#and to pair that with a headache or migraine is just the devils work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seokahwrites · 3 years

Text

NUISANCE | chapter 1 (or, human walls and steak fungi)

5.8k

back to nuisance masterlist

pairing.

| lawyer! jeon jungkook x lawyer! reader (feat. ex! kim taehyung)

summary.

| all you wished for was a relaxing two weeks in a big ass boat eating some big ass shrimps, away from the real world. but instead you’re stuck with your arch rival with no means of escape — and goddamit why does the bastard smell so good

tags.

| the spice has commenced; POUTY JUNGKOOK???; hunky jungkook?; jungkook?; jungkook in a suit; a LOT of jungkook; pouty reader; stressed out reader; use of the words dick and cooch; use of the word satan (to refer to kim seokjin ofc); KIM SEOKJIN IS THE REAL MAIN CHAR; poor joon is a victim; JUNGKOOK WEARING EARRINGS AND BRACELETS; taehyung is nice (?) (¿question mark?)

a/n.

| this writing was sponsored by red bull, alcohol and fantasies of casual jungkook as well as jungkook in a suit. also, jungkook’s smile is described as tight lipped bc his signature smile appearing is important to the story. also i wanna know y’all’s thoughts on tae. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY THANK U FOR THE COTINUOUS SUPPORT AND LOVE, I WILL CONTINUE TO GIVE MY BEST AND THANK U FOR READING MY STORY <333

Having once spent a sleepless night reading Dante’s inferno, you were well aware of the fact that there are 9 layers of hell.

Though, it seemed the old man had forgotten about the tenth circle: Anywhere with Jeon Jungkook.

Since the first time you met him, you never had any reason to believe that he was a humble character. He had always looked at you from the top of his high horse and he took much pride in trotting on it.

As you, Jungkook and the receptionist wait for the elevator, the air thick with discomfort, you look at the man in front of you and remember that first time.

Your head is invaded with the memory of you in your Hello Kitty pajamas, adorned with grease and all, as you worked on a divorce case that causes you migraines to this day — love is a bitter bitch. It must’ve been past midnight when you and Jin were chewing away pizza slice after pizza slice at the office.

Then, there’s a knock at the door.

“If that’s Namjoon I’m literally going to fire you,” you bark at Jin as you hold his leftover crust on one hand and a document on the other.

And Jin, being the smart ass he is and knowing you wouldn’t survive a day without him, gets up from your leather couch without a word and opens the door, launching himself at none other than Kim Namjoon.

You roll your eyes at the love birds while wondering when the fuck their honeymoon phase was gonna end. You were so sick of them.

“Y/N,” Jin calls you from your desk, urging you to come to the door and once you’re beside him, this time with a cup of coke in your hands, “Can you keep them entertained for a bit? I just gotta grab Namjoon’s meds.”

Before you could say no, the little devil was already running off to his own cubicle, leaving you alone with the all familiar Namjoon and a very much not familiar stranger.

You lean on the doorframe without uttering a single word, sipping on your drink as well as the stranger — Sure, looking back at the moment you kinda just wanna punch yourself in the cooch and tell yourself to get a grip, but you weren’t blinded with hatred at the time, and also not blind — because it isn’t every night that a man clad in a charcoal suit and an unbuttoned shirt, comes knocking at your door; not to mention his watch dazzled under the artificial light and he held the blue tie in his hand with just the right grip.

You’re snapped out of your daze when the man goes from checking the time to whispering something in Namjoon’s ear, covering it the same way eight year olds cover their own secrets, and he laughs. This would all be good and well if he hadn’t looked at you with such appall in his eyes the moment before, the look still clear as day in your mind.

You're reminded that your makeup was probably smudged from all the times you had rubbed your eyes, your skin oily from the tiresome day and you were wearing Hello Kitty pajamas.

Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the insult so personally, but you did.

“I’m here,” Jin is back, a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder as the other one passes him a lunchbox of cold medicines, “What did I miss?”

At this you look up from the pitiful ground, pulling Jin back to your office, and accidentally spill (or throw) your coke at the stranger. You watch in delight as he looks at his very expensive looking suit drenched in a sticky brown, utter terror in his eyes, inhaling the wonderful moment for a second before shutting the door in his face.

The consequences of your actions: an almost two-year long rivalry with the stranger, revealed to be Jeon Jungkook moments after the incident when Jin asked, “Did you just throw your drink at Namjoon’s boss, you crazy bitch?”

And that wave has rippled to this day, in the form of insults and high-school level teasing (if his brain had even evolved to that age). The words “I’ll have you all to myself’ comes to mind; it makes you puff with exasperation. Sure it comes off a little flirty to unknowing ears, but it was just another reminder of Jungkook’s dismay — and that he had an all new access to torture you.

You attempt to shake the ick from your body, but in a trice you found yourself in front of the suite, the four floors you travelled to get there seemingly a glitch in time.

Isabelle scans the room card in front of the handle, handing it over to Jungkook after the green beep. “This is your room!”

You shove Jungkook aside, pulling your trolley as you enter. You had seen the pictures before, but seeing the grand room before your eyes in all of its shades of brown and gray dispersed throughout the walls and furniture, the intricate branch of lights in the ceiling and the panoramic ocean view that gave it its name; it made you forgot who you were sharing it with for a moment.

When you turn around, Jungkook is as wide eyed as you, and it makes the corners of your mouth lift ever so slightly because he looks like a fucking dork.

“Well,” Isabelle is smiling and you could sense her relief of not having to deal with the two of you anymore, “If you need anything, me and the rest of the Royal Sunrise team are available at all times, have fun!”

And just like that, she made her escape, leaving you and Jungkook standing in the middle of the room, alone.

For a moment you shut your eyes as hard as you can, scrunching your face with your fists up, in hopes that a miracle happens and Jungkook disappears. You have been having some odd dreams lately, maybe this was just—

Nope. He’s still there.

Since his eyes seem to have wandered too far, you call out his name to bring him back to earth, crossing your arms when his gaze lands on you, “We should probably talk about a few things.”

He drops the backpack from his back as he nods.

“First of all, the sleeping situation—“

“Yeah, I already thought of that,” he walks to the (very cramped) couch on the other side of the room and pats the armrest, “I’ll take this wonderful bed.”

You look at him with quizzical eyes, wondering how the hell was he of all people going to fit there. But it wasn’t really of your concern if he wanted to get scoliosis, he had made his decision.

“Plus, you need beauty sleep much more than me.”

What a waste of oxygen.

You shrug off his words, immune to his childish remarks at this point, “Okay, then. Next on the list, eating arrangements.”

At this point he’s picking up his things and placing them in his territory, “Why is that on the list?”

You move closer to the windows, a little excited when you see the balcony — you would use it to either push your roommate into the cold ocean or catch up on a few books, tough choice. “Because the tables are arranged by rooms.”

You felt the confusion in his eyes poking at your back, so you turn, “That means that we need to share a table for the next few days, dipshit.”

Jungkook shakes his body in agony, throwing a tiny tantrum, “Why is that even a thing?” He whined.

When you feel a headache coming, you grab your own luggage and place it on top of the bed, opening it up and digging in the pockets for a little bit of liquid luck. God knew you needed it.

You down the sample of Jack Daniels in one go with a bitter face and a blow of air.

“Really?”

You start picking out your pajamas for the night, “I was saving it for when I’d find a hot stranger by the pool but—,” when you look up and see the mess on Jungkook’s couch, you’re taken aback, “What in the world is that?”

Jungkook’s hands are rummaging through the jungle that were his things, and it’s obvious that he just shoved as many clothes as he could find lying around the house. He grabs hold of a white tee, “What?”

Again, a waste of—

“WOAH, WOAH, WOAH.”

In the roll of an eye Jungkook’s torso is fully exposed, his back turned towards you with all of its bumps and mumps looking right at you. And you only become aware that you are staring when Jungkook notices the lack of a comeback, pointing it out with a smug tone.

“Y/N,” he doesn’t turn but he snaps you out of your stunned state all the same, “I can practically hear you drooling.”

At the very next instant you cover your eyes, just as little kids do when an inappropriate scene comes on the TV. “You wish, jackass,” and it comes off a little shoutier than you expected, as if the lack of visual correlated with the volume of your voice. Blindly, you grab your shirt and shorts from the bed and run to the bathroom, which just had to be on Jungkook’s side of the room.

And things take a turn for the worse when you run into something, and that something is warm and firm and breathing.

“Uh—.”

Pain.

You convince yourself it was just an invisible, Jungkook shaped wall they failed to mention on the website and fling yourself to the bathroom door, finding the handle rather quickly from all the adrenaline.

Once you’ve slammed the door shut, you let your back slide against the wooden slab and your ass hit the marble floor.

The clothes are still in your grip, your left hand feeling your overheating cheeks and for a tick you think that maybe, just maybe, you should throw yourself into the water and let the sharks take you so you could be buried at the very depths of the ocean. It seemed like a better fate than whatever the fuck was awaiting you the next two weeks.

You take a deep breath in, letting your mind focus on something else.

You look around and, oh, wow. Even the bathroom was charming — if you could ignore the absurd amount of windows, any sea creature passing by would surely see more than they should — glass making up all of the walls, including the shower’s.

The exposure that surrounds you, in its own weird way, cleared up your head the tiniest bit and for the first time since you’ve arrived, you were able to think, only the ocean and its blue around you now.

And what would be your first course of action after a glimpse of clarity?

Calling that rat bastard assistant of yours, of course.

You stand up and place your phone atop the hazel counter after clicking contact name ‘Twinky’, out of fear you’d smash the damn thing when you hear his voice, smoke was bursting at the seams of your chest. Prepare to meet your end, Kim Seokjin—

“Good evening, Ms. Y/N. For what reason are you contacting me in the midst of your vacation?”

Breathe in, breathe out. “Don’t get all formal with me, Kim,” you’re wagging your finger to no one, “I know you did something. Confess.”

The obnoxious twirling of Jin’s chair could be heard through the speaker, “I’ve no idea of what you could possibly be talking about, Madam—“

“Confess.”

“Fine, fine,” you could picture Jin putting his hands up at your murderous tone, “Me and Joon just thought it was about time you two kids got together.”

You take a pause from your pacing around. Motherfucker.

“Okay! I thought it was time and convinced Namjoon to go along with it,” your fist meets the counter with an audible thump, and you were seethed at the probability of Jin smiling at your behaviour. “Speaking of it, how’s it going?”

“Well, Jin,” you place the microphone as near to your mouth as possible, “JEON JUNGKOOK IS TAKING OFF HIS CLOTHES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROOM,” you put on a docile face and naturally assume that Jin could see you telepathically, “So you tell me how it’s going.”

For the first time since you hired him, you had left Jin speechless. Or so you thought.

“I didn’t know you would move this fast—“

“Jin.”

“I apologise, I apologise,” the witch cackles, “But you didn’t give me any context, I only assumed the best.”

“Spare me from your taunts, you hag,” you huff and roll your eyes, “And, as I’ve told you many times before, Jeon Jungkook is literally the worst. I hate—.”

“—him. Yes, Y/N, I’ve been hearing the same speech every single day for two years,” you could hear Jin walking back and forth before an abrupt pause, “Listen to yourself, Y/N, you brought this upon yourself. Whenever you saw or just remembered Jungkook existed you wouldn’t stop talking about him. So, being the good friend I am, I handed you his—,” you rush in a failed attempt to muffle his next words with your hand, “—dick on a silver platter.”

Oh, dear lord.

“You’re out of your mind if you think I wanna be anywhere near Jungkook’s—,” you speak in a hushed tone, “—thing.”

“See, you can’t even say it,” and you give up, because no matter how many times you denied it, Jin never let up. “Anyway, I gotta go and… take a call. Have fun!”

And he hangs up.

All you can do is groan, making a mental note that you oughta kick Jin in the balls one of these days, and you look at yourself in the mirror — you couldn’t even enjoy your tacky shirt because of him. Was a normal vacation really too much to ask for?

You remember that the universe had already answered your question with a big yes, and you can’t help but pout.

Still, ever the changing mind, were you really going to let the universe win?

Your pout turns into a smirk. Of course, you weren’t. All you needed to do was avoid Jungkook as much as possible, that would be easy for sure, you were on a gigantic cruise ship after all.

Yeah, this can still be great.

And so, quick to think as always, you grab your phone and scroll through the Royal Sunrise website.

To your luck, the cruise offered classes and activities of all types with a different theme each day — tomorrow is cooking. Not only was it going to be actually entertaining, you could avoid Jungkook without having to look behind you every other minute.

Genius.

With this new mindset and plan, you change into your oversized navy shirt and banana-printed shorts, a newfound excitement in your step. You even bang your chest with each of your fists, a gorilla-esque fighting technique if you shall, as a way to pump you up.

The door doesn’t seem as intimidating when you push it open, your arms swinging at your side as if you were one of the seven dwarves. This was good.

Immediately you're met with the vexing view of Jungkook, and you quirk your eyes when you notice that all he was wearing was a pair of gray shorts and that white tee, the oddity of it all iffy in your head since you’ve only ever seen him in suits and shirts. There’s a familiar tingling of (what you always assumed was) contempt in your fingertips and toes, one that would only ever occur with Jungkook. Hatred finds a way, huh.

He looks at you, back to his phone and back to you all in one second, and once his brain processes that you’re back and present, he ditches his phone and props himself up on one elbow. “You know the walls aren’t that thick, right?”

The tingle turns into a twitch and you almost hit yourself. Breathe, Y/N.

Jungkook sits up, crossing his arms, his eyes wandering once again, “I knew that Namjoon was planning something. He was sweating so much, I thought it was just the heat,” and they land back on you, “Turns out, it was betrayal.”

You head to your own king-sized resting place and a chuckle slips out of you at Jungkook’s little remark. “You did hear that Jin was the one who dragged him into this, right?”

You’re both pulling your covers over your bodies with silent grins due to the dumbassery of your assistants, “I assumed as much.” At this, your smiles become full-out laughs and your heads must have been too exhausted to dwell on the out of character situation.

It fades after a few seconds and you take one final look at Jungkook before turning off the lights, only to make sure he was already laid down.

Your anxiety comes back to the surface, your eyes staring blankly ahead at the ceiling.

“What a mess,” you don’t even notice you had blurted it out loud.

The rustling of sheets sounds through the otherwise cricket-silent room, “Tell me about it.”

Another chuckle.

“Jungkook,” you call him, the words coming out with no warning, “Can we just promise, no monkey business? I just really wanna relax and—.”

“Y/N,” he stops you before you could yap any further, “No monkey business.”

His interruption makes you sheepish, that tingle coming back as you fiddle with the sheets.

All of the sudden, “Good night, Y/N.”

Silence.

“Don’t be a killjoy.”

Groan. There really isn’t any reason for you to answer the prick. Still, you roll your eyes, “Good night, you troll.”

You hear his pleased sigh.

“Kinda bummed you don’t want my thing, though.”

Damn you, Kim Seokjin.

Your eyes flutter open, not with the calming sound of the dancing waves or the rustling of the sheets beside you from a happy hour mistake, no. You wake up with the sound of the shower running, the drip drop of the water meeting the glass floor of the bathroom.

The walls are very thin.

The image of a very naked Jungkook just next door is forced into your head, and you try to get rid of it by putting a pillow over your face, in hopes that it would put an end to your misery, but the world only gives a hundred problems and zero solutions.

Sat up, you remind yourself of the fresh-new mindset you had implemented yesterday, and this motivates you to restart your morning right and get dressed for the busy day ahead.

You squat down to your bag, grabbing the first jumpsuit and shoes in front of you, surprisingly not too shabby. The black off-shoulder fabric was adorned with pale pink flowers and your basic white sneakers didn’t add much but they were still a welcome fit — you’d only brought three pairs of shoes, so you didn’t really have much of a choice.

The background noise of the shower running disappears.

Shit.

You stumble around the room, trying to switch out of your clothes as fast as you possibly could to avoid any of yesterday’s incidents repeating, the need of any sort of grooming forgotten along the way. Still, you succeeded, and just as Jungkook unlocked the bathroom door, you were out of the room.

The joy in your step was back as you took the few steps needed to the elevators, pressing that little button of victory. Though you’ve been to countless luxury premises, the details of each place still managed to leave you awestruck, and the black railing and golden walls of the ship with decoration clearly inspired by the Romans, weren’t an exception.

The elevator was going from the sixth floor to the fifth when you heard a door open, the hairs of your back standing up out of instinct.

“Wait up!”

Fuck me.

You turn to the left, met with the, once again, odd view of Jeon Jungkook wearing casual clothes, this time in a charcoal shirt a few sizes too big, black cargo pants and signature chunky shoes. But, there’s something even more strange and you can’t quite put a finger to it, it isn’t the fact his lavish watch was replaced with leather braids on his wrist or that his hairs strayed a bit more wildly, it’s—

“Holy shit,” your eyes shoot wide open, “Are those hoops?”

Your hands almost go to touch the silver in his ears, but you remind yourself you’d probably turn to stone.

An unfamiliar red paints Jungkook’s face as his own fingers prod at the earrings, his eyes not meeting yours, “Maybe.”

A gasp. “How did I never notice,” you state more than ask, but Jungkook answers all the same.

“I mean, I never wear them to anything work-related because keeping a professional image and all of that,” he looks at you, his bashfulness fading into an all-knowing smile, “And those are the only times I see your bitter face.”

You scoff, “Wow, actually we talked like normal people for a whole thirty seconds.”

The imp has the audacity to laugh at your face, the way he stops to scan you up and down going unnoticed by your sight. “I gotta say, Y/N, you actually know how to dress—“

Ding.

The black tinted doors open to the glass elevator, a panorama of all the ship’s floors in full display, blue and purple lights reflecting on the gilded ornaments. Your hands rest on the black railing and you don’t even notice there’s another person in the elevator.

“Y/N?” The deep timbre of the voice is all too easy on your ears.

A slight turn to the right is all it takes to see him, fluffy ash hair (that was rough between your fingers from all the times he had dyed it), a shirt that flowed like the clouds and beige slacks that matched with the sepia of his sandals (an ensemble that contrasted the vibrant version of him in your memory). But that square grin was still the same.

“Tae?” You laugh in utter disbelief, “Kim Taehyung?”

“Come here!” His long arms bring you into a hug and with your head nuzzled against his chest, his heartbeat echoed good times, easier times that weren’t filled with paperwork and suits.

It’s interrupted by your forgotten acquaintance clearing his throat.

You pull away, recomposing yourself as you stand beside Taehyung, “Jungkook, this is Kim Taehyung,” you feel Taehyung’s eyes on you, “He was kind of my college boyfriend.”

They shake hands and look back at you, as if waiting for something.

“Uh— Right. Tae, this is Jungkook, my—,” you glance at the brunet to find the right words, “—co-worker, of sorts.”

Your embarrassment only deepens when you remember that the Jeon Jungkook was a first-hand witness to the mess you were melting into in front of your ex-boyfriend.

Who needed caffeine when shit like this kept happening to you.

“Oh,” Taehyung’s voice drops an octave as he shoves his hands in his pockets, “So you two came together?”

And you wave your arms around to signal a ‘no’, but it comes off as ‘that-one-crackhead-at-the-corner-of-the-street-ish” instead. “God, no,” you snort, much to your chagrin.

Taehyung sticks his tongue between his teeth, staring down at Jungkook who was chewing on his own bottom lip, “That’s good to hear.”

It seems you’ve regressed to your college-self, tucking your hair behind your ear with blushed cheeks at your senior.

Ding.

The elevator had arrived at the first floor, Jungkook’s cue to leave.

But he doesn’t make a straight itinerary, instead standing in front of the elevator, “Aren’t you gonna catch breakfast, chump?”

Ah, right. Your genius plan could finally come out in the open, “No, actually. I have an all-day cooking class on the 5th floor.”

“No kidding,” Taehyung turns to you and places a hand on your bare shoulder with a wide smile, “Me too!”

At this, Jungkook’s shoulders slump and his expression falls flat, but you couldn’t get a word in as the elevator doors closed and he swiveled away to his own day.

Eh, it’s not like it was your affair anyways. Plus, 9AM wasn’t the hour to deal with his bullshit.

You and Taehyung made your way up, speaking of all the things you’ve been up to for the past three years.

“So, Jimin’s dancing in Europe,” you gasp, a swell of pride in your chest, your old friend would talk about it every free night he spent in yours and Taehyung’s flat.

“Yeah, now I don’t know who’s keeping an eye on all the dumb shit he does.”

The weight on your shoulders only got lighter with every laugh you shared with Taehyung, sweet nostalgia.

“We’re here,” you point at the chalk sign, the words ‘Bon Appetit’ scribbled on it.

Out of sheer intuition, you pull Taehyung by the wrist until you reach the entrance, a Royal Sunrise worker awaiting with a list of, what could only be, the names of the participants.

You let go of Taehyung when the man’s eyes travel to your holding hands. Oh, God.

He smiles, “Good morning, Mr. and Ms. What would your names be?”

“Good morning, I’m Y/N Y/LN,” your smile hadn’t left your face, “I signed up yesterday.”

He nods and you walk inside, Taehyung following you before the worker puts up a hand to stop him.

“Your name, sir,” his tone changes..

You look back, wondering what the fuss was about.

“Uh— Kim Taehyung.”

The man reads over the clipboard, even flipping to the previous pages. “Excuse me, Mr. Kim. But your name doesn’t seem to be in the—.”

Taehyung’s calm demeanour becomes a bitter scowl as he pats a fifty dollar note down the man’s pocket before he could continue his speech. “Just let this one slide, buddy.”

The sight is a bit rough on the eyes and the corners of your lips turn downwards, something itching at your throat, but you hadn’t seen him in a long time and he most likely had good intentions with the man, you could let it slide, right?

“So,” Taehyung rubs his hands with a smile that reaches the pillows of his eyes, a 360° from the him you saw a few seconds ago, “Where were we?”

The blue of the sky had faded into a deep lilac once you and Taehyung were finished with your last batch of food.

You stood outside with smiles plastered on your faces and flour sprinkled on your hair, reminders of a day well-spent.

“This was great,” you held boxes of chocolate crepes and mushroom pasta, “Except for the fact I was forced to eat and deal with mushrooms.”

Taehyung’s eyebrows pull together, “So many years together, and I didn’t know you hated mushrooms,” you remember telling him countless times, but he never had the best memory — you don’t bother to bring up your hatred for crepes. “But, yeah… I think it was the company that sealed the deal, though.”

A beat of silence. The boy was smooth as ever.

You’re the first to break it. “I guess I’ll go get dinner then.”

“Right, right,” he purses his lips, “I’m gonna catch a nightcap, too full for food anyways. See you, Y/N.”

And you only mumble a small goodbye before you and Taehyung are going different directions.

A day well spent indeed.

Grumble.

You couldn’t keep it in anymore.

Holy Moses, were you hungry as shit. Who knew that barely eating breakfast and lunch could do this to a person.

Once the coast is clear, you run to the elevator, pressing the button repeatedly because why is this thing so fucking slow.

The time taken to go down to the first floor is even more agonising, but you just imagined the wonderful meals that actually tasted like food waiting for you downstairs. You could feel the pork melting in your mouth already.

Ding.

Since the first floor is more packed, you pace yourself as you power-walk to the dining area but you arrive in no time, walking through the tables and scanning each marker for the number 83, until you finally find your salvation — and the mop of brown hair sitting there with its unmistakable silver.

You park your ass on the wooden chair and place the white boxes of gag-worthy food on the table.

“Fancy meeting you here, Y/N,” Jungkook shoves a fork of rare steak and potatoes in his big mouth.

“Don’t antagonise me, Jungkook,” you leap to grab his wrist before he can get another scoop, “Where’s the food?”

You feel him tense under your grip, “Okay, let go of me, hungry hungry hippo,” you loosen your fist and lean back on your chair with crossed arms, “And the restaurant is out of steaks for the night, your only other option is some fried fish or something,” he continues munching.

“No—,” your head meets the table with a bang, “—I’ve been dreaming of red meat all day.”

“Didn’t you cook at— you know, cooking class?”

“Yes, we did,” you sit up and shove the boxes of trash to Jungkook as he examines them.

“But, you hate mushrooms and crepes,” he turns his head in a robotic motion when he opens the lids.

Your hunger fades for a bit as that tingle in your fingertips pushes you to sit straight, leaning your head like a curious puppy.

“How do you know that?”

Jungkook bites his bottom lip as he seems to think of a response. “Well, you mentioned it at the Law & Practice Awards a few months ago,” he rubs his fingers on his chin with a feign look of concentration, “I believe your exact words were: ‘Why does the stake have fungus on it’ and ‘Everybody knows that crepes are just a—.”

“—a cheap version of pancakes,” you finish his sentence with surprise painted on your face. Still, you question him, “But, how do you even remember that?”

Jungkook’s flush is back on his cheeks, “As they say, keep your friends close,” he flashes that tight lipped smile of his, “And your enemies closer.”

Just as you were about to flip the fucker off, your stomach grumbles. Out of all of the moments it could’ve complained, it decided to do so in the only second of silence.

Jungkook mumbled something along the lines of “That’s it,” under his breath and let out a sharp exhale, cutting up his steak and taters and pushing them into a smaller plate, adding a few greens in the mix. He snaps his fingers at the nearest waiter and grabs a glass of wine from his tray. The act finishes off with him pushing the food in your direction.

You stare at the food, at Jungkook and back at the plate again. Dumbfounded, once again.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Eat,” he continues on with his dinner as if he hadn’t just done— Well, what he just did.

You bite your lip and bow your head slightly, though you’re sure he doesn’t see it, before vacuuming the food directly into your belly.

The rest of the evening is spent in comfortable silence, no daggers threatened to be thrown or scorn weighing in the air. This lasts all the way to the door of the room; you were fine with communicating with only ‘hums’ and nods but Jungkook, as always, had to ruin things.

He leans his back against the white door, arms crossed and a smirk as he looks down at you. “How lucky of you to have your mortal enemy and—,” he puts up air quotes, “‘kind of college boyfriend’ in the same boat as you, huh?”

You palm your face and hide a sheepish smile, “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“How could I when I was your special guest to first hand embarrassment in the elevator,” he waves the white flag of peace as he puts his hands up, “But, hey—“

“Hi, Jungkook,” someone behind you purrs, heels clacking.

You turn around and see a woman of jet-black hair in a stunning red silk dress, the pony-tail on her head swinging a delicate left to right as she waved her manicured hand at none other than Jungkook — who brushes a hand through his hair before complimenting her greeting.

It takes you by surprise, though you laughed at Jungkook’s gnarly stance at the beautiful woman, the tingle comes back, this time prickling at the pit of your stomach.

As soon as she had walked away, you rubbed your hands at the sides of your arms, “Wow, Jungkook. Moving fast are we?” you squint your eyes, “I think it’s the earring.”

“First of all, screw you,” he unlocks the door, “Second, that’s nothing, trust me.”

He holds the door open for you and you catch a whiff of his black vanilla scent. You stop in your tracks and place a hand on his shoulder with a grimace on your face, “Just don’t do anything on my bed, okay?”

You don’t bother to wait for an answer as you head to the bathroom with your comfy tee in your hands.

This time, the counter was embellished with skincare and cologne galore, all thanks to your dear roommate.

“He wouldn’t notice if I used some of this, right?” You say to Jungkook’s bottle of cleanser, too lazy to go back and grab your own toiletries.

“If you use that I’m drowning myself,” you hear him shout from the other room.

Sorry, face. You’ll have to wait for tomorrow.

Once you were snug in your tee, you were off to bed — Jungkook in the same attire as yesterday as well.

You leave the lamp on as you checked your phone for the first time since yesterday. Of course, Jin was your only notification, a plethora of obscenities and questions that would, unfortunately, be permanently ingrained in your mind forever. You turn off your phone and throw it on top of the night stand.

Not today, satan.

“You mind?” You ask Jungkook who seemed to be scrolling away, too engrossed in his phone to look at your finger pointing at the light, only a grunt on his behalf.

You turn it off and shut your eyes, your body tense, not that you weren’t used to it, the decaying muscles of your back have been like that since you graduated high-school. And, it was a bit more intense from all the mixing and pot handling — thank the heavens that tomorrow’s activities involved massaging. Though, today was a win.

Jungkook’s phone turns off and his body sloshes around, the sounds he makes the only ones reverberating in the room.

“Good night, Y/N,” you try to ignore him, but he comes forward with a good case, “Come on, I gave you my food.”

Guilt tripper.

“Fine, but only because you’re annoying as shit,” he lets out a satisfied breath, “Good night, Jungkook.”

You arrive at dreamland in no time.

taglist. (open)

| @fangirl125reader / @vantxx95 / @jinpanman / @ggukkieland / @miniiimee / @paizthemaiz

263 notes · View notes

marveldc-imagines-hub · 3 years

Text

Subtitles: Episode 3, Now in Color

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: Things are going well between [Y/N] and their new partners but what shenanigans will ensue as the Maximoff baby’s arrival quickly approaches and they’re pulled into the throughs of building a nursery and… child delivery?

Word count: 10,640

Warnings: Cotton candy fluff, chaos, baby. So the usual, plus babies.

Tag list: @madamevirgo @ravennight41 @multifandomgirl16 (It won’t tage you for some reason, I’m sorry ;-; ) @cyanide-mustard @badasspolygenderfriend

~~~

You huffed and sat back on your heels, slipping a sore finger into your mouth. “Stupid bird.”

The bird in question, a pink flamingo made of plastic and wire, seemed to sneer at you from its position sticking a few inches farther out of the grass than it should be. Because of this, you could still see the main stake sticking out of the bottom of the bird’s standing foot, which, much to your distaste, made the pink plastic-feathered creature look like it was trapped on a piece of wood impaled in its foot rather than lounging on one foot in the lush green grass of your yard.

You had spent a good portion of today working on your yard and garden and waiting for a member of the household across the street to step outside and beckon you over. Dressed in overalls stained by grass and dirt, a brightly colored T-shirt, a sun hat, and working shoes, you forced yourself to keep busy by planting new flora and putting down new garden fences and decor while Vision and Wanda were tucked away indoors, preparing for a baby. You were the only one so far to know about the Maximoff bun in the oven outside of the parents and although it seemed like just last week that Wanda had gotten pregnant, the baby had finally big enough that the couple had to involve a doctor to make sure all was going well.

It also felt like not long ago that the couple had asked you out for the first time. Both of them. At the same time. It was news to you that they had felt even remotely felt the same way about you as you had about them but the rest of that conversation had gone swimmingly with you being too nervous and dumbstruck to do much more than blubber questions. The first date and then the second went a similar way, with you not being completely sure that you were on a three-person date or even awake. Luckily, your new partners were just as unnerved as you were and the three of you agreed to simply play it by ear and communicate a lot.

Some time and a few sporadic dates later and things were going smoothly. Almost every bit of free time was spent at either their place or yours; if it wasn’t free time, you were giving Vision rides to work and leaving cute messages in the files you left at his desk—you always hoped they were cute, anyway, and not annoying, only to be reassured when you got a smiley back or your favorite treat from the breakroom left with the file when it was returned—or trying to help Wanda clean or cook or take a break despite her stubborn fussing against it. Vision was the first to give you a pet name, Wanda was the first to hold you in place when you attempted to pull away from a normally quick handhold or hug, and you were the first to press kisses to both their cheeks after walking them home from dinner. Wanda fell asleep on your couch first, you on theirs second, and Vision went ahead and turned cheek pecks into lip kisses. You weren’t quite ready to initiate them yourself yet but you hadn’t been complaining when Vision caught you on your porch steps and kissed you on the mouth; the rain that had just started had either been just a bonus or his initial inspiration.

As nice as everything has been, though, you were still worried about overstepping boundaries with the married couple so when Vision invited you over to be a part of the doctor visit, you politely declined. Instead, after the doctor left, you were to head over and bring your tools to help set up the nursery; it was also your joint job with Vision, who was now a baby book reading master but also increasingly bugged out about Wanda and the baby’s health, to try and convince said woman to relax for once in her life—a task difficult enough to be on the list of Hercules’ Twelve Labors, you were convinced at this point.

For now, though, you were sitting with your feet beginning to cramp and your knees getting damp and most likely more grass-stained, glaring at the devil in pink whose foot-stake had left your finger with a prick from a splinter and whose one visible dark eye stared at you with sadistic mirth.

“Oh, you wanna go, Bernard?” you scoffed at the bird-shaped plastic, dropping your hand from your mouth and pushing yourself up into a squat. “I’ll call you out. Let’s go!” You raised your hands in a fighting stance and bounced on the balls of your feet as you prepared to strike.

The sound of a chainsaw starting up caught you off guard mid-bounce and you lost your balance but what caught your eye when you twisted around while rubbing your now-bruised tailbone was Vision walking outside his front door with an older gentleman, presumably the doctor. However, you paid very little attention to said other man as you laid in the middle of your yard, twisted into what was probably a partial yoga pose, resting your chin on your arm and making lovey-dovey eyes at the former.

Not that it was surprising at all, Vision looked very nice today. He was wearing dark blue pants and a similarly colored sweater over a collared shirt and tie, with a honey-brown jacket topping everything off; you couldn’t imagine wearing a shirt plus two outerwear items in the heat of the day but you certainly didn’t mind seeing him all dressed up. His hair was somewhere between jaw and shoulder length and wavy as ever and while you weren’t a fan of the popular 70s cut, he not only pulled it off but made it look incredibly attractive. He greeted his next-door neighbor Herb, who started up the chainsaw, then spoke animatedly, as he always did, to the doctor. Talking about keeping the baby news to themselves, no doubt.

Vision watched as the doctor walked off down the sidewalk and as he happened to pass in your direction, Vision’s gaze refocused to settle on you instead. The expression on his face changed from purely friendly to something deeper and you felt the familiar flutter of butterflies in your stomach as he waved over to you.

“Hello, perfectly platonic neighbor!” he hollered, to which you responded in kind after snorting and then disentangling yourself from your strange position.

No response from Herb about the odd greeting. The cul-de-sac, and in Westview in general, people didn’t seem concerned with your trio’s out-of-place shenanigans as long as it didn’t directly affect them, you had noticed over time. You could have probably walked over and planted a brazen smooch on Vision’s perfect mouth while out in the open, with other neighbors milling about, and no one would bat an eye.

But that’s exactly what we’re not going to do, you thought stubbornly as you stood and brushed yourself off. Not yet, anyway. I want to make sure they’re both comfortable with it first.

Vision seemed to grasp what your plan was because he waited for you as you gave Bernard the flamingo a fight postpone notice and then a light kick before walking across your yard and heading across the street. If you had been more rational, you would have grabbed your tools so you could have just come inside when you reached the Maximoff house but your brain, muddled with the pink mist of freshly requited affections, could only think of getting closer to the man, maybe even holding hands or nuzzling noses.

A sound that was equal parts loud and awful caught both your and Vision’s attention as you reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Looking over, you both saw Herb cutting away with his chainsaw, only now he wasn’t cutting through bushes but the stone wall separating his and Wanda and Vision’s homes. The stone blocks of the wall weren’t super heavy-duty, you supposed, but the sound made you cringe, and the sight was a little jarring. Herb didn’t seem to realize was he was doing despite the lack of hedges in his path.

“Hey Herb,” Vision yelled over the noise, “think you might’ve taken the hedge trimming a little too far there, old chum!” As he spoke, he glanced over at you and, seeing you nearby, instinctively shifted in your direction; you moved to meet him halfway and you each gave the other’s hand a quick affectionate squeeze, though both pairs of eyes were trained on Herb.

Herb, who looked up, smiled, and responded, “So I have! Thanks, buddy.” Despite saying this, he continued to cut through the bordering wall and stare glassily ahead as if none the wiser.

The expression gave you an unnerving sense of familiarity but you couldn’t quite put a name to the vague memory of a person you’d seen wearing it. Acquiring a migraine medication and forcing yourself to not look too hard into every strange thing that happened in this town helped but your headaches appeared to never quite go away. This was proven by the muted throb across one side of your head that came with looking at the bizarre scene.

“Yeah,” Vision said a little quieter, “don’t mention it.”

The action only happened briefly but when you caught him chewing his lower lip, you felt your innards tie themselves in knots and had a particularly hard time tearing your gaze away. Now that you were closer, you also noticed that the blue and brown ensemble he wore perfectly matched his hair and eyes. That hair that you always desperately wanted to brush your fingers through.

Fingers carefully slipping around your hand, like if they held you any tighter your own would break, managed to catch your attention as Vision turned to lead you inside.

“Oh,” you chirped, tugging your hand back to point a thumb over your shoulder, “I forgot my tools. Meet you in a minute?”

Vision seemed persistent to bring you inside, even going so far as to catch both your arms and doing a playful series of shimmies and sways to dance the two of you closer to the front door. Now that you were out of Herb’s frozen line of sight, the two of your found yourselves standing so close together that there wasn’t a single pocket of space between your bodies. When you inhaled, you smell cologne that wasn’t too light or too heavy and a scent that you could only describe as the heat of a warm, sunny day. Thinking as he would only smell sweat and dirt and grass if he did the same, you blushed and made a note to change before you came back over.

Whatever Vision thought about how you smelled or the clothes you wore, he didn’t seem to care enough, if at all. He took advantage of being out of sight to move his hands from your hours to your waist—a much more convincing position indeed—and nuzzled his nose to your hairline, now exposed as your hat rested farther back on your head.

“You know very well that you can use ours,” he said.

You felt his warm breath on your forehead. If you weren’t standing up and didn’t have the nagging feeling that you were getting dirt on his nice sweater, you would have been perfectly comfortable simply hugging him and dozing off in the cozy embrace right there.

Vision continued in a lilting voice and with an added shimmy that brought the two of you directly to the front door. “They’d love to see you, you know.”

They? Your brows furrowed a bit, then rolled your eyes. Oh, Wanda plus baby.

Still, you steeled your resolve and leaned away from him. He looked at you like he was a puppy that had been kicked, to which you responded with a faux scowl. “Mr. Vision Maximoff, I said I was going bring my tools, and [Y/N] is no flake. Besides,” you paused as your scowl melted into a smile, “I don’t want to get dirt and grime all over the new room. It’ll only take a minute; you act like we can’t see each other through our living room windows if we wanted to.”

Making his last attempt, Vision leaned into your arms, which were now around his own, and pressed his cheek against your temple. Still pouting, he muttered, “It only took Wanda and I going around a few times before we moved in together.”

The idea of you living under the same roof as your couple and their new baby made you giddy as much as it made you feel like you wanted to throw yourself into a lit fire pit to save yourself from embarrassment.

“Ah, yes, a spectacle to behold,” you said as you leaned away again, “A new baby and a new roommate!” You saw Vision open his mouth to speak, no doubt to respond with a quip, and quickly continued, disentangling yourself from him as you did, “Gotta skitty, I’ll be back momentarily!”

“Well,” Vision replied, dragging out the last consonant as if you were going to change your mind if he did so long enough; when you didn’t, he huffed a bit. “Alright then. Hurry back!”

You gave him a smile and two-fingered salute then bounded down the steps and back across the street. You only stopped once on the quick trip back home and that was to give Bernard another swift kick, which somehow lodged the bird the rest of the way into the ground, and a “Fuck you, Bernard!” You heard sputtering laughter from across the street that made you grin as you marched inside to change and grab your toolkit.

The tools were the easy part; they had been sitting out on the table in your dining area since last night when you’d originally suggested the idea so you were sure to not forget them. It took a bit longer to struggle your way out of your clothes, especially while simultaneously trotting to the bathroom to wash your hands and splash water on your face. It took longer still to jog back to your bedroom without slamming yourself into an end table or plant along the way and then also go through every piece of clothes you owned; when bright colors and eccentric outfits came into style, you were, for once, ahead of the fashion game with your regular closet, and your wardrobe only continued to grow as the rest of the country’s interest in the style did. You were particularly interested in peacock fashion and it showed in your array of ruffled, brightly colored, and loudly patterned shirts and blouses.

Of these blouses, you threw on one in a burnt orange and yellow paisley pattern, choosing one without ruffles in fear of ripping them while working. You paired the shirt with matching yellow walk-shorts that ended just above your knees and a pair of honey-brown clog sandals whose color made you think of Vision’s outfit. Thinking about this further, you decided to accent your ensemble with a touch of blue, wrapping your hair that was still damp with sweat back with a satin scarf that was a vibrant blue and some handmade jewelry pieces in the same color to match. Finally, you added a woven belt and, after looking in the mirror for a moment, decided to tie your blouse off an inch above the waist of your shorts instead of tucking it in before booking it back across the street.

Standing at the door of your couple’s house, you took a final glance at yourself in the reflection of one of their windows before knocking. You let yourself in after Wanda invited you with a holler through the door and you were greeted with the interesting sight of Wanda, in all her stunning, colorful, mother-to-be glory standing by the long dark-wood dining table; Vision, half-hidden behind her belly that seemed significantly larger than the last time you saw her, was taking an awkward knee while holding up a variety of fruits.

“I’m never not uniquely surprised when I walk into this house,” you said mostly to yourself and you made your way over. Reaching Wanda, you sat your bag of tools on the floor by her feet and gave her a gentle hug. “Hey, sunshine, you’re looking foxy.”

You certainly had gotten a lot more comfortable with them recently.

Wanda visibly blushed, giving you one of her signature fake irritated looks—a tilted head with tight-knit brows and tight lips that broke into a smile less than a second later—and lightly swatted your arm before carefully returning the hug. “Hey sunshine yourself. Look at you, you’re glowing! And those threads, you’re a regular Casanova.”

She made a point of eyeing your partially exposed midriff and you almost blushed—but not quite.

“Glowing,” you repeated, playfully patting your face, “I’m not even the pregnant one! Thank you, though. Some of the colors were inspired.” You took your turn eyeing her, particularly the bright red of her striped dress that was a common color in her palette, then you caught Vision’s bright blue gaze as he stood and placed a couple of fruits back in their rightful place in the basket on the table. You moved to Wanda’s other side to help him. “Why the fruit?”

“Oh, well, the doctor said it helps the mothers keep track of the baby’s progress.” Vision explained. He added another fruit to the basket’s tower, although he was giving the last one in his hand an odd look.

“What he actually said was,” Wanda added, grasping your shoulder and tugging you over two put an arm around your waist and give you mildly strained look, “it helps make things ‘simple’ for us ‘little ladies.’”

You recognized the glint in her eye and nodded understandingly. “Well that’s mildly condescending, must’ve been just groovy.”

“Out of sight,” Wanda agreed in the same tone. She then looked in Vision’s direction with raised brows; you followed her gaze and saw the man toying with the large green fruit in his hand. “Hey, honey? What’cha doin’?”

Vision met both of your equally puzzled gazes with barely contained glee. Voice tight from holding back a giggle, he raised the fruit and pointed at it. “I can’t wait… to be… a proud… papa-ya.”

Wanda looked amused at the future father’s pun and Vision grinned, clearly happy with the reaction. You actually laughed before quickly throwing up a hand to cover the titter.

“Well, that just proves it,” you said after composing yourself even though your company seemed perfectly pleased with your reaction to the joke, “you’re going to be a wonderful one. Look at you, turning into a proper one already.”

Vision went from smiling to flusteredly chewing at his lip quite quickly; he would always get easily flustered but never enough to blush. Instead, he’d twist his head a certain way and rub his neck and shoulder, maybe even avoid eye contact if he was embarrassed enough. He’d always tug his bottom lip between his teeth too, something you couldn’t help finding just a touch more endearing than the other mannerisms; at least it gave you a much more rational reason to stare at his lips for longer than generally accepted.

“You really think so?” he asked.

You scoffed as you moved to pick up your tools again. “Of course, you and Wanda will make absolutely stellar parents. The two of you are more prepared now than I’ve seen some people after they’ve already had the kids. Now,” you paused as you stood up straight and looked at your couple with a cheerful smile, “shall we head to the nursery?”

You were partially convinced that you had been invited solely to help Vision wrangle his wife. You certainly hadn’t been invited to help decorate; even pregnant, Wanda made faster work of your tools than you did. You were huffing while maneuvering a rocking chair in the room and by the time you got it settled in the corner, Wanda had already pieced together the changing stand that was to sit next to it. You turned to grab a tool to open the cans of paint only to turn back around and see all of them opened and Wanda with a brush in hand, painting away. You managed to get the crib up before she could get her hands on it but when you looked around for the yellow mattress and bumper cushions, you looked up to find Wanda already putting on the finishing touches.

Now, you were kneeling on the ground by the crib and painting a delicately rendered stork while Vision was getting to his feet after reading all the reasons Wanda should be resting instead of doing what she was doing, which was pulling a mobile of colorful plastic butterflies out of a box and shifting ever so closer to a stool so she could hang it.

“Darling,” Vision tried, shifting ever so closer to her, “you should probably sit down.”

“You really should,” you offered your help, almost half-heartedly because you already knew the outcome before she said it.

“Don’t be silly,” Wanda assured him, “all I feel is excitement, happiness, and— huhnf! Oh!”

You were on your feet and spun around to give her a wide-eyed stare before her gasp even finished, but instead of pain or worry, Wanda’s face was lit up with wonder as the hand not grasping a plate fluttered around her stomach. Vision also moved quickly, to step forward and pressed his hand on her stomach.

He breathed, “Kicking already?” and they shared an excited stare.

You stared awkwardly from the side with a paintbrush in hand, feeling more out of place you’ve ever had in your life.

Until Wanda, without missing a single beat, turned her head in your direction and grinned. “[Y/N], you have to feel this!” Then she spoke to Vision, “Oh, it’s such a strange sensation, it’s kinda fluttery!”

She was breathtaking. Then her nose scrunched up and she giggled in a way that could also be described as fluttery, and you were wondering in which states polygamy was legal and where was the best jeweler to get a ring.

Still, you were trying to refrain from overstepping boundaries.

“Oh, I don’t know…” you mumbled, shifting your weight from foot to foot and glancing around the room. You noticed the mobile she had been retrieving the last time you’d looked at her was already hung up above the crib; of course, it was.

Wanda scoffed and made a gesture at Vision, then he was walking over and coaxing you to her side with an encouraging nuzzle to your temple.

“I just don’t want—” you started.

“To overstep, we know,” Wanda finished, the giddy look on her face replaced with a scowl. “Trust me, this is probably the one and only time I’ll ask for someone to feel my stomach while everyone else in the town just does it willy-nilly and besides, you are a part of— Oh!”

Her gasp and glance over your shoulder, combined with the sound of movement behind you was enough to make you turn your head, only for Vision to catch your attention in the opposite direction.

“Another kick!” he exclaimed, just a little too loud. You thought you caught his gaze flitting over in the same direction as Wanda’s but then he was grasping your wrist and placing your hand against Wanda’s stomach. At the same time, his arm that was hovering politely around your back pressed against the naked small of your back as he pulled you closer into the little triangle of space you, Wanda, and he made; the sudden heat there made your blood boil in the best way and when his hand accidentally caught on the hem of your shorts and dipped a little lower over the fabric, you choked while sucking in a breath.

Vision’s hands flew up to the sky and he scrambled away, apologizing profusely. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his hands fluttering around, could imagine his eyes doing the same, and you were vaguely aware of Wanda moving at your other side, the fabric of her sleeve brushing against yours as she waved her arm. You also heard a sound that you chalked up to being a breeze coming from the open window and rustling the drawn curtains. You, usually the final piece of the chaotic puzzle, were instead staring down and softly gasping as the sudden tap against your palm.

“I felt it,” you whispered and the chaos that was happening around you seemed to still in the same moment as Wanda and Vision settled back around you to feel themselves. You repeated the phrase, brushing your thumb across the patch of clothed skin, and the baby responded with another kick a moment later. You couldn’t help looking up at Wanda a face frozen in almost childish wonder, and state the obvious, “You’re gonna have a baby.”

Wanda nodded at you with shining eyes and a wet smile. She wrapped her free arm around her midsection and looked back down on her belly. The expression on her face radiated an intense, loving tenderness and you felt a billion non-plastic butterflies make a comfortable home in your chest.

You followed her gaze and felt your face break into a grin so wide that your cheeks started to hurt almost immediately. Your hand, along with Wanda’s own and Vision’s, created a loose but ever so protective triangular shield over the place where you had felt your first baby kick, promising to move the universe for them should it ever be required. Despite the overlapping mess of fingers, you noticed how Vision’s hand was the perfect size to envelop your own and that even with a ring on one of them, Wanda’s fingers fit perfectly in the spaces between yours.

The nervousness and insecurities that seemed to bounce around your head whenever you observed your couple, in their perfect world with their perfect dynamics, melted away in the comfortable warmth that came from your trio’s cozy huddle. This wasn’t a story about you or them separately but the three of you together and it was a wonderful one in the making.

Then, “Oh.”

Wanda looked up at her husband and echoed, “Oh.”

You looked up second, adding your own questioning “Oh?” before your gaze settled on the butterfly lightly perched on the tip of Vision’s nose. “Oh!” Watching the monarch’s delicate wings fluttering, you were surprised he hadn’t already sneezed.

“Hello, little fella,” Vision softly said. He was the first to separate your group, stepping away and leaning down a bit for your and Wanda’s better viewing. His smile was blinding for the brief moment you caught it, before tilting your head away to snicker at the way his eyes were crossing to view his insect passenger.

Wanda gently coaxed the butterfly onto her fingertip and walked over to the window to release it. That’s when you noticed a group of the bug type coalesced around the same area; the sudden visit from Mother Nature must have been what she had seen earlier.

“Oh, my,” you said, “that’s something you don’t see every day.”

The smile on Wanda’s face tightened for just a moment as her gaze jumped around the baby room, then relaxed as she maneuvered the various colorful butterflies outside. “Bringing good vibes, hopefully. They must have been enticed by the mobile; why, they even tried to free their plastic friends!”

You looked towards the crib curiously and saw that the mobile hanging above it was only a series of transparent hanging strings. Walking over, you found the butterflies that had once been attached to it scattered around the mattress. You picked a couple of them up and carefully pinched the thin material between your fingers. “Hm, strong butterflies.”

“Clearly,” Vision agreed. He walked over to the rocking chair he had been sitting and reading baby books earlier and picked up his most recent read.

Meanwhile, you began gathering up the scattered butterflies, then climbed up the nearby stool to retrieve the rest of the mobile. “You wouldn’t happen to have a good adhesive laying around, would you? I can have this fixed up and rehung lickity-split.”

“Not laying around but I’m sure there’s one in the cabinet under the sink.” Vision seemed to find the page he was looking for. He glanced over the words, tensed up immediately after, and paced over to Wanda’s side as she shut the window. “If that was first kick, that puts you at about six months! Why I can’t keep up!”

Has it been that long already? You silently wondered as you made your way over to the exit, careful not to crush any of the delicate pieces you were holding. While Vision was thinking in terms of babies, you were surprised that you had already been dating him and his wife for almost half of a year.

In a signature dad-to-be fashion, Vision waggled his head down to give Wanda and the baby a kiss. Then he said in an equally identifiable dad’s voice, “Please don’t misinterpret. I can’t wait you meet you, little Billy!”

You leaned against the doorframe as you offered Wanda an amused look; you had been previously graced with the conversation of baby names and Billy wasn’t exactly on her roster.

“Billy?” she questioned, to which Vision gave a smile and an affirming noise. Wanda continued, “Well I was thinking Tommy. Just a nice, classic American name.”

Vision gave an exaggerated, head tilting nod that suggested a mild disagreement. Then the higher-pitched tone he took when he replied confirmed it. “Hm, Tommy! Hm, mm… then there’s Billy, isn’t there? Named after William Shakespeare, all the world’s a stage, all the men and women many players!”

Wanda went to speak but you beat her to it. “You’re sure it’s a boy, then?”

Your partner seemed mildly embarrassed as she turned her attention to you. “Strong intuition?”

You offered casually, not thinking about your lack of say in the matter, “What about Victor? Vin? Little Vinny’s certainly a cute nickname.” Almost immediately after you finished, it was your turn to be the embarrassed one. You stumbled over your words a bit as you started to apologize, only to falter when you saw both Vision and Wanda’s gleeful stares.

“Well, those are wonderful names too,” Wanda assured you, clearly pleased you had chimed in, “but I’m not hoping for quadruplets. I guess we’ll need the next best thing— A girl.”

Your shoulders relaxed from their hunched places that you hadn’t noticed they took. You chuckled and strolled out the door, throwing a couple more ideas over your shoulder, “Vivian! Virginia! Nadia!”

Vision’s voice floated after you as you walked to the kitchen. “Ooh, Vivian’s quite good…”

When you returned to the bedroom with good-as-new mobile in hand, only final touches needed to be added to the nursery, and Wanda and Vision’s excitement over the baby’s coming was suddenly amped up to eleven. The two were pacing around and frantically listing off the all things that they had left to do or buy. It was a very drastic change from the casual playfulness that you had experienced between them earlier, as the new parents were keeping themselves—and you—busy with a thousand new tasks. Eventually, Vision had a list about as long as he was tall of every bottle, diaper, blanky, binky, children’s book, and stuffed animal that they had yet to get.

Deciding you were now the more sane member of the group, you decided to take the list and go shopping for them; if you didn’t, Vision may have been swept up in the baby section of a clothing store and never return. That’s how you ended up where you were now, at the front of an ever-growing line of department store customers, waiting anxiously as the workers tried to get the lights back on and the cash register back in working order.

You rapped your fingernails on the countertop—not intentionally, just out of worry about how your parents-to-be were managing at home—and glanced from your bloated shopping cart to the cashier, who was talking quietly with a manager then back several times. You were antsy about being stuck in a store when you were much useful elsewhere and being concerned about whether you were making the cashier uncomfortable with your mannerisms, for they were probably three times as unsettled as you were, wasn’t doing anything but adding on to the stress.

Finally, the cashier turned back to you and the rest of the shoppers and announced, “Good news, everybody! The register is still down but it’s a quick switch to manual; we’ll have each and every one of you checked out and on your ways home soon!”

A cheer erupted around you but you were too frazzled to join in.

“Unfortunately,” the cashier continued as the noise died down, “we’re not the only store experiencing this. It’s the whole town.”

While the crowd’s disappointed “Aww” only appeared mildly disgruntled, you went rigid and your mind began racing, all thoughts revolving around a particular household.

One random thought of wondering What if Wanda went into labor right now? had the hair on your arms sticking straight up.

You slammed your hand down on the counter, spooking both the cashier and yourself.

“Ma’am,” you started, then paused to quickly apologize for your rudeness before continuing, “I need you to check me out as fast as humanly possible; I think my—” Wife seemed way out of line but girlfriend felt too out of place. “—pah-art-ner’s having a baby.”

You were struggling to your car with a small mountain of baby items in the arms in a matter of minutes, mentally kicking yourself for being bad at talking the entire way there. You threw your bags in the back, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and were getting ready to pull away from the curb when a ringing from your mobile phone sounded.

“Goddammit,” you huffed. One hand was pulling up an antenna and pressing the technological brick to your ear while the other gripped your steering wheel so hard that your knuckles turned three skin tones lighter. “Yeah, hello?”

“[Y/N]?” Agnes’s voice was a welcome surprise but her worried tone wasn’t.

“No, it’s your husband, I’m on my way home now, dear,” you snarked, then mentally kicked yourself again. “Sorry, that was rude, I’m in a rush. What’s crackin’? Besides the town going into blackout, that is.”

“The neighborhood’s flooded,” Agnes said simply.

You blanched. “I’m sorry?”

“The cul-de-sac? Something’s happened and all the pipes have burst. Mine, Herb’s, Dotty’s, everyone’s!”

How on earth the day’s mood has changed so quickly, you had no idea. What you did know is that you desperately had to get back to Wanda’s side, your house be damned.

“Thanks, ‘Nes, good to know,” you hissed through clenched teeth. You rested your phone between your ear and shoulder as you put both hands on the wheel and started driving.

“Do you want me to do anything?” Agnes asked; her voice sounded as frazzled as you and the rest of Westview looked. “Go over to your place, grab anything important?”

You huffed out a sigh as your car flew around a corner. “Agnes, you know I adore you, but I really, really have to go.”

“[Y/N]—”

You hung up and tossed the shoe-sized device in the passenger’s seat.

Vision met you on the curb as you were parking your car and he had the doctor from earlier that day in tow, now dressed in vacationing attire and very seeming very underprepared. Within a few words and as if you had accidentally wished it into existence back at the department store, you were informed that Wanda was in fact about to have little Billy or Tommy or who-have-you. Of course, this messy day would come to a peak in such a way.

The taller man was half-escorting, half-hauling both you and the doctor to the door, and the bags in the backseat of your car were completely forgotten as concern chewed away at your insides. Loud, strained sounds coming from inside only added onto it.

As the three of you reached the front door, Vision flung it open and pressed the doctor inside. Then he grabbed your wrist and began tugging you in after himself.

You couldn’t help your feet freezing to the concrete. “Vis, are you sure?”

The distress on his face softened just slightly and he pressed the back of your hand to his lips. “Of course we are.” Then he wrapped an arm around you and properly, albeit quickly, brought you into his and Wanda’s home—

—where Wanda was laying on the floor, panting and shimmering with sweat and holding a baby wrapped in a blue and white dishtowel while Geraldine perched awkwardly over her.

You and Vision shared a bug-eyed look before Vision’s turned into one of sadness. You wanted so badly to hug him and tell him it was alright but he was already releasing you and slowly walking over; you trailed a couple of steps after him.

“Oh no,” he murmured, “I missed it?” However, when he took a look at Wanda’s softly smiling face and their happily cooing baby, whatever brief grief he was experiencing was replaced by a proud smile and new fatherly glow.

“Hey, doc,” Geraldine spoke suddenly, “why don’t you help me out in the kitchen there?” She nodded in your direction as well.

You wondered why she was there, in Wanda’s home or Westview, at all. The idea made your stomach flip but you just couldn’t place why.

The only response the doctor gave was blubbering about speeding as she took his arm and led him away. You began to follow when Vision stopped you with a gentle tug on your arm.

“No, [Y/N],” he said, “it’s alright. Stay and come see.”

You didn’t even think as you smiled and took his hand. You took a glance towards the kitchen to make sure the other company was occupied, then kissed the back of his hand as he had done only a moment earlier. Squeezing it and letting it drop, you responded, “Go say hello to your baby. I’ll always be here.”

Given the current situation, Vision wasn’t up for arguing much. He gave you a quick peck on the temple before gingerly making his way over to where Wanda rested happily on the living room floor.

You made your way to the kitchen, where you slumped against the kitchen counter as exhaustion overtook you. You were close enough to both parties to hear Geraldine’s blatant attempts at distracting the doctor to your left and Vision and Wanda’s cozy rumblings to your right, but too out of sorts to make out anything tangible. You didn’t realize until now how badly your feet ached from the combination of gardening, decorating, and running around and how your outfit had lost its cute playfulness in place of wrinkles and feeling slightly damp from sweat. You were sure you were looking more worse for wear than Wanda, despite Wanda having had a baby, but when you thought about it for more than a second or two, you felt like you wouldn’t trade the day for any other in the world.

Especially when thinking about that cutie patootie, you thought with a tired smile. He’s gonna have such good parents. Such a good life.

Suddenly, your train of thought was stopped by the sound of Wanda yelling and your whole body jerked in her direction, energetic as ever.

Wanda was going into labor a second time, you could see easily see. Something somehow more surprising was going on in the living area, though, and that something was Vision’s skin. While he still wore his regular clothes, that was the only normal thing about him. Instead of light skin, his flesh was a deep red and you weren’t even sure it could be called skin; it looked more… mechanical than that, with symmetrical lines etched into some places and silver plating covering others. Instead of a full head of wavy hair, he had none, and his ears and parts of his bald skull were also covered in silver. Silver came to a peak at the top of his forehead and at the end of it was a golden gem.

Vision was holding his baby and yelling along with Wanda as she began pushing a second time. He happened to glance up and catch your bewildered eye and then he started yelling because of you.

You stood frozen in place, not sure what to do until you heard a commotion behind you.

“Well, what’s going on now?” Geraldine started.

Your brain kicked back into full gear and thinking quickly and somewhat stupidly, you yelled and pointed in the opposite direction, “Jeepers creepers, is that a stork?” You couldn’t imagine why your poor attempt at a distraction worked but you considered it a success as Geraldine and the still-disoriented doctor’s attention settled elsewhere. Not missing a beat, you grabbed another cloth from the kitchen and raced to Wanda and Vision’s aid, skidding to a halt on your knees.

“[Y/N],” Vision said, though nothing else followed. He stared at you in pure shock, mouth flapping and the bright blue irises of his eyes twisting and shifting like a camera lens as he looked at you. Still, his body worked despite his befuddled mind as he took the cloth you handed him and offered you a newborn baby to hold instead.

“[Y/N],” Wanda gasped through her current endeavor. When you dragged your head to look at her, she was staring at you with a clenched jaw and equally wide eyes, which were filled with a mixture of surprise, horror, and… relief? Then she was screaming and pushing again, eyes squeezed shut, and her hand flew to your own.

You grabbed it and held on tight, even when her fingernails dug in enough to leave marks for days. While a red and silver-skinned Vision handled the delivery like a champ—a bugged out, stammering, robotic champ who couldn’t figure out whether he should be looking at you, his wife, or the baby he was helping into the world but a champ nonetheless—you switched between offering encouraging words to the tiring new mother and cooing calmly at the newborn swaddled and resting cozily in the crook of your arm. Soon enough, Wanda was slumping back into the pillow behind her head and Vision was sitting back on his haunches with another quiet baby snuggled against his chest; your taut muscles sagged and the exhaustion you hit in the kitchen came rushing back.

You made sure Wanda was lucid enough to take her baby back and carefully transferred from your arms to hers. It was only after he was safely in his mother’s grasp that you were able to fully relax, tossing an arm around Vision’s shoulders and leaning heavily against him while you shook out your other hand, which was red and covered in deep, crescent moon-shaped marks.

“So,” you puffed, “Billy and Tommy?”

Wanda’s tired face lit up as she nodded her head towards her baby. “Tommy.”

Vision, who was leaning on you as much as you were on him—something in the back of your head noted that the two of you held each other very well and that something sent a little pang of affection straight to your pounding heart—used his turn to nuzzle the forehead of the baby he held and grumble in a half British, half baby-talk accent, “Billy.”

You hummed while stretching a hand down to give Billy a very ginger boop on the nose; he didn’t seem to mind. Then you said, “Vinny and Vivian will just have to be next time.”

Your group shuddered with a mess of tired, soft laughter. Then you began to relax further but as the excitement of childbirth began to wear off, you a new variation of tension settling into your couple. The new parents were sharing increasingly worried looks and if they were communicating telepathically, and it was then that you remembered that the man sitting next to you was for less human than you’d previously made him out to be.

The realization seemed to hit him at almost the same time because his head swung to look at you just as you had turned to observe his new appearance. On his robotic face—was robotic even the word; was he a robot?—was an expression of outright fear but also something that looked like he was mentally being torn in two different directions. He went to speak several times—his mouth and teeth looked the same, perfect and familiar—only to verbally scramble and backtrack, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders since his hands were too occupied to scratch his neck. Finally, he appeared to get himself in order and he started, “[Y/N], I can— we can explain—”

You ran your hand over his scalp and down to rest at the base of his neck; the silver plating felt like metal, while the thick red epidermis was warm and softer to the touch. Not only warm but damp from exertion, and pulsing softly to some form of a heartbeat where you ran a finger over a common pulse point.

While your mental energy was rapidly declining, you still managed to quip at the man, “As much as loved the idea of running my fingers through your hair, I think I prefer this over that awful cut that’s in style right now.”

That left Vision dumbfounded and silent, his mouth flopping open and closed like a fish out of water. On your other side, who had been otherwise quiet and already snoozing as far as you were concerned, broke into a burst of loud laughter that was music to your ears.

You grinned in response but your muscles were too tired to make it reach your eyes. You shifted over slightly to be closer to Wanda now and brushed your thumb over little Tommy’s cheek before resting doing a similar action to his mother’s. Wanda relaxed her head against your palm and the way she looked up at you from under her lashes made you do mental gymnastics about the ethics of blurting out the L-word then and there.

Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last much longer because then Geraldine’s voice floated over from the kitchen, getting louder as she and the doctor made their way back from the wild stork chase you sent them on. You quickly looked to Vision, only to see him looking as human as the day you first met him, and noted the sad little string you got from seeing simple blue irises instead of the intricately shifting blue ones that swirled mechanically as he focused on something. It only lasted a moment, though, before you and your trio were busy readjusting yourselves into what you considered normal poses but in reality, probably made the three of you look much more awkward than you previously had.

You’d just finished settling as Geraldine and her companion walked into the living room and, thinking tiredly and definitely stupidly, you blurted, “Jeepers creepers, another baby!”

“Twenty fingers and twenty toes, you’ve got two healthy baby boys on your hands.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Wanda responded as the man handed Billy back to her. Vision stood watchfully next to her, holding Tommy.

You poked your head up from behind the second crib you were finishing assembling and as the doctor turned to thank Geraldine for her delivery help, you said to the Maximoff couple, “And a second crib all ready to go. If they’re not fans of sleeping separately, let me know and we can exchange the ones you have for one big one.”

Wanda held out her hand to you as you stood and you walked over to hold it only briefly as she thanked you before leaning over and crooning at Billy and Tommy in turn. You were in the company of others, after all, and there had been enough excitement for one day without revealing your polyamorous relationship to a neighbor and a random doctor.

It was weird how different the energy felt standing with them now than it had earlier just that day alone. Things still felt new and strange but you no longer felt like a separate unit from the household you were standing in or the people standing and smiling oh so sweetly at you. Then again, maybe that’s just what being involved in the arrival of an unexpected set of twins and making a superhuman discovery about one of your partners did to all blossoming romantic triads in the seventies.

Speaking of the doctor, as he began to finish up chatting with Geraldine, Vision beckoned you closer, and after getting an okay to do so, he carefully laid the baby he held in your arms. He gave Tommy a nuzzle and a light tap on the nose, then straightened up and headed towards the door.

He said to the other man, “Allow me to walk you out, doctor.”

“Oh, alright,” the doctor responded with an odd quiver in his voice. Said quiver was confirmed to be restlessness, which you had no doubt was attached to some sort of superhuman business Vision had involved him in when picking him up, when he continued, “As long as we actually walk this time?”

You would definitely have to delve into the mystery of Vision’s sometimes inhuman appearance at a later date but at that moment you were remembering how the entire neighborhood’s pipes had burst. The neighborhood of which your house was a part of and an event you were sure you hadn’t been lucky enough to avoid.

“Oh, shi—oot,” you stammered, “I should probably get back to my own pad and save what I can from getting water damage. I haven’t even been home to see how bad everything is.” You provided Tommy with a very important explanation in very serious baby babble terms before placing him in his crib. “I’ll just leave my car on this side of the street and bring the other stuff in sometime later this evening if that’s alright with you, Wanda?”

When you looked at her, she was giving you a confused head tilt. She blinked, then her eyes shot wide open. “Oh, the pipes!” She paused and turned her gaze to the far wall of the living room as if she could see your house through it, then looked back at you with a smile. “Your house should be fine. In fact, I think the entire neighborhood is back intact!”

Something about the way she looked at you assured you that she was right. You wondered whether Vision wasn’t the only one with a unique secret under this roof and if all the strange happenings that had gone on today couldn’t be traced back to Wanda herself.

Not that any of that really mattered in the grand scheme of things.

“I should still go,” you insisted, “You should really rest for a while, and I am a mess for the second time today. Maybe I can pop back over in a little bit?”

Wanda pursed her lips in a subtle doubt before giving in. She nodded and after taking a glance around to make sure the company was occupied, she grasped your hand and leaned in closer. “Come over for dinner tonight. Stay and help us get the babies settled in? We can talk about today.”

“Wanda, you need rest—”

The woman interrupted, a teasing look making her eyes glitter. “Which is why either you or Vision will be doing the cooking! And you know how much I love the man but there’s a reason the only thing he handles in the kitchen is water from the faucet.”

You had to nod in somber agreement at that statement, then sighed and gave Wanda a pout of your own. “Fine. Now, is anyone looking?”

Wanda was smiling triumphantly. She took another quick look around, then shook her head; her silky hair fanned out slightly from its position perfectly framing her head as she did.

You shuffled a little closer and slipped an arm around her waist in an intimate hug. Leaning in, you gave her one quick smooch on the cheek and another on the forehead then mumbled against her skin, “You did amazing.” Another kiss. “And you’re going to be a wonderful mother. Please, though, promise me that you’ll rest, at least for a little bit. The world will not crumble around you if you take one break.”

Wanda, who had immediately leaned into your embrace and giggled as you kissed her, scoffed slightly. She gave you a tight squeeze and murmured back, “I suppose you’re right. Fine, but only because you promised to cook.”

“Well, technically,” you said as you broke away from her, “I only said I’d come over. I can’t wait for Vision to make us burnt water and boiled bacon!”

Wanda stared after you, frozen in a mock gasp. “[Y/N]!”

You grinned and waved before spinning on your heels and trotting over to where Vision was perched, holding the door. “Bye!”

When you got to the door, Vision’s hand played lightly down your back as he followed you outside after the doctor.

“Well, Dr. Nielson,” Vision said, “I hope you’re still able to make your trip.”

The doctor, apparently Dr. Nielson, slowed as he stepped off the porch and onto the sidewalk. He turned towards Vision with a glassy look in his eye that he hadn’t had before but you’ve been seeing more and more often in Westview residents these days. When he talked, his speech became slower as well.

“Ah, yes, about my trip,” he drawled, “I don’t think we’ll get away after all. Small towns, you know. So hard to… escape.”

You frowned, suddenly uneasy. Glancing at Vision, the man just looked confused.

Dr. Nielson’s glassy gaze shifted from Vision to you. He spoke deliberately to you, “Don’t you think, [Y/N]?” Then he blinked, turned, and walked off down the sidewalk.

You weren’t sure exactly why, but you flinched and reeled back. You would have tripped and fallen up the porch if it weren’t for Vision catching you. Then the two of you stood gripping each other and staring as the doctor disappeared around the corner.

You didn’t even realize that your ears had started ringing until the sound began to fade. You started, “Well, that was…”

“Yeah,” Vision said with a slow nod. “Very. Are you alright?”

“Fine, I think.”

“No migraines?”

“No migraines.”

The two of you stood holding each other for a moment longer before you forced your fingers to loosen their death grip on Vision’s jacket. As the two of you relaxed slightly and readjusted yourselves, several questions rushed through your head, like why was that so unnerving and why did the doctor speak directly to you.

How had he known your name?

A particularly sharp pain made your vision swim temporarily but it was gone as soon as it came. Before you think any further on the subject, other voices floated into your range of hearing.

“What is she doing in there?”

“I don’t know.”

You followed the voices with your eyes and found Agnes and Herb talking quietly by the wall Herb had been cutting into earlier; actually, Herb looked like he’d barely moved an inch, still standing in the gap between his wall of shrubs. At least he appeared more lucid, but now he and Agnes were huddled together like they were having a secret meeting. Neither of them noticed you yet.

Vision decided to change that by throwing up a hand and hollering, “Howdy neighbors!”

Agnes spun around so quickly you were wonder if she’d given herself whiplash, but the strained greetings and even more strained expressions that both she and Herb gave were what really piqued your interest.

Well, not so much piqued your interest than their actions gave you a second dose of uneasiness that made your head spin and filled you with a sense of somewhat morbid curiosity.

Then they stuck their heads back together and continued muttering.

“Did you see her go inside?” Agnes questioned.

Herb responded, “She went right in.”

Vision leaned his head closer to yours; he didn’t seem to catch what they were saying. “Do they seem… a little off to you?”

“Just a tad.”

You silently deliberated with each other before casually strolling over.

“Remarkable day we’re having, no?” Vision tried again.

Agnes and Herb looked up again, also trying to look casual but there was something definitely worrisome about their equally strained smiles.

Vision continued, “Did you lose power too?”

You snapped your fingers, joining in. “That’s right! Agnes, you called me about the pipes bursting. I hope nothing got too damaged?”

“Oh, sure did,” Agnes said to Vision, “but Ralph looks better in the dark, so I’m not complaining. And you’re right, I did, [Y/N]! Luckily, everything’s just fine.”

There was an awkward pause and even though you were out in open air, you felt like you were struggling to breathe in a sauna.

Vision said, “Hi, Herb.”

Herb responded, “Heya, buddy.”

More awkward silence.

“Well,” Vision said slowly, lightly clapping his hands together, “I’ll get back to Wanda. [Y/N], you’re heading home?”

“Right,” you affirmed, a little too quickly.

What is going on?

Vision placing his hand on your back brought back some sense of normalcy as he began escorting you to the curb.

“Vision,” Agnes abruptly said halting your exit. You and your partner turned back to her and Herb and she continued after a long-winded pause and adjusting her awkward stance leaning against the low wall, “Is Geraldine inside with Wanda?”

“Yes. Why?”

Herb piped up, “She’s new to town. Brand new.”

Wait, that’s not right. Your brows furrowed and you felt the sting of your own bite as you chewed your bottom lip. You felt pressure in your skull as you tried to recall where you’d previously met the woman, because you knew you had, but trying to do so had a similar feeling to trying to grip water as it rushed through your fingers.

Agnes went on, “There’s no family. No husband.”

You would have scowled, said something in defense of your circumstances of moving to Westview without a family or marriage, but you were too busy trying to clear away the fog that quickly encroaching your headspace. Vision, on the other hand, was able to say something, “Well there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Agnes hummed, gave a half-hearted nod, then steadily met his gaze. “No home.”

Come to think of it, you knew very little about Geraldine. While you were positive that you’d met her before today, you couldn’t for the life of you place what she did for work, when she first appeared in Westview, what house in the cul-de-sac she lived in—

You could list off the names of everyone who lived in your neighborhood. Geraldine wasn’t one of them.

Your brain felt like it could expand and explode from the intense pressure at any moment but the dread pooling in the pit of your stomach from the idea of not being able to retrieve memories bothered you far more. You couldn’t bring yourself to push the thoughts away and instead mentally leaned into the pain. The harder you pushed, the more pressure pushed back, as if you were fighting against an invisible barrier that was barring you from your own memories.

At the same time, you attempted to keep yourself grounded by staying tuned into the conversation at hand. Vision asked Agnes what she meant by Geraldine having no home and Herb kept stumbling over the same beginning of a sentence—She came here because… She came here because… She came here because we’re all…—like he was a record on a broken player that just wouldn’t let him get out what he wanted to say.

Vision tried to urge him on. “She came here because what? What are trying to tell me?”

With Agnes and Herb bickering briefly about whether or not to tell Vision whatever it was they had been speaking about, Vision completely tuned into them, and you fighting to remember things without succumbing to your migraines, you had an underlying feeling of being out of place. You’ve felt out of place before, of course, but this was something different and weird and wrong. Your entire perfect—but not so much, you were gradually learning—little town suddenly seemed like it was out of place in its state, its country, its world, its reality. Out of nowhere, Westview felt like it was trapped in a claustrophobic little bubble that wouldn’t let anyone escape and the longer anyone was here, the warped things would become—

A memory came rushing back of a black and white talent show and a smashed mirror and an arm oozing blood and color and Geraldine was there but she was an eerie Geraldine, out of place and time and reality and asking if you knew who she was or who you were and you didn’t know the answer and then Wanda and Vision appeared and everything was okay again, and now the name Monica throbbed against the base of your neck and the air around you radiated electricity and it was itchy and no one around you was noticing anything and instead of darkness, a weird bright light was tinging the edges of your vision white and—

There was a crash coming from the house and none of the people standing next to you were any the wiser but even though you felt like you were swimming through honey while doing it, you turned just in time to see a portion of a nearby wall explode as something shot out from inside and continued flying until it disappeared into the distance. Then there was a sound similar to a sonic boom that followed and a wave of nausea crashed over you as the electric air rippled and distorted right before your eyes, and then you could see the dome of TV static-looking energy that encapsulated your town and the dome seemed to peak directly above the Maximoff house.

Your ears rang. Your mouth flapped open closed but you couldn’t force a single word out. You looked around and everyone else in your group seemed trapped in a strained conversation that they couldn’t escape from if they wanted to.

You didn’t so much walk as you floated over to the gaping hole in the side of your couple’s house, or at least, that’s what it felt like as the ground grew soft and wobbly under your feet and you swayed as you moved. You reached the hole and peered through it, then waved aimlessly when you saw Wanda staring wide-eyed at you from a couple of demolished rooms away. She said or mouthed something—she’s sorry? Why?—but you couldn’t tell which it was over the thrumming of your own pulse in your ears. You cocked your head, more out of curiosity than confusion, then blinked and stared glassy-eyed as the hole in the house reversed itself.

“Huh,” you said dumbly as the last brick fell back into place. “Cool.”

Then your body felt as if it were slammed back onto very hard, solid ground and that’s because it was. You weren’t sure if you whined or groaned or screamed as you collapsed to the ground, succumbing to your worst migraine yet.

192 notes · View notes

unnuevosoltransformalarealidad · 3 years

Text

Witchcraft

Title: Witchcraft Summary: Sam & Dean found out you are a witch. You have to explain to them that you are not like the ones they hunt them Pairing: Winchester Brothers x Reader, Rowena, Castiel Prompt: Square Filled > MoodBoard Warnings: Witchcraft talking, negative and positive energies, Word Count: 1581 This was written for the Make Me Feel Bingo of @girl-next-door-writes A/N: All the pictures were found on Google, except the anti possession tattoo, that picture is mine. Also, this is my first moodboard ever, so if you have any tips, let me know!

You’ve been hanging around and living with the Winchester since Bobby died. They promised him to look after you, mostly because you were hunting with them, but you’d rather doing research. You always said that knowledge was the best weapon you could master. Of course, Dean said you were as nerd as Sam was, but you wouldn’t complain because it was true. The Men of Letters’ bunker was a temple for you, it was pure gold. You spent hours and hours reading the books, the files, the research, everything. It was your perfect paradise.

One night after a rough hunt, Dean ended up having a really strong headache and nothing seemed to be helping him. You wanted to help him but you didn’t know how. You’ve read most of the books that were there and you couldn’t remember anything that could help him. Well, actually, there was one thing, and you’d promised Bobby to use it only with people you really cared about, and Dean clearly was important for you.

When you went to bed that night, you prayed. Prayed for Dean, prayed for protection, and prayed to help him to get rid of that headache. They didn’t know, but as Bobby used to say, you were special. It was a secret you needed to keep from them because you were aware of the reaction. Sometime later, Dean showed up at the library feeling a lot much better, like if he had never been on a tough hunt. You were really happy because he was feeling better, but you couldn’t say the same thing for you. You felt sick, probably the headache you were feeling was a lot stronger than Dean was feeling, you felt quite bad for him for feeling like that. You left your room and went directly to the kitchen, you needed to drink cold water.

-Hey — Dean greeted you — are you alright? — he asked concerned -Yeah, I just need some cold water — you explained -Are you sure? -Yeah, don’t worry — you said entering the kitchen. There was Sam -Hi Sammy — you greeted him -Hi Y/N — Sam greeted — how… Are you feeling ok? -Yeah — you said filling a glass with the water — I just need this — you said gesturing the water glass -Are you sure? You look pale — Sam said concerned -Yeah, Sammy. Don’t worry, it’s just a headache — you explained -If you need anything, let me know — you just nodded and went back to your room

The following hunt, an exhausting werewolf pack that moved around a few states was killed, Sam ended up with a migraine. Again, you looked for any spell or medicinal herbs to help him, but nothing was a hundred percent safe, so you did as you promised and once you were back in the bunker, you prayed. You prayed for him, to help him feel better, to get rid of that migraine, to give him a peaceful rest without pain. And a few hours later, he was as good as new, with just a slight headache barely noticeable, but you, it was a whole another story. You were light-sensitive, your stomach was churning and the pain was crushing your skull.

The next hunt was three days later after the werewolf pack. The guys had asked you to join them but you preferred staying to do some research, but actually, you just wanted to lay down and rest and get rid of the remnants of Sam’s migraine. The demon they were hunting had told Dean that you were a witch and you were performing witchcraft on them. Of course, Dean didn’t believe it and killed the demon. He wasn’t sure about it, because he started to remember his brother’s and his headache and hoe quickly faded. It was suspicious, but he couldn’t believe it. Probably the demon was just playing with his mind.

When they arrived at the bunker, they found you fast asleep on the war table surrounded by books. Dean wanted to wait until you woke up to talk with you. Not long after they arrived you woke up. You went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When you entered the kitchen, Dean was already there with the computer looking for another case.

-Y/N, can we talk? — he said and you knew. He found out. -I guess — you said hesitating -How are you feeling? Really -I’m fine De — you said -Y/N, you stayed back on a demon hunt, and you were locked in your room with the lights out for two days. What’s going on? — He asked worried — Talk to me -I have strong headaches. I’ve been reading a lot lately and I’m getting older. I won’t be able to see perfectly my whole life — you just lie -Y/N, I’m serious — he clenched his jaw -Not now, De. I’m tired and I want to go to bed — you said heading to the hallways -Answer me this, and I let you go — you looked at him — promise -Ok. What do you want to know? -Are you a witch? What? — you asked surprised -Seriously Dean? — Sam questioned entering the kitchen -Answer me -No, Dean. I’m not a witch. Why would you say that? -What’s going on with you?— Sam was pissed off -I’m sorry, I just needed to know -Why? — you asked curiously -It’s something the demon said. Forget about it. I’m sorry I asked. He probably was messing with my mind. I’m sorry. You can go to bed sweetheart — You didn’t say anything and left the kitchen

You felt bad for lying to them, but it was the best. Dean couldn’t find out, he would kill you. After that little discussion, you called Rowena for help. You weren’t feeling great. Rowena showed up, she helped you and stayed a little just in case you needed her again

-I wasn’t expecting you to upset her, dear— Rowena said -I didn’t mean it, but… -What if she is? Does it matter? I’m a witch and you haven’t killed me — Rowena mentioned -Yet — Dean said -What do you know Rowena? — Sam asked curious You were in the hallway listening, you needed to tell them the truth. -No, Dean. I’m not a witch, well, not like Rowena -What do you mean by saying not like her? — he was confused -She is considered a witch, but she is not like me. She does good things for people, she doesn’t do harm with what she does — Rowena explained -I’m not following — Sam said -Well, I do witchcraft for my own benefit. Y/N does it to help people, to help the people she cared about -Dean, you remember the headache you had a little while ago, and then vanished? I kind of cured it. And sam, the migraine you had the other day, I cured it too They were perplexed, they didn’t understand what you were talking about. They didn’t know what to believe anymore -Listen to her — Rowena begged -I prayed to the gods, the gods I praised, to help you, both of you to get rid of the headache, and I absorbed it -You absorbed it? -Dean asked -Yeah. Most of the headaches are caused by negative energies in your body. I’m very sensitive to them, so I can absorb them and help you to feel better — you explained — It’s difficult to understand, but I can show you some books where it’s explained -It’s not the same as I do. So when she feels bad, like today, she calls me for help, and I helped her to change those negative energies into positive energy and make her feel better -I work with energies, the phases of the moon. I promise you Dean, I would never use these gifts to do harm, ever -She is considered a witch by the bible because it says that is something given by the devil — Rowena explained -It’s true — Castiel appeared — She has asked me a few times for help. She only does good -I understand if you don’t believe me guys, but please, don’t kill me. I’ll go -Y/N, we would never kill you. You are everything to us, and we promised Bobby to keep you safe — Sam said -But that was before we knew this — Dean commented -Dude, come on — Sam scolded Dean -If it makes you feel better, Bobby knew and he made me promised to do only good to the people I care about. And that’s you guys. — you said and started to move to the hallway to go to your room to pack your stuff -Y/N — Dean called you — Do you promise me, that you would never ever for any reason use that to harm people? -I promise you, Dean, I would never use them to cause any type of harm to anyone — you said sincerely -I’m sorry I reacted that what— Dean said and hugged you — you know how much I hate witches

You laughed and hugged him back. You knew that you needed to do a lot of explaining to them, but it was only a matter of time until they truly believed you. But lucky for you, Cas and Rowena were there to help you.

Tag List (Let me know if you want to be added)

#girl next door's make me feel bingo #make me feel bingo #supernatural imagine #supernatural x reader #supernatural fanfiction #spn x reader #spn fanfic #sam x dean x reader #dean x reader x sam #writing challenge

76 notes · View notes

skarsgard-daydreams · 3 years

Text

Drabble Masterlist

Note: For the most up-to-date masterlist, please go here!

Axel (Deadpool)

His Flower (complete, drabble) | Axel x OC

Even though she’s terrified, Axel’s girl longs for a tattoo.

Eric (True Blood)

Elegy (complete, drabble) | Eric x Sookie

At Sookie’s darkest moments, Eric is there.

Bloody Valentine (complete, drabble) | Eric x Reader

You only want one thing for Valentine’s day: Eric Northman.

Beauty Sleep (complete, drabble) | Eric x Reader

When you have a migraine, Eric wishes he could take the pain away.

Mind Games (complete, drabble) 18+ | Eric x Reader

You’re an excellent bartender, unless Eric is wearing those damned leather pants.

Claustrophobia (complete, drabble) | Eric x Reader

Sometimes, sleeping beside your lover means sleeping in a coffin.

Inebriation (complete, drabble) 18+ | Eric x Reader

You’re not sure what Eric is like when he’s under the influence, but you’re determined to find out.

Aegir’s Promise (complete, drabble) | Eric x Reader

Promises made in a foreign tongue sound twice as sweet.

Open Invitation (complete, drabble) 18+ | Eric x Reader

On nights when Eric visits your bed, he can’t resist the urge to tease.

Henry/The Kid (Castle Rock)

Quantum Entanglement (complete, drabble) | The Kid x Teacher!Reader in third-person

Henry seeks to quiet his mind by any means necessary.

Clair de Lune (complete, drabble) | The Kid x Teacher!Reader

In music, Henry finds himself again, if only for a time.

Theory of Relativity (complete, drabble) | The Kid x Teacher!Reader in third-person

Without you there, time becomes distorted for Henry.

Father of Lies (complete, drabble) | no pairings

A dark presence preys on Henry when he’s at his lowest.

Causality (complete, drabble) | The Kid x Teacher!Reader

Even when you’re apart, you feel a strange connection to The Kid.

My collection “Sound and Color” also has 50+ drabbles/imagines about The Kid.

Merkel (Atomic Blonde)

A Comet Appears (complete, drabble) | Merkel x OC

Facing impending loss, Merkel looks to the stars.

Headache (complete, drabble) | Merkel x OC

On migraine days, the simple things he does are what matter the most.

Sweet Dreams (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x Reader

To fulfill your fantasy, Merkel invites someone else into your bedroom.

Paper Jam (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x Reader

There is something distracting about the way Merkel handles his photocopier.

Polizisten (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x OC

She knows how to get what she wants out of him, even if it’s letting him be in charge.

Sleeping Venus (complete, drabble) | Merkel x OC

Despite what the old woman next door says, Merkel is definitely not in love.

Delicate Transitions (complete, drabble) | Merkel x OC

She tells herself she will not leave without him, not even if he begs.

Fermata (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x OC

Merkel loves to make her play piano for him.

Genuflection (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x Reader

Sometimes, he dresses you up and worships your body.

Pfeffernüsse (complete, drabble) 18+ | Merkel x Reader

During the holidays, Merkel indulges your sweet tooth.

Mickey (Villains)

Float On (complete, drabble) | Mickey x Reader

When in doubt, Mickey always bets on himself.

Bender (complete, drabble) 18+ | Mickey x Pierced!Reader

Even in your drunken state, you never expected Mickey to claim the crop top belonged to him.

Kaleidoscope (complete, drabble) 18+ | Mickey x OC

Riding with Mickey is always a hell of a trip.

Home for the Holidays (complete, drabble) | Mickey x Reader

For Mickey, Christmas traditions are serious business.

Ugly Sweater (complete, drabble) | Mickey x Reader

Mickey’s idea of a dress code has always been questionable.

Roman (Hemlock Grove)

Pomegranate (complete, drabble) 18+ | Roman x Reader

Letting go was never Roman's style, but you intend to change that.

Gatsby (complete, drabble) | Roman x Reader

Roman loathes everyone at the high school, except you.

Little Ghost (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

She is a ghost to him, but Roman longs to be haunted.

Vanitas (complete, drabble) | Roman x Reader

The only time you sleep in his shirt is when he’s not there.

Broken Glass (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

He cannot say he loves her, but he doesn’t want to lose her.

New Hire (complete, drabble) 18+ | Roman x Reader

When you took the job at the Institute, you never imagined your first day would end like this.

Ultimatum (complete, drabble) | Roman x Reader

After discovering Roman’s ability to manipulate the minds of humans, you give him an ultimatum.

Sin of Omission (complete, drabble) | Roman x Pregnant!Reader

You can’t keep your secret from Roman any longer.

The Grinch (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

On Christmas morning, Roman’s claim to be The Grinch is more accurate than he intended.

Nature vs. Nurture (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

Loving Roman is a dangerous gamble.

Witchcraft (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

Roman likes to watch her work her magic.

Panic Room (complete, drabble) 18+ | Roman x Reader

He doesn’t care if he makes you late for work. And though you might protest, you don’t either.

Wuthering Heights (complete, drabble) | Roman x OC

Required reading always seems optional to Roman, but not to his girlfriend.

Willard (The Devil All the Time)

Psalms (complete, drabble) 18+ | Willard x Reader

For Willard, love-making can be a form of prayer.

Night Terrors (complete, drabble) | Willard x OC

When she faces her nightmares, Willard is there to hold her close.

Ornaments (complete, drabble) | Willard x OC

On Christmas Eve, Willard just wants to give his wife everything she deserves.

Blossoming (complete, drabble) 18+ | Willard x Reader

Willard discovers how to make your flower bloom.

Updated: April 7th, 2021

#masterlist

110 notes · View notes

whitewitchdani · 4 years

Text

Laters, Baby: Chapter 11

Read Chapter 10 Here

Word Count: 1579

Pairing: Winchester!Sister x Lucifer

Warnings: language, angst, mentions of blood

A/N: Sorry it’s late but here’s Chapter 11! Let me know what you guys think and if you’d like to be tagged!

Laters, Baby Masterlist

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I’m not going to help you summon Lucifer, Y/N. Not when your plan is to shut out your brothers and submit yourself to him fully.”

You huffed, “I thought you agreed that this was happening for a reason?”

“I do. But this is not the way to go about it. Your family is on the other side of that door and wants to help you. Let them.”

“HA!” You rolled your eyes and began pacing, “Family. That’s rich, Cas. According to Dean I have no family.”

Cas sighed, “Dean did not mean what he said in the way you interpreted it. He’s worried for you Y/N; Lucifer entered your subconscious and he believes he’s using the connection and its effects to manipulate you.”

You looked at him confused, “How do you know all of that?”

“The Winchesters are my charges; it is my duty to watch over and protect you all. I was coming to speak to you all about Lucifer and I showed up when you awoke. I decided to keep my presence hidden as you took care of family business.”

You sighed, “What am I supposed to do?” You looked down and rubbed your temples; everything from the past hour was giving you a migraine.

“I am not sure. We should bring back your brothers and Bobby so we can discuss it. While this is your life, you are not the only person who it will impact.”

“I know that Cas,” you grimaced and rubbed your forehead; your head was really starting to hurt. “I just want to do what’s best for my brothers, the world, and, well, myself.”

“I understand. We will figure it out, Y/N. Please, allow me to fetch Sam, Dean, and Bobby. All of us together can determine the best solution.”

You heard what Cas had said but were having a hard time focusing on the angel in front of you, feeling like you couldn’t get your eyes to focus on one spot for too long. It caused the headache to move back to your temples and behind your eyes, and you began holding the sides of your head to try to get it to stop.

Cas tilted his head and walked towards you, “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

You grimaced, “Ah, I don’t know. My head has been hurting since I woke up and it’s starting to get worse.”

Cas moved right in front of you and lifted your chin with his finger, making you look up at him. When you finally met his gaze, his demeanor immediately shifted at what he saw. He waved his hand at the door and moved the dresser that had been shoved in front of it.

“SAM! DEAN! GET IN HERE!” Castiel bellowed through the newly opened door.

Three pairs of boots could be heard running through the house and up the stairs. When Sam, Dean, and Bobby all arrived in the room, all they saw was your back with Castiel standing in front of you cupping your face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Dean.

“You need to see this.”

Cas moved from in front of you to allow the three men to take his place. When they did, they were speechless. It was obvious you were in pain from the expression on your face, but that wasn’t what bothered them.

It was the trail of blood leaking from your right eye.

“What the hell? Y/N/N are you alright?” Sam moved forward to look more closely at your face.

You took a shaky breath, “My head really hurts, Sammy. What’s happening?”

Sam brought you into his arms and turned to look at his brother, who in turn looked to Castiel for answers. “Well?”

“The blood isn’t coming from any injury that I can sense. The headache and the bleeding are not caused by any physical ailment. It’s the connection. She’s been away from him for over 24 hours and it must be affecting her more than we originally believed. Lucifer visiting her in her subconscious I’m sure did not improve things.”

“Why were you in here in the first place?” Dean skeptically asked the angel.

“She called for me. She wants me to help her summon Lucifer. Originally, I vetoed that idea without your input, but now I’m not seeing many other options. This connective migraine could subside on its own...”

“Or?” questioned Sam.

“Or it could persist until she is reunited with Lucifer. Possibly get worse.”

“What about Lucifer? If she’s like this, shouldn’t he be feelin’ the hurt downstairs too?” Bobby moved to wipe the blood from your face; it was killing him to see you hurt like this. The Winchester’s were basically his own kids, but he was especially protective of you.

“Most likely, though I’m sure it’s not to this degree. Lucifer’s human vessel will feel the physical pain but it will be more irritating than anything. The longing is what will affect him the most.”

It was quiet for a few moments as what was happening sunk in. The boys looked at each other in silent conversation both saying the same thing: they had no idea what the fuck to do.

Sam looked down to the shaking form in his arms. Another trail of blood was streaming down your face and it was obvious you were still in pain. He looked to Bobby, “What do we do, Bobby?”

The elder hunter sighed, “Do I look like a devil’s soulmate handbook to you? I have no idea what we should do. Honestly, the only person we should be talking to about this decision is her. This is her life; she’s the one that will have to deal with the pain. It should be her decision, not ours.”

“We can’t let her run off with Lucifer, Bobby. There’s no way he’ll just turn over a new leaf for her. We, we can fix this. We can find a way to put him back in the cage without hurting her.” Dean was pacing at this point.

“That would be inadvisable, Dean. If you were to return Lucifer to his cage in Hell now that the connection has begun, you could very well kill your sister.” Dean ran his fingers through his hair pulling slightly. What the hell were they supposed to do?

“Wait, I’m starting to feel better.” You emerged from Sam’s arms and walked to stand in the middle of the four men. “The headache is subsiding.”

“You aren’t bleeding anymore either.” Sam pointed out.

You put your hand up to your eye to see that Sam was right. Whatever just happened was not pleasant, and you would prefer if it didn’t happen again.

“So what do we do now? What’s our next move?” Dean asked the angel.

You knew what you thought you should do, but Cas was right, everyone needed to weigh in on this.

The angel sighed, “Truthfully, I am not sure. Part of me believes we should go with Y/N’s original plan to avoid another of these episodes. But the other knows what my brother is capable of and how his mind works; we should come up with a plan. You three should continue hunting as you normally do, I shall look for ideas for what to do next.” With a whoosh, the angel was gone.

“So what? We just go hunting like normal and pray you don’t have another episode in the middle of it? Yeah, that’s a great idea.” Dean scoffed and walked to the window. Like hell he was risking that.

“I’m fine Dean. This is our job and we have to do it. Let’s go downstairs and look for a case. Honestly going on an actual hunt sounds good to me right now, I can’t think about all of this for another second or I’m gonna go insane,” you said with a small laugh.

“I think you already are insane! You’re in no shape to hunt,” yelled Dean.

“I hate to agree with Dean Y/N, but I think he’s right,” said Sam.

You scoffed at your brothers and went to argue with them but were interrupted by Bobby, “I got word of a salt and burn over in Wichita. Should be simple, ‘specially with the three of ya. Go take care of that and see how she does and go from there; ya can’t just stop hunting. You’d go insane and you’d drive me insane by staying here.”

You looked at your brothers pointedly, “Well?” you asked crossing your arms.

Sam looked at Dean expectantly and the eldest Winchester sighed, “Fine. We’ll go on this salt and burn. But I swear on everything that is holy Y/N if you even sniffle during this hunt I’m bringing you back here to Bobby. And you have to tell us if anything hinky or Lucifer-ish happens. Capiche?”

You rolled your eyes but nodded, holding up your three middle fingers, “Scout’s honor.”

Dean sighed, “Fine, let’s roll out.”

You and Sam left the room to prepare for the hunt while Dean hung back in the bedroom with Bobby. The eldest Winchester sighed once more and ran a hand down his face. This was a bad idea.

“It’ll be alright, boy. If she says she’s fine, then she’s fine. Don’t go all overprotective on your sister or she’ll resent you and then Lucifer will have an even bigger chance of getting her.”

“I hope you’re right Bobby, I really hope you’re right.”

Read Chapter 12 Here

Tag List:

@lovesamwinchester @tomhiddleston-is-mischief @loco-latte @stuckinsaudi1 @sugar-nico @potato-extra-pot @humbledarkness @the-fiery-ghost @jo-wayward @streetghostfighter07 @millieccino

73 notes · View notes

thebiasrekkers · 3 years

Text

Make It Right [BTS Mafia AU]

Plot: “It’s always darkest before the dawn…” It’s a dog-eat-dog world in Seoul, South Korea. One has to dwell in the shadows in order to reach for the light. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to feel the sunlight on your face? What will it take to drag you back into darkness? How long will the journey be to make it right?

Rating: NC-17 // NSFW

Pairings: Jin x OC | Taehyung/Hoseok x OC | Yoongi/Jungkook x OC

Warnings: Graphic Violence (bloody violence), Heavy Language, Angst, Slow Burn, Smut

Previous Chapters: Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin E’s AO3 || Admin E’s WP || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 3,239

Tag List: @prisczero, @pinkpjmin, @btsaudge, @flowerwrites06, @unoriginal-username15432, @halussali, @shrimpmsg, @ggukkieland

AN: I need to quit fooling you people. Because the trust issues are going to get worse. Maybe this is a silver lining? Maybe? Yes? ...I’ll go away now.

Chapter 55: Sea

“Praying that we’ll remain in this desert till the end. Praying that this isn’t truly our reality.”

© thebiasrekkers (Admin E). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.

Two Days Later Jeju Island – Seogwipo South Korea

When Taehyung first came to, he felt warmth blanketing his entire body. Every so often, a gentle brush of cool air passed over him. His limbs ached and it felt like a stone was being pressed against his chest. Breathing was a seemingly impossible task. When he could breathe, the sensation of phantom glass fragments scraped along the insides of his lungs. Coughing was a regular occurrence. Through said coughing fit was how he was able to pull himself back to consciousness.

For a moment, he believed he had, in fact, died. There was a part of him that even accepted it. But he wouldn’t have accepted it with a smile, of that he was most certain.

There were people waiting for him; people he would potentially be leaving behind.

The faces of his brothers and of the woman he loved yanked him from the abyss.

An old man sat next to him, moving a fan slowly over his body. Sweat seemed to cover him from head to toe and there was a large basin of ice beside him. Again, Taehyung coughed and tried to sit up. But the old man placed a hand on his shoulder, gently urging him to lie back down on the futon. What energy he managed to muster quickly slithered out of him, the weight of exhaustion overwhelming him all over again.

Had he actually died?

“Don’t make such a fuss,” said the old man.

The stranger’s skin was bronze from being out in the sun, his worn and wrinkled hands and face gave testimony to the life he lived. His hair was a salt and pepper gray, frazzled from being whipped around in the ocean breeze just outside. Despite his seemingly austere appearance and gruff tone, his dark eyes were gentle as he continued to move the fan back and forth over Taehyung’s prone form.

Taehyung squinted slowly, the light peeling in from the window almost blinding him. He tried to lift his arm to shield his eyes, but found it more difficult than he’d anticipated. Sensing his distress, the old man shifted so his small frame could block as much of the light as he could.

“Where am I?”

The question croaked from Taehyung’s throat, surprising him. Attempting to swallow, he mentally reeled at how terrible he sounded.

He heard the man scoff, a sympathetic smirk pulling at his thin lips. “My home,” he replied simply, resting the fan on his knee, “you’ve got the devil’s luck, young man.”

Taehyung tried to smile but realized it probably looked like a grimace. “You don’t know the half of it, Oroshin.”

He watched the man’s smile widen a measure. “You’re young, but I see you still have some manners.”

Again, he attempted to sit up and failed. The old man seemed to take pity on him, reaching out with his thin arms to help him. When he was up, Taehyung winced at the tight feeling around his chest. He rubbed at it gingerly as the elder pressed a cold compress to his temple. Willing himself not to shrink back at the sudden cold, his eyes wandered around the abode to serve as a distraction.

He could tell that it was the home of a local fisherman. Quaint, humble and quiet; save for the crashing of waves along what he could only assume was the beach nearby. The salt was prevalent in the air, seeping in through what cracks existed in the house. Even though he could feel the cold wind, the floor was warm beneath him.

“Did you save me?”

Dipping the cloth into the ice water, he wrung it out and pressed it back to Taehyung’s head. “The gods saved you, my boy. You were already washed up on the shore when I stumbled across you.” He watched his eyes shifting to his shoulder and Taehyung reached up to touch the dressings over his injury. “I managed to purge the toxins out of you.”

His eyes narrowed. So it was poison, he thought angrily, shifting his gaze to the space between his knees, Lee Jooheon, you son of a bitch…

Taehyung lifted his eyes to meet the old man’s. “How long have I been out?”

“Couple of days now. The worst of it passed yesterday.”

Even though he still ached all over, Taehyung quickly shifted to sit on his knees, bowing his head low to the old man. “I’m in your debt, Oroshin.”

“Nonsense. It’s human nature to help those in need.”

Taehyung raised his head. “It’s a cruel world we live in now. Your kindness is rare in it.”

“Your view of the world is too narrow, my boy.” The old man lifted the fan and smacked Taehyung’s wrist with it. “Now enough of this. Sit comfortably.”

He did as he was told, sitting with his legs crossed in a more comfortable position. “Oroshin, I hate to burden you further, but would you mind taking me into town? I need to get back to Seoul as soon as possible.”

For an uncomfortably long moment, the old man peered at Taehyung – as if gauging what his motive was. But there was only one thing on his mind. He needed to get back to his brothers and warn them of the danger that was coming. There would still be time for them to find Eden and return her to the place she belonged.

…at Jungkook’s side.

Jooheon’s words slammed through his body like a wrecking ball, causing him to visibly shudder. Taehyung couldn’t believe it now that he was lucid. How had Jungkook managed to hide such a huge secret from them all? Then again, they’d all been so busy anticipating the moves of the Jade Fangs that a lot of things could have gone amiss. Something as small as eloping could easily be overlooked.

That didn’t mean he was any less salty about it.

When I get back, he and I are gonna have a little chat…

“Well,” cut the old man’s words through his thoughts, “it’s a good thing this washed up with you then.” He reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out Taehyung’s wallet.

He bowed as he took it from him, opening to see the paper money was worthless. So were his cards. But his ID was still intact. That was the only thing that mattered. If he could prove who he was, getting money would be easy. He peered at the old man expectantly who raised his brows at him.

“I’m assuming my phone didn’t make it?” The elder shook his head and Taehyung sighed. Of course it wouldn’t have made it. That would have been the luckiest break he could get outside of being alive. “I’ll just have to buy another one.”

“Eat something and then I’ll take you to town. You can’t function on an empty stomach.”

Taehyung flashed him his best boxy smile despite the agony he continued to feel. “Thank you, Oroshin.”

After filling his stomach with three full helpings of rice, soup, and freshly caught fish, he thanked the old man profusely for his kindness. When he asked his name, the elder simply smiled and told him to come back when all his business was taken care of. Taehyung promised he would return to repay him for saving his life.

There wasn’t much time to waste. He needed to procure funds to buy a plane ticket back to Seoul. He would worry about a phone once he landed safely. Besides, Taehyung didn’t think he could handle the slew of missed calls and voicemails demanding to know of his whereabouts. He went on blind faith that everything was okay; that his brothers were able to find something out on their end since it was obvious that his own trail was a perfectly placed trap.

The flight back to Seoul was only an hour, but he felt like time crawled at an agonizingly slow pace. The time he had alone on the plane was enough to cause Taehyung to fester in his own guilt. He was angry at himself for falling for such a setup, and he was even angrier that he hadn’t seen it for what it was.

Maybe Hyungwon was right, he thought bitterly, narrowing his eyes as he stared out the window, we’ve gotten fucking soft.

But he stood by what he said. This wouldn’t have been a problem had they taken the Jade Fangs out five years ago. Sacrifices be damned. At least they could avoid the headache inducing bullshit they were suffering right now.

He replayed the scene on Dragon’s Head Cliff repeatedly. No matter how many times he thought about it, Taehyung’s conclusion was the same every single time.

…if I hadn’t dodged, whatever came at me would have hit me straight on. He frowned. They were really trying to kill me.

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. Curling his hands into fists on the arm rests, he closed his eyes – attempting to stave off an oncoming migraine.

They would be dealt with.

They would all be dealt with.

Taehyung wouldn’t rest until he made sure of it.

Seoul - Cheongdam; Gangnam District South Korea

As soon as he landed in Seoul, he purchased a phone at one of the stores in the airport, activating it on the spot. There were several voicemails and he rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time to listen to them. Now that Taehyung could confidently say he’d met the Reaper at the Gates of the Underworld and walked away, the only person he wanted to see was the woman carrying his child. He had to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming; still sleeping from the effects of the poison.

Taehyung needed just a little more reassurance that he wasn’t dead. That he wasn’t already in Hell.

Hailing a cab, he gave instructions for the driver to take him to Raelyn’s hospital. The woman was so stubborn, insistent on continuing to work as her belly continued to swell with the life in her. Taehyung told her constantly that she didn’t need to work anymore, especially while she was with child. But she was hellbent on having her way and who was he to deny her the freedom to do as she pleased?

He’d have been a fool to try.

Taehyung quickly paid the cab driver, thanking him for getting him to his destination so quickly. He raced through the parking lot, up the steps and just barely clipped his shoulders in his impatience in waiting for the sliding doors to open wide enough to give him entrance. One of Raelyn’s co-workers that he recognized spotted him, her expression forming into shock before melting to discomfort almost immediately. He skidded to a halt in front of her, blocking her path as she seemed to mentally prepare herself to flee.

“Eunsoo-ssi,” he huffed, attempting to catch his breath, “where’s Raelyn?”

She averted her eyes, shrinking back from him as he took a step toward her. Canting his head slightly, he couldn’t hide the confusion on his face. She’d never treated him like this before. In fact, he remembered her playfully doting on him like she would a younger brother. This sudden standoffishness seemed a little unwarranted.

“She…” Eunsoo paused, taking a breath, before lifting her face to meet his gaze. Her brows were furrowed harshly and he could swear that her eyes looked glassier than they had just a few seconds ago. “She’s at the funeral hall.”

Taehyung frowned. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, I have to finish my rounds.”

Eunsoo quickly bowed, side-stepping him to disappear around the corner to the next hall. His gaze followed her as he was left in the main lobby alone.

What the hell is going on? he thought as he made his way toward the elevators. Pressing the button to give him entrance, he pressed the button that led to the mortuary floor where funeral services were typically held. Did something happen to one of their co-workers?

It didn’t take him long to make it to the funeral hall. Various other families were dressed in their traditional mourning attire and rows of wreaths with white carnations lined the walls. White ribbons hung from them, traditional hangul printed on them with the names of the deceased. He barely took notice of them, his eyes frantically searching for any sign of Raelyn.

The weight of sorrow that filled the hall was palpable, making the uncomfortable feeling welling up in his chest almost unbearable. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but Taehyung swore that a dark cloud of dread was hanging over him. He quickly shook his head, attempting to chase the nagging voices from his mind.

This was crazy. He needed to get his head together.

Just as he took another step, he stopped as someone dashed out of one of the rooms. He blinked when he realized the woman dressed in a traditional white mourning garb was Jimin’s older sister. She covered her mouth, smothering a sob, and Taehyung could only blink when she paused just seconds before colliding into him. It seemed to take her a moment to recognize who he was, as it did him for her. Her face was puffy and swollen from all the crying she’d done.

“N-Noona,” Taehyung stammered out, an icy sensation slithering down his spine, “what are you doing here?”

Her bottom lip quivered uncontrollably, her hands reaching out to grasp at the sleeves of his jacket. “Oh, Taehyung-ah,” she choked out, curling her fingers into his arms, “Jimin-ie…he…he…”

Slowly, he craned his neck to peer at the three wreaths lining the walls just outside the room she’d vacated from. He read the names on each of the ribbons draped over the wreaths. Taehyung’s heart froze for half a second before slamming viciously against his chest.

“No way,” he murmured, looking back at Jimin’s sister, “…Noona.”

Instead of answering him, he watched her collapse to her knees – a wailing sound bursting from her. Taehyung heard his very soul shattering as he pivoted on his heels, his legs carrying him into the mourning chamber.

It was crowded, bodies shuffling around as people cried or whispered among themselves. Taehyung didn’t bother removing his shoes as he stepped up onto the small landing. He saw Raelyn out of the corner of his eye. She was the first one to spot him, making her way toward him. But instead of relishing in the comfort of her embrace, the very thing he had so desperately been seeking out since he’d woken up, Taehyung stepped just out of her reach. His eyes focused on the three portraits situated on the table where various foods and flowers were placed.

“Taehyung-ah.” Seokjin called to him, but his voice sounded muffled from the incessant buzzing in his ears. He heard him say his name again and he still couldn’t hear it well.

All he could focus on were the smiling faces of Jungkook, Eden, and Jimin looking back at him from the black frames encasing their visages.

As he took another step, he saw someone move to step in his path – blocking his view of the pictures. When he lifted his eyes, he was now staring into Hoseok’s stern face.

“Where have you been?”

Taehyung continued to stare at Hoseok, blinking slowly as his mind attempted to catch up. He opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn’t find the words.

“We thought you were dead.”

The phrase shook Taehyung; rattling his bones. He visibly flinched, took a breath, then glared up at his older brother.

“Hyung,” he finally managed to say, his voice dropping a full octave, “what is this?” Raising a hand, he pointed to the side of him and gave a wide flourish to the entire scene surrounding them. “What the fuck is this?”

A hand fell on his arm and he felt Raelyn’s swollen belly pressed against his side. She buried her face into the curve of his shoulder, suppressing a sob as she pulled him close. His body felt stiff, like he’d turned into a marble statue. This was all some joke. It had to be. There was no way that any of this was real.

“How?”

“The Jade Fangs were responsible,” cut in Seokjin.

Taehyung’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no way that—”

Yoongi sighed gently. “You told us her location, Taehyung-ah.”

It was like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over his body.

“W-What?” That was impossible. He hadn’t been able to obtain that information. “I didn’t—”

“We realize that now,” added Namjoon. When Taehyung glanced at him, he nearly hiccupped at the dark expression painted over his brother’s face. “They texted us from your phone. It was all a setup from the start.”

Again, silence filled the small space around them save for the members of Jimin’s family who came, as well as friends.

“They’re gone, Taehyung-ah.”

Twisting his face to look back at Hoseok, he noticed his other brothers crowding around him in a semicircle. It wasn’t until his vision went out of focus that Taehyung realized he was now crying.

“What?” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “What do—”

Hoseok’s face softened, his brows furrowing before he closed his eyes. “They’re gone.”

The sun slowly set over Seoul’s cityscape. Lights blinked with life in succession, illuminating the darkness. Taehyung listlessly stared out over the vast expanse while standing on the hospital’s rooftop, lips puckered out while indulging on a sucker. He didn’t remember running from the mourning chamber. He didn’t remember banging his knee on the steps as he tripped over his own feet upon his ascent.

No one chased after him. They knew better. They knew he would likely implode if they did.

Taehyung didn’t stay for the cremation process. He would have thrown himself into the flames right along with them. Selfish? Of course he was. He was man enough to admit that all he could see was red.

Pulling out his phone, he crushed the candy between his teeth. Scrolling through the numerous voicemails left by Hoseok, he stopped until he saw Jimin’s name. His thumb hovered over his name, trembling, before he pressed down on the screen.

It automatically played the message on speaker mode.

“Ya, Kim Taehyung,” came Jimin’s voice from the receiver.

Taehyung’s brows furrowed, hearing the pained chuckle that followed.

“…you son of a bitch. How could you just take off for the gates of the Underworld alone? Huh?”

His grip tightened on the phone, feeling his arm shaking from the force of his hold. There was an uncomfortable stretch of silence before he heard Jimin speak again.

“Don’t even think about stirring up a bunch of shit without me. Jungkook and I will be there soon.”

Without any warning, Taehyung fell to his knees. The phone fell with a clatter beside him as his hands gripped onto the roof’s railing. His whole body shook, his silent sobs rattling through him. The tears that streamed from his face were hot and thick. He swore he could feel his own blood leaking from his eyes.

Jungkook.

Jimin.

Eden.

They were gone.

Mercilessly ripped away from the life they more than deserved to live.

Someone had to answer for this.

Someone was going to answer for this.

“I’ll make them pay,” he growled, glaring at the landscape as he ground his teeth together, “I swear to your God, Jimin-ah…”

I’ll fucking kill them all.

6 notes · View notes

msmarvelouswinchester · 4 years

Text

Lost in Translation

Summary - Jensen comes to India and falls in love with a fan who accidentally sees him while he's lost and saves him cause she knows Hindi.

Pairing - Jensen Ackles x Indian!Reader

Warning - swearing

A/N - The idea was given by the lovely @devil-in-my-boots . Hope you like it!

Jensen's POV

Crap! I should have listened to Jared. This place looks like a maze. I feel my phone going off in my pocket.

Shit! Jared is calling.

"Hey, man".

"Hey, are you okay?"

"You are the one with the stupid migraine, Jare".

"I know that. I meant are you-you are not lost, right? You should have taken Clif with you or wait till the whole gang arrived".

"Jared, I'm fine and what if your condition worsens, you need Clif with you. And Misha, Rob, Richard, they are all arriving at night. Even if I get lost, I'll find a way out. I just saw this beautiful church called St. Paul's Cathedral".

This was the last location of our con tour of India and I really wanted to see the city.

"Seems like you're enjoying yourself but Jay, this is a foreign country, just don't be a smartass. Call me if anything goes sideways".

"Jared, this is not the Amazon. I won't get lost. I'm on my way to Victoria Memorial. Did you know that this place has so much of history? Woah". I hear Jared muttering something and the call disconnects.

Won't get lost, my ass.

I open up the map app on my phone and try to locate my place. What is this place? I look around. Everything looks exactly the same. So where is this Victoria Memorial? I start walking forward. Maybe I can ask someone. But I don't know their language. This is a bad decision. A really bad decision. Huh? Is he an officer? Maybe he can tell me. I start walking faster towards the officer.

"Fuck!" I say as I crash into someone.

Y/N's POV

"Dekh kar nahi chal sakte? Dhyan kidhar hai aapka?" I yell to the man I just crashed into and fall down on the road. (Can't you see while walking? What were you thinking?)

"Um..I-er.. I'm so sorry. It's my fault. Sorry!" I hear a really familiar voice. I look up to see a pair of green eyes staring at me. Is that-is he-

"Jensen Ackles?" My eyes widen a bit. I look around to see some people approaching us.

"You know me?" He asks with a sigh of relief.

I get up and start to dust my jeans. "Madam, aap thik ho?" A man starts to walk towards us.(Madam, are you okay?)

"Haan, meh thik hun, kuch nahi huya, aap log jah sakte hai". I assure the surrounding people with a smile and they leave us standing at the side of the road. (Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing happened. You guys can go now)

"Sorry for that", the gorgeous man in front of me smiled sheepishly.

"It's okay", I smile at him, "I'm Y/N", I extend my hand to shake. I can't believe that I will meet him here! I tried to keep my fangirling under control because I can see something is bothering him.

"Uhm..are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine. It's just-I was trying to explore the place."

"And?"

"I got lost, okay?"

I chuckled. Jensen's face was red and he was so embarrassed to admit that he was lost.

"I'm so sorry but where is Clif? Shouldn't he be with you?"

"Jared's got a nasty headache so Clif is with him back at the hotel. Can you tell me where I am right now so that Clif can pick me up?"

"Sure but there is no stoppage area here. You have to walk a little bit. That yellow building-do you see that?" Jensen nodded, "That is the stoppage area. You can tell Clif to come pick you up from there. That place is called the Exide Crossing."

"You're-wait-are you leaving? Come on. Don't leave me alone here. Please. I don't know anything about this place. What if I have to tell Clif about some name or address? You know me, Y/N. Y/N, right? But it's okay if you have work and need to-" Jensen was rambling on and I literally had to yell to make him stop.

"Jensen, JENSEN! I'll stay until Clif comes", I laugh, "come on, let's go and wait there."

We both start walking towards the stoppage. "So you're here for the con, right?"

"Ye-yeah", Jensen said and fell silent. I didn't try to bother him anymore by making small talk. Maybe he was nervous. I've heard he is shy around people he doesn't know much.

"We're here", I declared and saw Jensen pull out his phone and tell Clif about his location.

We kept quiet for some time with Jensen typing furiously into his phone.

"So Y/N," Jensen cleared his throat, "you're a fan of the show?"

"Yeah. Been a fan for almost ten years. Never thought they would organise a con in India let alone in all the major cities of India", I smile at him.

"Are you going to attend the con?" He looked at me with an expression I couldn't really read.

"Yes, I've waited to go to a con and meet you guys for a long time now. I just never thought I would help you to guide through the city".

"Don't get me wrong, but this city is a maze but a really beautiful one", he laughed.

"Yeah, Kolkata is a charming city", I smirked. "How much did you 'explore' by the way?"

"I went to the Church and I was on my way to the Victoria Memorial and I got lost", Jenen chuckled.

"So you didn't even see the city. There are so many other places to go."

"I didn't exactly have a beautiful tour-guide with me because I'm sure she would have helped me", he said flashing me his famous smile.

I was blushing furiously. Was he flirting with me? No. Of course not. He is Jensen Ackles. Why would he flirt with me?

"Well, you could have asked the tour-guide. She would have gladly showed you around the city".

Jensen didn't say anything more but I could feel his eyes on me. I looked up at him and opened my mouth to speak but a car stopped in front of us.

"Jay!" A window of the car rolled down, and Clif strained his neck out calling Jensen.

"Clif's here. Thank you", he said it looking right into my eyes. "Oh it's no problem at all", I smiled.

"Hope you had fun roaming around the city", Clif said with a hint of amusement in his voice and looking between Jensen and me.

"I sure did. This city is beautiful", he replied and winked right at me. He closed the door of his car and mouthed the words 'hope to see you at con' to me and the car drove past me leaving me standing at the side of the road blushing furiously.

At the convention

It was really a dream come true. I was having the best time of my life at this con. I already attended the panel of Jensen, Jared and Misha and they were hilarious as usual. I was grinning like a fool the whole day but as the evening was approaching, I was feeling a little sad because the con was ending. Now the only thing left were the photo ops. I had already purchased a photo op of Jensen and Jared. I stepped into the line for the photo ops. I was really nervous to meet Jensen again. Will he remember me? Probably. We just met yesterday. What if he doesn't?

Finally after standing in line for sometime, I was told to go into the photo op room.

"Hi! How are you? What's your name?" Jared asked me a smile on his face.

"Y/N?" Jensen wrapped in a hug. "I didn't see you the whole day so I thought you weren't going to come to the convention".

"So this is Y/N?" Jared smirked at Jensen. "You know my name?" "Of course!" I looked at Jensen and saw him shooting daggers at his friend. "So what pose do you want?"

"Will you please wait outside for a while? I need to talk to you", Jensen whispered to me once the photo was done. "Su-sure".

I waited outside for another fifteen minutes before I saw Jensen walking towards me.

"Hi, sorry to keep you waiting", Jensen nervously rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's okay. So what did you want to say?"

"Um..I-er..So yesterday I told you how I needed a tour guide?" "Do you want me to be your tour guide?" "No. Not exactly. I mean yes, a tour guide but maybe we can grab a dinner afterwards?"

"Are you asking me out, Ackles?"

"Yes. I really like you and wanted to ask you yesterday but I was really nervous. It's fine if you don't want to, I understand", Jensen smiled.

"Jensen, you gotta stop rambling whenever you talk to me. I will go on a dinner with you. You probably won't know my address so I'll meet you at the hotel you are staying. And uh...Give me your phone so I can put my number in. Mind you, I'm hard to impress", I said. Jensen gave me his phone.

"Oh sweetheart, you haven't seen my charming side yet. You will be thoroughly impressed. See you at seven. The Bengal Taj". I gave him back his phone and he hugged me once again.

"What people say about India is so true - a truly magical and mesmerising country ", Jensen whispered in my ears and kissed my forehead.

"A truly magical and mesmerising country indeed", I whispered back with a smile.

73 notes · View notes

thewildomega · 4 years

Text

Star in the Sand Ch. 2

Sitting at the table with your second cup of tea in your hand you watched as he flipped through another one of the manga, this time one of Impale down.

"Straw-hat is the main character of these books?" he asked and heard her hum. Rolling his eyes he looked over the scene where they made their escape. "How far back does his story go?"

"Well it starts off with him in a barrel on Alvida's ship. He had just started out and didn't even have any crew members yet."

"Alvida? How did he get in a barrel on her ship?" he asked.

"He ate all the food in it and fell asleep, he was drifting in the ocean and this cargo ship picked it up not knowing he was inside. Alvida attacked the ship, took he barrel onto her own ship and left it there. When he woke up he busted out and defeated her. He takes one of the small ships and goes to Shell Town where he picks up Zoro." you told him, lifting your cup to take another sip of your tea.

That boy was strange, nothing about it. "And how far along does this story go? How does it end?"

"It hasn't yet, where are you at? What was the last thing that happened?" you asked him.

Taking a deep breath he leaned back in the chair and looked at her. "I left after the war, I plan to head to the New world." he told her.

"Ah, so you are in the two year time skip. Okay well I am a little past that."

Narrowing his eyes he looked at her, "What do you mean two year time skip?"

"There is a time skip in the story, two years where you don't see anything that happened, everyone mostly goes their separate ways. Luffy is very distraught over Ace's death, the Straw-hate pirates aren't even together where you are now." you said with a shrug.

"But they get back together after this... time skip?" he asked and saw her nod. Humming he thought on it all before looking back into her eyes. "You said you are further into the story than where I just came from, am I still alive?" he asked.

"Yes." you answered simply.

Humming he tapped his foot. "So you also know everything that is going to happen in the near future."

"Well that's not set in stone and I am not that much further." you said with a tilt of your head.

"Everything that I have read in that book has been true to my knowledge." he stated. "So tell me what happens next." he said with a smile.

"I'm not telling you." you said with a small grin and saw his smile drop.

"Why not?" he growled.

"Because that's foreshadowing and it might throw things out of wack." you told him, finishing you tea. Standing you moved towards the sink, "Besides you're not even in the next arc." you told him, putting your cup in the sink.

Getting up he moved after her, "I am not asking, I am demanding you tell me." he said, not used to people telling him no. Seeing her turn around and look at him he saw the same calm look on her face. "You know me woman, you know what I am capable of..."

"Yes I know who you are but I am willing to bet that you haven't been able to use your powers since you got here because there is no such thing as devil fruits here." you told him with a sigh. Seeing the angry expression on his face you looked up at him and gave a small grin, "I can tell you that none of things that have happen will affect you. You have not been caught by the marines and you are not dead so let the rest be a surprise." you said with a shrug. Glancing towards the clock you saw it was well past midnight. "Look I really have to go to bed, I have to go to work tomorrow. There is a second bedroom you can stay in until we can figure out how to get you back if you would like." you told him in a calm voice.

Looking down into her ever calm eyes he again felt his temper dwindle down and let out a deep sigh. He just couldn't seem to stay angry at her, the thought of causing her harm in any way making him feel strange. Gritting his teeth he nodded and saw her give him a small grin before she turned off the kitchen light and showed him to the guest bedroom where a simple bed waited for him.

Seeing him standing in the door way you looked down, you knew it wasn't much, not high class living like he was used to but it was all you had to offer. "Goodnight Crocodile." you said in a soft voice before walking down the hall a bit to your own bedroom.

He didn't say anything as she bid him a goodnight and when he heard her door shut he didn't hear the click of the lock follow. Did this woman have no fear? Perhaps she was just stupid? Looking back towards the bedroom that would be his for the time being he stepped inside and closed the door.

.................................

Waking up he put the too tight shirt back on along with his hook before walking out of the room. Her bedroom door was closed still but he coudl hear what sounded like water dripping. Going across the hall to the bathroom he turned on the light with the switch and saw there was a folded pile of clothes on the vanity, his clothes. Quickly pulling them on he buttoned his shirt but decided to leave off the scarf for now. Brushing back his hair with his hand he glanced up at his reflection to make sure he looked decent before leaving the room. Making himself busy by looking over her books he heard her door open and glanced over as she walked into the room.

"Oh good morning, I see you saw your clothes." you said before walking past him into the kitchen. Opening the fridge you grabbed a bottle of water and closed it to see him leaning in the entryway. "There is coffee up there if you would like some, cups are in the cabinet above along with sugar, creamer is in the fridge." You told him. Grabbing your keys and purse you turned back to him when he spoke.

Watching her walk around and grab things he let his eyes glance over her body. She was wearing a pair of jeans that were tight fitting down to about her mid calf where they flared out some. A button up black shirt adorned her upper half and he noticed she had the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her long red hair was left hanging down her back in waves. She looked... nice, attractive. "How long will you be at work?" he asked.

"I don't get off until twelve tonight."

That was a long time, "Where do you work exactly?" he asked.

"I'm a bartender at the local bar in town." you told him. "You are welcome to whatever you want, there isn't much food wise, I haven't been shopping yet but I am sure you can find something."

Grunting he looked around the home, "And what exactly am I supposed to do all day?" he asked.

"I don't know, read a book, watch TV, go for a walk... plan your next country domination." you told him with a shrug.

Ignoring her sarcastic comment at the end he narrowed his eyes at her, "What is a TV?" he asked.

Walking towards the living room you grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Seeing his shocked and confused expression you held back your grin. "You can flip through different channels with these buttons and these control the volume. This one is to turn it on and off. There are like 300 channels so I am sure you can find something to watch." You told him, pointing to the buttons and flipping through a few channels until you saw something familiar and giggled, "Oh look Peter Pan is on, the writer of One piece based your character off the pirate in this movie." you told him.

Furrowing his brows he watched the moving picture, seeing a young boy dressed in green flying around. "What pirate?" he asked as she handed him the remote and moved towards the door to put on her boots.

"Captain James Hook." you told him and saw his brows drop further. "Don't look at me like that I didn't name him. I have to go, see you later, if you're not sleeping."

................................

Getting home you parked your truck and let out a heavy sigh as you opened the door and headed up the steps towards your front door. The TV was still on, you hoped he hadn't fell asleep in front of it again. He had now been here for three days and he had been doing well at keeping himself busy. He had already finished four books, one being Treasure island. For the most part he kept the house clean, there would be a few dishes but nothing more than that. Opening the front door you stepped inside and quietly took off your boots. Glancing towards the couch you saw him sitting there watching something. Looking towards the TV you rose a brow and moved over to sit on the couch, leaving a space between the both of you. Handing him the bag of food you relaxed for the first time today. "You are watching Pirates of the Caribbean?" you asked, a little amused.

"It caught my attention, they had been on for the past few hours." he said simply. Looking into the bag curiously he took out the thing wrapped up in paper.

"It's a burger and fries, I didn't know if you ate." you said, your eyes closing as your body begged for sleep.

Humming he unwrapped the thing and looked it over before taking a bite. It was good, most of the things she had brought him were to his liking but none of it compared to her actual cooking. Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye he saw her eyes were closed and her head was resting on her palm. Over the three days he had been here she had worked everyday, leaving at around 8 or so and staying gone until she got home around 12:30. Every morning there was some sort of breakfast waiting for him meaning she woke much earlier that eight. Three days straight of working sixteen hours or more, no wonder the woman was exhausted. Not once had she complained though, he hadn't heard a single bad word out of her the whole time he had been here. "Do you work tomorrow?" he asked, seeing her eyes snap open before they hung heavily over her eyes.

Sitting up you rubbed your eyes and nodded. "Yes, I don't have to be in until two though. If you would like we can go into town and see about finding you some new clothes before I have to go to work." you told him, forcing yourself to stand on sore feet. Going to the cabinet you pulled out the bottle of pain medicine and dumped two into your palm, hoping to kill your headache before it became a migraine.

She would buy him clothes? So far he had been trying to deal with the ones he had been wearing and then the too small ones when he had to. Watching her moved about the dark kitchen he raised his chin. "If it isn't too much of a problem."

Shaking your head you sighed. "No you need more than one set of clothes. They won't be as high fashion as you are used to but I'll do the best I can." you told him. Realizing how that probably sounded you bit the inside of your lip and looked down. "I'm sorry. I.. I'm going to head to bed. Good night Crocodile."

Furrowing his brows he watched her walk from the room and heard the soft shutting of her bedroom door. Had she apologized to him because she couldn't afford nice clothes? Humming he looked around her home again, it was fairly bare and simple. Other than books he hadn't seen any personal touches, there wasn't even any pictures of her family on the walls. Finishing the food she had bought him he stood and tossed the paper bag in the trash before turning off the TV and heading to the room to call it a night.

......................................

Waking up the next morning you looked to the clock and saw it was almost ten, shit. Quickly getting out of bed you pulled on some clothes and brushed your hair and teeth. Walking out into the kitchen you saw Crocodile sitting at the table drinking his coffee, a book in his hand. "I'm sorry, I overslept." you told him but heard him reply in his normal deep voice.

"Do not apologize, you need rest." he assured her.

Sighing you slowed down some and moved to make yourself some coffee. Grabbing the pot you looked back to his own cup. "Would you like a refill?" you asked.

Giving her a small nod he watched as she came over to refill his cup for him before moving to put it back and add creamer to her coffee. Looking her over he blinked slowly, "Your mother and father must be proud to have a daughter as well mannered as you." he said, meaning to pay her a compliment but when her brows lowered and her lip moved back between her teeth he knew he had said something wrong.

Releasing your lip you took a deep breath and stared at your cup as you steered the brown liquid inside. "Actually I.. I was an orphan." you told him, keeping your eyes down. Tapping the spoon on the rim you gave a small grin, "But thank you all the same." you told him. "I treat people how I would like to be treated." you said softly. Taking a deep breath you turned towards him, leaning against the counter and holding the hot cup in your hands. "What are you reading?" you asked, glancing down to the book now resting on the table as he lifted the cup.

So that was why there were no pictures, lifting his cup to his lips he took a sip before looking to her when she asked him about the book. "Dracula." he said with a sigh. "I haven't gotten too far yet."

"It's a good book, a classic. There are like a hundred movies based on it." you told him. Seeing him raise a brow you grinned. "If you like it and you want to, we can watch the best one, well in my opinion."

Grinning he nodded, "Very well."

After the both of you finished your coffee and a small breakfast you cooked you walked him out to your truck seeing him look at the thing with one brow raised. "I've told you all about it, it isn't going to bite you." you said with a small grin. Seeing him give you a small glare you rolled your eyes. He was already annoyed when you told him he couldn't wear his hook into the stores in town, explaining that no one wore things like that here. After a stare down he finally removed the heavy thing and pulled his sleeve down over his scared wrist. Opening the passenger for him you waved you hand towards the inside, "Age before beauty." you said with a teasing grin.

Huffing he moved inside the 'Truck'. "I'll have you know if you were anyone else you would be dead by now." he threatened but it only made her let out a small giggle. The sound making something flutter in his chest for a moment before he quickly looked away from her.

Shutting the door for him you rounded the truck to get in the driver's side. Buckling your seat belt you looked to him and raised a brow. The ever stubborn man let out a deep sigh as he reached behind him to grab the belt and mimic your movements. As soon as it snapped into place you started the vehicle and started driving to town.

He mostly just glanced out the window as the moved, there were lots of trees and he could see a few mountains in the distance. Seeing a large body of water he lifted his chin, "Is that the sea?" he asked.

"No, that's the Missouri river, the ocean is probably about a good 2 days drive from here." you told him.

Humming he looked at her, "Have you ever been to it, the sea?" he asked.

"Not since before I could remember." you told him, pulling down the road going into town.

"If you can't remember then how do you know you were there at all?" he asked when her words made no sense.

"Well I was told that I was found in a basket that had washed up on shore when I was only a couple months old." you told him.

Frowning he looked to her, "All by yourself?"

"Yep. The lady at the orphanage said that some fisherman found me when they heard me crying. Said there wan't any one else around or anything in the basket with me but a wool blanket and a locket."

"Was anything in the locket? What did it look like?" he was honestly curious about the whole ordeal, it was like something out of a storybook.

Reaching into your shirt you pulled the gold locket over your head and held it out for him. It was funny you had never let anyone touch your most prized possession before but you... trusted him. Probably stupid since he was a pirate and all.

Taking the golden locket into his hand he looked it over, seeing a wave looking design carved into the top that had been almost rubbed almost smooth, age most likely. Seeing a small button on the side he pressed it with his thumb and saw it flip open. Looking on the inside he saw a badly faded and water stained black and white picture of a man and woman, a small babe int he woman's arms that he assumed was her. On the other side was what looked sort of like a log post. "These are called compasses here correct?" he asked.

"Yes but that one is broken." you told him.

Reading the engraving around the edge he turned it in his hand, 'Your heart will be your guide.' Humming he closed it and handed it back to her as she stopped the truck and tuned it off.

"Thank you." you told him putting it back around your neck and tucking it into your shirt. "Okay so this is the only place that is probably going to have your size." you said as you opened the door and got out of the vehicle, tossing your purse on your shoulder and tossing your keys inside. Walking to the front you saw Crocodile come to stand by you, his eyes looking around at the small shopping center. "Ready?" you asked and heard him hum.

Sitting in one of the chairs by the fitting rooms you played a game of chess on your phone while Crocodile tried on the clothing he had picked out. Hearing the door open you glanced up at him and saw some of the clothes hanging over his left arm. "Find some you like?" you asked.

"Yes, this should been enough." he said in a deep voice. He had picked out three pair of pants and three shirts, one being a shirt that he saw her looking at. It was a dark blue button up shirt with long sleeves and made of a cotton material, surprisingly it was very comfortable and he liked it was easy to button. He had also go a single pair of lounge pants that he could wear at nighttime.

"Okay. Well bring them over to the counter." you said as you stood and walked with him towards the counter.

Watching the woman at the front counter fold and place the items in a bag.

"Your total is $127.53." the woman said.

Feeling his brow twitch a little at the price he next saw as y/n took out a card of sorts and swiped it through this machine. When the woman behind the counter handed her a piece of paper and told them to have a good day he quickly grabbed the bag before y/n could. It was bad enough she was buying him clothes he wouldn't make her carry his bags as well. Seeing her grin softly up at him he bowed his head some and walked out of the store with her.

Unlocking the truck you looked to him, "Are you hungry?" you asked him, seeing as it was lunch time. When he nodded his head a little you grinned at him and tilted your head.

Shutting the door to the truck he followed her to another place a few ways down from the clothing store. When she opened the door and held it open for him he felt his brow twitch again. He had always been a traditional person and the way he saw it a man should be the one doing things like this for a woman, not the other way around. He knew she wasn't doing it because she thought he was handicap, well she better not be, no he had come to notice she was just a kind person. An extremely kind person. Had this been the other way around and she had showed up needing help he would have no doubt laughed in her face and kicked her to the street. For some odd reason though she had saw fit to help him and had yet to ask for anything in return. He had been waiting for it over the past few days but nothing came. Sitting at a booth in the far corner he saw as a young man came over and handed them menus.

"Hey there y/n."

"Hello Lance, how are you doing today?" you asked with a kind smile.

"Doing good, hope you are too. See you brought company today. What can I get you to drink sir"?" he asked.

She must come here often. "Water will be fine." he said and saw the boy nod.

"Okay be right back."

Furrowing his brows he looked to the woman in front of him. "He didn't ask what you wanted to drink."

Grinning you looked at him, "That's because I get the same thing every time I come." you told him simply.

"And what would that be?" he asked as he lifted the menu to look it over.

"Freshly squeezed lemonade." you smiled.

Humming he saw the boy set both glasses down on the table and heard him say he would be back to take their order in a few minutes. "So any suggestions?" he said with a sigh.

"Well I like all the food but the Ruben but that's because I don't care for rye bread." you said with a shrug.

"What is a hot dog?" he asked.

"Do you want the honest answer or the more appealing one?" you asked and saw his brow raise. "Pretty much all the parts on a pig that people wouldn't normally eat ground together and made into a long stick like thing that is slapped on a bun with some mustard and ketchup."

Knitting his brows he closed his mouth and took a deep breath before dropping the menu and reaching for his drink. "I'll go with the fish." he said and heard her giggle again. Once his food was set before him he looked down at it and hummed, it smelled good at least. Looking up he saw her just sitting there sipping at her lemonade, "Where is your food?" he asked.

Snapping your eyes up to him you shook your head, "I don't eat lunch." you told him.

Frowning he glanced down at his food before looking back up to her, "Then why did you bring us here?"

"You said you were hungry." you shrugged.

"If I would have known you weren't going to get anything I would have just waited until we got back to your home." he growled, not liking the fact that she was again doing something for him.

"It's fine Crocodile, I am fine with my lemonade, you eat." you told him.

Taking a deep breath he glared at her. She was back to looking down at her phone, completely missing the hard look he was giving her. Gritting his teeth he let out a deep sigh, why couldn't he stay angry at her? Lifting his fork he placed a piece of fish in his mouth, the food now tasting bland in his mouth knowing he was the only one eating. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Looking back up at him you tilted your head some, "Playing chess, it's a strategy game." you said.

"Go on..." he said, wanting something to talk about.

After telling him about the game you saw him nod.

"Is it a game you can only play on that thing?" he asked.

"No, there is a physical version, I don't have a set at home though." you told him. Thinking you bot your lip, "I think there s one at the bar though, if I can find it I'll bring it home and we can play... if you want to that is." you said, looking down when you realized how desperate you probably sounded.

"It sounds like a challenge, I like them." he nodded. Finishing his food he took a sip of his drink, "I would like to go to this bar you work at, it is growing bore some at your home." he said.

Shocked you looked back to him and nodded, "If you want to go that's fine but I won't be able to take you back home, you'll have to stay there until I get off and that won't be until 12 tonight. Also it's kind of a rough place." you warned.

"I have spent plenty of nights in shady bars before, I think I will manage."

"Okay if you are sure." you said. Standing you tossed down a few bills on the table, leaving Lance a tip as well.

Standing he slid out of the booth and walked with her to the door but this time he stepped forward to open the door for her. That fluttering in his chest returning when she smiled at him and gave him a small thank you.

#sir crocodile #Sir Crocodile x reader #one piece #one piece fanfiction #Soulmate AU

33 notes · View notes

kinsbin · 4 years

Text

Title: Migraines Word Count: 1500 Pairing: Kai/Lucifer [SI/Canon]

Summary: Kai has a migraine and Lucifer helps them through it.

A/N: TWO PIECES OF WRITING IN LIKE 2 DAYS? I’M ON FIRE- not really I had a migraine for 2 days straight and just wanted Lucifer to hold me in a dark penthouse with some pain killers that's literally it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucifer felt his heart beat out of his chest when the elevator of his pent house sung its song of arrival. Kai had texted him in declaration that they would be up in a few moments upon their arrival at the LUX, their simple statement of ‘had a bad day’ not going unnoticed from the Devil’s detailed eyes as he sat expectantly at his bar, two drinks prepared for him and his lover as they entered the room. Something in him faltered as he watched them pull themselves into the space, however.

Kai winced at the brightness of the space, their gaze pained as they glared at the open curtains and groaned with annoyance, a hand raising up to pinch at the bridge of their noise and rub along their temples lazily. A sigh escaped their lips as they dropped their favorite bag - an expensive black leather thing custom embroidered with red threads and horror motif - at the edge of the bar and gave a weak nod to their boyfriend, going in for a hug as they sighed. Lucifer returned the hug with a carefulness he wasn’t aware he would have to use, his gaze curious down at his little human as he rubbed at their back.

“You look exhausted, love,” Lucifer noted with an edge of shock to his tone, “You meant more than just ‘bad day’ didn’t you?”

“Mmmm,” Kai’s voice was a groan against his chest as they buried their face into him with a sigh, “Migraine mostly… My head feels like it’s going to be popped… I don’t know, I was just sensitive and I kept making stupid ass mistakes. I feel shitty for a lot of reasons… But, I think, it’s mostly the migraine.”

“Well,” Lucifer sighed as he patted their back gently, “Let’s take care of that first, shall we?”

It wasn’t long before Lucifer scooped his lover up in his arms, pressing a kiss to their aching forehead as he moved them over to his bed. The silken sheets felt heavenly on their aching muscles, making Kai groan in appreciation as they buried their face in the nearest pillow, rolling so that they rested on their front and hid away from the intensity of the sunlight. Lucifer smiled slightly at the movements before going around towards the curtains of his bright penthouse.

One by one they were drawn shut, the hotel quality blackout material keeping the entire room in all but complete darkness. The lack of light made the pressure in Kai’s head ease as they dared to lift their gaze away from the pillow that smelled so familiarly of their boyfriend. They followed the vague outline of Lucifer as he moved around the penthouse, his fingertips forgoing his alcohol in favor of snatching up a tall bottle of ice cold water from the nearby mini fridge and bringing it over to place at their side on the nightstand as carefully as possible. Kai couldn’t help but smile and give a nod of appreciation to the beverage, but even more so to the painkillers that joined them shortly after. It was enough to bring them into a sitting position in order to take the needed drugs.

“I also have weed, too, if you think that might help.” Lucifer chimed before adding playfully, “Or cocaine.”

“Cocaine would make a migraine worse, I think.” Kai laughed as they downed the ibuprofen and a chug of their water, sighing at the feeling of the cold beverage making its way down their throat. The mere act of sipping at the water made their head feel a little less pressurized, making them sigh as they leaned backwards until they were laying down on the bed once more, stretching their body like a cat across their favorite sunspot as they sighed. Lucifer watched as he sat on the edge of the bed, admiring the form of his human with the fondest of smiles gracing his full lips.

When they buried their face once more into the softness of the familiar black and red sheets, Kai sighed as they felt a hand inch up their back, pushing their shirt up and away from their skin as the heat of Lucifer’s body radiated sweetly between their shoulder blades. He tugged gently, a silent request for them to pull their shirt all the way off if they were able to. With a little wiggling and a near begrudging grunt from them, Kai managed to slip the tank top off of their form and lay, shirtless and comfortable, in the pile of blankets surrounding them. They shut their eyes, letting the darkness ease their aching head as they fisted handfuls of the sheets into their grip with a low mumble of nothing that resembled words.

They exhaled in appreciation when Lucifer’s hands slid across their back, massaging their aching bones with those wonderfully clever hands of his. No one would expect the Devil to be as good at massages as he was, certainly, but it did feel amazing. Each shift of his hand made the tension in their muscles ease, his palm pushing down on the line of their spine as he moved up and down, taking his time in loosening the muscles attached to his lover. It took all of Kai’s energy not to arch into the other’s touch like a greedy cat, their mewling gentle as hey bent to Lucifer’s will.

“I’ll take those little sounds as approval!” Lucifer teased with a chuckle as he continued to let his hands work on his lover’s back, “You’re so tense love.You’d think that you’d carry your migraine more in your back rather than your head.”

“Mmm, you don’t have to do this.”

“Do what? Spoil the love of my life? Let a man have a little fun, K.M!”

Kai rolled their eyes, but accepted the gentle movements of their lover with little protest outside of their initial mumble. Their head didn’t allow them the luxury of being argumentative this time. As much as they felt embarrassed when Lucifer fawned over them like he was, they had to admit that there was something nice about the feeling of simply laying there. Of simply allowing themselves to be for once in their life as they were taken care of. To allow the world to continue around them without running after it as fast as they were physically able to…

The movement of his hand lasted a little while longer before they stopped, making Kai sigh in appreciation as they shifted their shoulders, hearing the echoes of the residual cracks break against their skin as they stretched themselves. Lucifer chuckled, leaning forward to place a kiss on the base of their neck before simply trailing his fingers down their skin just light enough to create goosebumps.

“Better, love?”

“Mm, yeah, thanks.” Kai managed out with a smile as they dared peer out from beneath the comfort of the sheets, “Sorry, I know you wanted to have fun today. Migraines are the least fun…”

“They are,” Lucifer hummed his agreement, “But you aren’t. My evening was yours anyways, this doesn’t put a damper on my plan of ravishing you either way.”

To add to his statement, Lucifer gave a playful nip to the back of his lover’s neck, making them giggle and squirm beneath him as they sighed and stretched some more, their eyes fluttering shut as they exhaled.

“Will you lay down with me?”

“Of course.”

In those singular moments, Lucifer was next to them. Kai couldn’t tell when he had taken his shirt off, but it didn’t matter much as they both wrapped themselves around one another, Kai burying their face into Lucifer’s chest with a sigh. His warmth was welcome and his body was comforting, their legs touching together and their skin connecting perfectly in the cool space of the dark room. The pain killers had begun to set in already, making the headache fade away into exhaustion as Kai listened to the sound of Lucifer’s heartbeat in his chest, their mind fading into nothingness between bouts of exhaustion as they let their feet brush along Lucifer’s. His hands played with their arms and his chin rested atop their head as he kissed it.

“Love you…” Kai murmured out.

“I love you too,” Lucifer chuckled back, “Now get some sleep, silly little human.”

“Whatever you say, silly little angel.” Kai scoffed back as their eyes fluttered shut. Lucifer pulled away their glasses and put them on the side table with a huff at the nickname, simply sitting there in their lover’s embrace as they fell asleep at his side. The darkness surrounded him and the world seemed to fade in and out of slow motion. No matter the thoughts that seemed to bubble in his head, he couldn’t help but exhale as he understood the honesty of a single one:

He belonged here. He belonged with them. Nothing would change that.

#self ship #self shipping #self insert #selfship #kinley writes #kaicifer #lOOK I'M FUCKING WEAK OKAY #I JUST WANT HIM... TO HOLD ME CRIES

10 notes · View notes

leviathiane · 4 years

Text

Fic Rec Friday - One Piece (SFW)

I am going to make this a thing. Even if its just me and like 3 people see it lol

Ao3 Edition!

The Wanderer (MaiKusakabe) - Marco isn’t the firstmate of the Whitebeards. He’s never even met them, actually– he’s not even a pirate. But Whitebeard wants him to be one. Badly. // High Contender for my Favorite OP fic I’ve read out of all of them. Im just weak in the knees for reluctant/In-denial!Marco and the entire crew trying to reach out to their (future) eldest brother. Also has Immortal!Marco implications and im LIVING for it

Being Human (MaiKusakabe) - Slave!Marco gets taken in by Whitebeard // Listen yall know im gay for Marco-centric angst but this one really takes me by the lapels and shakes me to pieces ok i am laid low

To Build a Home (endlessblankpages) - ASL pirates get recruited (read: kidnapped) by the Whitebeards as an apology for a misunderstanding and it All Spirals From There // Very well put together, and Completed! Incredible found-family affection and fondness, som brotherly angst, All Good All Good.

wish by spirit and if by yes (midnightluck) - Sabo has his memories. A series of shenanigans of him and Ace just trying to take care of each other even with all their chaos and distance, with the Whitebeards and Koala as unwitting audience. // The exasperation and family affection got me fucked all the way up. Midnightluck consistently has my favorite characterization of Sabo out of everything I’ve read.

Clipped Wings (Beyond_Kailani) - Sabo gives up everything, as long as it means his brother’s live freely. Away from his parents. // Angsty and INCREDIBLE found family trope usage. The mental struggle to do what Sabo thinks is necessary to survive vs live his life freely is A+

Trapped in Eternity (Skyleaf19) - Ace is stuck in a long term time loop and his mental health is really, really suffering from it. // this is an angst MELTING POT and i love it. It recently updated off of hiatus but im so excited about it i literally cant focus enough to read it adefsgrth LOTS of the whitebeards trying to help Ace and Ace struggling to pretend he hates them. fantastic. *chef’s kiss*

Living Dreams (Maikusakabe) - Canon-timeline!Marco wakes up two years in the past. Before Whitebeard died. Before Ace died. Before Thatch died. He doesnt handle it well. // I dont even know where to start this is a bundle of some of my favorite tropes in one completed fic. The angst, the disbelief, the denial– it’s perfect. I’m in love

Inanition (Taizi) - small fic about how Luffy’s body works differently than his crewmates. // Short, and yet I keep coming back to it. It’s unebelievably sweet, and the tension of things left unsaid and suppressed anger out of worry is incredible.

Beginning the Next Dream (RikoJasmine) - Future!Luffy gets reborn as his own uncle, Garp’s kid and Dragon’s little brother. This changes a lot, esp. the ASL future. // Its still sort of in the beginning and already has 50k and my Heart I s2g every chapter i see updated makes me have to take a moment to calm down before I read it. Really worth the read. Very soft and sweet with the family vibes, and Luffy is a Hysterically overpowered child with haki.

Guardian (Petiteneko) - Zoro’s POV for pre-post Dressrosa, and how Law slowly, quietly works through his frankly suicidal revenge plan. Includes lulaw // Im weak for outsider!POV mental health and trauma fics. That’s really all you need to know tbh

Acclimating (Justira) - Luffy may be the outspokenly crazy one, but he hand-picked his crew and the rest of the Strawhats are just as on his bullshit despite what they say. Law is struggling through a very nosy crew. // Similar to the fic above, Law trying to leave himself to his own self-harming tendencies and the Strawhats collectively having None Of It.

Lionheart (cyan96) - Past!Law and Corazon get dumped into canon-timeline!Law’s submarine after a devil fruit incident. Trauma everywhere. // Manages to be funny and heartbreaking at exactly the same time! Lots of deeply buried trauma manifested suddenly and overwhelmingly. Incredible.

The Games (Stormy1x2) - Humorous little fic about the Whitebeard’s participating in a sort of public-sport game, in which Ace volunteers and has a great time throwing shenanigans everywhere. // very cute!! another outsider!POV type as its in Marco’s POV while Ace runs around and is just excited and adorable.

Older Brother’s Insight (Abyssal_one) - short fic about Older-brother!Luffy and Younger-brother!Ace w/ the Whitebeards // short and sweet! Im a sucker for role switch AUs and this one really highlights Luffy’s own eccentric sort of capabilities.

Portgas D. Anne and the War of Shirts (glowingjellyfishtreelights) - Anne just doesnt like shirts. this has nothing to do with anyone else. // it’s Really funny. also incredibly accurate.

Into Flame (Kurgaya) - Phoenix!Zoro, and the art of Not Actually Being Human But Never Saying That. // includes Zolu! Which usually isnt my jam, but im All Over non-human!AUs and this one is incredible. Zoro has three pairs of wings. Three. That’s wicked.

Pardus (ImperialMint) - A devil fruit materializes Ace’s worst fear. Which means he’s returning to the Moby Dick with Gold Roger himself at his heels. // funny, sad, and cute all at once. Cute family affection moments, lots of Ace being emotionally hurt and confused.

Legacy (Anjelle) - Ace died and was sent back, all the way back to when his dad still was a pirate on the Oro Jackson. // Lots of emotional turmoil and childhood trauma neatly tied up with some cathartic mental revaluation ;)

Paperwork of a Phoenix (ventusleone) - Marine!Marco and Marine!Izo happen to meet the Whitebeards during their downtime, every now and then, and, well, its not like theyre on duty. // Recently was completed! Slowburn platonic found-family vibes, a lot of Marco biting off more than he can chew and essentially being adopted in the process.

Tension Headache and Migraine (JuHuaTai) Marco overworks himself and accidentally snaps at his crewmates, including Ace. // Very tense in the beginning and smooths out to something apologetic and softer. Has some nsfw in the end, overall Fanastic lmao

Tomorrow Never Happens (Midnightluck) - Sabo pickpockets the wrong marine and gets caught. Which sucks on a normal day, except this one is huge, and burly, and an admiral, and apparently his grandfather. // humorous and slightly angsty all at once! Another Sabo-Gets-His-Memories-Back-Canon-Divergence type story, because I am simple and predictable and it’s still fantastic.

Blue Moon (MyLadyDay) - Werewolf!Marco protects the forest. It just so happens that (Witch?)Ace does so too. // Has some very quiet vibes I really dig, very calm and makes me think of a deep grey-blue color for some reason. Like Full moonlight through the trees. Very cute

#these arent even... half my favorites #but if i kept going id never stop :/ i have a lot #im gonna just start doing this every so often on a friday bc its Fun and i like mentioning people who make good content #please check them out!#fic rec #op fic rec #one piece #fanfiction #fanfic rec #Portgas D. Ace #revolutionary sabo #monkey d. luffy #marco the phoenix #uhh i think ill die if i tag everyone. lets stop there #anyway its 2am so not really friday anymore but u get it lmao goodnight #mine #lmk if yall want more recs ajhfgyehu ill give them ANYWAY but #if any o fu have a specific fandom in mind i probably have a couple to point out for u to check out #im only doing OP on my own bc thats my current fix #and i havent been in KNY long enough to find all the gold #but send me a fandom in ask and i can probably whip something up provided ive been in said fandom #also im active on both Ao3 and FF so specify which site if u want a list pls

71 notes · View notes

silverandarsenic-hcs · 4 years

Note

How would the Papas/Copia deal with a s/o who was possessed? I don’t mean some lower class demon, I mean something like legion...

i read a lot of grimoires for this one baby im ready to go. took some demons, put my own spin on things to hopefully twist your heart in the way you hoped for. i always went way overboard. i have that Too Much Gene.

TW: death of a family member (Papa II only)

Papa I: He would be first to know that his s/o is possessed. sure, they all recognize the signs, but it only actually occurs in the eldest mind that maybe this is something a little larger than what they had originally thought. And he’s terrified. You see, they never taught the Papas how to exercise a demon from anyone, never mind the body of their lover. His s/o is possessed by our darling Surgat. Though it’s true that he can open every lock, this comes at a price - and he never comes without being asked. The s/o had to invoke this subjection, coffin nails, chants and all - they felt lost, and hopeless, and needed answers as to what they could do. they had a lock around the part of their brain that would allow them to continue their life, and they needed it opened. The problem though, is getting him to leave once he’s been summoned. They have seen the light, the lock is gone, but they remain under the control of Him entirely. Papa I is horrified when he finds out just what his lover had done to themselves, and refuses to see them or be around them until the exorcism has been done. Sure, he always believed, but seeing that sort of thing in real life? Watching the one he loves seize and fit and speak in tongues and pray to the devil? that’s a whole different story.

Papa II: One night Papa II studied too late in the office at home. One night he read every book on demons he could find because his thirst for knowledge couldnt be quenched by even the clergy library. one night he left a book open on his desk when he went to work. One morning, his grieving lover found that book. When you are in the harshest grips of your grief, your brain does some awful things. sometimes its so bad your brain just stops taking stock of everything thats happening around you and you live your life on mute for a while. sometimes grief can make you completely forget summoning whatever you could possibly find in your lover’s book to bring back to you what you lost. Frulthiel visits the s/o in the night, promising to bring back their lost sister. sometimes grief can make you accept a deal to get what you want no matter the terms. when II finds out just what his s/o is done, he feels it’s all his fault. he shouldn’t have left the books open. he shouldn’t have even had books like that in the house around someone who is in such a depression. someone willing to do anything to fix the ache. As the very old story “the monkey’s paw” eludes, when you bring someone back from the dead, they do not look like they did when they were alive. the demon never had an intention of restoring the life of it’s inhibitors sibling, merely it’s body into a state that may stand and move. it’s up to II to save his lover from not only seeing the monstrous thing that they’d created, but also to save them from the demon that still hides in their bones, and courses through their veins. He keeps it together, but when all his said and done and his love is returned to their regular human self, he breaks. a crack so deep he is sure that he will never be able to fill it with love or power or money or alcohol. that type of hurt doesn’t go away.

Papa III: Sure, the eldest’s s/o was seeking knowledge and strength, and the middle child’s s/o was seeking solace, but the youngest brother’s love seeks something much, much worse: him. He spends long hours in the clergy when he’s working. He spends long months on the road when he’s touring. Of course he misses his lover, but he knows he’ll be home in only a few short weeks - they cannot wait that long. the constant missing of the only person that’s ever felt like home to them is beginning to eat away at them. one night, after a bottle of straight absinthe, they start to do some digging through whatever books they can find. they think, maybe a silly spell will bring him home to me.Maybe a silly spell will bring me to him. it will never work, they say. Hicpacth unfortunately had other plans for the pair. When the s/o is possessed by this demon, that brings you to anyone you choose no matter how near or far, he is relentless. at first, III likes having his s/o around all the time. it’s nice. and then its starts to get annoying. he can never get any alone time. he cant even go to the bathroom without his s/o crying for hours about missing him - what’s gotten into them? better who, he asks. it takes him a very long time to figure out something is wrong - at first he tries to tell them he needs space, it doesn’t work. he tries to break up with them, it doesn’t work. nothing will phase them. all the need is be near him - to be loved by him. It is a very long time of him trying to get away from the person he once loved before he decides to try something. once the demon is out of his poor lovers body, they have no clue what happened or how long it’s been since they were possessed, but III isn’t sure he can go back to the way things were. he isn’t sure if he could ever love them again after going so long tormented and tortured by their obsession over him.

Cardinal Copia: hindsight, for the Cardnal, may have saved the life of his s/o. It may have kept their mind intact. They are the only one who was possessed or subjected without invoking some type of curse first. this human was taken out of the kindness of the very heart of Asag - a demon that lacks very much kindness. They were also the only one who was fully present and conscious during the possession. It start as headaches, just minor really and barely enough to take an advil for. And then they grew worse, and more frequent. They couldn’t leave the house without a bottle of pain killers in their bag. The cardinal urged them to seek medical care but they assured him it would pass and nothing was really wrong. When the headaches had progressed to debilitating migraines that lasted days at a time, they got a prescription for a heavier pain medication. medications of any kind stopped working, then. after that, headaches still persistent, the pain began to bleed into every other part of the body. the chest, arms, legs, down to their finger tips. it felt like a constant fire was burning them alive with every breath they took, unable to escape the flames no matter the medical intervention or sleeping or breathing exercises or anything. the pain would not go away. I said earlier that mental pain does incredible things to the mind. pain can rewrite the way you see things, and the way you understand things, and change what gets committed to memory - which is sometimes simply nothing. this applies to physical pain to. after so many hours and days and weeks and months spent writhing in pain, desperate for solution but unable to find solace even in sleep, you begin to wonder curious things. your mind begins to stop accepting whats happening to your body. It takes the Cardinal the longest to realize what’s happened, and though resolution takes merely a day, the scars left inside his lover are permanent. their brain doesn’t recover from that type of trauma. their brain is permanently shut off on the receiving end. The Cardinal thinks, that along with the demon, a part of his lover’s soul left too. a part that cant be recovered.

- Judith

33 notes · View notes

vankoya · 6 years

Text

The Devil Skates on Thin Ice, 2.

Genre | Hockey Player / Figure Skater Rivalry AU.

Pairing | Min Yoongi / Feminine Reader.

Words | 26,491 words.

Conspectus | The number one rule of Korea National Sport University is to never allow their elite figure skater and the captain of the ice hockey team be in the same room. Or in their case, on the same ice rink. They are infamously known for riling each other up in any way possible, and for having a mysterious history that even their closest friends know nothing about.

But when their coaches decide it is finally time to put an end to their five year rivalry, the pair of them certainly have very conflicting views about it.

Warnings | Heavy swearing and insulting. Some good ol’ pining. Alcohol and mentions of drugs. Angst. Uh, mayhaps a smidgen of smexual tension. A tad of misogyny. A very small moment of violence. Apologies to Yugyeom for making his character such a dick.

Parts | One • Two • Three (Finale)

The ‘read more’ function does not work for some mobile app users. We are still waiting on Tumblr to fix this issue, so please message them about it and not me, as I have definitely put a ‘read more’ break beneath this note!

To say you do not remember a single thing about last night is greater than an understatement.

It feels, quite literally, as though a spell of amnesia has been cast over the past multitude of hours, wearing off at about six in the evening when your first Caipiroska was poured by Minah. Everything between then and now rests beneath a thick fog of uncertainty—you could have met the bloody Queen of England, for all you knew. The scattered memories are all the more difficult to grasp as a result of the throbbing headache that pounds fiercely between your temples, encouraging you to keep your eyes tightly closed so as not to allow even a sliver of sunlight through.

A thick film coats your tongue, tasting of stale alcohol and, oh god, probably vomit. When you part your lips, your voice creaks like an old door that has been closed for years. The rusty hinges croak in a groan directed at Past You for not taking Future You, which is now officially Present You, into consideration when the soju bombs were handed out in fives.

“Fuck you, ___,” you grumble into your pillow, shoving your face deeper into the feathery plush as though you can bury your migraine in the fabric. “You insensitive, alcohol-mixing bitch. Never drink vodka and beer in the same hour. How could you forget that? It’s the golden fucking rule. Stupid girl. Silly bloody idiot.”

In the midst of aspersing yourself, there is a raucous clatter from outside of the bedroom, sounding like a lightning strike within the apartment as it shatters through the walls. More so, it is the familiar sound of heavy cutlery clanging against pots and pans within a stainless steel sink, metal-on-metal that slams straight through your skull and pierces the centre-point of your headache with a swift blow. The clanging continues in a cacophonous symphony that appears to be boundless in its protraction.

So, burying yourself into the nest of sheets with a whine, as if the thin cotton can even manage to smother the noise in the slightest, you curl your fingers into the mattress. Bracing yourself against the torture with taut shoulders, and barely withholding a distressed sob while you wallow in your agony.

You wonder what delusional, potentially still drunken state Minah must currently be in to be unleashing such torturous hell on a Saturday morning. Or why she is even awake before midday after a night out, for that matter. On any other occasion, Minah is a corpse until the late afternoon, and only when the sun is nearly perched upon the horizon to make way for the moon is she rising from the dead to inhale two litres of water and a microwave meal before she returns to her grave until practice begins at seven the next morning.

There is a vicious shout of, “Shut the fuck up, would you!” and the disturbance ceases to absolute silence. But the peace remains for the scarcest of moments until another voice is roaring back with hardly suppressed outrage, spitting, “It’s not my fault you haven’t done the fucking dishes in a week, you selfish prick! Some people like to eat, Yoongi!” followed by a punctuating, singular clang. Then, the quiet returns.

The sudden tranquillity is a soothing balm on your raging temples. You release the breath you were holding tight in your lungs while you had braced yourself against the vociferation. The exhalation gently lulls your tired limbs into a state of–

What.

When your eyes snap open, the sunlight is immediately striking; a searing burn on the sensitive film that coats your bloodshot gaze. You hardly need to adjust your focus in order to know the sole fact that settles in a heavy stone of dread within the pit of your stomach.

This is not your room.

The space is minimal, though the floor is filthy; littered with laundry and hockey gear and discarded balls of paper. A broad desk that is surprisingly neat and paired with a sleek, black swivel chair is pushed in the corner opposite to the bed, which is positioned under the window where the blinds are marginally open above you, allowing slats of sunlight to filter through and torment your throbbing headache. Next to the double doors of the closet is a free-standing mirror, and your reflection is unseen from the angle that you lay startled within. The top half is draped in a terribly familiar jersey of red and black.

The number 31 is salient in large, bold white lettering at the centre of the material. Though it is most certainly not as prominent as the MIN that stands out inches above it. The three letters set off screeching alarm bells within your mind, and you bolt upright on the mattress in a state of suffocating panic, cracking your elbow against the sill of the window in the process.

“Shit!” you yelp, cringing from the sharp pain that shoots up your arm, cradling it to your chest as you keel over your knees and dramatically collapse back onto the bed like the world just could not help but dig your hell-hole of a situation all the deeper.

You are in Yoongi’s room. Of all the fucking people it could have been, it had to be him.

Amidst the anguish, a succession of thumping footsteps steadily becomes apparent as they grow louder, nearer, almost as though they are jogging. Then, the door is histrionically thrown open and a wide-eyed, flustered Yoongi comes into view, panting a little like he had ran from the other side of the apartment at the voicing of your distress. Honestly, you surprise yourself by holding back the lurching urge to hurl up the contents of last night at the sheer sight of him.

“Oh, you’re awake,” he impassively states, hand slipping from the doorknob as the veil of concern that thinly manipulated his features is composed into one of nonchalance. “Thought you might’ve died overnight. I was hoping, at least.”

“No, I’m just sleeping with my goddamn eyes open. Of course I’m fucking awake, what does it look like?!” you shrill, squinting at him as the migraine spikes especially acute, fingertips abandoning your bruising elbow and coming to your temples to gingerly massage the thrumming flesh. “And to be frank, death sounds like a much more favourable option than waking up in your room. What am I doing here, Yoongi?”

He merely shrugs, not giving anything away. “I’d like to ask you the same thing.”

“Don’t start,” you mutter bitterly, slowly lifting yourself out of the—admittedly, exceptionally comfortable—bed at a steady pace in order to not throw your pounding head into another death spiral of agony.

As you do so, you notice an unfamiliar weight that sags over your figure. Glancing down at your body, you come to realise that your attire from last night is drowned beneath a thick, maroon sweater, the hem brushing at the middle of your thighs. The aroma that drifts from it is oaky; a damp forest on a misty morning combined with underlying tones of cinnamon. A familiar and refined scent that is so potently Yoongi, making it evident that the clothing is his. An involuntary shiver crawls up your spine.

Though before you can claw Yoongi down to the bone for answers, Minah’s voice reverberates through your hammering skull in a long-lost conversation, filed somewhere in the pages of under a year ago.

A man is no gentleman if he doesn’t let you wear his sweaters after sex! It’s just a part of the common courtesy code!

Desperately, you stifle the urge to screech as a burning sensation climbs your throat, flushing your cheeks with a heat of sheer horror while Yoongi watches on, utterly oblivious.

“We didn’t–” You emphasise with wide eyes and a swaying gesture of your hand– “Uh, you know?”

Yoongi, for a second, looks wholly alarmed by your assumption before he eases into amusement, barking out a sharp laugh. “While you were drunk out of your mind? Hell no. Do I look like some crazy sicko to you?”

The both of you stare one another down in a cursory silence, broken by your voice as you start to wrestle the sweater over your head, senses drenched in his cologne, “I’m not going to answer that.”

“Once we got back, I left you to your own devices, thank you very much.” Offence lays thick in his tone. His arms fold indignantly over his chest, and you blatantly ignore the way that the lean muscles of his biceps peek out of the navy sleeves of his shirt. “I slept on the tacky leather couch, which is like laying on an ironing board made of granite, I’ll have you know. So yeah, thank you Yoongi for sacrificing your bed to my drunk ass for the night,” Yoongi mimics in a pitched voice that is nowhere near similar to your own, proceeding to jab an accusing finger at your face. “I hope that hangover feels like a bitch for the rest of today, you ungrateful brat.”

“Well, thank you for manhandling my ass into your apartment, pervert,” you hiss with conviction, ditching the sweater to the sea of trash that comprises his bedroom floor, cringing at the mess. “And christ, into this pigsty! What the hell, do you still not do laundry? And dishes either, by the sounds of Jimin’s aneurysm.”

Still. You bite your tongue, wincing, hoping Yoongi did not notice. When you glance at him, his exaggerated smirk appears as though it is fighting to mask a twinge of something much softer. Shit.

Despite this, he sends you a slow, deliberate wink. “What can I say, the ladies love it when I’m dirty.”

“No, fuck no. I refuse to throw up right now. Shut your goddamn mouth.” Clutching at your woozy stomach, you hastily scan the room for any sign of your cellphone or purse—anything that draws significance as your own belongings amidst everything that is so entirely and unbearably Yoongi. “Where–”

“This?” Yoongi cuts in and your gaze darts back to him, noticing with a wave of relief that the familiar case of your mobile is held gingerly in his grasp. Like a magnet drawn to an opposite pole, you speedily pick your way through the colossal clutter until you stand a good metre away from Yoongi, hand outstretched.

“Thank you,” you barely manage to say as a way of inclining him to hand over the device. The expression of gratitude tastes sour on your tongue, and it ferments all the more when he merely grins wider and makes no move to give it back. Barely containing your rage, you close your eyes and exhale loudly through your nose. “Please, Yoongi. Give it to me.”

“Well, isn’t that just a little suggestive.”

As simple as flicking a switch, the restrained anger that you were genuinely doing so well to keep at bay ignites all the greater, eyes snapping back open to discover Yoongi still wickedly grinning. “I swear to–”

The starting notes of your Until the End of Time ringtone startles the both of you; Yoongi nearly drops the vibrating device while you jump with a parrotlike squawk. The shock sparsely settles before you take the opportunity of his momentary vulnerability to lunge towards his hand, reaching for your mobile. But his sportsman reflexes are too sharp, underestimated in your desperate efforts. Yoongi lifts the cellphone high above his head, a victorious blaze flaring in his eyes as you create a strangled sound of annoyance and firmly plant a palm on his shoulder so that you have some leverage to push yourself up when you jump. All the while, Justin Timberlake continues to sing above your heads and Yoongi-come-Satan laughs heartily at your meagre attempts to grab the phone.

“Yoongi! Give it here!” you shout directly in his face, mid-jump, and he cringes at the dusting of spit that sprays from your mouth onto his cheeks.

“Ugh, the fuck–”

“The call is going to end, stop it!”

Once you are stationary on the ground, preparing to leap again, Yoongi takes the advantage and yanks you down into a headlock, hunching over your torso and nestling your face against his stomach as you squeal out of surprise. Among your exasperated thrashing, the ringtone ceases and you believe, for a sparing moment, that it is due to the call having rung through to voicemail. But that credence is only fleeting when you hear Yoongi begin to speak.

“Hey Minah, yeah it’s Yoongi again,” the Devil converses casually as if he does not currently have you wrestled into submission. “Uh-huh, yeah ___’s awake now, she’s just– Oof–!” A firm elbow knocks into his side, which you come to realise is the one that you previously smacked against the window, and you both groan in unison. Even so, his hold does not let up. “She’s beating the absolute shit out of me. Agh, um yeah, sooner is better than later because we have to practice. Bring some clothes for her if you can. ‘kay, bye!”

At long last, your bind is released and you scamper to grab your phone that he now willingly offers to you. The both of you are mildly panting after such exertion this early in the morning, and most especially in the wake of your hangovers. Before you can lift the phone to your ear to catch Minah before she hangs up, you realise that the call has already been disconnected. The locked screen displays an array of notifications that you swipe through—unanswered texts and missed calls from both Hoseok and Minah. Your brow furrows when you realise they have completely ceased by about 11PM.

“What’s wrong, doll?” Yoongi teases, though his expression remains blank, leaning against the doorframe as the old nickname shoots through your heart in a kryptonite bullet. You frown all the more in an attempt to guise the pain of the fragments shattering amongst your ribs; a metal firework of old memories that you wish he would stop trying to resurface.

“Looks like my friends are a lot shittier than I first assumed,” you mutter, staring at the screen. You ignore how the fluttering vessel in your chest continues to bleed among the damage, exceptionally so as you truly begin to register how close you are to the Devil himself, right now. “They stopped the missing-persons search before midnight, which is unheard of since nobody goes home until it’s known that everyone is safe. But they clearly broke the pal code by the fact that I stayed the night with you, and they haven’t even bothered to make contact until the damage has already been done.”

The corners of Yoongi’s lips twitch, as if he does not know whether he wants to smirk at your ignorant insolence or smile at the fact that you have hardly changed. “They tried, y’know. You caused them a fair amount of trouble last night.”

Flicking your gaze up from the phone, you glare daggers at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s just say that you were really drunk and you ran off on them at the start of the party,” Yoongi pushes himself off the doorframe and shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, staring right into your eyes to convey his honesty. “And then I, also quite drunk, found you out on the roof. We had, uh, a conversation, I suppose, before the police arrived to shut the place down. You kind of passed out, I had to carry you most of the way outside and both Minah and Hoseok were waiting for you, worried as all hell. They were insisting they take you back to your dorm with Minah, but you were coherent enough to say that you weren’t um–” Despite himself, a flush blossoms on Yoongi’s cheeks, which has your own beginning to burn with sheer embarrassment and a growing concern as to what you possibly could have said– “Leaving me. You wanted to stay with me–”

“No fucking way.”

“So, with their permission and after an exchange of phone numbers, we came back to my place–”

“No fucking way.”

“Yes way. I dropped you into my bed and then I went to sleep on the couch once I had made sure Jimin and Taehyung got home without missing any limbs or teeth,” Yoongi, as though he cannot help but rev the engine for the guilt trip, narrows his gaze at you like a disappointed guardian scolding their child. “If anything, I’d say you were the shitty friend for putting Hoseok and Minah through all of that. You basically ruined their night, since they spent most of it looking for you.”

A sea of mortification submerges you. The water fills your lungs and you feel yourself suffocating, unable to believe the truth that Yoongi bleeds out on you, though no surface makes itself apparent to break through and breathe once again like this is a punishment that you are deserving of for cussing out your friends when you were the one who was the burden in the first place. Still, you manage to find your voice buried in the back of your throat, meekly making its way past your lips.

“You’re lying.”

Yoongi’s frown deepens, creasing the smooth skin between his eyebrows. “No, I’m not.”

“Not about the last part, I’m sure that’s true,” you raggedly inhale, trying to hide the way your fingers shake around the device you clutch by dropping your hands to your sides, gaining the confidence to stare him directly in the eyes again so you can gauge the slightest shift in his reaction. “But there is no way that you would have just put me to bed like nothing happened. That’s not your style. You don’t leave people alone when they’re in need.”

It is barely there. The glint of vulnerability that is quick to be guised by a stone cold facade. Yoongi watches you guardedly, lacing his words with enough venom to conceal the dishonesty when he mutters, “Funny, somebody made me change that about five years ago.”

You cannot help but flinch as if he has physically inflicted you; the words are carved into your chest by the tip of a knife held by his own hand. It is ridiculous, utterly stupid to be so hurt by such sentiments when you were the one to enforce him to despise you this way by being the instigator of such a tragic rivalry. Standing there, staring into his unchanging expression that has done nothing but grow sharper and more handsome over the past five years, the pearly scars prickle and itch like a reminder as to why you must stand your ground and never hold up the white flag of surrender.

But a smothered voice at the back of your mind starts to question whether such determination to be spiteful is even worth it anymore.

The blare of a horn outside of the apartment startles the both of you silly, and a strange sense of comfort settles in your chest when you realise that you are not the only one who is feeling so high-strung around the other. A balancing act where, eventually, one of you is bound to fall, and it is up to the other whether they have the courage to face the drop with them.

You let your eyes fall to the sensation of your phone vibrating once against your palm, not bothering to check the screen. “That’s Minah,” you mumble, combing your free hand through your knotty hair and shaking it out as if doing so will rid you of the anxiety. You briefly wonder what on Earth the rest of your make-up-smeared appearance must look like when your knuckles snag on the tangled strands. “I’m leaving.”

A streak of something that resembles mild panic darts through Yoongi’s eyes, though you are already pushing past him to concern yourself with what it may have truly been. As you go, he mutters underneath his breath, and that, you do catch onto. The words send a chill beneath your skin that has not a thing to do with the cool air of the bedroom.

Just like you did the first time things got hard, huh?

The apartment layout is precisely the same as your own, allowing you to easily navigate down the hallway of mostly closed doors to enter the shared living room and kitchen. Immediately, your nose is hit by the mouth-watering aroma of eggs and butter in a frying pan that is manned by none other than Park Jimin in a pair of boxer shorts. And praise all the holy things, it is clearly not a myth that he has the thickest thighs on campus, evident in the defined muscles that curve the golden skin of his legs; flexed in unadulterated display with the way that his weight rests upon his right leg while he works. Your phone vibrates once more in your hand, and you cannot help but quietly chuckle to yourself at the thought of sneakily snapping a picture for Minah to salivate over. Though that plan is quick to be corrupted when Jimin whips his head around at the sound.

“Oh, hey Ice– ___,” Jimin says from the breakfast bar as if it is the most natural occurrence in the world to see you walking out of Yoongi’s bedroom on a Saturday morning. His gaze slips southward from your face, eyes widening as he, suddenly flustered, stammers out, “C-Cute outfit you got there.”

“What?” All mirth is eradicated as you exclaim the single word, overwhelmed by alarm and you glance down and realise that, oh god, you completely forgot how utterly flimsy, thin, and terribly short the white dress that you wore last night is. Your entire body burns with the might of the sun. “No. Shit. I’m so sorry, I–”

“Is he terrorising you, sweet pea?”

The deep, anonymous voice floats right beside your ear and you jump in surprise, covering your mouth to conceal the shriek. The speaker of the question manoeuvres around you in a silky red kimono, his peculiarly gorgeous face inches from your own. Amidst your heart palpitations, you assume him to be Kim Taehyung—a man you have only ever heard stories about and never actually seen in the flesh.

His large, almond eyes regard you with keen interest. A broad, tan palm gently rests upon your bare shoulder and sends an unusually tantalising shiver up your spine. “Hm, I see why Yoongi is so enthralled by–”

“I thought you were leaving.”

At that, all heads turn to the second intruder of the conversation. Yoongi stands behind you, appearing both mortified and infuriated. His eyes zero in on your face, vaguely fleeting to Taehyung’s hand that gingerly touches your exposed skin before coming back to stare at you with a greater volume of seething darkening his eyes. A bud of spiteful glee buds within your chest.

“That’s no way to introduce me, Yoongi,” Taehyung purrs before directing his gaze to you, and you have to admit that you are slightly blown away by the boxy grin that he gives you, absolutely dazzling at this proximity. “I’m Taehyung, sweet thing. No need to tell me who you are, I know all about you. It is a pleasure to finally meet the one and only heartbreaker of Min–”

It occurs all at once. Yoongi charges at Taehyung. Jimin hastily drops the dirtied pan in the sink to prevent the oncoming slaughter between his two flatmates, and the loud clatter slices through your migraine like it had no more than twenty minutes ago. Lastly, an angry fist pounds heavily against the front door, and at that final sound, all movement ceases to a complete standstill. Yoongi is in the process of getting Taehyung into a headlock, and Jimin already has an arm wedged between their bodies, wielding a wooden spoon dotted with the morsels of his scrambled eggs.

You stand before them, astonished by the bizarre scene. Clearing your throat, you slowly begin to shuffle around the spectacle, and the three boys shift their gazes from the entranceway across the room to you.

“M-Minah’s here so, uh, bye,” you stammer, picking up your pace and zipping away to the front door with your phone clutched tightly to your chest. You release an exhale of relief the second you are around the wall and out of their line of sight.

But the repose is short-lived, for when you open the door, you come face to face with the epitome of sheer vexation.

“Well well, if it isn’t the goods that I came for,” Minah, hands on her hips, says with bitter impatience. Her gaze slides down your attire in a manner that is similar to the way Jimin’s had. Unsurprisingly, the judgement in her eyes is tenfold. “I see why Yoongi told us to bring clothes. Vaginas are great and all, but whipping them out willy-nilly can be a little confronting.”

“You,” is hissed as you grab the hem of the dress and pull it down, cheeks burning brighter, “were the one who told me to wear this! And what do you mean us?”

Minah throws a thumb over her shoulder. “Hobi is in the car. We both came to the agreement that we’re going to get coffee and sit you down for a nice, long chat about everything that has happened over the past 24-hours. Prepare yourself for the interrogation.”

Peering past her, you notice that Hoseok is most definitely sitting in the passenger seat with his eyes closed and the side of his face smushed against the glass of the window. You glance back at her, raising an eyebrow. “He’s looking one-hundred-and-ten percent dead right now.”

“Hence why we’re doing this over coffee.”

“Hm, understandable.”

“Hey Minah, thanks for picking ____ up,” is cheerfully voiced from down the entranceway, growing nearer with his footsteps. You briefly close your eyes in all of your chagrin just as Minah flicks her own above your head, looking at Yoongi. You can practically hear the grin in his tone, unbearably close, as he continues to say, “I’m sorry she caused you so much trouble last night. It seems like she hasn’t changed much since the old days.”

Your entire body suddenly feels as though you have been dunked into the Arctic Ocean. What the fuck is he doing?!

“The old days,” Minah echoes with a tight grin while you attempt to telepathically send a giant fuck you to the pea-sized brain of the bane of your existence. You hesitantly look at Minah, who has now averted her gaze to you, eyes filled with accusation and the potential threat of first-degree murder. “Sorry Yoongi, but do you mind elaborating on what exactly you mean by that?”

“Oh, ___ hasn’t told you about us at all?” Yoongi’s faux bewilderment sounds more intrigued than anything to your own hearing. The curiosity that underlies it is undeniable, especially paired with the prickle of the small hairs at the nape of your neck when you feel the flicker of his pupils resting there. For a fearful second, you are absolutely certain he is going to reveal the history that you have smothered so well from your present life right on his front doorstep. That he will unlace the taut stitches to expose the ugly scars beneath for Minah to witness—to finally see the truths you have masked for the past five years.

Yet, you are unsure if you should consider it a blessing when Yoongi curls his arm around your frame and lightly jostles you. His bare skin is desirably warm—comforting—against your own, when he instead says, “Well, I’m sure she’ll fill you in. We were very close back then, I’ll have you know.” At that, his palm that cups your shoulder lifts, and the weight of his presence momentarily alleviates, only to return with his hand against your spine, swiftly shoving you forward and out of the house, almost barrelling you into Minah. “Enjoy your coffee date!” he calls, sugary sweet, and then the door slams with a loud bang that drives another nail into your pulsing headache.

Of course, only Min Yoongi—Satan himself wearing the flesh of a human—could possibly save your ass whilst simultaneously serving it on a silver platter to be slaughtered by none other than your best friend in the terrifyingly near future.

Speaking of the aforementioned, she would appear almost comical if it were not for the fact that she looks about ready to skin you alive. With Yoongi having pushed you out of the house, you stand nearly nose-to-nose with Minah. Her brows are raised to the skies; her eyeballs are bulging with barely suppressed rage; her fingers are digging deep into her hips as though she is tightly gripping onto the final shreds of her sanity.

Your mouth opens and then snaps close. You repeat this in your state of stupefaction as your brain tries to process everything that has occurred over the past hour, concurrently attempting to conjure an explanation before Minah makes you her next taxidermy project.

But some deity must be looking over your sorry self, for your best friend wordlessly turns on her heel and storms towards the car. Then again, you are not entirely certain this is a more positive outcome than her screaming bloody murder in your face for the entire residence to hear.

Awkwardly, you skitter after Minah as she charges towards the car pulled up on the curb, still opening and closing your mouth like a complete idiot. Yoongi has only cracked the gateway to the past open. Allowing you the choice of either filling that gap with yet another layer of deceit, or to swing the door wide open and let all that you have kept secured under lock-and-key to come flooding through. But you know that you owe it to both Minah and Hoseok after all this time of keeping quiet.

Perhaps, not the entirety of the truth. But at least enough of a glimpse to tide them over until the next time Yoongi so abruptly thrusts his hands into your history and yanks the unwanted memories right into your field of vision.

Before you climb into the backseat, you notice your reflection in the window. To say you look hungover is a grand understatement. Your silver eyeshadow has broken apart and is scattered in glittery specks over the spotty foundation on your cheeks; mascara rims your eye bags and emphasises the purple crescent moons embedded there; your lipstick only remains to be a dodgy line that outlines your mouth. You look like absolute shit. And not in the I-just-had-the-best-one-night-stand-of-my-life way, but in the my-brain-feels-like-it-is-going-to-explode-because-I-slept-in-the-bed-of-my-number-one-enemy kind of way.

When Minah slams the driver’s door, the entire car trembles on its wheels. The sound wakes up Hoseok with an annoyed garble of insults, and slices another dagger of agony through your skull. You shut your own with a soft click, behaving like a mouse in the presence of a cat. Not wishing to make any moves that may disturb your best friend and make her pounce.

Yet, staring at the haggard reflection of yourself in the review mirror over Minah’s shoulder, you finally sigh and say, “Can I at least go home and shower first?”

“No, you need to suffer a while longer,” Minah firmly denies you as she jams the keys in the ignition. The engine revs before the squeal of the tyres skidding out on the road silences whatever protest you were attempting to muster.

A small voice in the back of your mind agrees with her, whispering that you deserve this. You have deserved it all since the first moment you told Min Yoongi you never wanted to see his face again.

During the drive to the cafe, you change in the backseat into a simple black sweater, blue jeans, and your battered white sneakers. The familiar clothing is an immediate comfort, yet you continue to avoid looking at your deathlike face and dishevelled hair in any kind of reflective surface. As the promise of a hot beverage becomes ever closer, both you and Hoseok slowly gain more life. Yet the car remains to be swamped by an unpleasant lack of conversation, which is unusual for your gossipy trio. The radio is blaring so loudly that none of you would be able to hear each other if you tried, anyway.

It is not until the three of you have arrived at the cafe, ordered, and received those aforementioned orders that the silence finally begins to crack. A sigh passing through your lips acts as the key to the gateway of conversation.

“Look, I’m really sorry–”

“Apology accepted. We all make mistakes. Now,” Minah immediately cuts you off, her interests clearly residing elsewhere. Nonetheless, your mouth hangs open and she reaches across the table to lift your chin and shut it. “If you could be so kind as to tell me what one, fine Min Yoongi meant when he said the old days…?”

You nearly choke on your sip of iced Americano at the question. Hoseok, looking at least ten times more alive than he was in the car now that he has half of a latte in his stomach, jerks back in surprise. His eyes bore into Minah.

“What?” Hoseok says, completely aghast. His eyes slide over to you, bulging out of their sockets. “What? Excuse me. What the fuck happened while I was teetering on the cusp of death?”

With your knuckles digging into your eyes, you mutter, “Min fucking Yoongi, that bastard–”

“Yes, that bastard,” Minah helpfully coaxes you, leaning across the table to stick her face in your own, behaving like an interrogator trying to get a criminal to confess. “What old days did you have with that beautiful bastard?”

“We were…” you trail off, feeling years worth of bile rising in your throat, clogging up your airway. You close your eyes and bury your face further into your palms, elbows propping you up against the table, lips pressing against the heels so that both Minah and Hoseok have to lean further in to catch your mumble of, “Befthfnriens.”

There is a moment of confused silence. Then, Hoseok tersely says, “What?”

Swallowing the bitter taste that now touches the back of your tongue, you push yourself away from your cage of skin and knuckles and instead wrap them around the disposable cup. There, exposed, you finally open your eyes and let them burn holes into your drink. Anywhere but the faces of your two friends when you whisper, “Best friends.”

Minah nearly shrieks, “You and Min Yoongi were what?”

The café bustles too loudly, and you wish that you were the block of ice in your cold Americano. Blending into the surroundings; melting away into nothingness. You prod the cube with the end of your straw, gradually putting more force behind the blows until the ice is shooting down to the bottom of the plastic cup and then dejectedly floating back to the surface. Minah snaps her fingers, and you lethargically look up, feeling well and truly dead inside in comparison to the animated, wide-eyed expressions that she and Hoseok currently sport.

The big hand ticks into the third minute since the inquisition began. A sigh heaves from your lungs, and you return to murdering the ice cube.

“Do I really have to repeat myself? Again?”

Minah does not even blink. “Yes, and this time, a thorough, essay-worthy argument to support your thesis is required. Because what the fuck.”

You take a sip from the iced coffee, feel the chill slip down the walls of your throat. Although you wish you could physically project your being into any other location than here, you say, “Up until the end of high school, Yoongi and I were–” A cringe, not because of the title, but the fact that it is half a lie when you spit out– “Best friends.” Another sigh; another gulp of ice cold. “Our dad’s knew each other before we were born, so we grew up together. As kids, we shared a lot of interests, and our friendship developed from there. But once we started high school, we just drifted apart because we were both busy with our sports. The hatred grew with the natural rivalry between figure skaters and ice hockey players, I guess.”

You wonder if you cannot outright tell them that Yoongi ruined your chance at becoming a star because you are not so sure if you believe such a sentiment anymore.

“Sounds like bullshit, but okay,” Hoseok deadpans, and you automatically recoil. Minah, on the other hand, socks him in the shoulder, to which he yelps so loudly that the guy at the cashier glares at him.

“How does that sound like bullshit?” she says in your defence, crossing her arms and scowling. “It sounds completely reasonable to me.”

“I don’t know. I mean, it feels like there’s something missing,” Hoseok winces, dramatically cradling his wounded shoulder. He averts his gaze from his attacker to you, eyes narrowing a fraction. “To be best friends and then hate each other so much over a ‘natural rivalry’ sounds too fishy. Was there like, a fight or something?”

“Well, yeah,” you sigh, flicking the tip of your straw with your nail. Technically, it is the truth, even if the fall-out was over something completely different to what you say. “But it was the rivalry that caused the fight. We had a huge argument over not being able to hang out because of training, which then lead to insulting each others’ sports, among other things. It was petty and stupid. But we were only teenagers at the time, and we were already under loads of pressure with our intense training, and with getting good grades to graduate high school. So the fight was the last straw, y’know. We didn’t talk again after that, nor forgave each other, and it’s stayed that way ever since.”

Sometimes, you terrify yourself with how effortlessly you can craft a lie when put on the spot. An awful habit that nobody should be proud of.

Hoseok watches you for a moment longer before nodding slowly and leaning back in his chair, seemingly satisfied with your explanation. “Alright, fair enough.”

“Ugh, you can be such an ass sometimes. Why would you make ___ relive such a sad period of her life? Do you feel validated now?” Minah huffs after knocking back the last of her mango smoothie. Immediately, she and Hoseok launch into a round of pointless bickering, and you safely return to your silent sipping.

The topic of Yoongi ceases to be brought up again. For that, you are more grateful than the two of them could ever comprehend. But when you finally get back to the apartment and turn the shower on steaming hot, letting it scald your skin, you cannot help but think. You angle your face up at the shower head, let the mascara dissolve and stream down your cheeks, feel the day-old lipstick becomes chalky, and think.

Min Yoongi. The boy you used to know who still smells like candle wax and cinnamon. The intimate look in his eyes before he said he did not help you, did not do anything at all, last night.

Lying may not be a talent to be proud of. But at least you are not the only one who has refined it.

The atmosphere of his bedroom is discomposed. The sunlight that filters inside the stuffy space outlines the shape of her body where it has been carved out by the creases on the mattress. The sheets incline and decline like a small mountain range—an imprint of her presence. Yoongi stands at the centre of the room, slowly suffocating on his own breath, eyes boring into the lingering remnant of her existence that haunts him like a restless spirit. The hills and slopes in his bed. Her, entirely.

Yoongi did not dare to tell her that, last night, he carried her limp form across the grassy accommodation courtyard once the taxi had pulled up to the curb. Tucked safely into his chest, murmuring nonsensical sentences against his collarbone. He refused to let her know that he held her chin as he tipped nearly a litre of water past her lips over a span of three glassfuls; that he rubbed between her shoulder blades and gingerly held back her hair while she vomited in the bathroom sink; that he gave her the sweater to change into. And most definitely, he never hinted that she stumbled quietly into the living room while he was draping the couch-come-makeshift-bed in a quilt, clutching at his wrist and entreating him to stay by her side while she fell asleep.

An utter fool, he had obliged without question. Perched on the edge of the mattress, he drew soothing patterns over the back of her hand for the scarce minutes that it took her to drift off. Even then, he had remained much longer than necessary to gaze at the soft pout of her lips, the delicate feathering of her splayed eyelashes, the moonlight accentuating the youthful innocence that only sleep can ever conjure.

No, she did not deserve that kind of knowledge. That glorious victory hanging over his head in an upper-hand that she could use against him in the future.

Now, his knees tremble and he feels pathetic. An utterly despicable excuse for a human being with the sweater of his that she was wearing bunched up in his fists and clutched to his chest like a lifeline. Their smells kiss with tongues in the maroon threads; the colour of her blood. Yoongi knows this because he has seen it with his own two eyes against frozen white. Tinted silvery blue by the shadows of midnight draped across the sky, studded at the centre by the full moon in all of its might.

The thin film coating Yoongi’s unblinking eyes dries into a delicate crust. He knows why she would not have told her friends about the two of them, and yet, he cannot help but wonder. Is she really so terrified of her own vulnerability? Of being cracked open like a fault line splitting the earth, allowing those standing by to peek at the gory innards? Perhaps, it is because she already understands how it feels; the sensation of flesh slicing open, of cells pulling apart to allow the bone to cut through and be exposed to the still, icy air. She has known such pain all too well, so she folds it like origami until it can fit in the thin crack between her fibula and talus, and she lives as though she was never once hurt.

Yoongi watches the dust motes glacially glide through the sunlight, basking in the warm honey of it and landing upon the mountains that she rose amongst his bed sheets. There, with the blood-soaked sweater pressed against his thrumming heartbeat, with her tone of malice remaining to be a sticky syrup in his ear, the realisation surrounds and embraces him. He had believed he understood this entire time, and yet, he had always been beyond far off the mark. He knows this now because of the ghost of her figure atop his mattress. He understands why she pushes him away with all her might; with all the breath in her lungs. He understands why her body folds inward, smaller, like origami to hide in the spaces between bones, when she sees his face.

Yoongi has cracked her open once, and he is not afraid to do it twice. This time, for the right reasons. This time, with his eyes wide open.

Yoongi begins appearing wherever you go. Like the black plague.

Despite the hostility he had exuded before you departed his apartment after that evening, the guy has been nothing but a picture of perfect juxtaposition over the following two weeks. He wears a grin that is neither snarky, nor cocky, and it haunts your every move. Whether you are standing in line at the campus cafeteria, or rushing down the hallways to make it to training after one of your classes, or shopping at the nearby supermarket that is frequented by all of the campus residents for snacks. No matter the location, the bane of your existence has managed to announce his passing presence through a peripheral glimpse of a peculiar curve of lips. A smile that is so fleeting, so sincere, that you find yourself wondering for hours afterwards if you had merely imagined it, or even falsely fantasised that he was there in the first place.

So really, at this point, you are reasonably terrified that you might wake up in the middle of the night due to the demands of your bladder, and find Min Yoongi standing beside your bed, grinning down at you like an ultimately more horrifying remake of Paranormal Activity.

But although he has been popping in and out of existence like a spectre, and your guard is now automatically activated the instant you leave your flat, you foolishly allow yourself a moment of relaxation in a situation deemed high risk. That is, in public, as you tiredly stroll from one of your classes to the stadium.

Night-time has begun to stretch across the sky in a pink and orange sunset, looking like smears of bleeding watercolour. A threat of clouds dwells in the distant horizon, opposite to the direction that you walk, hinting at a late-night storm that crackles with lightning and draws goosebumps along your arms. Not many students are out. Those who are seem to be heading home from their training, or speedily rushing along to their evening lectures. At this time of day on a Friday, the chances of the rink being empty and you being able to get in without a booking slip tends to be high, and so you decided to save time by skipping out on stopping by the office to collect one altogether.

After a strenuous afternoon of classes, you are too exhausted to second-guess the nearing tap-tap of sneakers against the pavement. It sounds similar to a light jog, as though the person is warming down from their afternoon exercise, or perhaps heating themselves up to evade the chilly air. They are quick to gain on you with the slow trudge that you currently enact, and you mentally anticipate the mild shock that will fizzle through your blood at the sudden intrusion of a being in your periphery; the slight breeze that will come with their passing by…

Except they never do.

“Hey, ___!”

A shriek of surprise involuntarily escapes your lungs, and you are certain that your soul has been startled out of your body. “What the fuck?!”

“Normally, people say hello back,” Yoongi, who has materialised beside you, sniffs wetly. His breath comes out slightly ragged, concluding that he is the mystery jogger, much to your utter displeasure. “Or how are you?”

You purposefully take a step to the side, putting distance between your parka-bundled, sports-bag-loaded bodies, and venomously bite back with, “No, I genuinely mean what the fuck. Were you hoping for me to have a heart attack?!” With that said, you continue to walk ahead, taking deep breaths to calm yourself down. Yoongi, like a puppy waiting for a scratch behind its ear, eagerly follows. You whip your head to the side and glare at him. “Stop. Why are you walking with me? Go away.”

He sniffs again, ignoring your demand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Besides, I’m not walking with you. I just happen to be walking beside you since we’re both going in the same direction.”

“You literally jogged to catch up to me,” you deadpan, quickening your pace and praying that he gets the message loud and clear. But Yoongi, as always, is not one to accept defeat so easily.

“Actually, I was getting my blood circulation going to keep warm, but whatever you want to think,” he says with the sly smirk of a liar, and your entire body boils with barely suppressed rage. “So… how’s life treating you?”

You stop dead in your tracks, and wish to beat the sense out of whatever it is that briefly flutters in your chest at his soft, casual tone. “Yoongi, don’t act like you care. Do you want me to apologise for that night at the party? Is that why you’ve been acting like Casper the Friendly Ghost for the past two weeks?”

Yoongi, having trailed a few steps ahead after your abrupt halt, twists on his heel to face you. His expression, despite its playful facade, is otherwise unreadable. “Hey, no. I don’t care about that. I’m only doing this for the sake of our coaches who want to dick each other.” His brow furrows. “They have a point, you know. Time heals all wounds.”

“But I’ve got the scar to prove it,” you snap, taking off again, and Yoongi visibly flinches as if you slapped him. Although you are the inflicter, you cannot help the cold sliver of guilt that slides down your spine at the remark. There is a poisonous taste on the tip of your tongue, even after the words have dissipated with a cloud of mist at your lips.

But it seems that even words in the shape of a blade cannot cut through his thick skin, nor deter him from any semblance of hope. Long used to years of your bitterness. Yoongi’s resilience remains as stable as a wall of iron, and is further proven when you can hear feet catching up with you again. His voice, right beside you once more, casually asks, “Are you mean all the time, or is that anger only directed at me?”

You press your lips into a firm line to prevent the small smile that threatens to curl them. “You’re certainly a catalyst.” The cold skin of your face heats up when you quickly glance out the side of your eye and notice that Yoongi’s gaze is fixed on you, hardly paying attention to where he steps. “Anyway, how in the world is walking together doing it for their sake? They’re not around to see us.”

“Maybe, but word spreads fast. Our rivalry is infamous on this campus, after all. Check it out,” Yoongi says, and you look up, but not without a brief side-eye at him in order to see where his stare is directed.

Following his gaze, it lands upon two girls walking on the opposite side of the thin trees that separate the massive path, brazenly watching the unlikely pair across from them. No, more so, they stare as though they have come upon a sight so rare and astounding that they can hardly tear their eyes from it—like you and Yoongi are aliens walking without their disguises. When the both of them realise that the two of you have taken notice of their observations, they make a fuss of panicked screeches and grab each other to tailwind it out of there.

A small missile of unease and insecurity implodes within your stomach, causing you to scowl. You are not entirely sure what creates the twist. Perhaps, being observed like an exotic zoo animal by strangers who know no better. Perhaps, walking so closely alongside the bane of your existence that your senses are tantalised by the cinnamon whiff of his cologne. Perhaps, agreeing with his sentiment. Wounds, no matter how ugly, can heal.

What you are certain about is that you need to get away from him before the foreign, virulent twinge in your chest blooms into something dangerous. Something unmanageable.

“Cool, and now they’ve seen us, so you can go,” you firmly state, curling your fingers tightly around your bag strap and picking up the pace again. “I have more important things to do than deal with your headache-inducing presence.” The arena, your escape, now resides no more than thirty metres away, and you determinedly stride towards it.

Yoongi, for what must be the third time, effortlessly catches up with you. Damn his longer legs to Satan’s fiery den. “Do you, now? Where are you headed?”

“The stadium.”

“Oh, me too. For what?”

Apparently, a lot of mental energy is required to will him the fuck away. “Practice,” you growl.

“Me–” The tail end of Yoongi’s sentence is completely severed by his mouth snapping shut. Right there, the realisation swiftly dawns as you both come to a standstill, staring roundly at each other in the middle of the pathway. “Do you have a booking slip?”

The moment of hesitation is infinitesimal. Then, the both of you are charging at the speed of two wild and voracious cheetahs in the direction of the arena.

“No! Don’t – you – dare!” you screech, arms pumping at your sides and sneakers smacking hard against the pavement, desperately attempting to catch up to Yoongi, who managed to take off a half-second before you. “I need to practice, asshole!”

Yoongi, almost at the stadium stairs, barks a sharp laugh. “We all have to practice!” he shouts back in a high-pitched voice. Immediately, you realise he is mimicking you from the time you dismissed his missing booking slip, and your blood reaches boiling point. “Cry to somebody who cares!”

An exasperated scream rips out of your chest, driving you to push your legs harder and finally reach Yoongi’s side, just as he is about to take to the first step. But before you can even reach for the collar of his parka to yank him behind you, Yoongi is whirling on his heel and, at a frightening speed, wrapping his arm around your waist and effortlessly lifting you from the ground. There is hardly a second for your brain to process what is occurring and ultimately conjure a shriek, because as quickly as the Devil sweeps you and your sports bag up, he is ungraciously depositing you in the shrubbery that lines the pathway before taking off again.

“First in, first served. Suck it, doll!” Yoongi crows from halfway up the stairs, all the while you spit profanities and struggle to wriggle your way out of the bush. By the time you have found your feet, the bastard is grinning and giving you two middle-finger salutes from the top of the stairs. Then, he is slipping through the sliding doors of the stadium entrance. Shit, shit, shit!

“You’re an idiot, ___,” you loudly curse yourself, partially out of breath as you hastily scale the steps, and not giving a single damn if anyone can hear you. “Who cares if you have to waste an extra ten minutes and walk to the other side of campus! Always get a slip, dumbass!”

Once you pass through the doors and realise that Yoongi has already crossed the foyer and entered the ice rink, you slow down your pace, despaired. Frankly, you feel more irritated at yourself for being too lazy to get a booking slip, which has clearly made you pay the price and lost you a bonus three hours of evening training. The fact that the extra time was missed out on because of Yoongi, of all people, has you inwardly brewing a storm, no matter that you already did your required five hours per day this morning.

Well, that is until he comes bursting out of the double-doors that lead to the arena, causing your heart to stutter in its otherwise fluid pattern of beating. For a fleeting moment, you wonder if the weird kindness he has been exhibiting to you lately has caused him to turn over a new leaf of consideration, and he has come out to let you have the slot. But that peculiar sense of hope fades once you realise his features appear utterly disgruntled.

Thus, with the bitchiest smirk that you can humanly muster in your deathly exhausted state, you ask, “What? Did somebody beat you to the punch?”

Yoongi comes to a halt a few feet before you, and the wicked curve of your mouth involuntarily shrinks. His sharp, dark eyebrows are narrowed in a scowl, and you stupidly have to force your stare at the linoleum in order to stop yourself from gulping at the fierce, stomach-sinking sight.

“The Zamboni broke down in the middle of the rink,” he says, evidently annoyed. “By the look of things, they won’t be able to resurface the ice or get the shitty thing off it until tomorrow.”

Not one to directly trust the words of Satan himself without blatant evidence, you navigate around him and head towards the double-doors. Sure enough, when you peek through them, it is to see a motionless Zamboni near the centre of the half-resurfaced ice rink. Two maintenance men skate around the vehicle, seemingly trying to figure out why it has broken down, and how on Earth to fix it.

Letting the doors swing shut, you state a disinterested, “That sucks.” Then, without sparing a glance at Yoongi as a safety precaution for your double-crossing heart, you brush past him and head back towards the stadium entrance. Because if you were not going to be training on the ice tonight, then you were most definitely rescheduling your date with your plush, cosy bed to approximately 15 minutes from now.

“Hey, wait.”

Your feet turn to stone, anchoring you in place. In that instant, if the manner in which it bounds at the sound of his soft tone is anything to go by, you confirm that your heart is a traitor.

Not expecting you to twist around, Yoongi, instead, comes up to your side and roots himself between you and the exit. A terrible sincerity is laced around those two words, and they bring forth a deluge of similar instances where they have left his lips. From across a sun-warmed playground as a shaved ice van pulled into the parking lot; to racing after the bus on the first day back at middle school; to underneath a streetlight with a hand curled securely around your wrist, Yoongi hesitantly leaning in.

The Min Yoongi who stands before you now is so different, and yet entirely the same. It nearly breaks your heart all over again.

“Let’s go to a pojangmacha,” he insists, rubbing the back of his hand against his wet nose. An old habit that vaguely soothes your inner conflict and your surface irritation. “There’s one close to campus that does the best tteokbokki–”

“I can’t– I don’t want to,” you sigh, anxiously chewing the inside of your cheek at the slip-up. You shift your gaze away from Yoongi’s eyes, absently staring at the empty kiosk across the foyer instead. “I have nationals coming up. I’m on a strict diet.”

“Well, isn’t that the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Yoongi says, surprisingly genuine. I can think of one thing sadder, skims your tongue, but does not escape. Before you can part your lips to reply, Yoongi continues to say, “One night won’t hurt though, right? For Seokjin and Namjoon, of course, to prove to them that we can be civil. That’s it.”

Your gaze drags back to Yoongi, and you can feel your pulse thumping in your ears. His mussed, midnight hair is windswept from the frantic running, fringe in a slightly pushed-back disarray. The peaks of his cheeks are still flushed in a soft, rosy shade that makes him glow underneath the fluorescent lighting. His expression borders on being somewhat tender, vividly akin to the one that he used to save for nobody but you, yet not quite. It is guarded by glass walls; allowing you to observe, though protecting him from your touch.

But your fists have been known to shatter.

“Fine,” you huff, your stare unwavering. “For the coaches. But you’re buying.”

When Yoongi breaks out into a grin, looking like everything you have tried so hard to forget, you ignore the voice at the back of your mind that begs to differ.

Yoongi knows he should despise how utterly excited he feels. Yet there he is, feeling the kind of descending-rollercoaster-rush of exhilaration that he gets in his gut when the game is tied with 30 seconds left on the clock.

The entire 15-minute walk to the pojangmacha is submerged in a dense silence, though he hardly minds. Knowing that she is keeping up to pace beside him—despite the scowl that appears permanently etched into her features—is enough to satisfy his urge to be near her for the time being. Even so, he keeps glancing out the side of his eye to make sure that she is still there. To be absolutely positive that she is not some incredibly lucid figment of his imagination which, given the circumstances, would been highly concerning.

In fact, Yoongi is still struggling to believe that she even agreed to such an absurd offer of a stir-fried dinner on a chilly Friday evening. With him. Especially since she is on a diet for a figure-skating competition, which is something that she takes very seriously. Always, when it comes down to anything that involves her sport. Her future Olympic career.

What he really cannot fathom is that she accepted on the basis of such a flimsy excuse. Given their recent history, it was wholly unnatural on her part. She must have been able to see right through the “for the coaches” facade and caught wind of his genuine desire to sit down and talk civilly with her. Because surely, there must have been better options for her to schedule into her agenda. Like burrito-ing herself with bed blankets, cramming a bland salad down her throat, and bingeing on Netflix.

So, is this a subtle sign of peace? Or is she merely hoping that if she sacrifices the next handful of hours to his overly eager grasp, he may, perhaps, cease annoying her to the end of her wits?

Yoongi, as per usual, is as clueless as a fucking goldfish. Yet knowing that he will have the chance tonight to speak at least two sensible words to her—ones that are not founded on a pointless argument or a five-year rivalry—has him trying to compose that rollercoaster sensation all over again.

Once they turn the final street corner, the orange tent comes into existence through its bustling appearance and mouth-watering aromas. She, with her lips still clamped shut, strides right ahead and through the open flaps of the entrance. Yoongi, teeth grinding to powder, is tempted to fling an insult at her for her blatant rudeness. Instead, he channels that negative energy into propelling his legs forward, following her.

Determinedly, she weaves through the busy stall and picks a table in the far corner without so much as a glance back at Yoongi. So obviously attempting to project her lack of care for him and this entire situation. Without warning, a hopeless grin itches at Yoongi’s lips.

“Hungry, are we?” he says once he is back within her proximity, dropping his sports bag beside his seat and shrugging off his parka as she does with her own. Underneath, she wears a black, form-fitting long-sleeve. He hastily casts his gaze elsewhere before she tries to call out the pink flush on his cheeks for him being perverted.

“Yes, but I also want to get this over and done with as swiftly as possible,” she grouses, tossing her jacket over the stool and then plunking herself atop it.

Yoongi proceeds in doing the same, but not without retrieving his soon-to-be-withered wallet from the parka pocket. “If you eat too fast, you’ll get stomach cramps.”

“I’ve mastered the art of speed-eating, I’ve got this,” she sneers, leaning towards the makeshift kitchen to better penetrate the constant, chattering hum of the other patrons with her calling voice. “Can I please get one serve of tteokbokki and two bottles of soju?” Without turning to face him, her eyes slide to the side, meeting his own. “That’s only for me, by the way.”

Swiftly as possible. Right.

“I thought you were on a diet.”

“Yeah, I’m actually ‘Min Yoongi intolerant’ and the diet’s been working until, well, right now.”

“Ha! She says to the Min Yoongi who is paying for her meal,” he bites back sarcastically, though the words lack any poison.

At that, her mouth slowly seals shut, eyes narrowing at him in barely accepted defeat. Triumphantly, Yoongi smirks, and then calls out the same order to the little old lady. Within minutes, the steaming hot food and bottles of alcohol are being served to them, and Yoongi is reluctantly saying goodbye to the very few bills in his wallet. He takes a healthy swig of bitter soju to numb the pain.

“Calm down, cowboy. I don’t want to be dragging you back to campus,” she comments, skewering a piece of tteokbokki and blowing away the steam. Her pursed, plush lips glisten as they nibble at the stir-fried food. Yoongi takes another swig to spite her and to distract himself from the tantalising view.

“The fact that you wouldn’t just leave me here to fend for myself is commendable,” he says, raising an eyebrow. He similarly picks at the food, while she realises what she has said with mild horror. “Besides, you were the one who ordered two bottles first. Who’s to say that I won’t be dragging your ass back to campus?”

“I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can somewhat stomach your presence when I’m tipsy,” she clarifies. “And that’s as far as I’ll be going tonight. The last time I got drunk, I woke up in your bed without a single memory of what happened the night before. Pervert.”

Yoongi blinks, completely ignoring her last comment. “You can drink two whole bottles of soju and only be tipsy?” He ungraciously shoves two pieces of steaming tteokbokki into his mouth, stuffing them into his cheeks so he can continue speaking. “I always thought you’d be a lightweight. Yet here you are, proving me wrong.”

“And I always thought you’d grow out of being a pain in my ass, yet here you are,” she sighs, taking a swig of alcohol to try and conceal the tender smile that crawls at the corners of her lips. But Yoongi is too hyperaware of every slight shift in her expression to miss it.

“Admit it, I’m a pain that you can’t live without,” Yoongi says, staring right at her. He can see in her curious eyes that she senses the underlying venom. Yet, instead of acting on it, she rests the rim of her already refilled glass against her lower lip.

“I’m not giving you that glory, Min Yoongi,” she says, though it is practically an admission in itself. She knocks back the soju, and Yoongi follows in suit. Two souls numbing an agony that is still too unbearable to even whisper.

Their voices momentarily subdue and they focus on eating their servings of tteokbokki. Yoongi feels a little ridiculous to be so thrilled about doing something as mundane as eating with her, especially now that the conversation has dialled down to nothing more than chewing and sipping. Every so often, he will glance up at her as he mindlessly brings his chopsticks to his lips with more food pinched between them. Behind her, the orange canvas trembles with each caress of the wind outside. The buttery glow of the tent lights, the eye-watering haze from the food cooking in an enclosed space—they smear the outline of her, turning her into a nebulous, dreamlike being that slowly, silently eats.

Maybe the alcohol is contributing to the warming of his insides and the softening of his muscles like sun-touched clay, but he knows deep in his gut that it is mainly because of her. This sensation is no foreign entity; it never has been. It is as familiar as her eyes, watching him with misplaced contempt.

Yoongi, in a somewhat morbid sense, finds it ironic that the one thing they loved the most—the ice—ended up wrenching them apart, like the strength of a current upon a ship in savage seas.

With the ice on his mind, Yoongi cuts through the silence with a question. Akin to her, he is on his second bottle of soju, and so his words slip from his tongue like liquid. “Are you nervous for your competition?”

Her own voice drizzles honey-like from her lips. “I mean, of course. Who isn’t nervous about them?” She leans her elbow on the table and rests her cheek against her palm, blinking slowly. Brave eyes are set on his face. A hopeless war stirs chaos inside of his heart. “But I’m confident and free-skating is my forte, so I know I’ll do good, at the very least. My only issue is that Seokjin wants me to execute a quad-Salchow, which has only ever been done by Miki Ando in like, 2002. It’s a guaranteed ticket to the 2022 Winter Olympics. But if I fuck it up, I probably won’t get the spot. I don’t know why he’s insisting I do such a risky move, even though I’m coming pretty close to landing it, now.”

Yoongi’s brow pinches. “Four rotations? Wasn’t that Seokjin’s gold medal move?”

Her brows raise in bewilderment as she grabs for her soju bottle. “How did you know that?”

“Namjoon, of course,” Yoongi grins, and she hastily looks away, suddenly focusing on pouring her nth glass of alcohol. He decides to not call her out on it; the idea of her being flustered over his smile is something he wants to savour. “Anyways, I’m sure you’ll land it and the crowd will go fucking crazy because you’re the second woman to complete the move. You’ll do it again in 2022 for the whole world to see, and then you’ll become an icon in the history of figure-skating.”

Carefully, she sips from her glass, gaze focused on the wet ring of condensation that the cold bottle has left on the plastic-covered table. “Do you really mean that?”

“Well, you’re not called the Ice Princess just because you’re an asshole.”

She does not say thank you. But her glassy eyes, in the fleeting second that they meet his own before she tips the last of the liquid down her throat, are brimming with foreign appreciation.

After making a satisfied exhalation and wiping her mouth against the back of her hand, she says, “When’s your semi-final game? And before you ask how I know, it’s because your team never shuts up about in the cafeteria. I hope you realise I had to sit through five team chants while eating my beans this week, which made them taste even more awful than they already are.”

Yoongi gets sheepish about that, rubbing his thighs with his palms. “Yeah, they like to amp themselves up when a game is near. It’s tomorrow afternoon.”

The way her eyes bulge is comical, and Yoongi has to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing. “What?! Shouldn’t you be practicing?! And you’re even drinking, what the hell!”

He shrugs. “I don’t like the other rinks on campus. That’s why I looked pissed off about the broken-down Zamboni, if you noticed.” He knows she noticed—he had clearly seen the victorious smirk on her lips when he had stormed out of the rink. “Namjoon always advises against practicing the night before a game, anyway. There’s nothing worse than having to deal with last-minute injuries, especially for any of the prelim rounds. As for drinking–” He polishes off his soju for emphasis, sealing it with a grin– “I wasn’t about to let you outshine my alcohol tolerance. If we lose tomorrow because of my shitty performance, I can at least blame it on you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” she deadpans, though the corner of her mouth trembles with barely suppressed humour. Blaming each other for their own mistakes is something they have always done best.

Yet Yoongi, strung in this limbo between tipsy and drunk, wants to lean across the table and taste her swallowed laughter on his own lips. To be fair, she would probably slap him. Surely, she would.

Right?

Yoongi chews his desire and gulps it down. Instead of taking her face between his palms and kissing her until his tongue knows the precise shape of her lips again, he says, “You should come watch us play.”

“Don’t push your luck, Yoongi,” she says, and he smothers the small flame of hope that had unknowingly lit up inside of him. After checking the hour on her horribly cracked phone screen, she sighs. “Are you done eating? It’s getting late.”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Though as she begins to stand up from her seat, Yoongi stops her, eyes still lingering on the shattered glass that is lightning-like. “Wait, I just had an idea. To prove to the coaches that we hung out…”

When she endearingly tilts her head to the side like a curious puppy, Yoongi forces himself to not jump across the table and connect their mouths. He points at her phone on the table and continues on. “We could… take a selfie?”

He knows he sounds ridiculously unsure, but it is only because he is certain she will shut him down as quick as she did with the game-watching offer. So Yoongi is more than surprised when, after a silent pause of her chewing her lip and frowning at her phone, she shrugs. Though her nose is wrinkled with what appears to be mild displeasure.

“Uh– Yeah. Okay. Fine, yeah,” she rambles, sitting back down and pushing her hair away from her face. “But we’ll have to take it on your phone. My front-facing camera has a crack through it and it distorts the photos.”

“Oh, so that’s why you haven’t been posting any selfies to Instagram lately,” Yoongi mutters under his breath as he grabs his own phone and stands up.

“What?”

“What? Scoot over.”

Grudgingly, she obliges, pushing her seat back from the table to make room. Yoongi pulls the third, unused stool out from underneath the table, places it next to her own and sits on it. This close, her floral-scented deodorant lingers lightly in the air, and Yoongi subconsciously takes a deep inhale as he opens up the Snow camera app.

“Can’t we do it without a filter?” she says with a tinge of vexation, peering at his unblemished screen as he swipes through the different face-filters. “Hurry up.”

“Do you really think you look pretty without filters?” Yoongi lies through his teeth, and she socks him hard in the bicep for it. Her fist might be small, but her knuckles manage to dig into a weak point of his muscle, making him groan.

Knowing him, he will dote on the bruise she has made until it turns yellow as a durian.

“Fucking hell, ___,” he still grunts, finally deciding on a filter with a press of his thumb. He lifts his hand before their faces. “Here we– Hey, you’re going to have to lean in so the filter recognises you.”

“What even is the–” She cuts herself off mid-sentence when she leans a little closer and the filter attaches itself to her face, matching Yoongi. He is full-blown grinning by this stage, juxtaposing the way she frowns and presses her lips together, as if she is trying to not laugh. “Fucking heart crowns? Are you serious?”

“We’ve got to be convincing,” Yoongi says with an air of nonchalance. He cannot stop staring at her through the screen, nor will his mouth cease curving at the cartoonish pink hearts that dance around her head. “Don’t you want to make it worth it?”

“Oh my god, shut up and take the damn photo.”

“Calm your ass down. Annnd… smile!”

She absolutely does not smile. Her death glare pierces through the camera lens with an intent to murder, yet it is terrifyingly cute when paired with the little crown of hearts and the soft, rosy tinge of the filter. Yoongi nudges her elbow with his own as a means of firm encouragement, though all he can manage to weasel out of her is a half-hearted tilt of her lips.

Still, he grins wide and genuine and presses the little white circle once, and then a few more times for good measure. The shutter sound rings above the sizzling of fried food and the continuous drone of chatter within the tent. Satisfied, Yoongi drops his hand and bends his head over the phone, entering the photo album and clicking the last of the six-or-so identical images. When the preview image expands to fill the screen, air becomes locked in his throat.

“Hey, let me see,” she mumbles, her silk-like voice nearing as she leans closer to view the device. Yoongi, without peeling his eyes away from the photo, tips the phone in her direction.

He hears the air suck between her teeth; a blackhole inhaling the stars. He knows that she sees it, and he wonders if it crushes her ribs like the blows of swinging fists.

While she does not smile at her utmost potential in the photo, the mirth lingers on her mouth and lightens her soju-sparkled eyes. Her head is tilted closer than Yoongi first realised—almost close enough to be pressed against his own; close enough that their individual heart crowns overlap. In the past, they had taken hundreds of photos in this precise position. The only difference is that there would be arms curled affectionately around necks, and their cheeks would be unabashedly flush against each other.

But staring at this image of them now, it is like a brutal documentation of their reality. It reminds him of everything they lost—of what they could of been, had that incident never occurred. Although the image depicts her hovering close by, the blatant evasion of any physical contact is stark—a black smudge on an otherwise perfectly white canvas.

A deep, unsuspecting crack on the surface of an otherwise perfectly frozen lake.

Yoongi’s throat suddenly feels bruised and swollen.

“Can you send it to me?” she quietly asks, breaking the tension that has been steadily hardening in their chests. Newfound velvet wraps around her tone, softening the syllables. “S-So I can send it to Seokjin–”

She stops when Yoongi drags his eyes away from the photo for the first time since opening it, only to look at her and realise how near their faces have become to one another.

Yoongi knows that his expression must be twisted into one of remembrance—of pure tragedy. The photo unlocked a gate that he has kept under tight security ever since that day, and he feels each of those memories anew. A scarred wound that has opened again, riper than ever. This close, her sad eyes are swallowed with pity and spite and something else that he refuses to cultivate hope for.

It was only two weeks ago that he was this close to her, hidden between the shadows, sweetness on his tongue, red and blue lights dancing in a taunt on the walls. Yet, even now in a soberer state, he cannot decide where to rest his eyes—choosing to let them flicker between her nose, eyes, and the small opening of her parted lips. Not knowing when he will get to be this close to her again.

I’ve missed you, he remembers her whispering while she was dressed like an angel, submerged beneath a sea of intoxication. I’ve really missed you so much, Yoongi.

Yoongi’s eyes settle, at last, on her mouth. The flesh glimmers, plump and begging. He has no idea how many years it has been since he felt it melt into his own, all innocent and empathetic with young love. He can sense her testing him in the way that she does not move away—how the tip of her tongue snakes between her lips, wetting them in tantalising preparation.

But I can’t apologise, no matter how unbearable this has been.

Yoongi, in an effort more strenuous than he lets on, looks away. Though he cannot ignore the cold blade that carves her initials into his heart.

“Yeah. What’s your number?” Yoongi says the question as though he did not confess his undying love for her, solely through the look in his eyes. As though he was not about to kiss her with freshly harvested apologies and offer the bouquets of repentance with his tongue, tied at the thorn-ridden stems with urgent forgiveness.

Quieter than she had first asked, she rattles off the numbers and he presses at the keyboard with shaky fingertips. All the while, a tiny voice in the back of his mind makes him realise that he now has her phone number—something he has not had stored in his contacts since his old phone was wiped at least three years ago. He clicks the ‘send’ button, and her phone proceeds to vibrate in two quick pulses on the table. By the time she is reaching for the device to open the message and save the photo, Yoongi is standing and gathering up his parka, sliding his arms through the sleeves.

“Come on,” he says with a sigh, wedging his phone into his sweatpants pocket and slinging the strap of his sports bag over his shoulder. She, having been staring at her phone screen since he moved, suddenly snaps out of her silent daze and gathers her belongings.

The walk home, much alike to the walk there, is silent. Though rather than it being weighed down by her indignation and his stifled amusement, it is suffocated by unspoken confessions and dithering apologies. Yoongi cannot get the sight of her lips out of his mind, and he is somewhat glad that he no longer faces her, for the temptation of them being right before him like a forbidden fruit dangling from a low-hanging branch is too much.

He knew that cracking her open and digging through her bones for his vindication would not be a clean task. He knew that he would be up to his wrists in blood and the gore would tuck itself beneath his nails. He just never realised how completely in love with her he still is—that this vying for first place on who can hate the other the most was never about hate at all.

The part that eats at him the most is whether the feelings are requited. But, as always, she hides herself well behind her mask of ice.

After becoming used to the rhythm of their sneakers against the pavement, her shaky exhalation is like an air horn violating his hearing. Yoongi’s head snaps to the side, initially thinking that she is crying. Though when he sees that no silver stains her cheeks and her jaw quivers uncontrollably, he recognises the signs. A welcome familiarity amidst the foreign, yet oh-so familiar feelings they traverse.

“Your teeth are chattering.” Yoongi says, and she glances at him with a surprised jump of her shoulders. “Are you still prone to the cold?”

“N-No, I’m fine,” she bluntly insists, averting her eyes and continuing to stride ahead.

But Yoongi is faster, grabbing at her elbow and twirling her freezing—and now flustered—self around to face him again. “Nope. This won’t do.”

“D-Don’t be ridiculous,” she sputters, but Yoongi is not having it. He drops his bag to the sidewalk with a heavy clunk, shucks off his parka, and wraps it around her already padded shoulders and the sports bag at her hip. While he ties the sleeves at her chest to keep it in place, she keeps her conflicted glare on the ground.

“Warmer?” Yoongi asks with a forced, lopsided smile. The cold relentlessly attacks him through his thin sweater, digging its nails into his ribs and squeezing tight as he picks up his bag.

She wrinkles her nose and returns to her initial stride, though her teeth have stopped rattling like a loose doorknob. Yoongi, following after her, knows it is the only expression of thanks that he will receive. But he cannot find it in himself to mind, anymore.

By the time they have reached the campus accommodation, Yoongi’s muscles are frigid and his skin feels permanently raised in goosebumps. The silence between them has eased in its tension, yet he struggles to grasp the right words with his tongue when they reach the walkway in front of her dorm. Because really, what do you say after a night like this? It was never a date—a compromise, at best. He cannot kiss her on the cheek and wish her a good night. He cannot book another moment of meeting, as if there is something even close to friendship strung between them. He cannot tell her he will call her for coffee next weekend.

Thankfully, she saves him from his internal war-waging. Her hands come up to the tied sleeves, about to untangle them. “You can have this back,” she starts, but the words are lurching up Yoongi’s throat before he can stop them.

“Keep it,” he insists, fists clenching at his sides in an attempt to suppress the embarrassment that suddenly washes over his body. She stills, staring with uncertainty at him, especially now that he is slowly stepping backwards. “I… I mean return it, of course. When I see you next, yeah?”

Her brows are slashed downwards. “I don’t plan on–”

“Too bad!” Yoongi shrugs, now grinning like a thoroughbred lunatic at her utterly perplexed expression. Then, before he can fully comprehend the actions of his own body, he is turning on his heel and jogging down the path, calling over his shoulder, “See ya!”

If she says anything more, Yoongi does not hear it over the adrenaline rushing through his ears, the slapping of his sneakers against the pavement, and the rattling of his bag as it bounces against his ass. With his sudden spurt of energy, he runs from her dorm to the other side of the village, which, had he been walking, would have taken ten minutes. Though he finds himself slowing at the walkway to his own apartment within a record-breaking five minutes. His muscles burn with an aching heat, and the humiliation over his blatant corniness flares like a long-forgotten mosquito bite that he accidentally scratched.

“Oh my god,” Yoongi groans to himself, yanking open the already unlocked front door. His over-exerted limbs scream at him, and he knows that the prelim game tomorrow is going to be the epitome of Hell for his body. “I’m a whole fucking idiot. What the fuck.”

“I don’t need to know the context because I completely agree with you, nonetheless,” comes Taehyung’s voice from the opposite end of the entranceway. Yoongi looks up from kicking off his sneakers to find his housemate peering around the wall. There is a sly grin on his face, and the whites of his eyes are evidently stained with red, spidery webs.

Unsurprisingly, he is as high as the Lotte World Tower.

“Piss off,” Yoongi mutters, trudging past Taehyung and entering the living space. Jimin is nowhere to be seen, which is definitely a good thing. Dealing with one of his housemates is like trying to control five toddlers, as it is. “I don’t need your shit right now.”

“Ooh, somebody’s had their kimchi dipped in ghost pepper sauce,” Taehyung cackles, trailing after him in that tattered excuse for a kimono. Yoongi makes an immediate bee-line for his bedroom. “Why’re you lookin’ so flustered, huh? You smell like fast-food and alcohol. Weren’t you supposed to be training–”

Yoongi slams the door in Taehyung’s face and locks it. In the darkness of his room, he drags his feet across the small space, lets the strap of his bag slip off his shoulder and to the carpet, and then collapses with an agonised sigh on his bed. His muscles just about cry with relief. Though as quickly as they begin to unwind, they seize up at the memory of his random outburst—his sudden escape, leaving her with the sole means of having to see him again.

“What is my damn problem,” Yoongi mutters into his pillow, body deflating like a hot air balloon. “I practically forced it on her. She was going to refuse. Now she has to come and see me to give it back. God. What the hell. I hope she leaves it on our doorstep without knocking. I hope she gives it to Hoseok and he gives it to Jimin. Fuck.”

Yoongi slowly submerges himself into his own cesspool of self-loathing. Though the thoughts gradually mould into ones of observation, the subject unchanged. His mind, as always, remains to revolve around her like a moon orbiting its planet.

After tonight, Yoongi has realised that she is not the shell of a memory he has clung to for so long. He saw her in there, although she was hidden beneath layers upon layers. She peeked out every now and then in familiar mannerisms or ways of speech that alluded to long-forgotten fondness. Maybe, she did not realise the small slip-ups she made throughout the night; her tipsy carelessness let the layers peel back and fall to her feet like a rose wilting its petals. But the knowledge that not all is lost is enough to comfort Yoongi for the time being. It holds enough importance for him to linger.

Because he knows that he saw the hint of forgiveness in her eyes—still struggling to make it to her lips.

Perhaps, he thinks sleepily, eyes drooping closed, we’ll make it there one day.

You have been awake for a whole two hours, though you have not yet detached yourself from your bed. Despite it is nearing 1PM, you have remained cocooned in your doona the entire 120 minutes (give or take), reclined on your back with your head dangling off the edge of the mattress. You are certain that all of your blood has drained from your limbs and pooled within your skull, if the prickle-like, pins-and-needles sensation across your forehead and scalp is anything to go by. Nevertheless, you lay like a corpse and unwaveringly stare across the room at the foreign item within your quarters.

Yoongi’s parka.

The black swathe of puffy material is slung over the back of your desk chair, unsuspecting as a vase of flowers. In spite of its seemingly ordinary presence, you watch it from your upside-down position like an owl eyeing off its prey, as if the piece of clothing is a mouse that is going to flee if you dare look away. All the while, you continue to mentally flick through the scrapbook of your memories from last night; meticulously reading through the pages, all smudged by the lingering effects of two soju bottles.

(Okay, so maybe you were slightly lying when you said that two soju bottles only got you tipsy. By the time you had left the pojangmacha, you were certainly sitting more on the one-more-drink-and-I’m-dead-fucking-drunk end of the spectrum.)

But you keep finding yourself stuck on a particular scene, repetitively turning back to inspect the finer details of it. In the image, the Devil’s tragic face is a breath away from your own and his molten eyes are drinking up your features like cold water on a searing summer’s day. And while your sight was softly smeared like gouache at the borders, you are certain that his midnight gaze lingered longer than appropriate on the shape of your lips. You are absolutely sure that he was restraining himself; double-checking the titanium locks on his desire to ensure it would not break free—that he would not dive into your mouth with his own and remind you that he tastes like blackcurrants and first loves.

“Jesus on a Razor scooter,” you exhale, eyes still on the parka. Your face burns like a pot on a stove, and something small and deep inside of you whispers that it is not because of your body’s blood supply gathering in your head. “What am I doing? Why am I even thinking about him? I… I hate him. Yeah. I hate him.”

That little something—in a place within you that you refuse to reach—laughs with lungs full of incredulity, as if to say: Silly girl!

It is then that your intimate staring contest with the jacket is cleaved by Minah suddenly barging through the door. She looks as though she has just woken up herself, if the struck-by-lightning hairstyle is anything to go by. “Rise and sh– Oh, you’re… What the hell are you doing? Your forehead veins are bulging like John Cena trying to piss with a urethra infection.”

“That’s… a very unique way of putting it,” you say from your position, rather perplexed. “John Cena? Of all people?”

“Haven’t you seen his forehead veins when he wrestles?”

“I– No? Have I ever exhibited any interest in John-goddamn-Cena over the past three years of our friendship?”

Something flits across her face; a flash of discomfort that is not founded on the fact that you do not keep up to date with professional wrestlers. Something that screams: Well, I know less about you than I first thought. Who knows what other secrets you harbour.

But it dissolves quicker than medicine in water. Like a bandaid on a bleeding scratch, Minah plasters a grin on her lips and seats herself beside you. “Touché. Anyways, where were you last night? I woke up to the sound of you emitting a continuous, soft scream and slamming all the doors in the flat, so I have a feeling you weren’t at the stadium.”

“Oh, shit, sorry. I thought you were staying at Hobi’s place,” you feebly apologise, lethargically rolling onto your stomach and taking your precious time to sit up. Your body feels light as a meringue as all the blood rushes out of your head and back into your limbs. “But yes, I was… out. At a pojangmacha.”

“Drinking without me? Rude,” Minah says, tugging at a corner of the doona after she notices you struggling to be freed from its confines. You mutter a small thanks when it effectively loosens the material’s bind on your body. “Since you didn’t rat me out to Seokjin after my Shark Week binge, I’ll be merciful to you and your alcohol-abused liver.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” you bite with every inch of sarcasm you can muster.

“Damn right I’m your Queen,” Minah asserts, and you roll your eyes. A sly smirk inches its way onto her lips and she jabs her thumb at your desk. “So, I’m guessing you went out with whoever owns that parka?”

You freeze mid-stretch. A thousand and one excuses charge through your head like an off-course train—your usual knee-jerk reaction to lie. And while your gut screams at you to oil the hinges of your defence and heave that bulletproof gate shut on the truth, your heart urges you to reconsider. After all, Minah is your best friend. She deserves a Royal wedding buffet over the stale breadcrumbs you have always thrown her to keep her hunger at the bare minimum of satisfied.

You can feel her eyes on your skin as you slide your own back to the jacket. The face of its owner—bright and mischievously determined—looms at the forefront of your mind when you bluntly state around a mouthful of thorns, “It belongs to Min Yoongi.”

Silence hangs like a fog over your bedroom. You do not dare to sever your gaze with the jacket and meet Minah’s stare. A year ago, you would have said it was because you wanted to upkeep your meticulously cared-for facade of strength. Yet now, you not straying your eyes to your best friend is completely and utterly due to you being terrified of witnessing her reaction up close—the range of emotions that must be stretching and shaping her dainty features like dough.

For this reason, your heart lurches in surprise when Minah grabs your shoulders, forcing you to face her near-manic grin as she giddily shrieks, “Are you pulling my dick right now, ___?! Because I swear to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I will shatter each of your knuckles with a hammer while you’re sleeping if you’re lying to me!”

Dumbfounded, you blink at her. “N-No, I'm serious! Please don't do that, what the fuck–"

"Oh my god. What. This is... insane! The two of you have hardly spoken since we started at KNSU a whole three years ago. Yet, in the past fortnight alone, you've slept over at his goddamn dorm and skipped training to go on a drinking date with him?!"

"Would you just calm down for a sec–"

"Are you sure you're the real ___?" Minah urgently asks, hands coming to your cheeks and squishing them like putty. Her eyes are round as dinner plates. "Has a ghost possessed you? Am I going to have to take you to a shaman? You know, like in that Jo Jungsuk K-drama where he's a chef–"

"I'm not possessed, Minah!" you finally snap, recovering from the shock that her unexpected reaction thrust upon your body. You bat her palms away from your face. "Christ, you jump to conclusions like you jump on dicks."

"Hey, don't shit on my enthusiasm," she snickers, hands falling to her lap. "Seriously, though. What's gotten into you? Has Yoongi black-mailed you into becoming friends again? Do I have to kick his succulent, Channing Tatum replica ass?”

You sigh, picking sleep-crust out of the corner of your eye. “Well, not exactly… it’s complicated. The coaches want us to move on from the past, but it’s not that easy.”

From there, you explain the incident with the Zamboni and you striking a deal with the Devil in order to get back into Seokjin’s good graces. You let the information flow out of you in a stream of truth, only retaining the part where your faces were separated by an exhalation and Yoongi’s eyes were sinkholes, set on consuming you. Nevertheless, your stomach feels less congested by the time you have finished speaking, and Minah seems pleased enough with what you have shared, if her bemused yet thrilled expression is anything to appraise.

“This is fucking wild,” Minah oh-so eloquently summarises. “Hey, can I see the photo?”

“Must you?” you groan, reaching for your phone on the bedside table nonetheless. A low-battery signal pops up when you unlock it, and you silently admonish Past You for prioritising a low-key panic attack over remembering to put the device on charge last night. “The lighting was pretty bad in the tent, so you can’t see much,” you pitch as a final attempt to get Minah to lose interest in the photo, though you know it is hopeless. She snatches your phone once you open up the message in which Yoongi sent it.

“Oh my god, the filter,” she immediately giggles, pinching at the screen and zooming in. Your cheeks are uncomfortably warm, sleepy features screwed up like a cat just passed gas on your lap. “Wow, you look like you’re one more photo away from giving him a vasectomy.”

“I was,” you partly bluff, chewing at the inside of your cheek and leaning closer to see the screen without the light of your window reflecting on it. Minah zooms the image out again so that the entire thing is visible, and a soft, heart-shaped lump wriggles up your throat.

“Dare I risk you snapping off the blades of my skates when I say this,” Minah begins, her gaze adhesive as glue on the device. “But you guys actually look… kind of cute together?”

You snort, ignoring the way your face feels as though it has been dunked in boiling water. “If you think so, why’re you saying it like a question?”

“Because the skates weren’t cheap, and thus, suggesting an element of uncertainty with my own statement might give them a chance at surviving your wrath.”

“Am I really such a heartless monster in your eyes?” you say with a pointed glare, seizing your phone from her grasp. Minah now stares directly at you, and the humorous quiver of her lip is unmistakable.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

You smack her over the back of her head with your pillow, to which she yells in protest.

“Oh, you bitch!” she cries, though it is said through a cheek-splitting grin. She leaps off the bed to evade your second sweep with the pillow, which narrowly misses her side. From a safe distance, she says, “Wait, since Yoongi texted you that pic, that means you’ve got his number now! Are you going to message him so you can meet up and give his jacket back?”

To be honest, you did not even think of that—the fact that you now have a means of directly contacting your nemesis. “Uh, no. I think you’re forgetting that I still hate his guts,” you claim, though the words sting like nettle leaves on the tip of your tongue. “If he wants it, he can come and get it.”

Minah smirks like an evil witch. “He can come and get it, huh? Are you talking about the parka or are you talking about yourself now–” She, with the reflexes of a jaguar, catches the flung pillow before it can strike her face. She hugs it to her chest and laughs while you glower at her with faux loathing. “Well, hear me out on this,” she starts, raising her finger in a gesture of silence when you go to speak again. Mildly disgruntled, you bite down on your tongue. “I’m going to be driving to the off-campus stadium in approximately two hours to pick up Hobi. If you want, you can join me. Yoongi will be there for the prelim game and it should be over, if not close to that by the time we get there, so you can give his parka back. The match starts at 2PM.”

As much as you would love to spend the rest of your afternoon becoming a single organism with your bed, Minah undoubtedly presents a prime opportunity for you to be rid of the jacket. You make a contemplative hum, flipping your phone over and over in your hand as you chew on the offer, even though you are certain from the get-go that you are going to accept it. Your hesitation is more due to you knowing that your best friend will give you a whole lot of shit for the next handful of hours if you are to accept without a hint of regard.

“I know you’re stalling because you think I’ll give you shit,” Minah—apparently a fucking mind-reader—interjects, tossing your pillow back onto the bed and making her way to the door.

You cease fiddling with your phone and gaze impassively at her. “What makes you think that?”

She turns and leans against the doorjamb, arms crossed. “___, I’m your best friend, which basically means I’m your mother. I know everything about you, your mannerisms, and your expressions.” Then, her final comment is spoken with a raise of her brow, “Also, you’re wearing the kind of dumb smile that one does when they think about Labrador puppies. Be ready in 40 minutes, okay?”

Immediately, as Minah departs with a wicked cackle, you smack your hand against your mouth, realising that yes, indeed, your lips are goofily curved in a stupid smile. Groaning into your palm, you tip backwards onto the mattress and gather yourself into the foetal position. God, what is getting into me? Now I’m subconsciously smiling at the thought of Yoongi? What the ever-lasting fuck.

“He must be Voldemort,” you reason, giving the stink-eye to the guiltless parka and hoping that it somehow channels through to its satanic owner. “He must’ve cursed me as a method of torture. That’s the only reasonable excuse.”

If Minah had of heard you, she would have sighed and said: Really? The only reasonable excuse? Are you that blind to your own feelings? But Minah did not hear you, and thus, your totally unreasonable justification as to why you are experiencing even the thinnest sliver of pleasantness towards Min Yoongi is safe with you and his jacket.

Once you have surpassed your dramatic moment and put your phone on charge, you shower the remaining listlessness from your skin and throw on a dark grey hoodie and black skinny jeans. Assessing your attire in the mirror, you definitely look like the reincarnation of your 13-year-old emo phase, but that is exactly what you are wanting—to look as inconspicuous at the stadium as you can humanly muster. With the jacket under your arm, you meet Minah—who is still unnecessarily enthusiastic about the entire situation—in the living room and head out to the car.

And while Justin Timberlake has always lifted your spirits, you find that throughout the 20 minute drive to the stadium, you cannot even bring yourself to sing along to SexyBack. Instead, you cling to the parka on your lap as if it is the only thing keeping you rooted in place, and internally blame the way that your stomach swirls like a blended milkshake on a peculiar case of car sickness.

“Have you even breathed in the past half hour?” Minah questions once you have reached the location, striding into the stadium’s foyer. A hint of genuine concern turns her lips down. “Really, you look like you’re about to pass out. Do you want me to give the jacket to him?”

“N-No,” you stammer, instantly feeling heat gather at the nape of your neck over the way your voice trembles like a harp string. You cough, clearing your throat. “I think I might be a little hungover from last night, is all.”

“Okay.” Minah draws the word out, her tone blatantly conveying that she is unconvinced. Before she can say anything further, her phone pings and she slows her walk to a standstill, checking the notification. “Hobi says the game finished ten minutes ago, but he’s with Jimin and Wonwoo in front of the change rooms. Let’s head there.”

Although she does not say it aloud, the mischievous twitch of her near-smirking lips says, Yoongi should be there, too, loud and clear as a billboard promoting a sex shop. A little reluctantly, akin to the feeling you have right before you rip off a bandaid even though you know it is not going to hurt as bad as you think, you nod and follow her. Dodging around the crowd that is slowly spilling out of the arena exits.

By the look of some familiar KNSU faces and the exuberant commotion that they make, the KNSU team must be the ones going to the finals. A small sense of pride blossoms in your chest. Not for Yoongi’s sake, but for the representation of your university at a game that will put them up as potential contenders for the next Winter Olympics. If they are successful in the final and get the placement for 2022, they will become South Korea’s youngest ice hockey team in the country’s entire Winter Olympics history. They will be renown by the future generations for decades. It is difficult to not feel thrilled for them, as much as they annoy you in the cafeteria.

Yet, betraying your initial thought, a tiny space within your chest fills with warmth over Yoongi’s triumph in particular. He is a defenseman, so you know he would not have scored the winning goal or anything of the like. But as the captain of the team, having a large role in assisting his coach with planning the gameplay techniques, you can imagine how exhilarated he must be at the moment—chanting the KNSU anthem with his teammates; a tad breathless from being squashed beneath the pile of their bodies on the rink in a typical ice-hockey-style victory hug; still charged from the adrenaline of the game. He is probably calling his parents in the locker rooms right now to let them know of the successful game. Wait, oh shit, unless–

“___, is that you?” announces a perplexed voice, simultaneous with a hand tentatively resting on your shoulder, halting your forward motion.

In an instant, it feels like all of the blood has been sucked out of your body, and you are now no more than a sagging sack of meat with weak, jiggling knees. When you lift your head, it is to see a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair. His skin is wrinkled around the corners of his hesitantly smiling mouth.

A spitting image of Yoongi in 20 years time, except a head-and-a-half taller.

Sweet fucking Mary riding a mechanical bull.

“Mr. Min,” you almost gasp, hand reflexively tightening around the smooth fabric of the parka. “Hello! Sorry, you startled me! I should’ve guessed you would’ve been here for Yoongi’s preliminary game–”

“And what exactly are you doing here?”

The nasally, sneering voice comes from around Mr. Min’s elbow, belonging to the side of the family that Yoongi gets his shorter stature from. His mother’s crow-like, narrowed eyes peer at you with an obvious glint of contempt. Even when you and Yoongi were friends, she was never necessarily fond of you. Mrs. Min tolerated you, if you must call it anything. She thought you were nothing more than an unneeded distraction for Yoongi, and he scorned her for it, which certainly did not assist her skewed perception of you.

To her, the accident must have been a blessing in disguise.

“Honey, she’s here to support her university’s team. You know that.” Mr. Min casts a firm glance at his wife, who merely sniffs and continues to critically dissect your perturbed features. Then, with a smile that has a softer curve to it, he says, “Look at you; you’re all grown up! I almost didn’t recognise you, but your outfit is identical to the one that you would always wear during the, er, teenage phase that you went through with Yoongi.” He laughs and tenderly shakes his head, all the while you curse Emo Phase Past You for essentially getting you in this predicament.

Unsure of how to behave—especially with Mrs. Min glowering at you like you are the bird shit that just landed on her blouse—you settle with a deferential, thin-lipped tilt of your lips. “It’s been a few years, yes.”

You hope that the Min’s sense the vibes of discomfort rolling off your being, taper the conversation there, and go on their merry way. But Mr. Min, always the courteous man, continues to ask, “How are your parents? I haven’t managed to see them since the summertime.”

It is then that Minah politely clears her throat, prompting you to remember that she was leading the way to the change rooms, which are now no more than a few metres down the nearby corridor. You give her a small, reassuring smile with a look of firm insistence, to which she immediately catches on and, with a nod and a raise of her eyebrows, continues to walk away without you. Squaring your shoulders, you return your attention to the Min’s and say, “My parents are well, thank you. I wasn’t aware you were still in touch?”

You bite your lip to refrain from adding on: Since after the incident.

“Well, your father and I try to catch up for a drink every few months.” Mr. Min chuckles good-naturedly. Mrs. Min remains silent, wearing an expression of one who has just caught a whiff of expired canned tuna. “We’ve know each other since we were studying, after all.”

“Exactly, how else would you’ve met our darling son?” Mrs. Min bitterly mutters, not quite underneath her breath; intentionally loud enough for you to hear. The urge to scream at her rises high in your throat, and the smile on Mr. Min’s face slips away like water on a plate. He inhales deeply through his nose, turning to berate his wife.

“___? You came?”

The baffled exclamation of your name comes from your left, and you immediately whip your head to the side to face its owner. Yoongi is still in his red-and-black hockey gear; the safety pads underneath his jersey fill out his shoulders and chest, narrowing down at his waist like an arrowhead; the battered helmet is held by the cage with his gloveless fingers, allowing you to experience the full-force of his post-game appearance. His onyx hair is mussed and sticking up with sweat; his eyes are wide and bright, the pupils still slightly dilated with adrenaline; his skin glows a faint shade of salmon from the freezing rink and his exertion; his cold-cracked lips are creamy and plump, liberally coated in lip-balm.

Yoongi looks more a sportsman in this moment than he ever has.

Yoongi looks… fuck.

“I-I just got here,” you stutter, and it is only when your brain restarts in order to formulate a sensical sentence that you notice the bewilderment that traces his features—the panic that steadily fills his eyes. He looks down at your hand which clutches his jacket, lips slowly parting in realisation.

But Mrs. Min is suddenly bursting forth, beaming and reaching for him, nearly knocking you aside in the process. “Yoongi, sweetie! Congratulations–”

“Excuse us a second,” Yoongi bluntly cuts her off, grabbing your elbow and practically dragging you and your stumbling feet to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the foyer. You are too dumbfounded by the entire situation to shake his hand off or fire a few insults at him over his manhandling, though his hand ceases contact the moment he finds a spot that is not swamped by departing spectators.

At a loss for words, all you can do is stand and stare at him, quietly uttering, “Um.”

“Are… are you okay?” Yoongi tentatively questions, still looking a little shell-shocked. His eyes momentarily flit over your shoulder, in the direction of his parents, before they return to your painfully astounded expression.

Yoongi asking about your wellbeing makes something viciously blossom around your heart, and you grit your teeth as though the roots are situated between your molars and you have a chance at ceasing their growth. You shift your gaze to his nose when the genuine look of benevolence in his eyes only fertilises the feeling.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” You almost say: I see your mother is still a nasty bitch, though you work the affronting statement into, “I didn’t expect to see your parents here.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Yoongi comments with a raise of his brow, and you cannot help but quirk your lips at that. His gaze strays to his parka, still bunched up in your grasp. “If you only just got here, did you come to drop this off? I mean, thanks, but–”

“Do you really think I’d go out of my way to give your jacket back?” you snark, but the words come out a whole lot less savage than you were intending. Nevertheless, you pass it to Yoongi and let your hand fall to your side, fingers aching a fraction from how tightly you were clinging to the material. “Minah was coming here to collect Hoseok; it was nothing more than a convenient opportunity. After all, I didn’t think you’d come and get it yourself after you literally ran away from me last night. Do you do that after your dates, too?”

Yoongi, looking like you just lifted your hoodie and flashed him your bra, coughs. “Uh, I don’t date.”

“Unsurprising. I don’t know anyone who’d want to,” you tease with a teaspoonful of salt in your tone, but you only realise what you have said when Yoongi’s eyes flash like lightning. Your heart just about punches right through your ribcage as the horror dawns on you like a summer storm—out of the blue, yet in an instant.

“You did, remember?” Yoongi taunts, wearing a grin coloured by melancholy.

You want to wipe it off his face. With your hand; with your mouth—you cannot decide. After everything that has occurred over the past day, chipping away at you like a hammer and chisel on marble, you have been reduced to a state of vulnerability that you have not experienced in years. You have become a knight stripped of his armour and sword in the middle of the fight, with nothing but his fists and his willpower left to protect him.

But you cannot find the strength within you to throw a punch.

Yoongi seems to notice this when you do not immediately fire back with a scathing remark. The curve of his mouth straightens and he quickly backtracks. “Sorry, that was out of line,” he says, and you are stunned that he even apologised for the jibe. “Anyways, thanks for bringing this along. I should, uh, get back to my parents. But before I go, the usual frat will be hosting a party for the team’s win tonight. You should come.”

Grateful that the subject has shifted before it could fully develop, you fiddle with the strings of your hoodie, a hint of amusement tinting your expression. “They were that confident you guys would win?”

Yoongi’s grin returns. His eyes crinkle like his father’s. “Oh no, it was either going to be a winner’s celebration or a pity party. All we knew was that getting drunk was going to be on tonight’s schedule, no matter the outcome.”

“Well, if that isn’t the spirit of KNSU in a nutshell,” you chuckle. His grin grows impossibly wider and your heart does the ridiculous punch-through-muscle-and-bone thud again. A fierce urge to slap your chest in order to scold the traitorous vessel momentarily overcomes you. “Is it cool if I bring Minah and Hoseok?”

The smile falters. “Uh, only Hoseok.”

“Wow. I can’t believe everyone thinks that our rivalry is bad.”

“I’m kidding. She only hates me because you do,” Yoongi shrugs as he begins to circle around you. “I have to go. But I’ll maybe see you tonight?”

“Keyword: maybe,” you state with a smirk, rotating on the spot to watch him go. Yoongi nods and lifts the hand that holds his parka in a half-hearted salute, heading towards his parents. Though he only manages a few paces before you are realising what you have not said, which imminently leads to you clenching your fists and calling out, “Hey!”

Yoongi stops and turns back around, quizzically observing the immediate regret that contorts your features. Especially since—to your complete horror—a few KNSU students have come to notice the interaction occurring between you and Yoongi. The infamous foes who would once not dare be seen in the same room together. Heat spills into your cheeks, and despite the small audience, you inhale deep enough to consciously sense your lungs shrivelling up like dried grapes before they are expanding once more, releasing your voice.

“Congratulations on the win,” you say at a much lower notch than your initial shout—loud enough for him to hear you, though not at a volume where the distant spectators can precisely make out the words. “Your team has done KNSU proud.”

Yoongi’s expression shifts. The thinly veiled amusement melts into something akin to when one has an epiphany; a cocktail of sincerity and fulfilment, garnished with the shimmer of elation that softens his eyes. Although it must last no more than a few seconds, it seems as though the moment has been taken hold of at its ends and stretched out like taffy. Yoongi stares at you like the past five years never occurred and you, with your hummingbird heart, wonder what that could possibly mean. And in this prolonged time where your enemy exudes forgiveness in tidal waves, you are almost tempted to let the current sweep you under, too.

But a fist of ignorance keeps you standing by the fingers it curls around your throat, and Yoongi must see the bruise marks it leaves on your flesh. Because then, without a word, he twists around and continues to walk away.

Anger does not strike a match on your bones and light up your insides. Rather, your spine is stroked by a warm hand of serenity, and the strength to bat it away evades you. Leached from your limbs like a receding shoreline, as if Yoongi’s physical being is drawing the vigour out of your soul with every step that he takes.

From the corner of your eye, you see Minah and Hoseok approaching with quick strides. As they near, they glance between you and Yoongi, who has now returned to his parents. Once she is close enough, your best friend slings her arm around your shoulders in a manner that is more colluding than consoling, and turns you to face the windows instead of the thinning crowd.

“Were they Yoongi’s parents?” Minah hisses, looking over her shoulder to where the Min family is standing. “Oh, they’re already gone. His mum sounded like she had her head up her own ass.”

“What? What’s going on?” Hoseok asks, leaning close, hands on his hips with his brows pinched. “Why are you two always hogging the tea from me?”

You sigh, though it comes out as more of a groan. Your limbs still feel filled with air after the way that Yoongi looked at you, like he was one bad decision away from gathering you in his arms. “Yes, they were. And no, we’re not, Hobi. There’s nothing to discuss, alright?”

“I don’t believe you, you’re being shady as hell lately,” Hoseok says with a nonchalant shrug. The tips of your ears burn like smelting ores, extracting the irritation from a small nook within you and igniting it into a vivid sensation. “First, you stay at Yoongi’s overnight. Then, not even a few minutes ago, I saw you have a whole conversation with not only his parents, but with him, with my own two eyes!”

In your periphery, Minah bites her lip. Clearly torn about whether she should keep your confidences locked behind her teeth, or cease holding back the truth from Hoseok. But this is not her issue to deal with; it is your own. Thus, you shift her arm off your shoulders and breathe in, ready to exhale your defence.

“You’re overthinking it, Hoseok. I already told you that Yoongi and I used to be best friends, which is why I talked with his parents. Yoongi was merely putting up a good front for them when he talked with me; they still don’t know about the severity our fight. They think that we’re still friends.” Now that you have hastily dressed the wound, you cover it with protective plaster by steering the topic towards something more favourable. “Anyways, all he said was to tell you two that you’re invited to the celebration tonight. The frat is throwing a winner’s party for them. And no, he didn’t invite me, but I’m still coming, of-fucking-course.”

“A party?! Aw shit,” Minah excitedly exclaims, leaping on the new subject like a determined puppy, and you are beyond grateful. She looks to the ceiling, hands held up in prayer against her chest. “Coach Kim, I’m sorry that I’m going to break the rules of my diet. But it’s for a good cause, I promise.”

“As long as we can still fit into our dresses, he won’t notice a thing,” you laugh, linking your arm through her own. The both of you stray your eyes to Hoseok, who has remained silent and is still vaguely looking like his cereal has been pissed in. Your grin of encouragement slowly widens. “Are you going to come, Hobi?”

“It’s not like he has a choice,” Minah pitches in, matching the size of your smile and innocently batting her lashes at him. Hoseok’s expression does not budge an inch. Well, until she adds, “After all, didn’t your fuckbu– I mean, very good friend Wonwoo already invite you?”

Suffice to say, Hoseok’s cheeks ripen into a shade of fresh cherries and you, oblivious to this budding romance, amiably accuse him of withholding information from you, too. From there, it only takes you and Minah teasingly getting up in his face about Wonwoo—a combination of poking at his ribs while making offensive, lewd sounds—for his lips to finally split into a bashful beam, the details of his recent hook-ups with Wonwoo imminently gushing out. The three of you leave the stadium and head to a salad bar for a late lunch in good spirits, and you are finally distracted enough to put your torn emotions about Yoongi on the back-burner of your befuddled thoughts.

Until the evening, that is.

Normally, your drunken selves are more than happy to take the half-hour walk to the frat house a little ways off the campus. But now that the winter is truly beginning to settle in on this side of the hemisphere, your trio makes the wise choice of splurging on a luxurious method of transportation for once—an Uber. This not only gets you there 20 minutes faster, but it comes with a solid heater system that fogs up the car windows like morning mist on a river.

Not that the three of you notice, of course. You and Hoseok are too busy dealing with Minah, seated between you, who perhaps took this night of free-rein a tad too far, considering she consumed almost half a bottle of Russian Standard at the pregame in your dorm.

“Swallow it, you little shit!” you desperately urge, hand wrapped around the lower half of Minah’s face. While you are certainly not as drunk as she, your vowels have attained a noticeably slurred quality. “We’re turning down the street now! Only a few more seconds ’til we’re there!”

“If she throws up in this fucking Uber, I’m going to throw up,” Hoseok warns, nearly just as drunk after losing a game of beer pong against you. He holds Minah’s handbag open underneath her chin, in case you forcing her to keep her vomit down happens to fail. “I’m serious, ___. I’ll paint the fucking car with my power-puke.”

Minah tries to speak, but her voice is muffled against your palm, which impulsively presses tighter on her mouth. You glare daggers at Hoseok from across the backseat. Yet, considering that you can hardly see his paling expression in the dimness of the Uber, you are positive that he cannot see you looking at him like he has a death wish.

“Pull yourself together, Hobi!” you snap, having no desire to pay for a clean-up fee, and knowing that neither of your broke-as-hell-student-life friends can afford it, either. It is then that, to your immense relief, you feel the car slow to a stop, and the Uber driver, perceptibly panic-sweating, announces that you are at the destination. “Oh thank god. And thank you for the ride, kind sir. Minah? I’m letting go to open the door, but I promise I will throw your $300 Lush collection into the trash if you projectile spew before I can get you out.”

With that said, and with what sounds like an affirmative grunt from Minah, you use your free hand to unbuckle the both of you. (Hoseok, the unhelpful asshole, departed the car the instant the driver put it into neutral.) Then, you are hastily snatching away the hand on her mouth and grabbing the handle, yanking the car door open and stumbling out into the street with your best friend—thankfully—close on your heels, handbag under her arm. Immediately, she staggers across the pathway and bends over the frat’s neighbouring front lawn.

“At least you’ll still fit into your competition dress because you’re throwing up lunch, dinner and pregame,” you call out to her as you slam the Uber door shut, giving the driver a jolly wave as he speeds out of the street, probably signing off for the night after that traumatising experience. You turn to face the drunken mess and, luckily for her, you are the only two out on the street. Hoseok left the scene so fast that he most likely has Wonwoo’s dick down his throat already. “Are you really gonna let Jimin see you like this?”

“Shut uuup,” Minah whines, and you are empathetic enough to walk over and hold her hair away from her face. She would do it for you, if the roles were reversed. Minah takes a series of loud, deep breaths, though not even a glob of spit comes out onto the grass. She stays in her hands-on-knees position for an instant longer before she is standing, nonchalantly shrugging and looping her handbag strap over her shoulder. “Nah, I’m good. Told you guys that I get motion sickness.”

Your eye twitches. “I could kill you in your sleep, y’know?” you threaten with a smile, sharp as a sword’s edge. Minah simply gives you a knowing look, which directly translates into: Try me, bitch. “No, really, I could. Especially since I had to change after you spilled the Kremlin’s drink-of-choice all over my first outfit.”

“That was merely a misfortunate event, my sweet pal,” Minah hums, patting the top of your head like you are a misunderstanding preschooler. “But this outfit is cuter, so who cares.”

“I’m wearing a turtleneck sweater to a frat party,” you deadpan, pinching the coffee-coloured collar for emphasis and narrowing your eyes at her infinitely more party-appropriate silver, silky camisole.

“But it’s cropped, and you’re wearing your Ass Jeans,” Minah giggles and begins to walk towards the party, winking and planting a firm smack on your behind as she goes, which is admittedly shaped magnificently by the black denim. “I wouldn’t lie to you. All the better to seduce Yoongi, amiright.”

Like an elbow to the gut, the remembrance of Yoongi being no more than a handful of metres away from you—of him being the one to even invite you in the first place—forces the air out of your chest in a rush. Your stomach flutters like it is filled with moth wings and your palms grow damp as stones on a lake’s edge. The sheer knowledge of all this is enough to keep you from feeling the chill of the air—eager heat licks at your body like flames consuming kindling, burning up your skin from the inside and boiling away your intoxication. The sweater and jeans suddenly feel too hot; you are suddenly too conscious of the situation to deal with this.

“Oh come one, I was only joking. Wait, woah, you okay?” Minah, back at your side, rests her hand on your bicep. She looks as though she wants to ask something else, but instead, she says, “Have you come down with something? You look like you did at the stadium today. We can go home if you want–”

“No no, I’m fine,” you insist, coercing an assured smile onto your lips. “Just had a wave of nausea. Probably from all that vomit-talk in the Uber. Alternatively, it could’ve been you just putting the disgustingly vivid image of seducing the Devil in my head.”

“Or it could’ve been the five Pineapple Malibus that you drank at home,” Minah suggests, smirking and raising her eyebrows. You huff and roll your eyes, to which she laughs and wraps her arm around your waist. “Come on, pumpkin. Let’s get smashed and regret it in the morning.”

Shoving your nerves into a box and storing it in the back of your mind, you exhale the jitters and grin at your best friend. “God, Coach is going to break our ankles for this,” you say, stretching your arm out to rest your hand on her hip and beginning to walk towards the party.

Minah whoops with delight. “Onwards to our shattered bones!”

The house is trembling with energy as the pair of you approach. Trap music spills from the open windows into the front yard, where only a smattering of sobering partygoers wait for their Ubers or flatmates to pick them up. The front door lays open like an arm swept out in welcome, and the steam of the celebrating, clustered bodies within the purple-and-green-lit frat house immediately sticks to your skin upon entering.

Minah and yourself huddle into a corner by the stairs, and you survey the crowd for the missing member of your trio while she rapidly taps away at her phone. Neither Hoseok nor Wonwoo are in sight. In fact, you cannot see Jimin, his strange flatmate Taehyung, or any of the other ice hockey team members in the thrumming living space. Peculiar, considering this party is for them and you assumed they would all be dancing the night away.

I wonder where Yoongi is, you quietly muse to yourself, though you hurriedly bury the thought and reprimand your treacherous mind. Shut up, idiot. Stop thinking about him.

Then, Minah is leaning into your ear, yelling loud enough to nearly pop your eardrum. “I’m going to go pee! But Jimin just texted to say he’s in the backyard, if you wanna go hang with him for a moment!”

“Cool, I’ll get us drinks and text you where I’m at!” you shout with a thumbs-up and she nods, planting a sticky, raspberry lipgloss kiss on your cheek before scampering away to the bathroom.

You begin to weave through the crowd, still buzzed enough on your last few drinks to sway your hips to the beat and pause to dance with some of your classmates as you go. By the time you have passed through the mass, you are grinning like a fool and feeling slightly sweatier than you were before, but the endorphins charging through your brain like a happiness drug have you feeling too high to give a damn. Ahead, the fluorescent white light of the kitchen entryway spills into the low, pearly illumination of the living-space-come-dance-floor, and your tread towards it becomes steadfast, knowing that a treasure trove of alcohol and mixers awaits you within.

But what you do not expect is to find Yoongi in there, too.

You do not see him straight away; the transition from darkness to blinding light makes you flinch, eyes squinting in an effort to adjust. It definitely does not help that your vision is still somewhat hazy from your earlier Pineapple Malibus consumption, either. Though the blurred, watery edges of the kitchen gradually come to form solid shapes. At first, your gaze zones in on the island bench, overwhelmed by a plethora of glinting liquor bottles and red cups. But it is only once your eyes focus on what you were searching for that you finally notice the movement in the background—the girl cornering the boy into the counter, her supple, tangerine lips pressed in a feverish caress against the rosiness of his own.

The rosiness that you used to kiss.

“I…” you unconsciously say aloud, only realising when the girl jumps back from Yoongi as if his lips are suddenly buzzing with static electricity. His half-lidded, confused stare drags from the girl to the interruption, and when he realises it is none other than you, his cloudy eyes seem to clear, growing wide as moons. The connection of his gaze with your own is what seems to kickstart your heart, and your frozen tongue follows in its stead. “Woah. Didn’t mean to… Woah. Bye.”

It feels as though your soul detaches from your being when you quickly walk out of the kitchen, observing from above as your numbed body pushes its way back through the crowd. Calmly to begin with, though increasing in its haste once the front door becomes visible. You watch yourself charge into the front yard, and it is not until you have reached the walkway, separating the lawn from the road, that your soul seems to catapult back into your chest, bringing a torrent of emotions with it.

Yoongi was kissing another girl. But that is fine. That is completely okay. I hate Yoongi. I utterly despise him for what he did to me—for ruining my chances at a younger start as an Olympian. He destroyed everything I worked so hard for. I hate him. I hate him. I… do I?

You are halfway down the street when you hear your name be called out from the shadows. And while you know deep down that you should keep walking without looking back, the soles of your feet disobey, cementing you to the ground. It is as if you have become a marionette and a higher being is controlling your movements, pulling at your strings to turn you around and be faced with the last person you wish to see.

Slowing his jog to a walk, Yoongi looks like he did out the front of the stadium on the night you went to the pojangmacha. Windswept, red-cheeked, breathing hard. Except his mischievous eyes have been replaced with ones of deep-rooted sorrow and the cheeky smile is weighed down at the corners. Now, standing no more than a stride away, you can see that an apology is perched on the bow of his swollen lip, trembling and unsure.

But… an apology for what? He has done many things wrong. Yet, on this evening that took a wrong turn somewhere down the road, he did nothing that requires him to express remorse. You hold no claim over Yoongi, and neither does he with you. Yoongi looks like he knows this, and perhaps this is why the repentance clings to his mouth and refuses to be shaped into words. He did nothing wrong.

So why do your cheeks feel kissed by the cold, streaked wet and filling the corners of your lips with the taste of the ocean?

“Don’t go,” Yoongi finally murmurs, hand hovering next to your elbow as though he wishes to grab it—to keep you by his side. But the world is suddenly cracking beneath your feet and dropping you into a dark pit, sucking you back into the past.

“Don’t go!” Yoongi calls out, voice thick with desperation. Since you are physically incapable of escaping fast enough, he circles around your frame with ease and blocks your path. His expression is wild; a storm of rage and love and urgency. “Please, ___. I’m so sorry. Please. We can still be friends, can’t we? I’m–”

“Get out of my way, Yoongi,” you mutter from between your gritted teeth, staring over his shoulder and at the end of the empty high school hallway. But he continues to gripe, eyes glowing and frantic, the pleas falling like pennies from his lips. It is only when he goes to grab at your shoulders that you shriek, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Everything is sucked from his expression in that instant, as though a higher being has plucked his soul right out of his body. He stares at you with a look of terrifying blankness, like he does not know you—like he never knew you.

And you are fine with that. It is exactly the way you want it to be. You want Yoongi to forget all about you, because you have already erased everything about him from your heart.

Yoongi seems to recognise something in your expression, for his hand drops limply to his side. And as grateful as you are that he is not burdening you with his insistence, you almost wish that he would grab your wrists and pull you close and tell you that what you saw was nothing.

That the two of you, after all these years of competing against each other in this game of spite, could still be something.

Yet, with your chest aching for the wrong reasons, you give him a final, regretful look before you turn on your heel and continue down the pathway. Yoongi does not follow you with desperation defining his tread. Yoongi does not scream out your name and beg for you to come back as if it is the last time he will ever see you. The cold night is all that grabs at your skin with its icy teeth and whistles in your ear with its freezing wind.

Deep down, tucked within a crevice of your heart that you are reluctantly—at long last—admitting exists, you wish the winter evening that embraces you as you stride further away from the party was Yoongi instead.

When Yoongi wakes up on Monday, a shadow-like something lurks at the back of his mind. A dark smudge that exudes discomposure, as if it is anticipating a horrible thing to occur. And while he savours his final moments in bed before he must get ready, it gradually creeps into his stomach and stirs the sleep-heavy contents with its inky fists, making Yoongi feel woozy and uncertain.

Foolishly, he passes it off as an after-effect of drinking twice over the weekend and the fact that it is a Monday, which is always the hardest day of training. Now that the KNSU team is in the final, Namjoon is bound to make it ten times as gruelling. Though, in hindsight, Yoongi should have known better to seize the tenebrous warning by its tail, made up a half-assed excuse to his coach, and stayed home. But did he? Absolutely not.

Yoongi knows bad things happen in threes. Monday delivers the first bad thing in the locker rooms, and the second right on his doorstep.

Number one happens after the 8AM training session, though Yoongi feels it bubbling thick and pungent like tar throughout the whole four hours. While the strenuous training grates his resilience like a block of cheese until it is nothing more than a weary nub, his uncertainty grows like a poisonous weed from Kim Yugyeom. They have never been on good terms. But there is something about the way in which the younger player watches him the entire time they are on the ice, like a prowling panther, that puts Yoongi on edge.

Thus, once the training finally comes to its end near midday, Yoongi is grateful. Not only because he can now go home and melt his muscles beneath a hot stream of water, but also since he no longer has to deal with Yugyeom eating him alive through his intense stare.

When he enters the lockers, the first thing he notices is that the men’s speed skating team is already in there, preparing to use the rink. Then, he realises that half of them are gathered around a grinning Yugyeom, cackling amongst themselves and leaning in to get a better look at whatever he holds up on his phone. Walking straight to his locker, taking out his sports bag and placing his skates inside, Yoongi decides to not engage with their little party, especially after the nasty smirks that his teammate was sending him throughout training. But the universe has apparently put a bounty on him, offering a million-dollar reward to whoever can get him to snap the quickest.

“Oi, Min!” Yugyeom vociferates, which causes the surrounding speed skaters to snicker. Yoongi clenches his teeth and ignores them, yanking away his jersey and protective gear, shoving them into the bag. But Yugyeom refuses to let up. “I know you’re listening, Min Yoongi. Now, tell us, how’s her pussy?”

Yoongi freezes for an infinitesimal moment, as if spontaneously paralysed, and then he reaches into the locker, pulling out his hoodie. No, there is no way he would be talking about her. He would not be so dumb to talk shit about her after last time. It must be about that girl from the luge team.

Attempting to appear as unfazed as possible, he pulls the soft material over his head and says, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Aw c’mon, I know you do, Min!” Yugyeom jibes in a honey-coated tone. Yoongi does not turn to face him as he packs away the rest of his belongings, though his hyperaware senses can pinpoint the exact movements of Yugyeom’s casual approach. “I can’t believe you two hid it from us for so long. Pretending to hate each other when you were secretly getting it on behind our backs. Look, is this when you had a little lovers’ spat?”

Yoongi knows he should let Yugyeom’s sneering fall on deaf ears and walk away. There is no use in fuelling this fire because it will only serve to burn him down. Yet, despite his internal negation, Yoongi’s perfidious eyes twitch to the side to see the phone screen that Yugyeom holds out towards him. And there, in effulgent LED, Yoongi sees a zoomed photo of a girl—of her—standing in a doorway, taken through one of the kitchen windows at the frat house.

Her expression is twisted into one of desolation; eyebrows bent like longbows; eyes glassy with tears; mouth hanging open in a soulless shape. The sight strikes Yoongi like it did when he saw it in the flesh, slicing right through his chest and hunting for his heart.

The whole locker room is silent.

Yugyeom takes Yoongi’s seething silence as some sort of sick permission to continue. “So, does our Ice Princess like it gentle or rough? I bet it’s like hate-fucking. All wild and kinky and shit. Does she cry like this and call you ‘daddy’ when you stick it in her, too–”

“I would shut the fuck up right now, if I were you,” Yoongi mutters, turning his head enough to murderously glare at a still grinning Yugyeom through his bangs.

“Ooh, what’cha gonna do, big guy?” Yugyeom barks a sharp, nasty laugh and straightens his spine. He towers a head taller than Yoongi, not that it will make any difference if he continues to talk shit. “Are you gonna slap me like you slap her ass while she’s snivelling about how much she loves you on your tiny cock–”

Yoongi has never punched a person, but he would consider his first to not be so bad. The second lands much better against Yugyeom’s cheekbone, and Yoongi cannot tell if it is his own knuckles or his teammate’s bones that crunch. By the third swing, he feels like he is getting the hang of it, and he distantly finds it somewhat amusing that Yugyeom, for all the bullshit he was just spouting, is practically a bag of flour beneath Yoongi’s fist. But before he can manage a fourth, there are short but strong arms curling under his armpits and yanking him back, off of Yugyeom who now slides down the side of the lockers with a crimson-soaked mouth.

Then, the blood rushing through his ears ceases to impair his hearing, and the enraged shouting booms against his ear drums at full volume. “That’s enough!” Namjoon roars, standing between Yoongi and Yugyeom. While Yoongi does not fight the arms that keep him locked down, they do not lessen the strength of their hold. He only realises it is Jimin when the familiar voice of his flatmate mutters into his ear, telling him to settle down.

“You’re both fucking lucky that I can’t afford to bench either of you for the final,” Namjoon barks, staring hard between Yoongi and Yugyeom. Almost everyone flinches at the threat—it only serves to hit home how furious he is over the situation. Then, Namjoon’s eyes settle on Yoongi, and Yoongi truly understands the phrase if looks could kill in this moment. “Go home. Don’t come back tomorrow.”

Jimin, after a brief second of hesitation, drops his arms. Without a word and with his eyes on the ground, Yoongi calmly slings the strap of his sports bag over his shoulder, leaves the change rooms without an utterance of defence, and runs back to the dorm. It is not until he is reaching for the front door’s handle that he notices the vibrant red caked on his swelling fist, and he winces and hisses as his knuckles scream in protest at the way he curls them around the metal. He figures that he can tend to his wounds later, and instead heads straight for the shower, set on scalding his skin of the anger still clogging his pores and the abuse that Yugyeom spewed all over him.

It is late in the afternoon by the time that the second bad thing materialises at the front door in three loud thumps, as if the person is knocking with their closed fist.

His own has now been sanitised and bandaged by Taehyung, who soon after left the dorm in a bright purple tracksuit. Yoongi, as always, did not question it. Jimin has not yet come home, and Yoongi is somewhat glad, considering he needs at least another hour of downtime before he has to exhaust an explanation about why what happened, happened. Though Yoongi wonders if it is, in fact, Jimin at the door. He could have forgotten to take his house-key to training, and Taehyung could have possibly locked the door behind him as he left, which would be a first. It is definitely more common to find the door unlocked than locked—he is genuinely shocked that their flat has not yet been raided by thieves; it would be an easy entry and an even more effortless escape.

So when Yoongi opens the door with an expectation of seeing Jimin, or potentially, a delivery man, the air is knocked out of him when he is faced with her. She wears an expression that is carefully sculpted to be as smooth as a still sea, and he cannot tell for the life of him whether she is here on good or bad terms.

Nonetheless, Yoongi blinks, surprised, and says, “Hey, what’s up–”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Although her features barely shift, her tone strikes like a cobra, sinking its fangs deep. Yoongi’s eyebrows raise underneath his fringe as her venom bleeds into his veins. While he knows deep down what warrants her sudden visit, he is shocked that she would come all the way to his doorstep about it instead of blatantly ignoring him, as usual.

“Is this about the night at the frat?” he says, crossing his arms and flinching when his bruised knuckles tuck into his elbow. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to–”

“Are you really that fucking idiotic, Yoongi?” she snaps, expression cracking with a fracture of scarcely composed rage. Yoongi is suddenly taken aback, and he truly thinks that he must be what she claims he is when she lifts her hand and points at his bandaged fist. “This is about that and the fact that you beat half the shit out of Yugyeom because of me.”

Yoongi’s mouth hangs slack, stunned speechless. He cannot comprehend why she is so outraged over him defending her, and that is all he can think to say. “I– I don’t understand why you’re going off like this when I was literally defending you because that bastard was making those disgusting comments!”

“That’s exactly it, Yoongi. When did I ever ask you to start standing up for me, considering you’ve hated me until the past month?” she bites, eyes flashing like a lightning storm. “Why the hell are you doing this? Why are you acting like we’re suddenly… something when that’s clearly not in your interests?”

“Not in my interests?” Yoongi scoffs, the candlelight of anger within him steadily growing. “You know that I’ve wanted to move on and heal all this time when you’ve been the one stuck in the damn past, not allowing that to happen! I should be the one saying that us being anything is not in your interests because it certainly hasn’t been until recently, too. Don’t be so fucking hypocritical!”

Now, the indignation is painted as clear as blue skies on her face. “Oh piss off, asshole. You’re the one playing cat-and-mouse with me!” she yells, fists clenching at her sides, taking a step closer so she can stare right up into his face and he can see the finer details of her fury. “For the fucking coaches, is that really what this was? You actually wanted to be friends again? And yet you were sucking face with that girl on Saturday night after inviting me to the party?”

Yoongi cannot help the vicious grin that rips at his cheeks over her statement. He knows he is being nasty, but really, she fell into the trap with such grace. “Oh, and since when do friends kiss, doll? Huh?”

If Yoongi had of blinked, he would have missed the way that the anger washed out of her face for a split second, replaced by a look of genuine confoundedness. But he sees that gleaming surprise flicker in all of its momentary agony before the hostility returns with renewed strength.

“That’s– Don’t twist my words! What I’m trying to get through your stupid, marble-sized brain is that one minute you’re kissing other girls and saying that this thing between us is only to keep our coaches happy, and the next, you’re out there acting like you’re my fucking boyfriend! Like… like you think you have some kind of right to put your career on the line over me because of who, fucking Yugyeom of all people? Yugyeom, who we all know talks shit and has always done his very best to get on your last nerve? So don’t you dare turn this around on me when you’ve not only been the one trying to kiss my ass and pretend that I hold some kind of importance to you, but you’ve then been turning around and using that as an excuse to fuck with your future!”

Yoongi knows she has a point, that her words come from a place of honesty within her. But he has years of anger festering around his lungs, finally rupturing and oozing into his every word like a disease. Unstoppable. He latches his teeth onto the only bit of meat that she has left tender enough to shred apart.

“What I do with my future is my decision! Why do you even care if I fuck it up for myself? I thought you would be happy to see me come crashing down after what happened. Eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth, right?”

She visibly bristles—shoulders hunching up to her ears; spine curling. He cannot tell if it is due to his accusations or because he blatantly ignored the tougher parts of what she initially said. The portions that he refused to chew. “I don’t care. I just can’t live peacefully because you’re constantly wriggling your way into my life in one way or another—this is merely a prime example! And now it’s come to a point where you’re sending me mixed signals and fucking around with my feelings like it’s some kind of sick game! What did I ever do to you, other than despise you, to deserve this, Yoongi? Really, what did I fucking do to you?”

“Are you really that thick in the head that you think your feelings for me are returning because I’ve somehow manipulated you into liking me again?!” Yoongi is roaring, but he could not care. He wants the clouds in the sky to hear him and compress his words into a storm, drowning her in the torrential rain. “Does it really kill you so much to admit that hey, perhaps we never fell out of love?!”

Her eyes shine, wet with rage and frustration. “You’re delusional if you think I still give two shits about you!”

“Go on then, say it,” Yoongi snarks, and he feels hot to the touch, like he would release steam if he were to have a bucket of water dumped on him. “Say that you don’t love me anymore. Say that you stopped loving me when it all went to shit five years ago.”

He expects her to deny it straight away. Yet, under the pressure of his ferocious gaze, she simply stares over his shoulder, into the void of the entranceway, and keeps her mouth clamped shut. Her failure to speak is practically a profession of assent in itself, but Yoongi is not so sure, anymore. He exhales, harsh enough to disturb the hairs floating around her distressed expression.

“When are you going to stop blaming other people for every single thing that doesn’t go the way you want it to, ___? When are you going to realise that only you can control your own feelings? When are you going to see that some things just naturally happen, and nobody can be blamed for it?” Yoongi, without remorse, lunges for the jugular and begins to tear, tasting copper and salt and vivid scarlet. “When are you going to stop blaming me for that accident and apologise to me? I’ve said I’m sorry to you about something that was never my fault more times than I ever told you I love you.”

“Fuck you,” she immediately spits, beginning to twist on her heel and flee. The right one—the one that she is convinced he smashed to smithereens with his bare hands.

But not before Yoongi slams the door in her face with enough force to shatter his heart.

Note | If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve decided to split the finale into two parts. This will enable me to get content posted for you guys much faster and it’ll be a weight off of my shoulders!! As you can see by the word count, it was getting pretty darn long sdfghs. Also, the ending was very scrappily edited, so if it’s bad, just know that I’m going to go through it again on Monday.

Anyways, prepare for the finale to be posted sometime over the next few weeks!! In the meantime, I’d love to know all of your thoughts on their relationship and what you think happened in their past!! ♡

#yoongi angst #yoongi fluff #yoongi x reader #bts x reader #yoongi fics #min yoongi #bts fanfics #bts fluff #bangtan sonyeondan #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios #bts #tdsoti #vankoya

1K notes · View notes