disordered is a fascist.

“And you conclude that, if you believe in democracy, you must believe in equality, and, if you believe in equality, you must believe in equal access to education, and must conclude that governments should help pay tuition.”

This is a chain argument, or to put it another way, a train of association. IS makes three logical steps which he outlines, from one thought to another. In principle, they look good and sound. In reality, many assumptions are made and many possible alternatives ignored, each step of the way. That means the more steps he makes, the more distant he gets from the starting point by an exponential factor.

Let’s start with the first conclusion: Democracy means everyone is equal. He suggests democracy doesn’t work unless everyone is equal (such as in education). I think the people who started the practices of democracy were much smarter than that. Even when all voters had to own land, they would have known not everyone was equally educated, equally virtuous, and equally informed. That was never the point. Democracy doesn’t assume everyone is equal, it assumes the majority of active citizens have the best interests of their society in mind.

I’d also like to point out how he ought to be explaining his belief that everyone is “equal but not equal.” Remember that meme about the fence? Different heights. If anything it’s the conservatives and the “privilege deniers” who believe in the most present equality. Now in an ideal world, if everyone is equal, they can surely educate themselves. But they’re not equal. But they SHOULD be equal. So they need assistance to become equal. Who’s going to MAKE us equal? He assumes the government in the third conclusion. But when did the government gain a monopoly on the power to enact change?

“He is often misinformed, but what if that isn’t the problem? What if he… actually believes something else?”

Uh oh, question begging incoming.

“A liberal is someone who tends to think democratically, and a conservative is someone who tends to think like a capitalist.”

I don’t accept this definition for ideological roots or for the parties as a whole, but I accept it for certain segments of the US political sphere. Those segments may not be equally represented or influential. They’re there, though, so that’s a start.

“It’s an egalitarian mindset; people gain power by…”

HAHAHAHAHAHA. I’m sorry, I just can’t. I can’t help myself. I must meme.

I get that he goes on to give the “People have the power” line, but that is a bit different. We the people ordained the Constitution, which grants power according to rules, and so on. We are not a direct democracy, nor, do I think, anyone today would believe our elected officials are mere employees.

“This is the idea of democracy, with the history of democracy being riddled with failures to live up to this ideal”

Not even IS, and as I said, pure egalitarianism is not by design in the US. I want to be clear I’m not saying egalitarianism is bad, nor am I saying that people should not be treated with equal degrees of respect – this is a very different discussion. I’m just addressing his claims about our political foundations here.

I agree with his description of capitalism.

I disagree that conservatives believe hierarchy is man’s natural state. Many many conservatives are devout Christians, and in Christian tradition, everyone in theory is equal under God. Many conservatives also believe capitalism is a means toward increasing the quality of life for all people.

“Power has to be earned.”

You mean *cough* by garnering votes? I mark this point as where he inserts the straw man that conservatives all want black people to be under Jim Crow again, which sure is a talking point of the far left, isn’t it, and yet not a talking point of the Republican party.

“All citizens are equal…is a legal fiction.”

So I wrote about how he cannot believe in equality before hearing this point, and honestly now. Someone who believes all people are equal does not advocate for money for the poor, because there are no poor. This sounds silly for me to say, but until he either defines equality in concrete terms or concedes that his equality is an “ought” not an “is” (bringing himself about halfway to this capitalist conservative) we won’t be able to go any further.

“Of any issue, simply ask: does this distribute power, or consolidate it?”

Does IS desire a more powerful central government, or a less powerful central government?

“If you’re in the middle, then you serve the king. Valar dohaeris. But, to everyone beneath you, you are the king.”

Ah, the privilege argument rears its ugly head at last. IS apparently thinks we live in, and the honest to God best analogy I can make here is, Soviet Russia at the height of corruption. Peons lick the boots of paper pushers. IS is right when he says he and conservatives can’t communicate, because the world he perceives is not the United States or just about any other developed nation. Here, paper pushers are treated like crap just as much, in fact, usually treated like crap by two sides. By the same token, a poor person’s vote is equal to a middle class vote (but only the rich have enough money to buy power, or a seat in college, or have the connections to get the job).

“And getting pissed at those above implies that those below have a right to be pissed at you.”

Just to hammer it home, this statement necessitates that middle management has real power to enact their own will, and everything I’ve heard from and about people in middle management suggests otherwise. Analogize to the mythical power of merely being white / male or white / male passing.

“A slight on them is a slight on all of us.”

All republicans are racist hillbillies stereotype.I notice how he just slipped this in without even a logical progression. In his grand argument, it’s actually a new premise.

[Analogy to Kingdom Hearts]

I don’t even.

“Savvy viewers may be remembering another political philosophy that is hierarchical, undemocratic, built on nostalgia, and that likes to cloak its policies in progressive camouflage”

Ooo, ooo, it’s the one I was just talking about, Soviet Russia. Oh, nope, I apologize, he has a single word that makes this answer slightly less than ideal, “nostalgia.” With that word, the answer is

“Fascism.”

Who knew nostalgia was of such moral consequence.

“If you don’t like what a business is doing, you don’t regulate it, you take your money elsewhere. You should favor the capitalist solution, not the democratic one.”

Is the collective action of masses to speak their mind not democratic? I understand if his intention is to claim the business will survive despite protest, but he doesn’t claim that. This implies an unusually limited definition of “democratic”: it must compel the operation of government. Whereas fascism and capitalism are defined broadly enough to describe associated, sometimes partial associated, values. I’m not sure what he’s trying to accomplish with this difference of definition, but it’s worth noticing.

“They will never be onboard with aiding the poor in any systemic way, and will, instead, champion charity and crowdfunding, because minnows getting to eat should always be framed as a gift rather than a right.”

Two things. First, charity is systemic. Crowdfunding is systemic, though maybe short-lived. I guess “systemic” now shares the same anemia of definition that “democratic does” in it must only apply to government action. (Unless it’s systemic racism…) Second, conservatives cannot believe both that minnows work for their own food (“How resourceful were you? How well did you play?”) and minnows only survive by being given food.

“But as long as you are trying to meet this mentality in the middle, you are leaving the door open for fascists.”

Did I predict that he hates moderates? Darn, I don’t think I wrote that one down. Well, another day, another radical.

“I recommend this one, because egalitarian thinking is one thing Nazis are bad at infiltrating.”

But people like Pol Pot are good at infiltrating it and, like, shooting a fifth of the population in a field.

Again, I don’t dislike egalitarianism, but that’s a pretty shallow argument in its favor.

I guess the sum of this video is to claim that conservatism is somehow the worship of capitalism, and then that conservatism is like fascism, and fascism shares a “hierarchical mindset” with capitalism. But he can’t bring himself to claim fascism is an extension of capitalism, because that would have us all wondering why Adolf Hitler went around decrying, “plutocracies in which a tiny clique of capitalists dominate the masses.“

So again we get an argument from looks-a-little-like. Fascism looks-a-little-like hierarchy, and so does capitalism. Nevermind so do state-based communism, socialism, regulatory agencies, even labor unions, and any organization that claims to be [inter]national. And our Democrats sure haven’t slowed down the hierarchy of our government.

On a final note, I kept getting confused thinking “bigger fish” was about the phrase “bigger fish to fry” until I went through the whole video and realize, no, it’s supposed to be “big fish in a small pond.” You know, like that Coldplay song. “Lost!”

Probably should have cleared things up and titled the video, “Lost!”

#innuendo studios #conservatism #republicans #capitalism #social justice

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ninjagoat · 6 years

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Notes on Supergirl 3x17

(Yes, I know I’m behind)

Anyway, let's talk about Jimmy Olsen.

Long time readers will know that I have always been Team 'James Is A Bit Of A Knob'. Not Team 'James Is a Bad Person', or 'James is Toxic', he's just kind of a pillock. His ability to be supportive of other people is almost entirely dependent on how much that person is fulfilling his emotional needs at that particular moment; and his needs are great.

(You may say, "Mon-El is a pillock, too!", and to that I say, "Yes. There was an entire season on Kara telling him he was a pillock. With James, they let it slide.")

It's not entirely James's fault. His incredible success at such an early age - all due to his friendship with Superman, who was also secretly his colleague - has left him with Imposter Syndrome of the highest order. He's never really been sure if his successes - his move to Catco, or being made CEO of it - have been on his own merit, or just because he's made friends in high places. Even Guardian, his journey into superheroism, has been tainted by needing Winn to build the suit for him (which, incidentally, is one of the reasons his friendship with Winn has never really rung true for me). More than anything else, James needs to prove himself through what he alone can do.

Which is why, after Lena calls him up and Lana-Turners her way through a speech about how he - and he alone - can support her during her time of need, there was only one way it was ever going to go.

- The opening shot is of Lena in a broken mirror. The imagery isn't subtle here, and is a nice call-back to James and Lena's convo in 3x15. Yes, at some point, someone will have to show Lena a mirror, so she can see how far the rabbit hole she's gone; but right now, she wouldn't believe what she saw looking back at her anyway.

- That being said, Lena doing whatever she wants while being completely unencumbered by doubt is approximately ninety billion times more fun than Lena crying beautifully about how hard life is when you're a billionaire aristocrat.

- Note that Winn is not in this interview scene. I will get back to that at the LenaWatch note at the end, because THERE'S A REASON HE CAN'T BE.

- I used Lana Turner as a verb before for a reason: I no longer trust when Lena turns on the waterworks. Is she genuinely upset, or is she just playing for sympathy? I literally do not know.

- Brainy is so much fun in this episode.

- Anyone asking why Kara doesn't just trust Lena when she says she doesn't have any more Kryptonite: Kara's trust in Lena was based her assumption that Lena WOULD NEVER EVER HAVE KRYPTONITE EVER. Seriously, there was an entire episode about it.

- And the Alex & Lena dynamic is EXACTLY how I wrote it in Nobody Does It Better. Alex has no time for Lena's bullshit. NONE. She's so great.

- Sam... is still Sam. I'm not invested in her enough to really care if she makes it or not; and if I had to choose, I'd keep Julia.

- Winn... appears to be in a different show from everyone else this episode. All the stuff he's doing feel off-tone, like he hasn't quite noticed what's going on. This is not entirely dissimilar to his attitude in 3x05, and it's for the same reason (again, see the LenaWatch note).

- Nice to see them keeping the Mon-El & J'onn thing going.

- Right, James at the vault. Until now, everything in his life would tell him to open that vault. His allegiance to Clark, his allegiance to Kara, everything Lois ever taught him, everything Cat ever taught him; even his limited allegiance to Winn, on whom he is dependent for the suit; EVERYTHING would tell him to look inside that vault.

But Lena needs him. And because of that, every ounce of personal and journalistic integrity he's ever had goes out the window. She needs him to support her through this, so he will, no matter what.

- ALEX'S SUIT. The magnets are such a simply brilliant and very Winn idea I'm surprised no-one's ever thought of it before. Not only does it give Alex Jedi-like powers, it reinforces how much Winn trusts her skills; Alex is unstoppable with a gun in her hand, so now there will always be one within reach. And Ms. Leigh is so very cutely flustered about it, too.

- Winn, of course, has nothing to do in the final battle, because reasons.

- Why Julia is my favourite: because her need to help others is stronger than the Worldkiller within. Sam needs Ruby *and* a support group of her friends.

- THE FIST BUMP! Plus, Kara's reaction to the new suit is what I really hoped we'd have seen for Guardian. But we didn't.

- This final scene. Yes, subsequent to 3x19 (which I've not yet seen), this little speech makes some sense in context - James admires Lena's choice to help Sam regardless of the consequences to herself, mirroring his choice to become Guardian.

But, unlike James, Lena operates in a world largely without consequence. There was no fallout from causing the invasion of Earth. No lasting consequences to building the lead device, or to investing in Morgan Edge (how many people's lives did he destroy with her support before he turned his sights on her? It doesn't matter). Everything even vaguely inconvenient to her is considered a conspiracy against her as a Luthor, even from before Lex went nuts ("My whole life I was a pariah, first because I was rich...").

And there will be no real consequence to her keeping a mass-murderer imprisoned in a torture lab, endangering herself and all her employees, or for developing the only thing that can kill Supergirl, because James has decided - as a lover and as a journalist - that the secrets of an incredibly powerful person do not matter to him; and so, they shouldn't matter to anyone else either.

Season 4 looks to be putting Catco front and centre. That's a good thing. Kara's journalism has been neglected all season, and we live in a time where it has never been more important to be good at what she does. And it's clear she'll have to do that under much tougher conditions, because as of right now, Lena has complete control of the press.

- LenaWatch: So, this started as a joke. Just a nod and a wink towards my struggle with the weird absence of Winn/Lena content during season 2 after their great meet-cute. And then 3x05 passed, and still no scenes, even though the whole episode is about their scene in 2x22. And then 3x09 passed, still nothing. And then. And then...

And so we've reached 3x17, and although they are quite definitely in scenes together, they aren't, strictly speaking, interacting with one another. And, as I've said above, there's an important reason why that is.

If the show had reminded the audience in this episode, or any preceding episode this season, that Lena's primary contact with the DEO is Winn... the entire story falls apart. All of it. We'll buy she doesn't Alex, or Mon-El, or the Legion, or J'onn, or even Supergirl, but WINN? No way. How do you not trust Winn? He'll do anything you ask. He'll do anything ANYONE asks. If they'd had a friendship before now, Lena would have no excuse for not asking for his help, and her excuses as they exist now would fall flat; and whatever else you might believe about this storyline, the writers have worked hard to ensure Lena's opinions remain at least somewhat valid.

I get it. I don't like it, and it massively goes against my sensibilities as a writer, but given everything else that's going on, it might just be worth it. Maybe.

#notes #superglue

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emjenenla · 7 years

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If You’re Gone, Maybe It’s Time to Come Home Part Two [a SoC Fanfic]

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

(15)

Even though that raid was a disaster, Kaz is able to overcome it in the next few weeks. He and the spiders do not discuss it, and if Espen treats everyone with a bit more vitriol than usual, no one mentions it.

Kaz is still tired, though. He’s having an increasingly hard time focusing on his responsibilities. He knows that he is general of the Dregs and his work is important, but it’s starting to seem so pointless. What does it matter if someone makes that con artist pay up or tells that gang to back off? In the long run Ketterdam will go on just as it always has. Kaz is just too tired to deal with any of it. It’s getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning.

Things come to a head the day that he falls asleep at the desk in his—formerly Per Haskell’s—office. He’s been feeling hopeless with the situation with the Black Tips and worrying about Inej. She’s been gone a long time, and while he knows from her letters that she’s alright she hasn’t said anything about when she’ll next be back. After so long, he can’t quite choke the fear that she isn’t going to come back. That she’s finally realized that she doesn’t need him in her life.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep and is woken by a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Panic surges, and lashes out at the person who dares to touch him.

Anika leaps back, her hands raised, fear on her face. “Sorry, Boss,” she says. “I just…That mercher is here to see you. The one we’re working for that grain scam.”

“Oh,” Kaz says, his panic fading. He kicks himself for the faint, half-aware tone of his voice. He glances at the clock on the wall next to the door and wonders how long he’s been asleep. He rubs a gloved hand over his face, trying to pull himself into some semblance of wakefulness. “Give me five minutes, then send him in.”

“Okay, Boss,” Anika says, but she doesn’t leave.

“What?” he asks, giving her a look.

“Nothing…” she says, then rubs the back of her neck. “It’s just that…I’ve never seen you sleep before.”

Kaz growls and ignores the unspoken question. Anika does not have the right to wonder if he’s alright. No one has that right, he is Dirtyhands. He doesn’t need people’s sympathy. “Go do your job, Anika.”

(16)

When Inej next comes back it’s all he can do to keep from dropping everything and running to the docks to meet her. He wants to see her so badly; he’s so sure that everything will be alright now that she’s back.

Still, he forces himself to tie everything up neatly and walks to the docks. Inej is helping unload the boat. Her hair is tied back in a long braid and she looks well. He stands on the edge of the berth, watching. He can barely wrap his mind around how lucky he is that this perfect being came back here to him.

But what if she wasn’t here for him? The uncertainty takes him off-guard. Kaz has never worried about whether or not someone wants to see him. In fact, he normally operates under the assumption that everyone he knows and interacts with would be happier if he just vanished from the universe. Inej is the only person he’s always thought genuinely liked him being around.

Now he thinks of that letter in his drawer and wonders if he completely misjudged her. What if she is just like everyone else? What if she just puts up with him because it’s easier than telling him how she really feels? What if she sees him waiting for her and wishes she’d stayed at sea so she wouldn’t have to deal with him?

He feels shaky, and he’s having a hard time breathing. That doesn’t make any sense because he’s wearing his gloves. He stretches his fingers so he can feel the leather pulling. That normally helps, but right now it doesn’t. He promised Inej that he’d remove his armor for her and he’s failing. He used to be able to take his gloves off and do his office work, maybe deal a card game if he took a couple shots of whiskey to fortify himself first. Now the thought of taking the gloves off to wash his face has started giving him cold sweats. He’s not getting better, he’s getting worse by the day. How is he supposed to convince Inej to keep coming back if he has nothing to offer her?

He’s so wrapped up in this anxiety, that he doesn’t approach Inej. He stands in the shadows at the end of the berth and watches while the crew filters away to enjoy being on land. At last, Inej locks up and wanders down the berth. Kaz wonders were she’s planning to go. The Slat maybe? To see him?

Presumptuous. He scolds himself. Why would she want to go see him right after landing? There are a million other people in this city who are far, far better company than he’ll ever be.

Inej almost walks right by the place where he’s standing before she stops and turns to him. Her eyes narrowing in an expression that he knows is probably confusion but a loud part of his mind suggests is really disgust or disappointment. “Kaz?” she asks. “How long have you been standing there?”

Kaz shrugs in an attempt to seem casual. His heart is pounding so loudly he can hear it, and his palms are slick with sweat inside his gloves. “Not long,” he says in what he hopes is a level voice.

“You could have come down to the ship,” Inej says. “You didn’t have to stand here in the dark. Is everything okay?”

He’s surprised by how much he wants to say that everything’s not okay, but if he did Inej would ask him to explain what’s wrong and he’s not sure he can. Besides even if he could find the words he’s deathly afraid that outright telling Inej that he thinks she doesn’t really care about him would just drive her away even faster. “Everything’s fine,” he says instead and feels like he’s trying to swallow sawdust.

“Okay,” Inej says. Then her eyes drop significantly to his gloved hands. What he wants is obvious.

His lungs tighten until he can barely breathe. He knows that he needs to take the gloves off to show Inej that he cares about her and that he’s trying for her, but he’s nearly positive that if he tries to take the gloves off now, he’ll simply collapse and lose his grip on himself completely. The gloves help, he knows they do and he needs them. They’re the only thing that helps him keep a grip on his own humanity.

He looks away and pretends he didn’t see Inej’s look.

(17)

He and Inej spend a couple days going about things like old times. They creep on rich merchers and eat fried potatoes while walking through the streets. Kaz feels better, not quite right, per se, but he can push aside the little voice that says Inej doesn’t really want anything to do with him and enjoy just being near her.

He should have known it was too good to last.

Inej has been back for about two days when things fall apart. They’re sitting on the roof outside of one of Kaz’s safehouses, going through the details of the information they’ve just learned about a group of slavers. Suddenly, Inej grows quiet. Kaz is just about to ask her what’s wrong when she reaches out and lays a hand on top of one of his gloved ones. He can’t help it, he tenses.

“You know, I haven’t seen you take these off once since I’ve been back,” she says slowly, carefully.

Kaz inwardly curses himself. A year ago, she probably wouldn’t have said anything, but this new Inej is braver. She’s no longer afraid to speak; the Ice Court only made her stronger while he’s pretty sure it did the exact opposite for him.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he just shrugs.

Inej heaves a sigh. “Listen, Kaz,” she says. “We had a deal. ‘I will have you without your armor, or I will not have you at all,’ remember? You need to put in the effort, Kaz. I can’t do everything in this relationship; you have to meet me halfway.”

He should say something, but he doesn’t.

“Kaz,” Inej says sounding a little bit sharper than before. “If things are too close to the surface right now and you need time, that’s okay. But you need to tell me. You can’t just keep expecting me to let you get away with things. You need to communicate with me Kaz.”

He looks at her out of the corner of his eyes. He imagines telling her what has been going on. He imagines saying, “Inej, I think something’s wrong with me; I don’t feel like myself anymore.” He can feel the shape of the words on his tongue and opens his mouth in the hope that they’ll just come out, but they don’t. The silence drags on and on.

“Kaz,” Inej says sharply. “I’m not going to put up with this anymore. You can’t just treat me like your timid little Wraith. I’m not that girl anymore. You can’t expect me to just put up with you without you doing anything in return. This isn’t a business partnership, this is a relationship, and if you want this to go anywhere you need to step up and do your part.”

Each of her words feels like a knife buried deep in his stomach. She’s going to leave. He was right, he really is a horrible, wrong person who no one can stand to be around. Inej really does deserve better than him. He can’t even take off a pair of gloves for her.

All he has to do is take the gloves off. If he took the gloves off he could possibly appease her and she could be convinced to stay, but he can’t. His chest is a vice and he can feel the water around his legs. He needs to take the gloves off, but he can’t. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t, and he’ll never be able to. He has failed.

He says nothing and does nothing. He simply keeps staring out at the roofs of Ketterdam. Inej makes a soft, disgusted sound and gets up. She takes a couple steps away then stops and he hears her turn back to him. “When you finally learn to swallow your pride, Kaz, we’ll talk,” she says and starts to walk away again.

He wants to call her back, to say something—anything—to make her stay, but the words catch in her throat. She’s right about every. He is not worthy of anything even remotely concerned with her. So, he says nothing and she leaves him sitting on the rooftop all alone.

They don’t speak again before she leaves Ketterdam.

(18)

A year ago, the argument (if it can even be called that since he didn’t say a word) wouldn’t have caused Kaz any substantial pause. A year ago, Kaz was secure in the knowledge that Inej would come back eventually because she had nowhere else to go. Now he no longer has that luxury. Inej has the whole world laid out before with nothing to tie her to Ketterdam but a bunch of bad memories and a boy who can’t be the person she deserves.

So, Kaz knows that his relationship with Inej is over. She will not return to Ketterdam again. He will never see her again. He has ruined the one relationship he still had left.

He tries to take this reality in stride and go on with his life, but he can’t. He feels empty and so completely alone, even more so than he did after Jordie. When Jordie died, Kaz had his thirst for revenge to keep him company. Now he is on the top with his revenge and nothing but the seemingly bottomless hole of sadness opening up inside him.

He realizes that most people will see this as exactly what he deserves. He spent almost half his life chasing money and revenge and now that he has them he discovers how empty and broken his life really is. In fact, even he’ll admit that’s probably exactly what he deserves.

That doesn’t make getting on with things any easier. It’s become near impossible to get out of bed in the morning. Waking up at ten bells is now early for him and it takes him even longer to work up the energy to drag himself out of bed. Once he’s actually up, he has a hard time focusing. All he wants to do is go back to bed and sleep for the rest of his life.

(19)

Time passes in an incomprehensible blur. Inej still sends him information about her movements so he figures their business arrangement isn’t over yet and keeps sending her information on slavers.

One afternoon, he’s attempting to focus on the Crow Club’s profits when Anika comes in with an envelope. He doesn’t look up, he just keeps on scribbling another calculation on a spare bit of paper (he used to be able to do all these calculations in his head but he’s just too tired to try these days). He expects Anika to just set the envelope on his desk and leave, but she doesn’t. She sets it right on top of his hand then steps back and crosses her arms.

Kaz looks from the envelope to her and raises his eyebrows.

“I’m going to watch you read it,” she says.

“You know I am capable of reading my own correspondence without someone looking over my shoulder,” he snaps.

“Sure,” Anika shoots back. “Just not in any semblance of timeliness.”

They both look to the stack of unopened mail on the edge of Kaz’s desk. He used to open every piece of mail he got, even the useless stuff. Now he the mere thought of opening the important stuff exhausts him.

He also doesn’t have anywhere near enough energy to continue arguing with Anika, so he just opens the envelope and pulls out a small invitation. It’s from Wylan. Inej is returning to Ketterdam soon, and Wylan and Jesper are planning a party to celebrate all the success she’s had so far.

“You’ll go, won’t you?” Anika asks, sounding more like an anxious schoolgirl than a lieutenant of the most powerful gang in Ketterdam.

“Why does it matter if I go or not?” he asks, turning the invitation over and over in his gloved fingers. He knows that he won’t go. He doesn’t want to force people to interact with him because they’re scared of what he’ll do (that’s what drives everyone’s interactions with him, he can see that now), and he doesn’t think he could handle seeing Inej.

There’s a long pause, then Anika says, “What’s wrong, Brekker?” she sounds a little fed-up but mostly surprisingly worried.

Kaz finds it in himself to raise an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t been acting right for months,” she says, “and it’s getting worse. We’re worried about you.”

Her words form a block of ice in Kaz’s stomach. “Define ‘we,’” he says slowly.

“Everyone,” Anika says. “Me, Keeg, Pim, Roeder, Dirix, Rotty, Mina. Even Teapot’s worried, and that’s saying something.”

Kaz’s fists clench. He thought he’d been doing a decent enough job at pretending to be okay. If he’s failing that means that those close to him know how shamefully weak he’s become. That means that someone in the Dregs is probably plotting his downfall right now. He’s going to lose the Dregs if he doesn’t get his act together fast.

“Thank you for your concern,” he tells Anika flatly. “But that’s really not any of your business.”

(20)

A couple days before Jesper and Wylan’s party he’s going with the spiders to do some reconnaissance for a big job they’re planning. Kaz finishes the last of his meetings with time to spare and makes his way up to his rooms to eat supper in peace.

It’s only seven bells in the evening, but he’s already flagging. He’s tired, sad and inexplicably hopeless about the job as a whole. On top of it all, he has absolutely no appetite and hasn’t in weeks. He stirs his stew listlessly while trying to talk himself into actually eating. He hasn’t had anything today but coffee. He’s going to need his strength for tonight, but he’s just doesn’t want to eat…

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows he must have because the next thing he knows he’s blinking awake to a significantly darker room and Espen in his face.

“You’re just taking a nap?” Espen snarls leaning in close. “What is wrong with you? Roeder, Mina and I have been waiting for over an hour!”

Kaz blinks at him. He feels groggy and can’t quite get his thoughts to line up. He wants to go back to sleep.

“Are you listening to me?” Espen literally lunges forward and shoves Kaz out of his chair and onto the floor. “This is ridiculous! You’re supposed to be leading this gang not taking a nap whenever you feel like it!”

Espen’s bare hands are twisted into Kaz’s shirt and pressing against his neck sickeningly. Kaz has been caught half asleep and in a poor state of mind. In another time, he might have just been able to throw Espen off and go on with things, but tonight he can’t. His chest seizes up and the water surges around him. He struggles fruitlessly against Espen.

“Get a’ me!” he shrieks. His voice sounds strange. It takes him a moment to realize that not only does he sound as hysterical as he feels, his accent has changed. He’s spent years training himself to speak like a Ketterdam native, and now his natural Southern Kerch farmer’s accent sounds wrong.

The change is accent must surprise Espen too because the boy jerks back. Kaz shoves him off and scoots away until his back hits the wall near the fireplace. He knows it looks pathetic, but he’s shaking so hard he knows Espen can see. The room feels to small and bright, and it swirls around him. His stomach churns, and his heart pounds like it’s trying to escape his chest. He can’t breathe, he can barely think.

Espen steps closer. “Boss?” he sounds scared, like he can’t figure out why Kaz is so disgustingly weak. “What’s wrong? Do you need a medik?”

Kaz swallows back nausea and manages to get in a decent breath that enables him to speak. “Get away from me,” he says.

Espen jerks back in surprise. “What?”

“Get out of here,” Kaz tries for his Dirtyhands snarl, but he still can’t breathe and his voice comes out audibly shaky. A small part of him is thankful that at least his Ketterdam accent is back. “Go downstairs and tell Anika and Pim that you’ve been demoted. Have them put you cleaning chamber pots in one of the smaller gambling halls, or they can just kick you out, I don’t care which. Just never, ever come near me again. If you do, I swear I’ll find some very painful and humiliating way to kill you.”

He’s vaguely aware that he probably shouldn’t be saying stuff like that to Espen. Kaz and Espen are just a little too much alike and there’s a part of Kaz that is terrified of the kid finding reason to focus his anger on Kaz. Kaz does not want to become Espen’s Pekka Rollins. Still his panic is all-consuming. He just wants Espen gone. He doesn’t care what he has to deal with later as long as the kid is gone now.

Espen backs away. He looks terrified, like he’s not sure what to do next. “Ummm...I…”

“Get out,” Kaz orders around a breath that sounds just a little too much like a sob.

Espen turns and flees.

(21)

The instant the door swings closed behind Espen, Kaz drags himself to his feet and stumbles across the room. He’s still having trouble breathing and he’s shaking so badly that he can barely stand. He nearly falls against the door and fumbles at the dozen or so locks he’s put on his door for security. The locks don’t make his room unbreachable, but it definitely makes it difficult. When all the locks are in place he does the same for the windows, pulling dark curtains over them. He even locks the window he habitually leaves unlocked for Inej, after all, it’s not like she’ll be coming back to visit anytime soon.

When his rooms are locked up as tightly as he can make it. He staggers over to his safe and opens it with shaking fingers. Inside amongst the ledgers and kruge and jewelry and other valuables is a bottle of extremely expensive whiskey that was lifted from a mercher a couple months before the Ice Court job. It’s opened because he and Inej each had a glass the night they took it, but they saved the rest because it’s not the kind of thing you drink wastefully.

Right now, Kaz doesn’t care how expensive it is. He grabs the bottle and slams the safe door behind him as he heads towards his bedroom. He pulls the horrible letter he wrote to Inej months ago out of his drawer and sinks onto his bed. He uncorks the bottle and pours a generous portion down his throat while he begins to read.

(22)

He reads the letter over and over and over as the bottle gets emptier and emptier. He doesn’t feel any less empty, though. He sits on the bed with his knees drawn up. He rests his forehead against the letter and the bottle and just sits.

He can’t deal with an angry eleven-year-old. Can’t eat his supper and go do his job the way he’s supposed to. He can’t even take off a pair of gloves without freaking out. He is pathetic, no wonder Inej left him. He deserves it.

There’s a knock on the locked door. “Boss?” Anika. “What’s going on? Espen told Pim and I that you said—Well, I just want to hear it from you first. Is Espen overreacting?”

Kaz chokes back a snort. He wonders how he managed to convince Anika he couldn’t possibly have given that order. He wonders if Espen had mentioned that the Dregs’ fearsome general had been having a panic attack when he gave that order. Normally, Kaz would never use those words to describe what had happened, but he’s feeling pathetic enough right now to stop lying to himself.

Anika knocks on the door again. “Brekker? Boss! Are you in there?”

Kaz says nothing. Even if he wanted Anika to know he’s holed up in his rooms like a coward, he doesn’t think he’s sober enough to speak without slurring.

“Kaz, you better actually be in there,” Anika says. “I’d feel really stupid if I was just standing out here talking to an empty room.”

He doesn’t say anything. Eventually Anika leaves and something snaps inside him.

He looks down at the letter then hurls it across the room. It falls on the floor in a flutter of pages. He’s on his feet almost before they settle. He crosses to his dresser and sweeps the clutter on top it onto the floor with an arm. He does the same with the small table that his washbasin sits on. He throws the pitcher at a wall where is shatters and rains to the floor in a shower of glass and water.

He knows he’s being ridiculous. He’s always hated people who get drunk and do stuff like this, but he doesn’t know how to stop. He knows that busting up his room isn’t getting him anywhere, and it’s not making him feel better, but he needs to do something.

He stumbles to his bed and collapses onto it. The mostly empty bottle of whiskey rolls out of his fingers and onto the floor. He buries his face in his pillow, wraps his arms around it, and tries to hang on.

(23)

He’s thinking about the farm. He hasn’t done that in years. Even when he bought the place as Johannus Rietveld he barely let himself think about it. The farm is like a distant dream so faded by time it’s not worth giving mental energy to.

But he’s thinking about it tonight. He thinks about the rolling hills and the dark earth of the fields. The apple trees where he learned to climb and the barn where he’d race Jordie up and down from the loft.

Slowly, floating on a haze of drunken sadness, Kaz allows his mind wander away from the farm itself and onto the people who lived there. He thinks about Jordie all the time, but he hasn’t thought about Buck—the huge black-and-tan dog they’d had—in years, not since he learned that the dog died around the same time Jordie. Now, he thinks about how Buck was fierce to strangers, but would lay by the fire and let Kaz lean against him when it was just the family.

He hasn’t thought about his mother in even longer than Buck. She died when he was about five so he probably shouldn’t actually remember her, but Kaz has always had an impeccable memory. He remembers clinging her long skirts, and her humming while she worked. The memory of her feels like a punch to the gut.

Then there’s his father. Thinking of him brings back recollections of a big, tired man with rough, gentle hands. He was the same kind of fool that Jordie had been, in crushing debt because he had horrible luck and was too trusting. Still, that hadn’t stopped him from trying to give his sons the best of everything and promising that everything would work out right until the moment that he’d been run over by his own plow.

Thinking that brings back the memory of that horrible day. Kaz remembers standing ankle-deep in the tilled soil of the field staring at the carnage and screaming like the soft farm kid he’d been. That’s all he remembers of his father’s death: blood, gore and his own voice screaming and screaming and screaming.

He wraps his arms tighter around the pillow and clenches his teeth. Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.

It’s too late. His head is full of memories of people he’s been trying to forget about for years. Memories swirl around them, that old grief mixing with his new grief about Inej. He’s sad. So very, very sad.

He misses them.

He misses everyone. Inej and Jordie and Buck and his mother and father. He misses the farm. He misses Kaz Rietveld: the stupid, naïve kid who believed that people were good and that he was good and that things would someday work out.

He wishes he could go back to that, but he knows he couldn’t. He’s done too much. Even if his parents and Jordie were still alive like Inej’s were, he couldn’t go back. He’s not like Inej—bruised but still herself—he has become something else, something his parents and Jordie would hate and revile. There will be no salvation for the boy who had once been Kaz Rietveld, he’d burned and destroyed every path that might lead anywhere but his own damnation.

His shoulders hitch and a sob rips out of his mouth. His cheeks are wet, and the sensation is so strange it takes him a couple minutes to realize he’s crying for the first time in going on a decade. He presses his face into the pillow to try to stop it, but he can’t. He just sobs and sobs and sobs.

He wishes someone would come and comfort him the way his father used to back on the farm, but he knows it won’t happen. He is Dirtyhands and no one comforts Dirtyhands. Besides, he’s to broken to even allow anyone to touch him. Who would even want to bother trying to deal with all that?

So, he stays curled up on the bed, wrapped around his pillow and cries alone until the Slat begins to wake up around him and he finally passes out from exhaustion.

(24)

When he wakes up next, it must be late in the day, though he’s not a hundred percent sure because the curtains block out most of the light. His head aches from a combination of crying and a hangover, and he feels washed-out and hopeless.

He shifts slightly and curls tighter around his pillow. He feels so alone, like he could vanish into the atmosphere right now and no one would ever notice. He wishes Anika would come back. He’s not sure if he would let her in, but he would like to hear her voice. He thinks that would help.

She doesn’t come. He clings to the pillow because it feels like it’s the only thing holding him together. He doesn’t want to let go.

He should get up and go deal with the mess he made of both his room and his relations with his spiders, but he can’t find it in him to move. Does it really matter what he does? Maybe the world would really just keep spinning and he could just lie here until he feels like he’s in control of his life again.

Somehow, he manages to get his boots, coat, vest and tie off without letting go of his pillow. He slides under the blankets and curls up again. He closes his eyes and simply lets go.

(25)

Time passes. Kaz floats in and out of dull, heavy sleep. Sometimes he’s vaguely aware of people knocking on his door, but they don’t come in (can’t come in because of all the locks) and he doesn’t respond. It doesn’t matter. They’re just trying to figure out why he isn’t doing his job because as much as they’re afraid of him, they’re afraid of the Dregs seeming weak even more.

He is so alone and so sad and he wants someone to come comfort him, but he doesn’t know how to ask for help anymore and doesn’t trust anyone enough anyway. Well, he trusts Inej, but she deserves so much better than being wrapped up in his issues.

He hugs the pillow to his chest even more tightly. It’s the closest thing to a hug he’s likely to ever get and he tries to tell himself its good enough. It’s not. It will never be, but he has to make do.

After all, who would ever want to do anything for the terrifying Dirtyhands?

Sorry that this part's a little shorter. I was going to keep going, but I realized this was a good place to end this section. There's maybe two parts left, which hopefully will be up promptly.

Hopefully this part worked out. Have you ever planned a certain part of a story hundreds of times only to actually get to writing it to find that you can't remember how you wanted to do it? That's what happened to me at the end of the this part. Not the first time, that's happened to me, actually. It happened with an original thing I was working on this summer too.

I've become fascinated with Kaz's relationship with Anika. I'm not sure what to define them as, because I wouldn't say they're friends, but they're definitely not strangers (causal acquaintances, maybe? Colleagues?). No matter which way you look at it, I feel like the Dregs (especially the younger members) probably care for Kaz way more than he thinks they do.

So, I'll try to get the next part to you as soon as possible. Look forward to some Inej POV!

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tinfoil-jones · 7 years

Text

Endearment and Enmity: Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh. Title: Endearment and Enmity Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall Summary: When you’re literally married to the person you despise. Warnings: Homosexual relationships,vulgar words and adult situations. Author's Note: I don’t know why I wrote this. Chapter 5: The Devil Came Down to Kozue Jonouchi sat across from Kaiba at the table trying to not make his actual discomfort around the CEO any more blatantly obvious. It wasn’t enough he had to be seen exiting that ridiculous looking dragon themed jet, but to also be seen in public with Kaiba under the guise of matrimonial affection when there was absolutely none in reality. “Would you at least attempt to look like there isn’t a cactus up your orifice?” Kaiba scolded him quietly; earning a huff from the blond, although he was admittedly amused at the attempt at a joke. “The human body has several external orifices Kaiba, if you’re referring to the anus you’ll have to be a bit more specific.” Jonouchi cracked back; while Kaiba most likely had some rudimentary medical knowledge, there was no way it was as extensive as his own. That was one advantage the CRNA had over his… spouse. The CEO rolled his eyes “My statement still stands; I’m one of the most apathetic people I know, and even I can see you’re uncomfortable.” So maybe Jonouchi wasn’t the best at hiding his emotions. “I can’t help it you know, it's not like I expected a date.” Jonouchi said as he sipped his water - Kaiba was drinking sake, some fancy brand that the restaurant served. America didn’t offer much real sake and instead had a preference for wine and beers when it came to non-liquor alcohol at least, an observation Jonouchi made despite his abhorrence to drinking based solely on his interactions with his friends in the states. The brunet rose an eyebrow “Why? We are married, going to a restaurant is a standard type of date.” His monotone made it even more obvious he was talking down to him. “You do realize that right?” “Of course I know that!” He whispered harshly back “But let me remind you Seto Kaiba, the last few times we went to out to eat together - it was with your rich tycoon friends making business proposals, in which case I was a prop more than anything. And the first time we did, you ambushed me with the proposal that started this all. I was under the impression there was no underlying romantic connotations to this agreement.” “Nonetheless we do have appearances to keep up.” Kaiba explained nonchalantly, taking a mental note of the blond's fingers tapping on his own thigh. “Do you... ” Jonouchi kept tapping, a nervous habit he had picked up recently from being in the brunet's office hours on end, and being forced to listen to the constant typing. “Do you even like me, let’s not go as far as in a romantic sense, but do you even like me as a person?” “Do you, Kastsuya?” Kaiba countered back, seeming exasperated himself “I’m not even particularly discourteous towards you, but all I get is enmity in return. ” Jonouchi had to at least hand it to Kaiba, he had an extensive vocabulary for a guy who’s primary language wasn’t English. Nevertheless he… had a point, at least. It was true that besides a few half-hearted jabs at his intelligence, Kaiba hadn’t been cruel to him in the slightest, sure a bit distant but that was a given considering his profession. Jonouchi himself, however, made his dislike of his spouse no secret. “I’m at least trying, you are making this more unpleasant for yourself than I have.” Although he was well aware he was in the wrong and Kaiba had a point,, Jonouchi wasn’t one to give into the notion very quickly “We’ll excuse me for being married to an asexual sea sponge with the emotional capacity of a kitchen sponge- are you laughing?” He cut himself off from his rant when his… spouse, started to chuckle. “Asexual sea sponge?” Kaiba echoed, seeming amused “Not one I hear too often except from my brother. The media prior to you seemed convinced I was some sex crazed deviant. Rich equals playboy is a common assumption.” “Um… Okay?” Weren’t they arguing a minute ago? Kaiba was a confusing guy. Or perhaps his monotonous lack of emotion was just a front, perhaps he was more skilled at manipulating emotion than Jonouchi gave him credit for. He was definitely skilled at catching him off guard. The food was finally brought to them as Jonouchi was collecting his thoughts. Not up to continue their conversation, he ate quietly, but kept a displeased expression on his face out of spite. “I didn’t answer your question, you know.” Kaiba said as he ate neatly. “Are you going to?” Jonouchi inquired. “Only if you answer mine.” Jonouchi sighed deeply. “Look, I don’t - I don’t hate you okay? I mean, I’m not madly in love with you or anything because you’re an apathetic asshole who made it really fucking hard to save the world sometimes when we were younger because you didn’t seem to understand the concept of ‘one of us isn’t stronger than all of us’, but you have admirable qualities” The blond explained, but didn’t quite want to seem too fond of his counterpart “And… I guess you’re not ugly?” He offered. “Well, aren’t you amorous.” Kaiba replied sarcastically. “Well… Are you answer my question this time?” “Another time.” Jonouchi paused. “...Asshole.” “I never confirmed I’d answer if you did.” “You’re clever, even if you are an asshole, I’ll give you that.” “See, now is it so hard to be civil towards me?” “Yes, because you’re an asshole.” “Still going to compare me to an orifice?” That time Jonouchi actually laughed a little. Kaiba was a dispassionate individual, but he was kind of funny. That was something at least. Maybe… just maybe being hitched to him could be at least bearable. ...At least. ~~~ “How are you cold?” Kaiba asked, a few minutes after their flight back started. In the rearview mirror he had he could see the blond wrapping his arms around himself. “That place had the a/c cranked up as high as it would go.” Jonouchi answered, although also he hadn’t yet re-acclimated to Japan after being in Texas for so long. Anything under twenty-five celsius was cold to him. And he’d neglected to bring a jacket with him to the restaurant, a mistake he always seemed to make, but only when he went to places with the a/c up all the way. “I have my trench coat folded under my seat, you can grab it if you’re that cold.” Kaiba explained, Jonouchi looked at him dumbfounded “Well? Are you going to take it or not?” “It’s just… Was that a kind gesture? From you?” “I think we’ve established I’m not the Devil, Katsuya. ” Jonouchi shrugged and grabbed the aforementioned trench coat out from under the chair, he knew that Kaiba had multiple copies of his trademark white coat, but he was beginning to suspect he had one stashed in each mode of transport and/or place of dwelling. “My brother used it as a blanket frequently when he was younger.” “Thanks, Kaiba.” Jonouchi said as he draped the garment over himself. It smelled like a cross between new book and keyboard cleaning putty. The blond looked out and window and watched the quick, but brightly lit flashes of towns and cities, and the blur of clouds that they were passing along the coast “You know it ain’t a bad view from here.” He said almost softly, he was tired from the day and the full stomach wasn’t helping. “It isn’t.” Kaiba replied, still monotone. “You know, I just realized you’re operating a vehicle after drinking. Not very responsible of you.” The realization dawned on him; Kaiba had drunk a whole bottle of sake. “I can handle alcohol well.” Kaiba excused, not even glancing back. “You are a twig.” “And you’re an imbecile, if you want to continue this name-calling game. Relax, we’ll make it back to the mansion fine.” “I refuse to relax! You just drank whole bottle of forty-proof sake and now you’re driving a jet!” “Oh what are you going to do, breathalyze me?” “If I had one I would!” “It’s too late to protest now; we’ve already taken off and the next HLZ(1) I’m authorized to land on is fifty miles away a different direction.” “Well go in that direction then! I know you equipped this jet to take turns and god help me if I’m going to die in a plane crash it won’t be in this one!” Jonouchi practically growled - while he could tell that Kaiba could handle his alcohol extremely well considering his underwhelming build, he still wasn’t going to take that risk. Kaiba was silent at first, but then he sighed and shifted the control stick of the jet “We’ll land there and spend the night in a small house I have hidden in that area, okay? If you’re going to be touchy about drinking at least voice your concerns before we take off flying.” “Fine.” Jonouchi agreed with a sigh of relief, he turned his head again to stare out the window. He blinked once or twice before everything went dark. ~~~ “Hmmnpph...” Jonouchi hummed as the darkness transitioned to fuzzy light, and he blinked until it was clear. He was still lying down as he lazily looked around to study his surroundings. He was in a modest looking averaged sized room, not too different from his own bedroom at the Kaiba mansion. It had a desk, a dresser, a closet and a bedside dresser. He was lying in a queen sized bed with beige coloured sheets, under a fluffy dark blue comforter, and head resting in on a pillow that matched the beige color of the sheets, there was a second pillow being occupied by Kaiba-. Wait. Wait just one minute. Occupied by Kaiba? Kaiba was lying in the bed with him. “AHHHHHH!” He cried out and tried to shove Kaiba out of the bed, however Kaiba’s side was against the wall so Jonouchi just ended up pushing himself off. His shouting coupled with the shoving and thudding against the floor did succeed in at least waking the brunet up. Now on the floor, Jonouchi rolled onto his back and looked up to see Kaiba peering down at him from the bed. “What’s wrong with you?” “WHY ARE WE IN THE SAME BED?!” Jonouchi practically screeched, scooting up until he was sitting up to glare at the CEO. “You were asleep when we landed, I drove us here and you were still asleep.” “BUT WHY THE SAME BED?!” “This is one of my small safe houses, there’s only one bedroom.” The brunet explained as he got up and grabbed a shirt from the closet. So Kaiba slept shirtless, even worse. “Besides, we are married, it’s not exactly a new concept that we’d share a bed at some point.” Jonouchi scowled as he adjusted to sit criss-cross, then noticed he was in a plain white shirt and sweat bottoms. “Did… did you change my clothes?!” “You are a heavy sleeper.” Kaiba deadpanned. Jonouchi got up and was extremely tempted to just punch him but opted not too, punching his own spouse reminded him too much of certain bad memories, no matter how much he didn’t like Kaiba he wouldn’t do anything like that. He wasn’t that type of man. “Did you touch me?” He asked harshly, his fists balled. “If you mean inappropriately, of course not. I know your opinion of me is low, but I would never stoop to molesting you in your sleep like some greasy pervert.” Kaiba stared down at him hard, clearly offended by the accusation “If you’d believe that, that would be pleasant. Now, before you ask, all I did was change your shirt and trousers, I did not take your undergarments off. Now, leave me alone, I’m not in the best mood without my first cup of coffee.” With that, Kaiba turned and walked out of the room. Leaving a dumbfounded, albeit kind of guilted, Jonouchi. “...Asshole.” He muttered, and looked for something in the closet to change into. ~~~ Authors note: Originally I was going to call this chapter ‘A Date with the Devil’, to refer to Jonouchi’s disdain towards Kaiba, but somehow that turned into The Devil Came Down to Kozue, as a pun on the song ‘The Devil Came Down to Georgia’. Kaiba continues to leave his feelings towards Jonouchi vague. I’ll give you a hint; they’re not strong. Yet, at least. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve just been swamped at work and now once I go home all I want to do is sleep, eat and complain.

#warning: overuse of the word asshole #yugioh #yu-gi-oh #duel monsters #jonouchi #kaiba #seto kaiba #katsuya jonouchi #jonouchi katsuya #puppyshipping #violetshipping

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captainofthetidesbreath · 7 years